It was too early to sleep, but he had already taken off his shoes and was lying horizontal on the couch, an arm over his eyes. She put the blanket on him, and he thanked her, his voice sounding muffled.
It was early, so she sat in her atelier, carefully turning the pages of an old issue of Secret Romance while Lucho Gatica sang about his one and only love. She thought of Emilio Lomelí, who looked like one of the beautifully drawn characters in the comic book, and Leonora, who resembled the heroines who cried their way through such publications. And then she thought of Rubén, sleeping in her living room, with a gun in a paper bag at his side, who didn’t look like anyone except maybe the blurry faces in the background of a panel. And Maite, who wasn’t even a blurry face, who wasn’t included in any issue.
18
THE SKY WAS gray when they left the apartment, yet it didn’t rain. It was like the whispered broken promise of a half-hearted lover.
They spent most of the journey in silence. Maite wasn’t sure how to treat Rubén. They were not friends. No, not quite, she thought, watching him as he sat behind the wheel. In her lap there was a copy of Secret Romance, which she flicked through aimlessly.
She rolled the window down. She flipped through another page of her comic book. All the while she kept thinking she didn’t know Leonora, she had no business in this car, with this man. Maite had enough problems with her debts, her broken vehicle, her family, to be taking on anyone else’s problems. To become involved with a bunch of commie kids who were being watched by DFS agents.
She resolutely stared into the rearview mirror and told herself she wasn’t going to give in to mundane concerns. Not that day. Come tomorrow, yes, she’d dress in her office clothes, grab her purse, and take the bus to work. Right now, though, she didn’t have to consider any of that.
Besides, she hadn’t gone on an outing in so long. It was always work or worry; maybe the movie theater if they had a good film. At least she was leaving the house. She was going somewhere. Anywhere would do.
“I hope you slept well,” Maite said after a while, because she wanted to at least pretend they might be friends. “The couch isn’t very comfortable.”
“It was fine. I was really beat. A marching band could have come into the room and I wouldn’t have known. Are you a morning person?”
“Pretty much. All I need is a cup of coffee and I’m out the door.”
“I wish I was like that. I get up in stages.”
“In stages, really?”
“Yeah, first roll out of bed, then roll onto the floor. That sort of thing. Leonora is the same. No, she’s worse. She’s terribly lazy. You won’t see her out of the bed until noon. She’s always late to class. When I tried to wake her she would always say, ‘No, five more minutes!’ Five was not five. More like fifteen.”
He smiled. She pictured Leonora, looking adorable with her messy hair and her rumpled clothes. The disarray would enhance her beauty. When Maite woke up she looked a mess. No man would have been charmed by that sight.
Prettiness is currency, she thought. All doors open for you if you’re pretty.
“What are you reading?” Rubén asked.
“Oh,” she said, looking down at the magazine in her lap. She’d tightened her grip on it. “Secret Romance. Comics, you know.”
For a moment she expected he would beam at her with interest, maybe ask her about the artist who drew the illustrations. After all, he was an artist of a sort. He spent his time with painters and poets and people in that milieu. You’d expect someone like that, someone with a sensitive soul, to understand her pursuits. But he chuckled.
“Really? Like what, like for kids?”
Maite glanced at him, felt herself blushing.
“These are not for kids. They’re like novels. Except with pictures. Just like novels,” she said, smoothing the page of the magazine with her palm and trying to keep her tone level. It wouldn’t do to pick a fight in the car, halfway to Cuernavaca. If they fought, maybe he’d toss her out. She’d be left to walk by the side of the road.
“I think my mom reads stuff like that. Nurse romances, yes, that’s it.”
Maite had read plenty of nurse romances, and she supposed this was similar. But it annoyed her to think that he was comparing her to his mother. She wasn’t that old. Her palm slid harder against the paper, the cheap ink smeared against her hand.
“What’s that name…Barbara…Barbara Cartland! Doesn’t she write that syrupy stuff?”
“It’s not syrupy. This one has an adventure. The hero is in a coma and now the heroine is going to have to rescue him. At least, I think she will. It’s not syrupy.”
“No?”
“There’s a scene. A scene with an Aztec sacrifice,” she said.
“That sounds different.”
There wasn’t, was there? No. The Aztec sacrifice was something Maite had dreamed. A stone altar and a woman lying upon it. Why, then, had she said that? It had been so lifelike, for a moment. That image. She even knew what the heroine was wearing: white, so the splash of blood upon her chest would be more vivid.
“It’s not kids’ stuff!” she said, her voice high-pitched, almost breaking.
He looked at her in surprise, and she felt mortified. She looked at her fingers, dark with the ink.
“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be rude.”
“No, no,” she said. “It’s fine.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face toward the window. Red and white. She saw red and white behind her eyelids, and when she opened her eyes again there was the gray sky. They sank into silence after that.
They arrived at Lara’s house at noon and rang the bell. A woman in her thirties, a scarf knotted around her neck, opened the door. She was wearing khaki trousers and a white blouse. It gave her the look of a European hunter on a safari. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Hi,” Maite said. “We’re looking for a journalist. For Lara.”
“I’m Jessica Laramie,” the woman said. “Everyone calls me Lara. And you are?”
“I’m Maite. And this is Rubén. Emilio Lomelí gave us your address.” Maite felt his name alone was like the key to a magical kingdom, which would open any door, but the woman looked at them curiously. Maite’s fingers were still a bit dirty from the ink, and she felt like placing her hands behind her back, hiding them.
Her dress didn’t have pockets so she couldn’t slide her hands into them and tuck them out of sight. It was an ugly dress, too. The journalist’s clothes looked simple but chic. Maite’s dress was dark navy, the collar reached her chin. Her mother had gifted it to her the year before. She had no idea why she’d worn it, and now…ah…her horrid hands.