14 #2
I could see my son. I could call him without raising my voice. Still, for those first few seconds, I had to hold back the instructions: don’t pull leaves off, watch the corner, that watering can might be too heavy. Dante was watching him. The employee was close. None of those things had happened.
I tied my sneaker.
Then I leaned back against the bench.
A woman passed with a baby strapped to her chest and a little girl holding her bag. Beside the café, someone was arguing about where they’d left their phone. The place carried on without me looking in every direction.
I took the bottle from the backpack, drank, and searched for a tissue. I found the shopping list I’d written that morning. I was about to use the time to check it, then put it away.
I was tired.
Such a simple fact. Almost insulting, after all my effort to earn a rest. Two small orders that week had taken more work than I’d charged for. I hadn’t finished the month’s accounts. One night, Bento had woken looking for a toy car in his bed, and I’d spent twenty minutes looking with him.
I could just sit there.
In the garden, Dante held a watering can while Bento tried to open the water tank’s tap, following the employee’s instructions. My son looked around for me. I raised my hand. He raised his and went back to what he was doing.
Relief came so quickly that guilt followed right behind it.
Not for leaving him a few meters away. For enjoying those few minutes. For imagining others in which I could drink a cup of coffee while it was still hot and finish a thought without hearing my name called out in the middle of it.
Dante noticed water running onto Bento’s sneaker and moved the can before he tipped it all the way over. No alarm. My son looked at the wet patch on his shoe, wrinkled his nose, and carried on.
I laughed to myself.
When they came back, Bento was holding a mint leaf that the employee had let him pick. He shoved it under my nose.
“Smell it.”
“That smells wonderful.”
“It’s from toothpaste.”
Dante turned his face away to hide his smile. I couldn’t hide mine.
“It does smell a bit like it,” I replied.
Bento rubbed the leaf between his fingers and smelled it again, intrigued to find a bit of the bathroom in a garden bed. Then he told me about the water. Dante let him tell it, even the part where the watering can had supposedly moved on its own.
It was twenty to eleven. We went to the drawing table, where Bento asked for paper bigger than his notebook. Dante stayed beside him while he traced the mint leaf. I sat with the backpack on my lap and realized I no longer had both hands wrapped around it.
***
The following Wednesday, I returned to the Hotel das Acácias for a dessert tasting at seven in the evening.
Two Trama clients worked late, which was why we’d chosen the time.
They were considering a small reception at the end of the season and hadn’t signed yet.
Teresa had asked me to bring three options, with a tasting fee to be charged if they didn’t hire me.
I’d agreed after arranging for Dalva to pick up Bento and have dinner with him at my apartment.
I spent the day preparing small portions and looking for a blouse that didn’t have chocolate stains on the cuffs.
I chose a green one with sleeves I could roll up. I pinned half my hair back and let the rest fall down my back. In the bathroom mirror, I felt a little uncomfortable with the woman who appeared without an apron. I almost let all my hair down. I almost changed my clothes.
It was too late to reconsider things that didn’t matter.
The tasting was in a room beside the restaurant. I’d brought an almond cake, a chocolate dessert, and one with fruit. The couple debated the flavors with cheerful seriousness: acidity, size, which grandmother needed something less sweet. I liked them both.
They asked for a quote for the fruit dessert and a cake alternative. Teresa noted the guest count, checked the dates, and explained what came next. Nothing was signed, but there was a possible job because someone had tasted my work.
When they left, I let out a breath and began collecting the serving plates.
“They liked it,” Teresa said.
“She liked it. He wanted to take the chocolate home.”
“That counts as liking it.”
We laughed as we sorted the boxes.
Teresa got a call from the staff at another event and stepped out to take it. I took the used supplies to the area designated by the kitchen and came back with the empty transport box. As I walked past the restaurant door, I ran into Dante talking to Elisa and a man wearing a name tag.
He saw me before I could decide whether to keep walking.
His face barely changed. His eyes did.
I felt his attention on my blouse, my hair, my hand on the box. Brief enough that I could pretend I hadn’t noticed. Every part of my body had.
“Good evening,” Elisa greeted me. “Did everything go well?”
“It did. I’ll send the options to Teresa tomorrow.”
She introduced the head of maintenance, who was overseeing equipment checks in the events area. Dante had just finished a meeting with them. None of it had been arranged so he could see me.
I should have felt nothing but relief.
The employee said goodbye. Elisa needed to speak to reception. We were left by the restaurant entrance, the box between us, a table being set behind him.
“You look beautiful,” Dante said.
He didn’t soften it with a smile.
I looked at the box’s handle before answering.
“Thank you.”
I’d been complimented in the years since. Sometimes sincerely, sometimes lazily. No one had brought back the memory of a mouth beside my ear so fast.
“Did the tasting go well?” he asked.
“Yes. Nothing signed yet.”
“I see.”
A waiter passed with cups, and I had to move a little. Dante stepped aside at once. As the air shifted, I caught his scent. Wood, soap, a closeness my body recognized without consulting any of my reasons.
I wanted to touch him.
I wanted it so clearly it made me angry. I gripped the handle until its edge left a mark on my skin.
“Is the box heavy?” he asked.
“It’s empty.”
Dante looked at my hand. Then he looked back into my eyes.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
I knew exactly what would happen if he moved closer. The urge to step back, the other urge to stay. The shame of wanting someone I couldn’t yet trust. Knowing didn’t lessen the want.
“I’m going to get my bag,” I said.
“Okay.”
I walked past him without brushing against him.
Back in the room, Teresa was finishing her call. I closed a box that was already closed, checked my bag, and answered Dalva’s message. Bento had eaten and wanted to know if I’d bring cake. In her photo, the plate was nearly empty and the edge of his hand was trying to get into the frame.
I smiled at the screen.
“Everything okay?” Teresa asked.
“My mom is with my son. I’m going to take what I set aside for him.”
I took a piece of cake that hadn’t been served at the tasting out of the cooler and put it in the bag. Teresa checked the rest with me. We left together, and Dante was still near the restaurant, now on the phone.
He ended the call as we approached.
Teresa said goodbye to us both and went for a final word with Elisa. I could have walked straight out. Instead, I stopped.
“About Saturday,” I said.
Dante put his phone away.
“Yes?”
“Bento liked the garden. We can do it again if he wants.”
“We can.”
I nodded, but stayed there for a moment longer.
“This is doing him good,” I managed to say. “I don’t want us to ruin it.”
Dante’s eyes drifted to my mouth before returning to mine.
“Me neither.”
I grabbed the strap of my bag.
“Then we need to keep being clear about what this is.”
The visits. The compliment. The space between our bodies that had seemed, for a moment, so hard to keep.
Dante didn’t pretend to miss my meaning.
“Cecília, I don’t expect this to resolve what happened between us.”
I shook my head.
“Sometimes I think you do.”
16
DANTE
I opened my mouth to deny it.
Cecília noticed. Her thumb moved along the bag strap, and I saw the little burn scar I’d known before I even knew what soap she used.
“Maybe I do,” I admitted.
The answer exposed me in a way no rehearsed confession ever had. Dishes clattered behind us. A receptionist led guests down the hall. Cecília watched, as if waiting to see what I’d do after saying it.
“I like seeing you two get along,” she said. “But I don’t want to have to accept something else as a thank-you.”
“You don’t have to.”
She tilted her head slightly.
I recognized that gesture. She used it when I answered too quickly.
“I didn’t have to before, either, Dante. Until I did.”
The restaurant seemed to grow more distant.
“What do you mean?”
“I could disagree about all kinds of things. A trip, the wine, what color to paint a wall. When I disagreed with what your brother said about me, you’d already decided I was lying.”
My first instinct was to find a difference between the man I’d been that day and the one standing here. The investigation, the visits with Bento, the conversations I’d started to allow. She wasn’t denying any of that. She simply wasn’t using it to forget everything else.
“You’re right.”
“I don’t want to keep hearing that and then have to make you feel better.”
“I know.”
I stopped. Even I could hear how automatic it sounded.
Cecília looked toward the exit.
“My mother’s waiting. I have to go.”
“Good night.”
She replied and left.
I stayed there until Elisa came to ask if I needed anything else from the team. I said no and left. In the elevator to the garage, I saw my reflection surrounded by metal and white light.
I wanted Cecília.
I’d wanted her since she walked into that meeting with a folder and looked at me as if I belonged in the minutes. Tonight, the green blouse and loose hair had stripped the disguise from a feeling I’d called missing her, regret, concern—whatever name made it bearable.
I wanted to kiss her. Wanted her to say yes to dinner. Wanted to hear an answer without working out whether I’d have to leave the room afterward.