I took a deep breath and closed the app. The future was way too uncertain to worry about. Better to concentrate on the present.
Our morning meeting was subdued. Nobody seemed willing to bring up problems, and we finished quickly. Walter locked himself in his office, and as I stood beside Estefani’s desk later in the morning I heard him on the phone, though I had no idea who he was talking to.
“Is it true, Manny?” Estefani asked in a low voice. “About you and Walter?”
I nodded.
“Wow, I would never have guessed he was gay. He’s so handsome and macho.” She looked at me. “Are you, like, the woman?”
I laughed. “It’s not like that.”
Walter’s door popped open. “I’m going out for a while,” he said, and he strode out of the trailer, only using the cane for balance. Estefani and I both watched him go, and I had a feeling the look of longing on her face was mirrored on mine.
Walter was back in time for the noon meeting, and he ran it as if there were no money problems at all, though I sensed an undercurrent of urgency when he stressed the need to finish warehouse two as soon as possible. “When are you projecting we’ll have our certificate of occupancy, Manny?” he asked.
I scrambled to pull the schedule up on my laptop, aware that everyone was watching me and waiting for my answer. “While we’re still young,” Walter said.
“I’m working on it,” I grumbled. “Right now the schedule is showing September first, but if it slips more than a day or two we’ll run up against Labor Day.”
“We can’t slip,” Walter said. “We need to accelerate. Ideas?” He looked around the table, but no one spoke up.
I took a deep breath and plunged in. “Right now we’re waiting for all the utilities to be complete to pour the slab,” I said. “Can we fast-track that—pour by quadrant instead of waiting to do it all at once?”
Demetrio, the concrete superintendent, spoke up. “It’s more expensive that way.”
“How much more?” Walter asked.
Demetrio borrowed a pencil from Adrian and did some quick calculations. “Maybe an extra thousand bucks.”
“Do it. We’re spending the bank’s money this week.”
Pierre, the plumbing super, had a couple of ideas, and soon we had a lively discussion going. By the time the meeting was over, it looked like we could push the opening date for warehouse two up to mid-August.
I expected Walter to praise me for my idea and for getting the ball rolling, but he went back to his office right after the meeting and closed the door again. Around three thirty, I heard him yelling at someone, though I couldn’t make out the words. I walked out to Estefani’s desk, and she looked worried.
We were standing there when Demetrio came in. He wasn’t much older than I was, but his skin was dark and leathery and his arms were wiry. “Without Camilo, the site work is starting to fall behind,” he said. “The jefe going to hire someone to replace him?”
A loud bang reverberated from Walter’s office, as if he’d thrown something against the wall. The three of us looked toward his closed door. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll ask him—once he comes out of his office.”
“Okay by me,” Demetrio said, backing out the front door.
I went back to my office, and the yelling subsided. But when Walter came to my door at five, his eyes were flashing with anger. “I want to get out of here.”
“Give me five minutes to finish what I’m working on,” I said, leaning over my laptop.
“Now. Or you can find your own way home.”
He stalked toward the front of the trailer, and I jumped up and grabbed my laptop. I carried it into the passenger seat of the car and finished the shutdown procedure as he backed out of the lot.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Christ. Could he be any more dramatic? Oh yeah, he was Cuban. He probably could. I kept quiet the whole way back to his townhouse, uncomfortable with the dark energy radiating from him.
Walter made a phone call while I heated up a couple of frozen dinners for us. I wished he’d talk to me more. If we were in a relationship, we ought to be able to share, right? He seemed calmer after dinner, so I said, “I spoke to Demetrio this afternoon. He’s worried the site work is slipping without Camilo. Are you going to hire a replacement?”
“How can I hire someone when I might have to shut the whole site down at the end of the week?” Walter asked. “Wake up and smell the coffee, Manny. This ship is going down. If you’re smart, you’ll bail out now.”
“I’m not giving up on you,” I said. “Do you want me to take over Camilo’s job?”
He barked a short laugh, and my pride was wounded.
“You’re a smart guy,” he said. “And I appreciate the offer. But honestly, you’ve still got a lot to learn before you can be a superintendent. No, I’ll have to do it, at least until I know if we’re going to continue.”
“But you have so much to do already.”
“So I’ll have to work harder.”
He shut himself up in the bedroom he’d converted to his office, leaving me to mope around the living room and think about all the things I’d done wrong in past relationships.
My first serious boyfriend was Doug, a construction project manager working on a new building on the FU campus. I still remembered the thrill of him teaching me to suck cock in his construction trailer. I was nineteen and he was forty, and I thought he was sex on wheels.
I never knew much about the rest of his life, and he always treated me like a kid. When his project at FU finished and he went on to another in North Miami Beach, he simply stopped calling me and ignored my phone messages and texts. I’d never met any of his friends or talked with him about anything more than sex or construction.
It took me a while to figure out that he had dumped me, so the pain was a gradual one. At first I was worried he was sick, or maybe angry with me over something. It wasn’t until I had a long conversation with one of my frat brothers that I figured out Doug had tossed me aside like a used condom.
After Doug I stuck to random hookups for a year, until I met a senior in marine engineering named Gary. He was an Anglo, like Doug, from Nebraska, and he was fascinated by my Latin background. He wanted to eat Cuban food, listen to salsa and merengue, drink Hatuey and rum. We blazed hot and heavy for a few months, until he took off to spend the summer on an engineering internship in Jamaica.
We e-mailed each other for the first month, but once again I was slow to realize he was over me, and by the time the ax had fallen, I was already getting over him. As with Doug, I’d learned little of Gary’s life outside of school—he was so interested in exploring my culture that we never talked about him.
Was there something selfish about me that kept me from engaging with a boyfriend? I felt that I had immersed myself in Walter’s world—but what did I know about him? He had opened up to me about his sexual history, but I’d never met any of his family, and he’d never even introduced me to the friends who’d come to the trailer.
When we were together, we talked about work and we had sex. Was that enough for a relationship? How could I consider myself his partner if he wouldn’t let me share his burdens? Was the ten years’ age difference that much of a barrier?
I wished I could talk to Walter about those questions, but I knew he was too caught up in his own problems. When he finally called me up to the bedroom, he was already in bed, and he was asleep before I finished in the bathroom.
Drama Queens
Wednesday morning, Walter’s mood hadn’t improved. We rode to the site in silence, and as soon as the meeting began he announced, “Starting this morning, I’m taking over for Camilo. I’m depending on all of you to help me out. It’s been a long time since I was out on a site full-time.”
He spent the day pushing the superintendents and the contractors. I hardly spoke to him. I was tempted to call or text Roberto to see if he was going to be able to provide Walter the financing, but I held back. I’d made the connection, and there was nothing more I could do. Besides, it sounded like Walter was looking for other sources of funds too.
That evening, on our way back to Walter’s, he said, “I’m going to be in depositions all day tomorrow, about the problems with Sal’s bank. Just the kind of crap I need now, when I’m trying to keep my business from going under.”
“Is there anything I can do to help you?”
He shook his head as he got out of the car. “I don’t know what they’re going to ask, or even if I’m in trouble for going along with Sal. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Walter, you can’t keep shutting me out. Tell me what’s going on.”
“You should go back to the Beach. Tonight.”
I looked at him, my mouth gaping, and I felt tears spring to my eyes. “You’re kicking me out?”
“Dolores called today and hinted around about my relationship with you. She didn’t come right out and say anything, but I have a feeling Camilo has been talking to her.”
“Why does it matter? You’re going to turn warehouse one over to Heriberto. You won’t have to deal with him anymore.”
Walter turned to me. “Dolores is a spoiled bitch, and she’s going to do everything she can to make my life hell. Which might include spreading rumors all around Miami—not only about my being gay. I can handle that. But about my hiring cute young boys to fuck them.”
His anger overcame him and he stopped talking.
“I’m not a boy,” I said. “I’m twenty-two years old. And if you and I want to fuck, it’s our business and nobody else’s.”
“Manny,” Walter said.
“At least let me stay tonight. I’ll drive my own car to work tomorrow and then go back to the Beach.” I looked at him. “Please, Walter?”
“You’re not making this any easier for me.” He sighed. “Fine.”
I scrambled out of the car before he could change his mind. We ordered a pizza, and when it arrived, we sat at the kitchen table with a couple of beers and ate.
After dinner Walter locked himself in the office again and made more phone calls. I packed up everything I’d brought with me so I could move back to the Beach the next day.
At ten o’clock he opened the door, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him. “We’d better get to bed,” he said. “Long day tomorrow.”
I went into the bathroom, and by the time I got out he was already tucked in, his dark curls resting on the pillow. I slipped in beside him, naked, and pressed against his back. My dick stiffened at the contact with his smooth, warm flesh, and I put my arm over him, my fingers seeking his nipple.
He pushed my hand away. “Not everything is about sex,” he grumbled.
“This is going to be my last night with you for a while. Can’t we make it special?”
He turned to face me. “Sometimes I forget how young you are.”
“Again, Walter? Come on, we’ve gone over this. I’m not a teenager, and there’s nothing illegal or immoral about us having sex. I’m ten years younger than you are—which is no big deal at all.”
“It’s not that. When I was your age, I was a horny bastard. It was easy for me to get girls to sleep with me. But sex never solved any of my problems.”
“That’s because you were having sex with women,” I said. “They don’t have the right equipment to make you happy.”
He sat up. “It’s not about the plumbing. I really don’t care where I stick my dick. A man’s mouth or a woman’s pussy. And one ass is like another.”
My dick wilted. “So I’m just convenient? You could be fucking Estefani? She’d like it, you know. She has a crush on you.”
“That’s not what I meant, Manny. Don’t go all drama queen on me.”
That really galled me. Walter Loredo calling me a drama queen. I got out of the bed and pulled on my dirty clothes. “You were right. I should go home.”
“Oh, come on, Manny. Come back to bed.”
I felt like my heart was breaking, but I grabbed my suitcase and walked out of the bedroom. “Fine, be that way!” I heard Walter call after me.
I held it together all the way home, but once I pulled into my parking space in the condo garage, I broke down and sobbed. Everything seemed to have crashed down around my head. Walter had admitted that he only saw me as a fuck buddy, interchangeable with any man or woman who crossed his path. And no matter how hard I had worked on the site, he still saw me as a junior staffer.
Which I was, I had to admit. I had only been out of college a couple of months. Who was I to think I could take over a job like Camilo’s? But Walter could have been nicer about rejecting my offer.
I wiped my eyes and took the elevator upstairs. Larry’s door was closed, and I heard him snoring. Gavin’s door was open, but he was out somewhere. I went into my own room and cried myself to sleep. When my phone alarm went off the next morning at six, I was tempted to roll over and go back to sleep. Fuck Walter Loredo anyway.
But then I decided I’d show him how professional I could be. I’d go back to work as if nothing had happened the night before. I had to hurry to get ready and beat the traffic, but I was at the site a few minutes before seven and began making coffee.
Walter rolled in as the last of the construction managers was sitting down at the conference table. “I’m going to be out of the office most of the day at meetings,” he said. I noticed he didn’t specify what kind of meetings, and wondered why he wouldn’t tell the managers about the depositions for the bank. Or was he doing something else? “Who has any issues we need to resolve?”
We hurried through the meeting and then dispersed. I expected Walter to pull me aside and say something about the night before—maybe even apologize. But instead he walked out to the site with the rest of the supers and left an hour later.
Though I’d had my heart broken by Doug and Gary, none of that pain compared to what I felt after Walter’s dismissal. I had a stomachache and a headache and a feeling of general lassitude. It was hard to motivate myself to do anything; all I wanted to do was mope and play games of computer solitaire.
It seemed like only a few days before, I’d had a glowing future ahead of me—I was getting hands-on experience at what I’d studied in school, and I had fallen in love with Walter Loredo, a feeling I thought was reciprocated.
Now what did I have? Unemployment looming. Walter had kicked me out of his house and stopped confiding in me. Our relationship was on life support.