Chapter 13 #2
“Stay away from all bodies of water! I’m about to pick you up.”
“Really? Where are you?” I went outside the market.
“I’m approaching the greatest engineering marvel in all of Carmen del Guadalupe.”
I looked toward the water tanks. Yup, there he was in his silver Jeep, racing through the blind intersection, scattering roosters, chickens, and an annoyed-looking dog. He screeched to a halt in front of the market.
I decided that opposites definitely attract as he got out of his seat, walked around to the other side, took my hand to help me in, and closed the door for me. There was a take-out coffee in the cup holder. He gestured toward it as he slid into his seat.
“ Para ti . It’s fair trade and organic.”
“Are you messing with me?”
“No, I actually went to three different cafés to find it. I didn’t want you to compromise your ethics for me.”
“You mean compromise them further .” I gave him a kiss. “So kidnapping’s okay, but commodity coffee is too far?”
“Exactly,” he said with a devilish grin.
“Where are you taking me? Do you have some land to buy?” I teased. “Tenants to kick out so your dad can build a new hotel?”
“No, that’s on Thursday. I’m taking you to my house.”
This was new. Adrián lived with his parents, as most people did here until marriage. I wondered what the rules were regarding bringing girls home. I mean, we were adults. But barely.
“I know you were really disappointed by Café Alegre,” he said.
“So I thought we could research some other cooperative farms for you to visit. Maybe we can find one that lives up to your extremely high ideals.” I looked at him, surprised.
Adrián didn’t care about cooperative farms. I guess that meant. .. he cared about me?
Thirty minutes later we were at the front door of his family’s two-story home.
It was in the posh neighborhood of Santa Ana, where the yards were manicured, the paint jobs were fresh, and even the palms felt stately.
As soon as we got out of the Jeep, Adrián started acting very shady.
He told me to wait by the front door, then entered the house by himself.
I heard doors slamming. Satisfied that the house was empty, he came back to retrieve me.
“Wow,” I said, as I stepped into the foyer. His house was a lot bigger than my host family’s house, and more stylish, too. They had utilized more than one color in their decor. I looked at some framed still lifes. “Nice prints.”
“They’re not prints.”
“Ah,” I said, reeling as I calculated their worth. The hotel business must be good.
“Come upstairs.” Adrián led me up a central staircase to the top floor. He ushered me through a door and closed it.
“Why are we doing research here?” I surveyed the room. A large window, a twin bed with a maroon cover, and a computer. And, oh, Jesus on the cross hanging over the bed.
“Because the internet is very fast up here.”
So that’s how I found myself on Adrián’s lap in front of his computer, surfing through coffee co-op sites.
While I was busy writing a note in my phone, Adrián took the mouse and navigated to my Instagram page.
It was clear he’d been there before. He immediately clicked on a picture of Cody at a picket in Oakland.
Cody was staring straight into the camera in a flirty way.
“Who’s that?” asked Adrián. “Your boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend.”
“Oh.” Adrián shifted under me, and I could feel his eyes boring into my back. “He liked some of your photos.”
“It was a friendly breakup.” Sort of.
“Do you still love him?”
“I don’t think I ever did.”
Adrián let out a sigh. Then in one swift move, he turned my body so I was straddling him. He put his hands on either side of my face. “I like you,” he said, with his lips one centimeter from mine. “A lot.”
“Oh,” I mumbled. My no-relationship resolution was fading faster than clothing left to dry in the sun.
“Do you like me?”
“I guess so,” I said.
He moved one arm to my waist, pulling me in even tighter. “You guess so? Or you do?”
“Uh,” I said. His body was pressing into mine. My brain was losing oxygen. “Okay. Yes.”
Adrián kissed me. Fire surged upward from my torso.
My lungs refused to push out more air, and I completely forgot about everything in the world except the fever raging all over my body.
His hands were spreading like wildfire. Just as he was standing up and trying to lift me to his bed, we heard the front door open. “ Mierda ,” he said. “Fix your hair.”
“My hair?”
He licked his palms and slid them over my hair. It was futile.
“ ?Mijito? ” called his mother. “Where are you?”
“Quick.” Adrián sat me in the chair in front of his computer. Then he opened his bedroom door and came back to the computer. “ Aquí arriba, mamá ,” he said toward the door. “Helping Dee with her homework.” He pulled a stray hair of mine behind my ears.
“Homework?” I whispered.
“Trust me,” he said. “Oh my god, your neck.”
And before he could pull up my collar to hide my erupting hickey, Dona Teresa entered the room. “Oh,” she said, putting a palm over her chest.
“You remember Dee,” said Adrián, gliding across the room and kissing his horrified mother on the cheek. “She has a project due for her Costa Rican politics class. I’m helping her with some translations.”
“So nice to see you again,” said Dona Teresa, with a becoming mix of shock and wrath. Her skin tone matched the platinum color of her dress.
“Likewise,” I said, rising for the air kiss. I twitched my head to the right in a desperate effort to hide the swelling redness.
“What a surprise,” she said, pulling back from our perfunctory embrace. “I wasn’t expecting company this afternoon.”
“I tried calling but you didn’t answer,” said Adrián.
“You could’ve texted,” she said sweetly, but not sweetly at all.
“But it’s not a problem.” Dona Teresa turned back to me.
Her eyes widened. Oh Jesus Christ! A new hickey was forming on the other side of my neck.
Curse my extreme iron deficiency! I tried to pull some hair out from behind my ears without her noticing.
Her eyes immediately followed the trajectory of my hands.
Why did I feel like I was in high school? !
“You’re always welcome here,” she said, her eyes moving shamelessly from my hands to my neck. I wondered what else was developing. Can you get shingles from kissing? “It’s just a pity I didn’t know you were coming. If I had, I would’ve prepared a nice dinner for you.”
“You’re too kind,” I said, willing my neck to turn one color.
Her eyes responded, I am. “I just feel horrible that I don’t have anything to offer you. In the future I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know before you come over.”
“Of course,” I said. It was a clever way to humiliate someone. She and my mom would get along.
“It kills me to not have anything to offer guests. I am so embarrassed.”
Would she stop it already? Could she just get on with it and call me a filthy whore?
I guess she was saving that for Adrián, because she gave my neck one last perusal, then turned on him.
“I’ll see you downstairs.” And with that she flounced out of the room and down the stairs, trailing perfume and displeasure.
“She likes you,” said Adrián, straightening his shirt. I looked at him with what must have been very poorly disguised incredulity. “No, really,” he said, “She didn’t kick you out.” He hurried to the door. “I’ll be right back.”
And so I sat at Adrián’s desk trying to distract myself with Instagram while Teresa had a stern chat with Adrián downstairs.
He came sheepishly back to the room ten minutes later.
“She’s making us coffee.” And without another word he left, went to his sister’s bedroom, and snagged a foundation that was three times too dark for my skin.
“Does she hate me?” I asked.
“Not at all.” Adrián was blending the foundation on my neck with a makeup sponge. He seemed way too practiced at this. “She’s a little peeved with me, but I explained that it was crucial you complete this assignment by today or you’d fail the class.”
“Fail the class for one assignment?”
“Very strict professor.” He threw the sponge away and pulled me toward the door. “Come on.”
So that’s how I found myself having coffee and empanadas with Adrián’s perfect mother, with Ping-Pong ball–sized bruises on my neck. Adrián had done a good job blending the color, but he couldn’t do much with the size. Since when did hickeys come in relief?
“It’s such a disgrace,” she said. I wanted to jump under the table and embalm myself with coffee. “And she’s only seventeen.”
“Terrible,” agreed Adrián.
Wait. Who were we talking about?
“And he left. Just like that. Dee,” she turned to me. “Are all American men like that?”
Uh. “No?”
“Thank God. I don’t know what her parents are going to do with her. She’s talking about... termination . Is that normal, Dee? Do you think her American boyfriend is pressuring her?”
And then it all clicked. Adrián had mentioned in passing that one of his cousins had gotten pregnant by some American study-abroad kid, and obviously, I was the authority on sexually loose Americans.
“I don’t know,” I said. Teresa was smiling at me with so much saccharine that I knew I’d never see the inside of this house again if I didn’t achieve a dramatic reversal. “I honestly can’t imagine being in that situation.”
“Oh?” Some of the saccharine left her collagen-enhanced lips.
“Premarital sex is strictly forbidden by my religion,” I said. Was that true? I had no idea.
She nodded, pleased. “By ours, too.” She gave Adrián a cold look. “Which some young people have forgotten.”
It occurred to me that now was the moment to wrest this conversation into more favorable lands.
“You know, our cultures have a lot in common. Pulling your own weight is very important in my community, and especially in my family. For example, we put a high value on being an entrepreneur. My mother has her own small business.”
“Ooh.” Teresa was impressed. “What kind?”
“Textiles.” No need to get more specific. “And my father sells real estate.”
“Really?” she asked, perking up even more. “Houses or commercial buildings?”
“Malls and office buildings, mainly. He just got into development.”
“How lovely.” She poured more coffee into my still half-full cup. “Developing’s the way to go.”
“Yes. That, or the legal profession.”
“That’s right,” she said. “You’re studying law.”
And that settled it. Teresa didn’t really want to believe that her son was with a harlot, so she was going to forget all about the hickeys. She was going to remember that my father was a developer, my mom was an entrepreneur, and I was industrious, dedicated, and celibate.
“You’re considering working here after you graduate law school?” she asked. “You mentioned a particular interest in coffee.”
I swirled my spoon in little circles in my coffee cup. “Yes. All options are open at this point.”
“Ah,” she said, with a smile that could eat the whole world. She placed another golden empanada on my plate. “Costa Rica is such a lovely country, Dee. If you stay here, I’m sure you’ll love it.”
I looked at Adrián, who was spooning Salsa Lizano onto my plate for me. “I already do.”