Chapter 3 #2
The lazy cat in my stomach stirs as I get out of the car and Caracas’s crisp February air wraps itself around me like the world’s thinnest blanket.
I walk up to Ale and intertwine our arms. “I love this place.”
The restaurant has an air of elegance and aristocracy.
As Ale leads us in, my boots click softly on chessboard floors.
The scent of herbs and spices wafts through the air, mingling with the fragrance of simmering sauces and soups, wine, coffee, and desserts.
My stomach growls and I remember I forgot to have lunch.
All I’m running on is coffee and anticipation.
A waiter is at our side immediately, smiling from ear to ear. “May I offer you a table?”
“Yes,” Alejandro replies, then turns to me. “I need to use the bathroom. Can you take care of this?”
“Of course.”
Ale untangles my arm from his and disappears down the hall, scratching the back of his neck.
I stare after him.
“Senorita?”
I blink, giving my head a soft shake, and focus on the waiter. “Table for two, please.”
He leads me to the center of the restaurant. I would have chosen something closer to the windows so I could see the garden outside, but there isn’t one available in that area. I let the waiter pull out a chair and take the seat with a smile.
“May I bring you something to drink in the meantime?”
“A virgin pina colada for me.” I return the drinks menu. “And my boyfriend will have a Guinness.”
He nods once, gracefully.
I wait for the waiter to leave, then fish my phone out of my purse like I’m a spy on a mission. I want to get my proposal on camera. My mother will want to send the video to all her friends. Plus, it’s the kind of moment I’ll want to relive over and over until the actual wedding happens.
Okay, what do I have at my disposal?
I remember my therapist’s method to beat anxiety and put that to work, except instead of finding five things I can see, four things I can touch, and three things I can hear, I’m trying to find at least one thing I can use to hide my phone while filming a video at the same time.
I scan the table:
-The napkin holder.
-Salt and pepper shakers.
That’s it, that’s all we have on the table.
It’ll have to do. Thank God for my white phone case, it’ll camouflage with the napkins.
I curse when the phone slips from the napkin holder for the third time with a smack!
but no one seems to notice. I see a light at the end of the tunnel when, with only a corner of the camera out, it stays in position.
The video will be crap, but it’ll do. Now I simply have to pray Alejandro doesn’t need a napkin at any point in the night.
As if summoned, Alejandro pulls out the chair across from mine, startling me.
“Hey.” He sits.
I start the recording through the napkin holder and pretend to forget about it.
I smile. “Hi.”
Silence follows. My hands start to sweat. Not in a good way.
I wipe them on my skirt and clear my throat. “Um, so—”
“Marianto—” he says at the same time.
The waiter comes back with our drinks. Alejandro blinks up at him, confused. He places the glass of pina colada in front of me and the beer in front of Ale.
Ale stares at his bottle. “Uh—”
“Yeah, you’re driving so I figured you wouldn’t want too much alcohol,” I say.
“Enjoy.” The waiter steps back. “Let me know when you’re ready to order.”
“A toast?” I offer once he leaves.
Alejandro’s eyes snap up to meet mine. “Marianto—”
“To the future?” I add.
Alejandro grabs the beer and drinks at least half of it in one gulp, eyebrows pinched together, his skin glistening with sweat. Now, that didn’t happen when he asked me to be his girlfriend.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
Alejandro sets the bottle down on the table, eyes fixed on me. “Maria.”
My throat dries at the name. Sure, it’s my name, but with him I’m never Maria or Maria Antonieta. I’m Marianto. Maria is what my mother calls me when she’s angry. I don’t even introduce myself to strangers as Maria. I don’t think any Maria is just Maria. That’s like half a name.
I sit up straighter, trying to seem calm. No, I’m not calm, but he doesn’t need to know that.
Ale casts his eyes down, fidgeting with his fork, trying to mask a guilt so evident I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. He’s scared all right. He’s probably about to confess he cheated on me with a colleague. Doctors are serial cheaters, that’s what all the telenovelas and my mother say.
Alejandro finally looks at me, lips parted to speak, but his expression shifts from guilt to a panicked frown before anything comes out.
“Um, Marianto?” Ale’s voice is hesitant.
“Qué.”
He points to my hand. I’m clutching the butter knife as if I’m getting ready to stab him.
I unfurl my fingers and the knife lands on the table with a loud clank. I didn’t even realize I’d grabbed it.
“What’s going on?” I ask. Ale swallows. Tries not to look away. Fails.
“Mira, this isn’t how I planned on having this conversation but—”
“What conversation?” I press.
“Marianto, I’m…” He pauses. Swallows again. I can physically feel time pass.
“What?”
“I’m trying to say it!” he snaps. Curious eyes around the restaurant turn to our table. He’s never raised his voice at me before. “God, this is why I need a break. I feel like I can’t even exist around you sometimes.”
The world stills. Not in a good way. There’s a ringing in my ears that drowns out every other sound in the restaurant and I think, I must have heard him wrong.
I must have because I think my boyfriend of four years just told me, in a public place, that he needs a break from me.
But that can’t be. This is Ale. He checks every box.
“I’m sorry,” Alejandro continues, eyes softer, so in contrast with what he’s saying, while mine start to burn as soon as those words are out of his mouth.
It doesn’t make sense. We’re good. We’re more than good.
“No entiendo. I thought…” He was going to propose. I thought he loved me. I thought he wanted me. I don’t say any of that. “You brought me here.” My voice is pathetically weak.
“You picked this place,” he retorts, as if that’s the point. “Which is so…perfectly us. I ask you to dinner, you pick the place, you don’t even care if I like it or not—”
“You asked me to—”
“—You call the shots and I’m just along for the ride.”
I shake my head, fighting tears because Camacho women don’t cry in public.
“That’s not true,” I whisper.
“It’s not?” He lifts both eyebrows. “You decided we’d get married four months after I graduated.
You didn’t ask me. You have a Pinterest board for our wedding I haven’t even seen.
You decided where we’d live, you have a spreadsheet for how much we have to save so we can afford it.
You probably already know what our kids’ names are gonna be.
I’ve never had a say in anything. La Lagunita is the most expensive neighborhood in Caracas, Marianto.
Do you even know how much I hate Caracas? ”
“Why are you talking about marriage like I’m forcing you into it?” I ask.
“Because you are!” Ale exclaims. “I know that’s what you expect now that I’m done with school, but I can’t.
” He slumps back in his chair, running a hand down his face with a frustrated sigh.
I watch from my chair, trying to file all this information into categories so I can understand.
“I just graduated,” he continues. “I need a break, okay? For most of the four years we’ve been together, I’ve followed your lead and I’ve done so happily.
I was busy with school, so it was easier to let you take care of the details, but now things are different.
People have expectations, I have decisions to make, I’m under enough pressure as it is and… ”
He pauses to catch a breath or think, I don’t know. He’s speaking too fast, saying too many things, but all I hear is: I’m not sure about you.
Does anything else matter if he’s not sure about me?
A tear slides down my cheek. I wipe it away before he notices.
“There’s a job opportunity back home in Barinas and my family is begging me to take it,” Ale adds.
He makes an attempt to grab my hands over the table, but I yank them back.
He flinches and nods, a movement so small it would be invisible if I hadn’t been witness to it a million times before.
“I know that doesn’t fit into the plans you’ve made for us, or what you want for yourself.
I need…time. To figure out what I want. I can’t do that if we’re together. I have to do it on my own.”
And he stops speaking. Is he done?
I suppose the pause is for my benefit, but I’m waiting for the realization to hit.
It doesn’t. It’s like he’s a stranger. No, I didn’t know he hated Caracas, he never told me.
I also didn’t know I ruled our relationship like a dictator, or that being with me was so awful, or that I basically stripped him of his free will.
I didn’t know our plans were actually my plans. I didn’t know.
But I don’t say any of that.
“So I’m the problem,” I say instead.
Alejandro deflates. “No.” He grabs my hands across the table. This time I let him. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Never mind that he just listed off every one of his complaints about me. “Marianto, I can’t jump into the kind of commitment you want from me without being sure.”
Those words are a needle to the bubble I was apparently living in. My biggest fear becoming a reality: He’s not sure. After four years. I don’t think I need to hear anything else.
Blinking fast, I push to my feet. The wooden chair I’d been sitting on screeches.
There’s rustling in the restaurant as all the noise rushes back to my ears, disorienting me for a second.
People shift in their seats, pretending they weren’t watching us.
They’re most likely thinking their dinner was ruined. Yeah, well, mine too.
“Marianto,” Alejandro says, but doesn’t do much else to stop me. “I just need some time.”
Yeah, I got that. Hearing him say it again doesn’t make it easier to digest.
I grab my purse and phone from the table.
Damn, it’s still recording. I stop the video, walking toward the exit.
I’ve taken maybe five steps when I halt.
There’s something I need to know or I won’t be able to sleep, obsessing over it.
So I turn back and muster enough dignity not to retrace my steps. “Can I ask you one thing?”
Ale, shoulders slouched, turns at the sound of my voice, eyes clouded.
I look at him, study him like I did in the car, detailing the face I’ve seen from up close so many times before. The beautiful emerald eyes I love to get lost in, the bronze complexion I was always a little jealous of. I know him and I don’t.
Ale nods.
I clear my throat. “At your graduation party. What did your mother give you?”
He frowns, tilting his head to the side. “My grandfather’s graduation ring.”
He lifts his hands to show me a grotesque, thick band of gold with a big topaz glinting front and center. It’s on his right hand, index finger. I hadn’t noticed it until this very moment.
So it was a ring. At least I got that part right.
A bitter laugh escapes my lips. I turn on my heel without another word and leave.