Chapter 39
“Tom hasn’t been in a great mood lately. He’s been very busy with work.”
“What’s it got to do with him?”
I chuckled to myself. Really, she was incredible. “It’s just that he’s not in the mood for company these days,” I said.
She leveled her gaze on me, narrowing her eyes in that way that she shared with Ida. “What’s really going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you embarrassed of me in front of Tom for some reason?”
“Of course not.”
“I’m too shabby, the poor relation? Is that it?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh, but you like to play the wealthy young housewife at the school. Trust me, Fabiola tells me all about it.”
“You’re being ridiculous, this is all absurd.”
“Yes, it’s absurd, because it’s beneath you. Kissing cheeks, exchanging meaningless niceties, how’s the weather. I’m trying to introduce you to people who are interesting, who can enrich you.”
“Interesting,” I said, laughing.
She looked at me severely. But after several beats, her expression dissolved into something almost soft. “No,” she said, “you’re absolutely right. I should never have asked you. I’m sorry. Why don’t I just come alone? I’ll bring the bottle of wine this time. You’ll tell me what Tom likes.”
Of course I relented. On the day, I decided to play it off to Tom as though it had happened spur-of-the-moment. Coming through the door with Ida in tow, I called out cheerily:
“Tom, you’ll never guess who’s here, and she’s brought wine!”
Reluctantly, seeming a bit put out, he stood from the couch where he’d been reading to Henry and extended his hand in greeting.
“I’ll just open this up,” Louise said. As she left to the kitchen, I explained in whispers that we’d run into her walking to the car, and Ida had invited her to comida. It had been awkward; I didn’t know how to get out of it.
“Christ, Ida,” Tom said.
“I know; I’m so sorry.”
He hesitated before saying, a little reluctantly, “What could you do?” and I smiled, telling myself I would make it up to him.
Louise returned, accompanied by María carrying a tray with the filled glasses.
We stood, holding our glasses by the stems, smiling stiffly.
There was an odd formality to the moment, the fact no one had sat.
Ida ran to her room to get a picture she had drawn the day before.
Louise only glanced at it, with none of her usual focused attention.
She kept checking a watch I’d never seen her wear before, with a large round white face and Roman numerals.
Since arriving she had been uncharacteristically tense, fussing with her clothes, her hair, tapping her watch as if it had become stuck.
Abruptly she announced that she wanted to get some air; would I come with her?
As she stepped toward the balcony, she seemed to gain a new degree of control over herself, standing more upright, walking more steadily on her damaged legs as if through sheer force of will.
At the door, she leaned her cane against the glass wall and, with her hand tightly gripping my arm, came the rest of the way outside without it.
I said something encouraging—Wow, you’re walking so well today—to which she made no response.
She didn’t even look at me. We reached the railing, standing side by side in the magnificent afternoon light, looking out over the tiled rooftops to the city beneath us, hearing all the now familiar sounds that unfailingly filled me with joy: roosters, music and brash laughter, cars grinding gears as they climbed.
I was gazing dreamily into the blue blank span of sky where Tom and I had once watched the rainstorm moving.
But I soon became aware that Louise was staring intently only at the spot where the steps emptied onto the Cuesta.
Her whole body was taut beside me, the way a dog will quiver and tense seeing an animal it wants to chase.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” she said, not shifting her gaze from that single four-foot strip of sidewalk visible from the balcony, where occasionally someone passed, coming into frame for a few seconds before exiting.
She had carried out her glass of wine, her forearms leaned on the balcony railing.
There was a stiff breeze, riffling her hair and pricking the skin on her arms.
“Should we go back inside?” I suggested.
“No.”
A few more minutes passed before a man entered the strip of sidewalk that had come to seem like a tiny stage.
He stopped and, as though there was an invisible string attaching the two of them, looked up to Louise.
It was the man she’d kissed on the path, whom I’d seen in the Plaza Civica.
As they held one another’s stare, Louise slowly inclined her head toward me.
His gaze transferred, a look I couldn’t read altering his face as he looked at me. Entreating, maybe.
It lasted barely a second. Louise cleared her throat loudly, drawing back his attention.
Thrusting her arm forward, she opened her hand and let go of the wineglass.
There was something horrifying in the brief pause of silence.
At the sound of glass exploding against stone, splitting the still air, I started violently.
Louise didn’t flinch. With her stare still fixed on the man, she put her arm around my shoulder and drew me closer—a gesture that brought a murderous look into the man’s eyes.
His mouth hinged open. I braced myself for the stream of obscenities I knew would be next.
But he remained silent, neutered by some unseen force.
He only gripped his hair in his fists and swayed on his legs like a little boy trying to master his emotions, a desperate gesture that made me pity him as I had in the park.
A second later, he turned and disappeared behind the ocher-colored wall in the direction from which he’d come.
I was deeply shaken. Her arm was still around me; I wanted it off but made no motion to move. “What the hell was all that?” I said, aiming at lightness.
She just stood beside me without turning, completely impassive.
“Was that the man you wanted to invite to our house? The man I saw you with on the arroyo path?”
She took her arm away, saying tersely, “Saw me when?”
“What the hell is going on, Louise?”
Without realizing it, I’d raised my voice, and now I saw that Tom had noticed, María had, the children. When I looked back to Louise, her eyes were shining with tears. Perfect, I thought. I was on the brink of laughing, my face burning with rage. Now the selfish bitch is going to cry.
“Is everything all right out there?” Tom called. “I heard glass breaking.”
I called back: “Sorry, I dropped a glass.” I don’t know why I did it, what mistaken impulse made me want to protect Louise.
Only that I had a terrible feeling that I’d ceded something vital to my autonomy and happiness, and when we turned from the balcony and Louise put her arm through my arm, a sensation close to terror passed cleanly along my spine.
“We really should try and clean it up,” Tom said.
“Of course,” I said, cheeks flaming, hurrying down the stairs and out the door. I remember searching on my hands and knees for the shards, hoping one would cut me so Tom might say, full of concern, Are you okay? But they were too tiny even to lift. The glass had practically shattered back to sand.
Later, when we were sitting at the sunny table passing dishes around, the children laughing about something and Louise speaking easily to Tom about how the project was coming along, what I wanted more than anything was to be in the kitchen with María.
To watch her eat and be silent in the way we had been at first, when I couldn’t speak to her or understand her, and her face was a still quiet pool.