Maite glanced down at her yellow print dress, her sensible shoes, and her ugly knees.
Emilio opened the curtain. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt so his arms were visible up to the elbow, the collar of his shirt open. He looked very nice in this more casual look.
“Hey there, we meet again. Come around to the back.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t phone,” Maite said, quickly rounding the counter.
“It’s fine. You can drop by anytime.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“I’m sociable.”
He walked her into a well-kept little office. On his desk he had a lamp with a dark green shade, and on the walls there were antique engravings. She pictured him at the small desk, relaxed, going over figures and ledgers.
“What do you think of my shop?” he asked.
“It’s nice. Very different from your house.”
“Well, that’s home and this is work. Truth is, this is my father’s shop. I was more interested in photos and art galleries, but that was when I was younger,” he said, dismissively waving away his early twenties with one hand. “Anyway, I’m guessing you’re not here looking for a nice bronze sculpture?”
“I came to ask you for the address of that journalist friend of yours.”
Emilio leaned against his desk and cocked his head a little. “You plan to pay Lara a visit?”
“Someone must know something about Leonora’s whereabouts. Lara’s house might be a good place to start looking for clues.”
“Are you turning into a detective, Maite?” Emilio asked, but playfully, and then he turned around and began flipping through his Rolodex.
“I’m worried.”
“Aren’t we all? I’m not sure if Lara’s home, though. I phoned earlier, no answer. But I suppose you could be luckier than me. She doesn’t always pick up the phone if she’s on deadline,” he said, pulling out a card and copying the information onto a small slip of paper. He handed it to her. “Keep me informed, will you? I meant it when I said you can drop by anytime.”
“I’ll call as soon as I get back.”
Emilio smiled. He had a wonderful smile. Good teeth, like the porcelain in his shop. Good hair, good eyes, good everything. Why can’t the world be full of men like this? she thought, remembering the nobodies and losers she’d gone out with. One of the worst ones had been that bank clerk who liked to collect floaty pens—by tilting the pens one could move a boat down a river or make a Hawaiian dancer glide in front of a backdrop of palm trees—but there was also the man from the insurance company who chewed with his mouth open.
And Cristóbalito. She had loved without restraint, and he’d left a stain upon her soul, Cristóbalito. He’d been a portent of things to come, the beginning to a litany of bitterness.
She left the shop quickly, slipped back into the car. “I’ve got the address,” she told Rubén.
“Great. We can go back to your place and look at that box before we head to Cuernavaca,” Rubén said, glancing at his watch.
“You’re thinking of going to Cuernavaca today?”
“Or early tomorrow. Did you have any stuff you had to do this weekend?”
She shook her head, wishing she could tell him she had prior engagements. That she’d have to check her calendar.
When they reached the apartment, the first thing she did was feed Leonora’s irritating cat. If the girl didn’t come back, she wondered what she’d do with the animal. Something might have happened to her, after all. Or maybe nothing was wrong. Perhaps the girl was holed up with a friend. Leonora seemed to have many friends. She also had money. For all they knew, she was sunbathing in Acapulco.
After feeding the cat, Maite showed Rubén the box Leonora had left behind, and he began taking all its contents out, spreading them on the dining room table. There was nothing of interest there. Old newspapers, papers, magazines. Junk meant for the trash heap.
Maite let him dig through the box and put on a record. The notes of “Somos Novios” spilled out of her atelier. She went into her bedroom, looked at the mirror atop her vanity, once again examining her face. Under the subdued lights of her apartment the face looked somewhat prettier. She grabbed a tiny perfume bottle, another one of the stolen items from her collection, now displayed atop the vanity along with other trinkets, and dabbed a bit of perfume on her neck.
She’d stolen the perfume bottle, which had already been half empty anyway, from her mother, and it brought her great pleasure to wear it. But she only did on special occasions, rationing it. She supposed it was a special occasion. She seldom had any men in her apartment.
She walked back to the dining room, watching him as he sighed and put a newspaper down.
“There’s nothing here,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Unless there’s a cryptic clue hidden in one of these old newspapers.”
“You look tired.”
“I was up late, working.”
“Want a cup of coffee?”
“Sure.”
She slid into the minuscule kitchen and put the kettle on the burner. She’d always wanted a nice kitchen. This one was falling apart. Peeling linoleum and sagging counters. But the landlord would never fix it.
She prepared two cups of coffee and brought out the sugar bowl. She was very proud of the dainty sugar bowl. It was real porcelain. She’d bought it at La Lagunilla, haggling until the woman selling it brought down her price. It wasn’t very ladylike to haggle, but Maite would bicker over a miserable peso like a furious wolf if it was necessary. It often was.
Maite placed the cup of coffee before him, and he smiled. A couple of days before she’d thought about inviting this man to her apartment, and there he was. And of course now that he was here, sitting in her dining room, she wasn’t sure what to say to him, although in her imagination she had asked him to fuck. Easily and plainly. Just because she could.
Maite was boring, and she was tired of being boring. But she couldn’t, didn’t quite, want to go there.
She wouldn’t be any better than the man with the floaty pens, who also collected pictures of pinups, his hungry eyes classifying every woman alive, measuring her, sliding her into the drawer of his memories. Their legs, their breasts, their torso. He’d been a sleaze, but she was somehow worse.
You’re perverse, she thought. Deep down, you’re a monster of perversity and you know it. All you have is cheap fantasies.
“How long have you been working at the print shop?” she asked.