Maite didn’t know. She didn’t know this woman at all. She thought of the island inSecret Romance; she pictured the girl writhing on a stone altar.
“I felt I’d hit the jackpot, you know? I was crazy about her. I took her out, drove her wherever she needed to go, we talked for hours.”
“What happened?”
He grimaced a little, as if he were picking at a scab. “Emilio happened. Every weekend he’d come to Asterisk, looking for an easy fuck. He sleeps with anything that moves, and I guess he thought it was a good place to pick up girls. Lots of young people to snack on.”
“And he met Leonora.”
“He met Leonora,” Rubén said, nodding and drinking his coffee. There was a pause; he scratched his wrist. “The thing is we used to make fun of Emilio. Leonora and I, we thought he was another bourgeoisie pig looking for a thrill. He was stuck-up, thought so much of himself simply because his money had helped start the collective. Every time he walked into a room, he was wearing sunglasses, and he’d whip them off, like a cheapo movie star. It was funny.”
“But obviously she thought he was nice,” Maite said, a little angrily. She didn’t like Rubén talking about Emilio like that. Emilio was classy, and Rubén was being bitter about the whole thing. As if anyone could blame Leonora for trading up.
Rubén looked at her, frowning. “Yeah, well, I don’t know what bullshit he told her, but she believed him. She dumped me and they started going out. She did it nicely, told me she didn’t want to cheat on me. Like she was doing me a favor, you know. Very gently. And I’m not even sure shedidn’tcheat on me.”
“Oh,” she said and wondered if the girl had ever received Rubén with the scent of her other lover still on her crimson bedsheets. Or if she’d been more careful, if they’d only met in the safety of Emilio’s home. In distant places where prying eyes couldn’t reveal their secret.
“She was very sweet to me toward the end, and the thing is, when Leonora is sweet it’s because she’s making up for something. She feels guilty. That’s Leonora’s problem. Guilt always catches up with her; it weighs her down and she suffocates. She must have cheated on me.”
She pictured beautiful Leonora tearfully telling Rubén it wasn’t her fault. It had just happened. They could remain friends, and she wassosorry. In her mind, Leonora’s tears streamed down her face, under her large sunglasses, lips parted. Like in the comic books. But it hadn’t been a comic book. It had been real. Like Cristóbalito had been real.
“But you still like her,” Maite said, almost accusingly.
“Yes, well, ain’t that the thing? No one said I was smart,” he told her with a chuckle. “Just because someone stops loving you, it doesn’t mean you stop loving them.”
She felt bad for him. He was a loser, like Maite. Both of them a couple of dumb fucks sitting in the silent dining room—the music had stopped playing.
“I felt like that about a boy, once,” Maite admitted. “He broke my heart and still I wanted him back. I’d sit at night and cry my eyes out. I thought I’d die when he left. I wanted to die. I would have, if I weren’t such a coward.”
If this was a comic book, she thought, there’d be a panel flashing back to a distant point in the past. And Maite, holding her heart out in her hands, like a maiden in an Aztec sacrifice.
But Rubén didn’t seem to be listening to her; he wasn’t looking at her. “I want her to come back. To be safe.”
She stretched out her fingers, patting his hand, which was resting by the cooling cup of coffee, but even then he didn’t seem to realize she was there. He let out a sigh and smiled a little, and then she pulled her hand back, resting it in her lap.
She felt more lonely, sitting in front of this man, than she’d felt in ages.
“I guess I’m a little tired after all,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Maybe we should go in the morning. I don’t think I’m up for a long drive. Do you have a blanket I can borrow? I can take the couch, no problem.”
“You want to stay here?”
“I don’t want to scare you, but someone beat up our friend, and that someone was also around Asterisk today. Maybe it’s the guy from the DFS who went to your office, maybe someone else. Either way, I don’t think you should be alone.”
She wished to laugh. This young man was inviting himself into her apartment. How funny. That he should fulfill her wish, now she didn’t really want him around. He’d made her sad.
“I have a blanket,” she said, and she went to her room and brought it out to him.
It was too early to sleep, but he had already taken off his shoes and was lying horizontal on the couch, an arm over his eyes. She put the blanket on him, and he thanked her, his voice sounding muffled.
It was early, so she sat in her atelier, carefully turning the pages of an old issue ofSecret Romancewhile Lucho Gatica sang about his one and only love. She thought of Emilio Lomelí, who looked like one of the beautifully drawn characters in the comic book, and Leonora, who resembled the heroines who cried their way through such publications. And then she thought of Rubén, sleeping in her living room, with a gun in a paper bag at his side, who didn’t look like anyone except maybe the blurry faces in the background of a panel. And Maite, who wasn’t even a blurry face, who wasn’t included in any issue.
18
THE SKY WASgray when they left the apartment, yet it didn’t rain. It was like the whispered broken promise of a half-hearted lover.
They spent most of the journey in silence. Maite wasn’t sure how to treat Rubén. They were not friends. No, not quite, she thought, watching him as he sat behind the wheel. In her lap there was a copy ofSecret Romance, which she flicked through aimlessly.
She rolled the window down. She flipped through another page of her comic book. All the while she kept thinking she didn’t know Leonora, she had no business in this car, with this man. Maite had enough problems with her debts, her broken vehicle, her family, to be taking on anyone else’s problems. To become involved with a bunch of commie kids who were being watched by DFS agents.
