“We come back tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow’s Monday. I’ve got work tomorrow. Don’t you?”
“Damn it, that’s right,” Rubén muttered. “I’m sure I can take off early. What about you? Can you get off around one p.m.?”
He looked at her eagerly. “Yes,” Maite said, thinking she could always make up an illness. She hated Mondays, anyway.Secret Romancewas the reason she got up some weeks. There had been days when she could have stayed in bed forever. It’s not as if she would have missed anything.
The lawyers never came in on time, and they often cut their days short. She figured if they got away with such unprofessional behavior, she could invent a flimsy excuse without a shred of guilt.
“I can pick you up outside your office if you give me the address; that way we can get here faster. Hey, I need to stop by my place to get clean clothes, do you mind? It’ll take five minutes,” he said.
“Why do you need clothes?”
“I figure I can crash on your couch again, for your own safety. But I’ll have to change in the morning.”
“You can’t live on my couch eternally.”
“Maybe until we talk to Sócrates. I don’t know, I don’t feel right about leaving you alone.”
I’m always alone, she thought. But…again, why not? Why shouldn’t he spend another night over if he wanted to? She could cook something. She could pretend she was making dinner for a good friend. It probably wasn’t a big deal for him, this popping up in a random woman’s house and spending the night there.
They drove to the guesthouse where he roomed. Rather than wait for him in the car, Maite went with Rubén, curious to see where he lived, though the moment she walked in she thought about stepping outside again, because a couple of young men were walking their way and greeted him, throwing her a perplexed look.
She probably didn’t look like the sort of person who visited the guesthouse, not in her prim, ugly dress. She didn’t look like Leonora, who was pretty; she didn’t even look like Jackie, who seemed interesting. She looked like a finicky aunt.
“This way,” Rubén said, and she followed him down a hallway and into his room.
It was very small and plain. By the bed Rubén kept a cheap bookcase piled high with thick tomes. There was no bathroom and no phone, though he told her the landlady sometimes let them use the phone in the living room if they promised to be quick about it. He had a window, but the view was of a low, damaged brick wall circling the property next door. The neighbors had a chicken coop, but all she could see was a single sad rooster sitting outside of it, all alone.
She wondered if Leonora had ever been in that room. Rubén’s bedspread was green and orange, and she ran a hand across it. Did Leonora sleep here? Did she bump into some of the men they’d seen before in the hallway? Did they also stare at her, looking perplexed?
“Have you lived here long?” she asked.
Rubén opened a drawer and tossed a shirt into a canvas bag. “Almost since I moved to Mexico City. The rent’s fair, and the landlady’s cooking’s decent too.”
“Where are you from?”
“Guerrero,” he said, folding a pair of trousers.
“You ever think about going back?”
“Maybe. There’re guerillas there. Real guerillas.”
“Are there? Isn’t it all bandits?”
“You really don’t read the papers, do you?” he asked. He didn’t sound scornful, surprised maybe, but it made her frown all the same. “They’re in the sierra. They can’t get them there. Genaro Vázquez Rojas, he’s the real deal. And Lucio Cabañas. They’re going to change the country; they’ll overthrow these bastards of the PRI.”
“You’ll end up in jail if you keep talking like that.”
He laughed. “So you don’t know anything about anything, but you know that?”
“Everyone knows that.”
“You’re probably not wrong, but what’s the other option?”
“Does Leonora want to join a guerilla and live in a place like that?” Maite asked, and she remembered Leonora’s apartment, her pretty dresses, the red sheets and expensive bottles of wine.
But he hadn’t heard her or didn’t bother answering, instead tossing a couple more things into his bag. “Ready,” he said. “All packed.”
