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Gratitude flooded my chest as Antonio once again returned to my side. I looked behind us, trying to catch Isaac’s gaze once again.
He didn’t look at me.
Where were his passionate declarations now? Was this about propriety?
For a second, I was back on the mountain, and Antonio was telling me that life was about manipulating others better than they manipulated you. I was beginning think he was right.
My future with Isaac was slipping through my fingers like water.
Chapter37
Una Deliciosa Cena
Time ticked on. I could hear each second passing on the grandfather clock in the back of the room. It turned out that the parents had very little interest in speaking to the candidates, and they directed most of their questions to each other. I heard bold questions about projected outcomes and whispered inquiries about potential matches.
I spent most of the time making polite small-talk and thanking servers as they brought me food. My stomach had long since stopped distinguishing what tasted good and what did not. The tightness of the dress had me settling for only one or two bites of each dish.
This dinner was beautiful. It had everything I was never supposed to taste as an Artista.
My ire grew as the people laughed and drank, as Isaac continually avoided my gaze in favor of those he was sitting next to at the other end of the table. Young women were seated all around him. Jealousy reared its ugly head when I saw another girl from the audition, Isabela Allende Olguín, smiling at him from across the table. She fanned herself flirtatiously and eyed his throat with a predatory desire.
My existential crisis multiplied as more wine was poured. I tried to limit my intake—no one needed me getting drunk or even a little tipsy tonight. Each time I watched most of my food taken back to the kitchen, I felt nauseous. I prayed that one of the servants would steal it, and eat what I barely touched.
That the delicious food wasn’t wasted.
Indignation and discomfort were a horrible couple. On the third course, right before they brought out the fish, I was stuck between screaming and crying but Antonio leaned over and said, “If you want to take off your shoes under the table, I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
His comment completely caught me off guard, and when I looked up at him, his face was blank. He’d been endlessly chatting with the woman to his left before she had gotten tipsy. I half-expected him to ignore me for most of the meal. What was going on with him? This morning, the comment about my training, and now this.
“What?” I asked with uncertainty.
He didn’t even look at me when he said, “I imagine those shoes aren’t particularly comfortable, and it seems like you are in pain. Take them off if you’d like. A shoe-less Carmen would be better than that dreadful look you’re wearing. We are supposed to be enjoying ourselves.” When he spoke, his voice was quiet enough that no one could make out what he was saying, but I heard the sardonic lilt to his words. He was playing with me.
An unexpected smile blossomed across my face like a whole damn springtime garden. “Well, when you put it like that, maybe I should put in a bit more effort to enjoy myself.” I leaned toward him. “But I refuse to take off my shoes. Not ladylike at all.”
He sniffed. “Is it ladylike to have six glasses of wine?” His eyes flicked over to Sara Montoya, the mother of another candidate named Liliana who I recognized from the audition. Her cheeks were as red as cherries, and she was humming some tune while her husband tried to carry on a conversation with her.
I had to stifle my laugh. “Definitely not. Ladies stop at five drinks. Though I limit myself to one.”
Then the next course started coming in. One servant stood to our left, removing our soup plate, and the other appeared at the right side with a brand new one. The smell of lemon-pepper fish was mouthwatering.
“I noticed,” Antonio said suddenly, startling me away from the fish.
I cast him an uncertain look. “Noticed what, exactly?” I took another sip of the wine I’d been nursing all night. It had a rich, full-bodied floral taste, with just a touch of bitterness. Sweet wines were less common in my new life.
“The first night I invited you to my little assembly, you drank a lot. I was torn between cutting you off and yelling at you on the spot. But we had another small party the next night, and you stopped.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke, his eyes instead on Señor Jimenez. I recognized he was waiting for them to be served. The utensils on both sides of our plates had been depleted by half, and I had been itching for all of this to be over until Antonio decided to be chatty.
“Stop looking at me like that. We’ve had get-togethers twice a week for nearly two months.”
I swallowed. “How do you know I’m looking at you?”
Head still angled away from me, he said, “I can feel it.”
The corners of my mouth tugged up. “How do you know it’s not Liliana’s mother? She’s been looking at you all night.”
Antonio turned to face me at last. “I don’t live with Liliana’s mother, and I haven’t spent the last two months gaining Sara’s trust. One painful drop of blood at a time.”
I flushed red-hot scarlet. He had said nothing inappropriate, but it was how he looked right at me, how the full electric force of his attention made me feel vulnerable. I broke his eye contact first.
