Rubén was nice to her during their lunch too. He paid for the tacos and their Cokes, and they had a pleasant, simple conversation. When they got back to the city, Rubén went straight for Sócrates’s building, but as much as he pressed the buzzer, no one came down.
“Maybe he’s at Asterisk,” Rubén said, and they walked around the corner, to a pay phone. Rubén called, but Sócrates wasn’t there either.
“What now?”
“We come back tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow’s Monday. I’ve got work tomorrow. Don’t you?”
“Damn it, that’s right,” Rubén muttered. “I’m sure I can take off early. What about you? Can you get off around one p.m.?”
He looked at her eagerly. “Yes,” Maite said, thinking she could always make up an illness. She hated Mondays, anyway. Secret Romance was the reason she got up some weeks. There had been days when she could have stayed in bed forever. It’s not as if she would have missed anything.
The lawyers never came in on time, and they often cut their days short. She figured if they got away with such unprofessional behavior, she could invent a flimsy excuse without a shred of guilt.
“I can pick you up outside your office if you give me the address; that way we can get here faster. Hey, I need to stop by my place to get clean clothes, do you mind? It’ll take five minutes,” he said.
“Why do you need clothes?”
“I figure I can crash on your couch again, for your own safety. But I’ll have to change in the morning.”
“You can’t live on my couch eternally.”
“Maybe until we talk to Sócrates. I don’t know, I don’t feel right about leaving you alone.”
I’m always alone, she thought. But…again, why not? Why shouldn’t he spend another night over if he wanted to? She could cook something. She could pretend she was making dinner for a good friend. It probably wasn’t a big deal for him, this popping up in a random woman’s house and spending the night there.
They drove to the guesthouse where he roomed. Rather than wait for him in the car, Maite went with Rubén, curious to see where he lived, though the moment she walked in she thought about stepping outside again, because a couple of young men were walking their way and greeted him, throwing her a perplexed look.
She probably didn’t look like the sort of person who visited the guesthouse, not in her prim, ugly dress. She didn’t look like Leonora, who was pretty; she didn’t even look like Jackie, who seemed interesting. She looked like a finicky aunt.
“This way,” Rubén said, and she followed him down a hallway and into his room.
It was very small and plain. By the bed Rubén kept a cheap bookcase piled high with thick tomes. There was no bathroom and no phone, though he told her the landlady sometimes let them use the phone in the living room if they promised to be quick about it. He had a window, but the view was of a low, damaged brick wall circling the property next door. The neighbors had a chicken coop, but all she could see was a single sad rooster sitting outside of it, all alone.
She wondered if Leonora had ever been in that room. Rubén’s bedspread was green and orange, and she ran a hand across it. Did Leonora sleep here? Did she bump into some of the men they’d seen before in the hallway? Did they also stare at her, looking perplexed?
“Have you lived here long?” she asked.
Rubén opened a drawer and tossed a shirt into a canvas bag. “Almost since I moved to Mexico City. The rent’s fair, and the landlady’s cooking’s decent too.”
“Where are you from?”
“Guerrero,” he said, folding a pair of trousers.
“You ever think about going back?”
“Maybe. There’re guerillas there. Real guerillas.”
“Are there? Isn’t it all bandits?”
“You really don’t read the papers, do you?” he asked. He didn’t sound scornful, surprised maybe, but it made her frown all the same. “They’re in the sierra. They can’t get them there. Genaro Vázquez Rojas, he’s the real deal. And Lucio Cabañas. They’re going to change the country; they’ll overthrow these bastards of the PRI.”
“You’ll end up in jail if you keep talking like that.”
He laughed. “So you don’t know anything about anything, but you know that?”
“Everyone knows that.”
“You’re probably not wrong, but what’s the other option?”
“Does Leonora want to join a guerilla and live in a place like that?” Maite asked, and she remembered Leonora’s apartment, her pretty dresses, the red sheets and expensive bottles of wine.
But he hadn’t heard her or didn’t bother answering, instead tossing a couple more things into his bag. “Ready,” he said. “All packed.”
In no time they were back at her apartment. She went to feed the cat. Rubén asked her why she didn’t bring the cat into her apartment, so she didn’t have to be walking into Leonora’s place three times a day.
“It’d be easier. But I don’t know. I don’t like cats,” she admitted.
She supposed if Leonora didn’t return soon she’d have to do something about the damn animal. At least Rubén was the one who paid for the cat food when they stopped at the supermarket to get a few grocery items. She preferred buying her fruits and vegetables at the tianguis because you could haggle there, but there had been no chance of that, so they ended at a Superama.
“Maybe I can bring the cat over here in the morning, I don’t know,” she said wearily.
“You don’t have to. It was a suggestion.”
She took off her shoes and sat on the couch, rubbing her feet. She felt tired, although they hadn’t done much that day. It was the excitement of the trip, she supposed. He’d sleep there that night, then they’d talk to Sócrates…and then what? This situation couldn’t go on forever. Chasing after some girl…and there was that man, Anaya, and whoever had beat up Rubén’s friend from Asterisk. Anaya might show his face around her office again. That might be embarrassing. Or dangerous.
“I’m going to put on a bit of music,” she said and went into her atelier.
Rubén followed her, looking at Maite as she fiddled with her records, unsure of whether she should pick an old-fashioned bolero or attempt something newer.
“You have a huge record collection.”