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“Like rum, but better,” he assures me with a wink. He places the cap on the shaker. “Now shake.Shake, shake shake,” he sings, his hips swaying behind the bar as he rattles my Caipirinha like a maraca. “Dance with it, you know? Mix it up!” I giggle at his antics as he places a low-ball glass in front of me with a flourish. “Then you pour.”
From the shaker comes a light green mixture, bright bits of lime pulp plopping into the drink, and shards of ice making the sides of the glass sweat. He garnishes it with a perfectly round wheel of lime tucked onto the rim and flashes a bright smile at me.
“Aí está!”
“Hey! I know that one. It’s Spanish!”
“Portuguese, too.Hablas espanol?”
“A little,” I reply in English. I take a sip of the cool concoction, my lips puckering from the sour, my tongue tingling from the sweet. It’s delicious. “Oh, my God, that’s good!”
“You see? I tell you it’s the best. Next time you believe me, yes?”
“Sí,” I say, taking another sip and sighing with pleasure.
“Are you... Argentinean?” he asks, rinsing out the shaker and looking up at me from beneath thick, dark eyelashes.
“Nope. American. From New York.”
“But you have Spanish heritage?”
“No. None.”
His eyes drift over my face like a warm breeze, lingering on my lips before sliding back up to my eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. My mother’s Swedish and Irish, from Texas. My father was Brazilian.”
“Ah! Brazilian! You’re Brazilian! Of course!”
Of course?
I take a gulp of my drink. “Not really.”
“Really,” he says, nodding emphatically.
“Well, I don’tfeelvery Brazilian. This is my first time in Brazil,” I tell him, that fish-out-of-water feeling overwhelming me again. “I’ve never been here before. I don’t speak your language. I don’t know your customs. I’d never even heard of a Caipirinha until five minutes ago.”
“But you’rehere,” he says. “That means you must be curious about your father’s—um, how you say?—roots.”
Am I curious? I don’t know.
“He... he died. Recently,” I murmur. “I promised to bring him home.”
“Condolências.” he says, crossing himself. “You’re here to bury him?”
“Not exactly. Sort of,” I say, surprised to feel the warm tickle of a tear sliding down my cheek. “I brought his ashes.”
“Ah,” he whispers, his beautiful brown eyes caressing my face tenderly. “I see.”
I pick up my drink and finish the rest in one big gulp. “Can I have another?”
“Only if you tell me your name,” he says, leaning forward to take my empty glass.
“Yara. Yara Marino,” I say, my cheeks flushing with sudden heat.
From the drink or the man? I’m not sure.
Tall and tan with curly black hair, brown eyes and full lips, he’s more beautiful than handsome. Like, toe-curling, naturally-gorgeous beautiful. And exactly my type.
