This is the eleventh chapter of my novel, Such a Pretty Fiction. Chapter 10 is here.
We lay under the bedspread. I wondered if she believed any of what I’d said. I wondered if I believed it myself. Her breathing changed and it sounded like she was asleep. I shifted to look at the clock on the nightstand.
“Oh, it’s cold,” she said. “You’re opening the blanket.”
“It’s only eight. We should get dinner.”
“I don’t want to get up.”
“You’re not hungry? Some food will do you good.”
She didn’t answer. Our bodies were pressed together under the blanket. I could feel her heat through my clothes. My face was in her hair. I lifted my head and kissed the side of her mouth, strands of her hair trapped between our lips.
“Logan.” She pulled away and swung her feet off the bed. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Good idea.” I stood up to join her. “Wash away the day.”
“No.”
She wanted to be alone. I sat on the bed in the dark and listened to the sound of the water.
As we left the room she let me take her hand. We walked down the stairs together. She didn’t want to leave the hotel. I forgot about Rafa until I saw him standing at the bar.
When he saw us, he raised a hand and pointed toward his table by the fireplace, then walked carefully back to his chair.
“I warned you,” Nicolas smiled.
“I know. I forgot.”
He raised his eyebrows at the two of us. “Too much on your mind, no?” The night before I would have appreciated the remark, but with Soledad’s mood I felt a flash of panic.
“Too hungry. What’s good?” I picked up a menu.
“The hamburger is very nice. No ceviche. We are too far from the sea.”
Soledad didn’t want to drink. I felt like a beer. Nicolas motioned at the taps, and I recognized the painted wood handle from the brewery. The last thing I wanted was to give Soledad another reminder. I asked for one of the brown bottles Rafa had been drinking, and we joined him at the table.
He didn’t seem drunk. His mood was less convivial than it had been the night before. Still not somber, but close to serious.
“I think I may have left abruptly last night. I’d like to apologize.”
She didn’t say anything.
“No worries,” I said. “Especially with you picking up our drinks.”
He nodded. “I thought I might have. Well, at least that’s something.” Apology out of the way, the smirk returned to the corner of his mouth. He held up his beer. “To small acts of kindness in our darkest hour.”
I tried not to look at Soledad. This was too close to what had upset her in the room. He stared at me over the neck of the bottle. It was almost like he knew.
I had no interest in toasting with Rafa, but there was no way to refuse. I clinked my beer to his. He looked at Soledad.
“Not drinking?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head, trying to smile with her eyes.
“Water?”
“Maybe with my salad.”
“Oh we can’t have that,” he said. He set the beer back on the table and pointed at the bottle in my hand. “Don’t drink that yet. Bad luck to drink before a toast is over.” He pushed back from the table and walked to the bar.
“He was almost normal for a second there,” I said. “Maybe we need to be mean to him to keep him in line. Or maybe it’s the cervezas.” I lisped the word. I wanted her to smile.
She had been looking at the table, but she shifted her eyes to mine. She was a different person. The way she looked at me was horrible. She pursed her lips and nodded slowly, as if she had just understood something for the first time.
Rafa came back with a glass of water. “That’s better.” He held his beer over the center of the table.
I moved my own up to meet it.
“No no.” He withdrew the bottle. “We already toasted. No good doubling up. Now where were we… Ah. To small acts of kindness in our darkest hour.” He raised the bottle to Soledad.
She picked up her water and clinked. Rafa and I drank. Soledad set the glass back on the table.
“Why was yesterday your darkest hour, Rafa?” Soledad asked. “Logan wasn’t sure.”
I turned to look at her.
She ignored me, facing Rafa.
He looked at me and then back at Soledad. “Logan wasn’t sure… But I suppose you had some idea?”
“Yes.”
He waited for her to go on, but she didn’t. “And what would you say?”
“What did I say, Logan?” She turned back to look at me. There was no half attempt at smiling now. Nothing but distance and some strange sense of contempt. I didn’t understand.
“It involved Muriel—”
“Of course it involved Muriel,” she snapped. “That wasn’t it, and you know it.”
“It involved Muriel,” I repeated. “Soledad thinks you’re worried about what her memoir will mean for you.”
Rafa turned to her. “And what would it mean for me?”
“It would mean that she’s suddenly successful. Famous. She would have her own money, not the money that your father gives to you and you give to her. Suddenly the world would open up to her. You’d become unnecessary.” She smiled as if she were teasing him, but her voice was cruel.
I sat frozen. Rafa was tense. I worried he was going to slap her across the face. Suddenly he threw back his head and burst into laughter. I watched Soledad. The malice that had been there, so uncharacteristic and hideous, was gone. She was as shocked as I was. As he laughed, her eyes brightened, out of surprise, or out of relief that he’d saved her from being terrible. The awful look fell away and she started to laugh as well. I sat still. I was afraid of what was happening.
“Is that how you see it?” he asked when his laughter had subsided. “I’m her sugar daddy, condemning her to a life beneath her station, and with her first taste of success I’ll be pushed aside by a hot young writer from New York?”
Soledad stared back at him, the beginning of a confused smile on her lips. “I guess that’s close enough.”
He laughed again. The serious Rafa we had sat down with was gone. He lowered his head in a mock bow and swigged his beer. “What do you think of that, Logan?” He turned the smile to me. “Does it sound reasonable to you?”
I shrugged.
“Does it scare you to hear how she sees the world?”
That was it. He was exactly right. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was fear. Fear that I recognized from the women before Candace. I would never admit this to Rafa. “How do you mean?”
“That at the first taste of success, she expects Muriel to upgrade, casting me aside for something better. Maybe that’s normal for her.” He laughed again. “You’d better watch out for this one.”
“Well—” My phone rang in my pocket. “Lucky for me she’s already out of my league. No need to upgrade if you’re the one slumming it.” I pulled out my phone and glanced at the screen. Candace. I silenced it.
“Careful, Soledad.” Rafa gestured at my phone with his beer. “Maybe it’s Mr. Popular here who’s looking for an upgrade.”
She watched my phone as I slid it back into my pocket. “Mr. Popular, huh?”
I decided to be honest. To convince her I had nothing to hide. “Candace.”
“Your boss?”
I nodded.
“What the hell, then, Logan? Answer it. Maybe she wants to talk about Nosotras.”
I shook my head. “It’s not a big deal. She’ll give us the servers.”
“Logan. I swear to you. If Nosotras gets shut down after what we went through today—”
My phone rang again. As I pulled it out of my pocket she snatched it out of my hand.
“What the fuck?” I tried to grab it back, but she spun away.
She looked at me, her mouth hanging open, then back at the phone.
“Why is there a heart next to her name?”
Rafa chortled.
“Look at this, Rafa.” Soledad showed him the screen. The phone was still ringing. The couple at the next table watched us.
I stood up and grabbed it out of her hand, silencing it.
She gawked at me. “Well? Why is there a heart by your CEO’s name?”
“Maybe because dating and hearts go together?” I felt betrayed. She’d ganged up on me with Rafa. Candace had put the heart next to her name as a kind of joke, and I’d left it. “I don’t know how they do things in Colorado. Maybe your mom didn’t have time to teach you about feelings.” As soon as I said it I wanted it back.
“Dating the CEO?” Rafa cut in. “Workplace shenanigans of the first order! I didn’t know you had it in you, Logan. I’ll drink to that!” He held his beer up again.
Soledad raised her water and they toasted.
Nicolas swept up with the food. He set a hamburger in front of me and a salad in front of Soledad. “What else do you need? Ketchup? Mayonnaise? Perhaps the lady would like some pepper?”
It was Rafa who replied. “Cerveza,” he lisped.
I glanced at Soledad to see if she noticed. She ignored me, following up with something in Spanish. I heard her lisp the word cerveza unironically. Nicolas replied in Spanish, and the three of them laughed together at a joke I didn’t understand. She answered him and Nicolas nodded, the joke still glowing on his lips. He looked at me.
“And for you?”
“What are you two getting?”
Rafa spoke. But it was to Soledad, not to me, and it was in Spanish. Soledad laughed. Nicolas did not, but his eyes twinkled.
“They are getting beer,” he answered. “Two more of the same. Shall I make it three?”
Soledad was still giggling at whatever Rafa had said. He looked up at her under his eyebrows. She laughed into her hand. Laughing together with Rafa. Laughing at me.
“You know… We went to a great brewery today just a couple hours down the road. Next to the river.”
“Cerveza del Valle,” Nicolas said. “Very nice. We have one on tap. Their eepuh. Or I-P-A, as you would call it.”
“Perfect. I’ll have the eepuh.” Nicolas nodded and whisked back to the bar.
“Have you tried that one, Rafa?” I ignored their new friendship and spoke as if nothing had happened.
He was reluctant to be pulled out of the conspiracy they were sharing. He tore his eyes away from Soledad and looked at me. “I don’t think so. Only bottles for me.”
“You should try it. Great US-style IPA. And the brewery was beautiful, wasn’t it Soledad?” I turned to her.
She rearranged pieces of lettuce with her fork.
“We went there today. Next to a river. Has a little garden. The walls of the valley towering up on either side. Taller than you’d think possible.”
He nodded. “Very nice. As beautiful as he says?” he asked her.
She sat back and put her fork on the table, as if the salad had defeated her. “Not really.”
Nicolas came back with two bottles and my pint glass. I took a sip of the eepuh. It was cold. It was bitter. It was good.
“I want to tell you, Rafa.” I took a bite of my burger. “I was really impressed with how you took care of Muriel that night on the boat.” I looked him in the eyes. “When she was breaking down and you were there for her, calming her down and supporting her. Really impressive thing to do. Especially in front of us.” It was true. In a way it had been impressive. Crooning into her ear with the rest of us within earshot. I wanted him to relive it. To remind him of Muriel.
He met my gaze. “Soledad is wrong, you know,” he said softly. “What she said. Her story about why I was worried. About Muriel. About me.”
She looked up from her plate.
My phone rang again. It made me furious. Candace had never been able to take a hint. I jerked the phone out of my pocket, turning to prevent Soledad from grabbing it.
“It’s Sophie.”
“Sure it is,” Rafa said.
Soledad laughed.
I stood up, the chair scraping on the stone floor, and held the screen so they could see it. I was glad to have an excuse to get away. I walked past the bar toward the steps.
“Sophie. How are you?”
She was her bright, chipper self. It was a relief to talk to someone who was somewhere else. I pushed through the glass doors into the hotel courtyard. Sophie was fine, as she always was. She asked how the trip was going. I answered honestly, but I didn’t tell her everything. When I was done, she was quiet.
“So? What’s up?”
“Logan, it is strange. But I have received a call from Candace.”
“What? Why would she call you?”
“She says she cannot reach you. She wants to know if you are OK.”
I scoffed.
“She is worried. She asks that you call her.”
I wondered what Candace could be playing at. “Look. I’m sorry you got roped into this, Sophie.”
“Do not apologize. There is no need. Candace was very polite. She cares for you, Logan.”
“Yeah.”
“She is going to Colombia. She needs you to come.”
“What? For real?”
“There is a project with the Red Cross. Venezuela. Do you remember what is happening in Venezuela? The refugees?”
I tried to figure out what it meant for the company. What it meant for me. For the project. For Soledad.
“Logan? Are you there?”
“Yeah I’m here. Sorry. Just thinking.”
The courtyard was enclosed by the balcony on the second level. I could see the door to our room. Standing heaters had been set up to fight off the chill of the night air. White light shone through the brick arches in front of the ground floor rooms. The courtyard was dotted with palm trees. The balcony, the tile roof, and then the black sky, which stretched over the Andes all the way to Colombia.
“I guess I’ll have to call her. She’s the boss, after all.”
“She seems very nice, Logan. I enjoyed talking to her.”
“Candace has that effect on people.” It was true. She was always buttering people up. It’s what made her a good CEO.
“You are enjoying the project? Will you be able to leave?”
“Maybe. I don’t think Soledad really needs me.” My chest caught as the words came out. I realized it was true.
“That is good.”
I tried to think of something to say.
“You will never guess what is happening to Muriel.”
A bitter chuckle escaped my lips. I thought of Rafa and Soledad at the table. “Oh, I don’t know. You might—” Soledad was on the balcony. I could just make out the top of her head. Our door opened. She was gone.
“She is in New York,” Sophie said. “The mémoire is looking very good. Many publishers, they are trying to buy it. Her father is with her. It is all happening again. Muriel is unable to avoid him. He is too strong for her, Logan… Poor Muriel.”
“Wait. What’s happening?”
“Her father is with her. Oh, Logan. It is so sad.”
“Then she needs to get away from him. She doesn’t have to put up with that. She’s a big girl.”
“Logan. It is not so easy for Muriel. The contract she has with publishers is because of her father. She needs to wait until it is successful. Only then can she be on her own.”
“Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. If he’s what the whole book is about, and she’s putting up with him just to get it published.” I thought about the two of them at the table. “The whole situation’s fucked up. Perverse. She needs to make her own life.”
“She will. It will be good when she is back with Rafa. They are the kind of people that need someone.”
I wondered if she thought I was that kind of person.
“Logan, I will let you go. Tell Soledad hello. You should call Candace.”
“Thanks, Sophie. Sorry you got roped into this.”
“It is no trouble. It is nice to have someone that cares for you.”
I hung up. I stared through the palm fronds at our door on the balcony. Eventually I would have to call Candace.
Nicolas smiled at me as I walked past the bar. Rafa was gone. Soledad was gone. Her salad sat uneaten on the plate, sad and forgotten. His beer was empty. My own was almost full, an inch from the top. I sat down, my back to the piano. The beer was warm.