Chapter 20
Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to take up drinking the night before my meeting with Eugenia.
Pressing a hand to my temple, as if that would help with the traces of the migraine I was nursing earlier, I drag my feet to Eugenia’s front door and I try not to trip on the thick glass steps leading up to her porch.
Her house is all hard edges, sharp corners—floor-to-ceiling windows reflect the setting sun behind me, pink-orange clouds and everything.
It’s like a house wrapped in a painting of the late afternoon sky.
If the sight didn’t feel like being stabbed with a screwdriver in both eyes, I might be able to appreciate how truly beautiful it is.
Behind the darkest sunglasses I could find in my mother’s possession, everything is tinted a sepia brown.
At least I’m not throwing up anymore.
“I suppose I should be relieved that you weren’t lying when you told me you weren’t out drinking with your friends as a kid,” my mother said this morning while she was holding my hair. I’d grunted in response, wishing I was dead.
Now I hug my iPad closer, adjusting my purse’s strap on my shoulder before I ring the doorbell.
The sound is muffled, but it’s not a regular ding-dong.
It’s a melody. I swear it goes on for a full minute before the door silently swings open, revealing a housekeeper and a grinning golden retriever at her feet.
“Hello.” I smile, fighting the urge to drop to my knees and play with the dog. “I have an appointment with Mrs. Fajardo. Is she home?”
“Maria Antonieta Camacho?” the woman asks. I nod. “Follow me.”
Inside, the temperature is cool. The smell of fresh leather and pine cleaner permeates every corner of the house. If having your life together had a smell, it would be this.
Happy paws clack on the granite floor in rhythm with my ankle boots as the dog walks in slow circles around me.
I fight back a sneeze. We walk in silence through the foyer, by a small living room area, then through the kitchen and finally to the terrace.
The housekeeper puts an arm out before I walk straight through a set of glass doors.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
She smiles, sliding the doors open. “Don’t be. I take it as a compliment.”
I walk out to a gorgeous backyard. Surrounded by chirping birds and flowers of a thousand different colors, Eugenia stands from her seat at a chic outdoor dining table.
Behind her, a waterfall splashes into a pool made of turquoise tile.
A sturdy four-seat wooden table rests between us on a wood-plank patio.
“Maria Antonieta, welcome,” Eugenia says. “I’m terribly sorry you had to come all this way, but nothing is getting me out of my house on a Saturday.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m happy to be here. You have a beautiful home, by the way. Very Zen.”
Eugenia smiles. With her whole face. Her eyebrows move and everything.
“Thank you. I was going for Zen,” she says. “Make sure you have a place to unwind at the end of the day, Maria Antonieta. It’ll prevent you from having early wrinkles.”
Plastic surgery will also do that.
She gestures at the empty chair to her left. “Please, sit.”
I obey, placing my things on the table one by one—phone first, then my iPad, which I align with the edge of the table, and finally my purse next to it in a perfect straight line.
Eugenia watches me in silence. As I’m lowering my body onto the chair, my phone lights up.
Both my attention and Eugenia’s go to it.
Simón: hey. How are you feeling?
I turn the screen off. It lights up again.
Simón: [video]
Simón: [photo]
Simón: [photo]
Simón: let me know if you want these burned or framed
“Do you need to address that?” Eugenia asks, still standing, gesturing at my phone with a perfectly manicured hand.
My cheeks burn hot as I activate sleep mode. “Nope. It’s nothing important.”
Eugenia eyes me as she sits, intertwining her fingers. “So,” she says. “It’s been a month. What have you achieved?”
Just like that, this beautiful garden turns into her sterile office, as if the flowers wilted and a previously cloudless sky suddenly turned gray.
“Well—” I begin.
She narrows her eyes, leaning in my direction. “You have achieved something, haven’t you? It wasn’t long ago when you were working under my tutelage, I’m sure you still remember how little I enjoy wasting my personal time.”
“No!” I blurt out. “Of course we’re not wasting time, I have achieved so many things. I just…I have this…” I run both hands down my jeans to calm my nerves. “When you read what I’ve written so far, it might not look like what we originally discussed.”
Her eyes sharpen. “What will it look like?”
“It might look like I’m not doing this alone,” I venture.
The look she’s giving me is menacing. And yes, that is the kindest term I could use. My shoulders hunch forward as I try to make myself small, try to hide from whatever she’s about to say.
After an eternity of silence, she says, “What are you talking about?” I part my lips to speak but she stops me. “And please, may the next thing that comes out of your mouth make some sense.”
“I found a coach. An expert, if you will.”
“A coach?” Eugenia repeats. “Who?”
“His name is Simón Arreaza, he’s Colombian. A singer. We work together,” I explain.
“Would I know him?” she asks.
“He’s the lead singer of Caballo de Troya.”
“The band you keep pushing on our audience?” My eyes bulge. Eugenia crosses her arms and leans back on her chair. “You work together? How did that happen? And how did he get involved?”
I lay down the truth about why I needed help from Simón and everything leading up to it—the failed experiments, the edited list, the surprising progress ever since he started helping me. I mean, Alejandro called me last night, for God’s sake. A month ago, it was like I didn’t exist. And now…
She listens to every word with a frown until I’m finished. I leave out nothing, except the tiny detail of what I promised Simón in return for helping me. While I’m talking, the housekeeper comes back with two glasses of what I hope is just iced tea and a display of cheeses, crackers, and dips.
“Let me see if I understand,” she says, lifting the glass to her lips.
“You’re working at VeneTV’s biggest production since your mother was the face of the Christmas specials.
There, you met the lead singer of this little band, and now he’s helping you get back together with Alejandro. Did I miss anything?”
I shake my head slowly, grabbing a cracker and laying a piece of gouda cheese on top. “That’s exactly it.”
She snaps her fingers, straightening up. “What does this boy look like again?”
“Simón?”
Eugenia rolls her eyes. “Yes, Simón.”
I fish my phone out of my purse and go through my gallery until I find the picture Simón took of us yesterday. Hand shaking, I slide it toward Eugenia. Her eyebrows go up in surprise as she leans over the table to peek.
“He actually took that to make Alejandro jealous,” I say.
She looks up. “Did it work?”
“Mm. He called me later that night.”
A beat of silence passes between us as Eugenia seems to ponder. Around us, the sun slowly disappears behind her artificial waterfall. Across the pool, the water turns to glitter.
Eugenia returns my phone. “All right. Write about it.”
“About…”
“The coach, the list, the whole thing. Experiment #1: Get a coach, then you take it from there.”
“What about what I’ve already written?”
“We’re trying a different angle now,” she says. “No one wants to read about your failures. Start with the story of how you got a coach, then move on to the first successful experiment.”
“Okay.”
“I expect to see it in my inbox on Thursday.”
—
By the time I make it out of Eugenia’s house, a cloudless night has fallen over Caracas, with a full moon so bright it might as well be a streetlight.
I look up, counting stars in order to calm my racing heart as an orchestra of cicadas and little garden frogs accompany me to my car.
Telling Simón that Eugenia wants me to include him in the article shouldn’t be hard.
He wants exposure. That’s…one way to get it.
I could expand on the band, why they’re relevant in the grand scope of my relationship.
But this is not the article I wanted to write on Caballo de Troya.
I’m sixty-five stars into my counting and halfway to my car when my phone buzzes in my hand.
Simón, I think. He texted me earlier. I haven’t replied.
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk to pull it out of my back pocket, stressed once more, and…
Oh. My heart sinks in disappointment. Alejandro.
I mean, Oh! Alejandro!
His contact photo stares back at me, smiling green eyes boring into mine, asking why I’m not picking up. Asking why I’m not excited that he’s calling. Why I’m disappointed that it’s not someone else.
The phone stops buzzing, the screen darkens.
Then it immediately starts up again. I stare at the screen, at Alejandro, lounging on a chair by a pool, hands behind his neck.
I took that picture. I love that picture.
This is what I want. Not twenty minutes ago I was meeting with my former boss to discuss how successful the plan is turning out to be.
Success equals Alejandro loving me again, marrying me, having three kids and a dog with me.
Feelings are temporary. Feelings are chemical responses to stimulation.
Decisions are eternal. And I’ve decided that I want to get Alejandro back.
So I pick up, even though what I really want is to get home, take a long shower, and sleep for a week.
“Heeey,” he says with a laugh, and the familiarity of the sound is an anchor in the turmoil that’s become my life. It’s exactly what I need. I immediately forget that, a second ago, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to talk to him.
“Hi, Ale,” I reply. “How was your birthday?”