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“She wants to know if your intentions are honorable?” She laughs so hard she almost topples over, and I take the moment to steer her off the dance floor and find a seat. “I’m not sure he knows how to apply that word to his relations with the ladies, Lish. I was second! S-E-C-O-N-D! And hetoldme so!”
If I were other than I am, I would rip the phone from her, dunk her in ice cold water, pump her full of coffee and wait until she sobered up, then explain my predicament yet again until finally, this time, she understood.
“Nah. I’m going to get a taxi. All good. Mr. Wiggins will make sure no lingering lotharios whip their wangs out and try to pin me to the wall.” She cackles and rises from her chair. “Farewell, douche wad.”
I can’t let her go out into the world like that. I follow at a safe distance, wishing we were far from this place, alone together.
“I know you’re back there!” She waves her phone at me as she reaches the taxi line. She opens the cab’s door and reels off her home address.
The door slams shut and her chariot peels down the driveway.
The music rolls toward me, carrying with it the revelry of a hundred happy people. I’m not one of them.
“Mariano!” Mick hails me from the other side of a tree. “Brother! Just answering the call of nature.” He turns away as he zips his fly. He’s an affable fellow and a gifted player. We’re lucky he’s willing to do what he does to remain on the team. And now that I’ve stared thegigololife down, I have even more respect for the man. I thought I could do it and found I could not. “Saw you get the best lap dance in the country earlier!”
I suppose everyone saw it.
“Ah, bugger. Did I put my foot in it, mate?” Mick’s a Briton whose accent, idiom, and speech patterns haven’t changed a bit since he’s been in the States.
“I think I’m in love.” It makes no sense, and it makes all the sense in the world. “Lolly makes me feel in ways I never have before.” It falls out of me like it was a sentence waiting to leap into any available receptacle. Mick just happened to be passing, so he’s the unlucky one to share my burden.
“Tricky business, love.” He’s slowed, staring at the night sky as though it holds the answers. “Some say it’s better to go without.”
Is that how he does it? Fucks his patronesses but doesn’t fall for any of them?
“But I’m going to go out on a limb and say they’re a load of cynical old tosspots who don’t know what they’re talking about. Love rules.” He kicks a stone out of his path and sends it skipping down the hill. “Not that I have any experience, you understand. This is all pure theory. Good theory, mind you. If I were you, I’d listen to every word your friend Mick has to say.”
“This happened so fast, I barely had time to blink.”
“Not lust, then?” The question comes so fast I think he must know what divides the two.
There’s plenty of heat between us. I’m drawn to her, physically. That part is simple, as Mamá said, but there is no relief in it. And I don’t believe it’s the only thing that’s driving me to Lolly. It’s the way she touches the horses. The way she rides. How she takes pride in doing her job—even the most menial of tasks. Her rage when I wronged her. The passion of the woman. That’s what it is. She’s shown more passion in the short time I’ve known her than I’ve allowed myself my whole life. So, no, it’s not mere lust. “More. Much more.”
“Only one thing for it then, I’m afraid. Bull. Horns. Hang on.” He does a fine impersonation of someone being thrown about by a bull, and I appreciate the attempt at levity.
“I told her I couldn’t.” I’m not sure what’s driving me to share this with Mick. I was ready to tell Lolly, but the champagne got to her first. I guess I need to hear these things out loud. Hear how it might sound toherif I ever get to say my part.“I had to choose work over love. Duty over heart. My family before her.” And by the time I told her I was free, I’d already destroyed whatever chance I had.
The silence is long enough that we’re almost back at the tent door before Mick pulls me to one side, all laughter stripped from his face. “You fucked up, brother. Big time. You got it all wrong. Love is the only thing. Love will save us. I don’t know how or when, but eventually love will save the fucking stupid human race. So, if you’re there, my friend, you have to do whatever it takes to win her back.”
How? I have done everything with Lolly in the wrong order. A proposal that wasn’t for her. A job I insisted she couldn’t do. Desire I couldn’t control. A dance that came too late. How do I come back from this? Each time I get close, something forces us apart, and soon I am leaving the country.
“Whatever it takes, you hear me? If she’s the other side of the world and the EMP hits? BAM! You walk to find her. Tsunami takes out the western seaboard, you’re getting flippers and swimming to her. The world gets in your face and tells you that you’re not permitted to be with her, you sock it in the teeth and go get her anyway. Love always finds a way. Be that man.”
He makes it sound so straightforward: fight for the woman you love.
Inside the tent, there’s a group-style dance—the conga or the macarena or some terrible foot-stomping set piece that has no place at this wedding.
“Thanks, Mick.”
He salutes as he disappears back into his loveless life. Perhaps that’s why he feels so passionately about it. He’s not permitted love, only sex.
My story’s not his, but it runs on parallel tracks. Duty was first because it had to be. My sister, Manuela, died in Father’s arms. She might have lived in another place and time, but there were no ambulances that day, and Papa carried her until he, too, was dropped by a bullet. He survived, perhaps against his will, or maybe for Mama’s sake, but he couldn’t work until he was healed and so the rest of us children did what any good son or daughter would do. We dropped everything and worked to keepla familiaafloat.
The night air is a mix of clove cigarettes and spilled wine. It’s supposed to be a celebration, but here I am turning over my old hurts. I regret nothing about those choices. The people I loved then, I love now. My parents never asked, never demanded, never expected, and they’ve carried me into my dream life to repay a debt that is no debt. Which is how we are tied, in bonds of love and duty that cannot be severed.
But then comes Lolly, who calls to me and only me. Not me, the son. Not me, the brother. Nor me, the one who left school and worked to pay our bills. Nor me, the one who created a foundation to carry the fathers who fell after mine. Just me. And I looked away.
Time to look back. Mick’s right. It’s time for love.
