There are so many other questions Lore wants to ask: Do Marta and Sergio talk, really talk? Are they still curious about each other? Is it possible to avoid that horizonless plateau in which you do and say the same things out of boredom or comfort or fear, and does Marta think you can love one man and still feel something for another?
Because Lore does love Fabian. Yet, in the month he’s been gone, the landscape of her heart has changed. Even now she can feel it, her heart, broken up into many windows and doors, each one opening to a different room, a different world. Her heart is shape-shifting, with some of those doors and windows locking and shrinking, preventing entry into worlds gone spooky with reeds, glinting garbage can lids, ripped curtains, broken things; while others slide open bit by bit, allowing access to rooms that have long since grown stale but quickly begin to gleam; just a peek, her heart says, open that door wide enough to press your eye to the crack, to see what is there, or what could be there.
She glances at her watch again. Almost ten. Andres will be expecting her call.
Lore finishes her wine and gives an exaggerated yawn. Marta takes Lore’s glass and rinses them both, as if this is her house.
“See you on Sunday?” Marta asks at the door, slipping her slouchy tan purse over her shoulder. “Don’t forget the pan dulce for Mami’s birthday.”
Lore draws her sister close. “What would I do without you?”
The cuates are spending the night at a friend’s house, and Lore prepares for her call with Andres like a date in reverse: she uses her Ponds cold cream to remove her makeup, pulls the scrunchie from her hair, rummages in her drawer for the kind of nightgown she used to wear for Fabian on special occasions. There aren’t many of these, and they’re slightly too small, the satin snagged in a few places by the rough interior of her wooden dresser.
She squints at the calling card in amber lamplight, finger trembling as she stabs the endless digits into the phone. She’s told Andres she’s having issues with the phone line, incoming calls not coming through. She has no idea if this is plausible, but he didn’t question it. In the meantime, she’s given him the phone number of the pay phone outside the bank in case he tries to reach her one night anyway. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’ll do until she thinks of something better.
“Hello?” Andres answers, the way he always does, in husky, slightly amused English.
Lore smiles. “Hello.”
“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten.” He makes it sound like a confession, and also teasing, sexy.
“Never.” As always when she talks to him, Lore’s senses stagger to life. She can feel the seductive curl of his voice, taste the licorice darkness.
“How was a part of your day?” he asks. It’s another thing they do now, sharing one precise piece of their day, something surprising or moving or funny. She loves how it makes her look for those moments, preserving them so they take on a kind of magic.
“I spoke to a prospective customer,” she says. “The owner of a big freight company. He’s looking to open a jumbo CD, upward of a hundred thousand dollars.”
“That sounds promising,” Andres says, questioning. It’s not the type of day-piece they usually share.
“It’s good for something else, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, did I mention he’s from DF?”
His breath hitches. “Does that mean . . . ?”
“I have a meeting with him next Friday.”
Andres is quiet for a few moments. “How long are you staying?”
“The bank booked the tickets,” Lore says, “so I leave Saturday.” The regret in her voice is real, but she’s also relieved. Until tonight, she wasn’t even sure she was going to tell him. Talk is not touch, after all. If they were to see each other in person . . .
“That gives us Friday night,” Andres says with a tinge of wickedness. “That’s if—you’re not having dinner with the client, are you?”
“I am, unfortunately.”
“Of course. Then—a nightcap? Or . . . Maybe you’d like to see the view from my apartment?” He laughs. “That was terrible.”
Lore laughs, too. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she teases, though of course they’re already ahead of themselves, or perhaps twelve years behind. She squeezes her eyes shut at the thought of him ever learning about Fabian, how completely she’s misled him.
No, not misled—deceived.
“Fair enough,” Andres says, though the wickedness hasn’t disappeared, and she feels a quick, painful-sweet pang of longing between her legs. “Tell me,” he says, as if he can read her mind, “what are you wearing?”
And so she describes the satin nightgown, the lace that falls at the tops of her thighs, the deep V at her chest where she dips her finger, the swell of her breasts. She doesn’t tell him about the snag, or the way the satin stretches tight over her belly, or how the lace has become descosido at the edges. She doesn’t tell him that her panties are faded green cotton. When he asks, “Are you wet?” she swallows hard, slips a finger between her legs. She’s never used her own hands as proxies for someone else’s desire. She is surprised by how desirable she feels.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“I want to taste you,” he says, and Lore closes her eyes, giving in to the fantasy once more.
Despite the occasional loud calls to maintain El Azteca, to preserve it—as if a neighborhood can be pickled, held forever in a jar—Lore can feel its crumble. The neighborhood is Laredo’s proud great-grandfather who insists on living alone, though his bones are already turning to ash.
Her parents refuse to leave. This is where they were born, three streets in either direction, and this is where they say they will die. Even though I-35 now cuts them off from downtown—and even though downtown itself is dying—Lore understands. Home is home.
“Are we almost there?” Gabriel asks from the back seat. “I’m hungry. Can I get a concha?”
“You can see we’re almost there.” Lore glances in the rearview mirror to make sure he hasn’t touched the white Holloway’s box. “And no. Not until after lunch.”
“What are we eating?” Gabriel asks.
“What do we always eat at Belo and Bela’s?” Lore asks, anticipating the platters of fajita, golden barbecued chicken, and chicharrones in all their crispy guilty pleasure.
“Well, then, we have a problem.” Gabriel snickers. “Mateo’s a vegetarian now.”
Lore laughs, turning onto her parents’ street. “Since when?”
Mateo grasps the passenger seat to pull himself forward, straining against his seat belt. “Mom, do you know how they kill cows?”
“Very humanely,” Lore says, though she isn’t sure of this at all. She’d prefer not to think about it.
“No!” Mateo says. “They’re supposed to be dead before they’re cut up, but sometimes they’re not, and they get their tails and hooves chopped off and their bellies sliced open, and they’re still alive! Did you know that, Mom?”
“I—” Lore is thrown by the bloody imagery. She parks on the street behind Marta and Sergio’s truck and turns around to look at Mateo. “I’m sure that’s not true. Where did you hear that?”
“It is true!” Mateo says, insulted. “They’re scared and hurting, and did you know all of that goes into the meat? When we eat meat, we’re literally eating their suffering.” He shudders.
Gabriel has been uncharacteristically quiet. Now he says to Lore, “We couldn’t sleep the other night, so we watched TV in the game room for a while. You were talking to Dad on the phone.” With a smirk, he adds, “Mateo had nightmares.”
“Did not!” Mateo says, jabbing his thumb into the seat belt buckle to release it. “Anyway,” he says to Lore, “that’s why. You shouldn’t eat meat, either. No one should! Not until they treat the animals better.”
It takes a moment to register: Fabian never calls after the boys’ bedtime. She must have been talking to Andres. The cuates could have overheard her! What if they innocently mentioned the call to Fabian?
“Okay.” Lore takes the key from the ignition, shaky. “You don’t have to eat meat if you don’t want to, Mateo.”
“Is Belo going to make fun of me?” he mumbles.