Suddenly the nerves are too much, and I turn, looking out to the direction of the sea. I can’t see it, but I can hear the sound of the waves crashing along the Malecón.
Pablo’s voice comes from somewhere behind me in the dark night. “You missed a button. On your dress.”
I swallow.
“May I?” he asks.
I nod, my mouth dry. My mother would be thoroughly appalled to see her daughter standing outside a party such as this one, a strange man buttoning her dress. My mother would be thoroughly appalled, and yet I turn, lifting my hair, bringing it to the side, baring my nape to him.
A tremor slides through my body.
Pablo steps behind me, close enough that his fingers brush against the line of tiny buttons running down my spine. It feels like an eternity before his fingers slip the button through the slim hole, setting it to rights. It could be my imagination, but I swear his fingers twitch against me, or perhaps it’s my own body that shudders. There’s a novelty to this that catches me off guard. He is both old and new at once, and I can’t ignore the voice inside me that’s pushed out my mother’s now—
Pay attention. This is important. He is important.
Pablo releases a deep breath, stepping back. I turn to face him.
There’s surprise on his face, the kind that sneaks up on you and isn’t entirely welcome.
“You’re very young, aren’t you?”
The words themselves are tinged with the faintest hint of disapproval, but I can’t shake the feeling that the sentiment is directed more to himself than me.
I swallow, tilting my head, refusing to be cowed. “Nineteen.”
Nineteen and a pampered bird in a gilded cage.
He gives a soft little laugh, his hand running through his hair. It’s a bit long around the edges, unkempt, as though it’s been some time since he visited a barber. It’s a stark contrast to his clean-shaven face, his tanned skin at odds with an attorney’s days spent indoors behind a desk. My father knows a host of attorneys, men who bow and scrape before him. Does he know this one?
“Nineteen is very young.”
He says the words more for himself than me, an aside in an internal conversation he seems to be having.
I have older siblings; my interactions with men I’m interested in may be limited, but I’m well versed in the art of standing up for myself when I need to.
“And you?”
I toss the question out like a challenge.
“Thirty.”
The number isn’t shocking, nor is the age difference. My mother stopped celebrating birthdays ages ago, but the chasm between my own parents is impossible to miss.
“Not that old,” I say, even though I doubt he’s merely speaking of physical age. I feel new and shiny next to him; in contrast, he’s interesting—a sanded-down veneer covered in telltale signs of experience.
“Perhaps.” He’s silent for a moment, that word a door shutting on me, the conversation, whatever this is.
“I should go,” I say, taking a step forward, away from him.
Pablo’s head bows slightly. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t move.
“I shouldn’t—” His voice breaks off and he shakes his head. “I’m in a foul mood tonight. I didn’t come here looking for a party, only to speak to Guillermo, and I certainly didn’t come here expecting to meet you. That’s no excuse for being rude.” He takes a deep breath. “A friend died recently. I came to talk to Guillermo about it. I’m—” He pauses again, as though he’s searching for the right words. “I’m at a loss,” he finally says.
“I’m sorry about your friend.” My feet, those shoes that seem filled with ideas and ambition, take a step toward him, then another.
I rest my hand on his arm, the hem of my dress brushing against his trousers, a hint of tobacco and spice filling my nostrils. The body beneath my palm is all tightly coiled strength. His eyes are wide.
This—touching a man I barely know—is wholly inappropriate. Everything about this evening has firmly teetered away from respectability, and he’s right, he was a bit rude earlier. I should go inside, find my sisters, and return home. This man isn’t one of the tame boys my parents have trotted out in front of me as suitable escorts. He possesses an edge even I can’t miss.
There’s that flame, licking at my skirts again.
“Was he a good friend?”
“He was a good man,” Pablo answers after a beat. He takes a step back, putting distance between us, doing the appropriate thing when logic and reason seem to have picked their skirts up in one hand and fled.
It’s funny how that little step can change everything, but it does. It’s as though he cedes territory, and in his retreat, a burst of courage fills me. Whatever this is, he’s equally unsettled, and some entirely feminine urge I didn’t realize I possessed has me straightening my shoulders, tilting my head, meeting his gaze, my lashes fluttering closed, happy to play the coquette if only for the span of this evening.
A rueful grin covers his mouth, a glint of admiration in his eyes. His hand drifts to his heart, a hint of mockery in his demeanor. “You must forgive me. I fear I’m at a loss for words. No one ever warned me about the dangers of debutantes.”
“And how many debutantes have you known?” I ask, measuring my tone against his in an effort to keep things light between us, even though there’s sincerity in the question.
You learn fairly early on that there are men who will attempt to court you because of your last name, because your father is power and they want to grasp it in their greedy hands, because they dream of wealth, and slipping a ring on your finger is the easiest way to obtain it. I don’t sense that he’s such a man, but the impulse to be wary is there just the same.
“None.”
A flutter kicks up in my stomach.
I really should go inside.
“Am I dangerous?” I test the word out and decide I like the taste and sound of it.
His expression turns somber. “I have a feeling you just might be.”
The flutter takes flight.
“I should go inside,” he says, echoing my earlier words.
He doesn’t move.
We both stare at each other, unblinking, the ocean roaring in the background, my heart thundering in my chest. Now I understand a bit better what drives Beatriz and Isabel, how they can throw caution to the wind for one night of freedom. I’m curious in a way I haven’t been before, curious and perhaps just a little bit reckless.
Pablo looks pained as the question falls from his lips. “Will you meet me tomorrow? By the Malecón?”
“Yes.”
chapter five
Marisol
I sleep longer than intended, the sheets worn and soft, the mattress surprisingly comfortable. The afternoon sunlight has dimmed by the time I wake. I reach for my cell phone, the limited Cuban telecommunications connectivity rendering it virtually useless but for the clock display—it’s almost eight o’clock in the evening. I napped for three hours.
It’s strange to be so separated from the rest of the world, from my sisters, my friends, my editor, but that’s part of the Cuban experience, I suppose, adding to the sensation that I truly have journeyed to the land of my grandmother’s memories, firmly walled off from my life back home in Miami. There are a limited number of places where you can get Internet here, and even then it’s unreliable at best; there is no service in private homes, and everyone told me to expect to be cut off for the week I was staying with the Rodriguez family. My cell service doesn’t work, either, so it’s just Cuba and me.