I squeezed his hand. “I’m with you, then. Loyal employee at work. Do you think we’ll be able to be together at all?”
“Dolores has hired a private eye,” he said. “She thinks she can catch me screwing around with some other woman and use that to balance out her dalliance with the painter.”
“You don’t think he followed us to Naples, do you?”
He shook his head. “Back when Pepe and I made the arrangements, I told Dolores about this trip. She called Pepe and confirmed it. I know for a fact that he never told her that he had to back out. But I can’t have you spend time at my house. It’s too risky.”
“Can you come to my apartment?” I asked. “It’s a big building, and nobody has to know who you’re visiting.”
“We’ll have to see. But you know, we might both end up working late in the trailer when no one else is around…”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence for me to know what was on his mind. I smiled and turned to face out the window. At first glance, the land seemed barren and unappealing. But if you looked closer, you could find tiny pockets of beauty that sustain whole lives.
Domestic Drama
As we got close to civilization, my phone buzzed with calls and text messages, but I ignored them because I wanted my happiness to last. I could tell Walter was driving more slowly the closer we got to his townhouse. He finally turned in at the entrance, then pulled up a couple of houses away from his own.
“This is killing me,” he said, gripping the steering wheel. “All the way home I’ve been trying to think of a way around it, but I can’t.”
“It’s all right, Walter,” I said, putting a brave face on the pain I was feeling as well. “We’ll have our little stolen moments. And when the project is finished, and your divorce is finalized, we’ll put everything else behind us.”
“How’d you get to be so mature?” he asked.
“When I was twelve, we went on a school field trip to Dadeland Mall,” I said, turning to look at him. “They were building an extension, and of course our teachers wouldn’t let us go near it, but I kept looking at the men in hard hats, walking around with rolls of plans in their hands, and I just knew that was the right career for me.”
I sat back. “Unfortunately I couldn’t draw a straight line, so architecture wasn’t for me. But then I discovered construction management, and it turned out to be the key. Ever since I figured that out, I’ve been focused on whatever I had to do to make that dream come true.”
I reached for his hand, and when his joined mine, I squeezed. “It’s the same thing now. I see what I want, and I know what I have to do to get it. And it’s going to take a whole lot less time than four years of college.”
Before he could answer, I said, “I’ll get out here. Why don’t you drive past and open your garage door. Then I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” I hopped out of the SUV and grabbed my backpack. Without looking back, worried that I might turn into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife, I strode forward.
It wasn’t until I was in my car, waiting at a traffic light before I got on the highway, that I looked at my phone to see what I’d been missing.
A text that morning, which had come in while Walter and I were swimming, from Maria del Carmen:
C U @ home?
Then a message from my mother, soon after we left Naples, when we were in an area without cell service. Call her as soon as I could.
Another message a half hour later, followed by a text from Beatriz:
shit going down where are u?
Then another message from my mother.
Jesus, what was going on? Couldn’t these people leave me alone for a single day? I shut my phone off. I couldn’t deal with them and their dramas. I didn’t know whether I wanted to cry because I had left Walter behind, or revel in the joy of our weekend. So I blasted music all the way back to the Beach.
When I got home, Gavin and Larry were lounging in the living room, watching some reality show. “How was your romantic weekend?” Gavin asked.
“How’d you know it was romantic?” I said.
“Because you’ve got a dopey look on your face, and you’re walking funny, like you got well fucked.”
“I’m walking funny because I just spent a couple of hours in a car,” I said indignantly, though my ass did feel tender. I dumped my suitcase in my room and trooped back to the kitchen. Larry must have gotten paid, because the fridge was stocked with microbrews. I grabbed one and joined my roomies.
“It was pretty amazing,” I said when the show took a commercial break. “But it’s early days, and I don’t want to jinx things.”
“You went with that guy from the FU party, didn’t you?” Larry asked. “What was his name? Ricardo? Rolando? Roberto.”
“Not him,” I said, then took a swallow. “My boss. Walter.”
“Dude,” Gavin said, sitting up. He grabbed the remote and muted the TV show. “You had a dirty weekend with your boss?”
“There was nothing dirty about it!” I said. “It was amazing.”
“Dish,” Larry commanded.
I sketched in the outline—Walter’s divorce, the need to keep things quiet at work, the kiss at the trailer.
“How old is this dude anyway?” Gavin asked.
“Thirty-two. He’s like the youngest guy I’ve ever had the hots for, aside from the occasional college fooling around.”
“Thirty-two is kind of ancient, dude,” Larry said. “I mean, you were a little baby when he hit puberty.”
“Ick,” I said. “He’s not that old. Certainly not old enough to be my father.”
“Unless he developed really early,” Gavin said. “Is he hung?”
I wasn’t going to spill such intimate details, but I must have blushed because Larry crowed, “He must be! Look at Manny’s face!”
I grabbed the remote from Gavin and turned the sound back on. “Watch the program,” I said.
I had another beer and started to feel dozy, so I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I pulled my phone over to check the time and realized that I had never turned it back on the night before, when I’d checked my messages and decided not to answer them. Oh, well, I thought. Whatever domestic drama had been brewing at La Casa Garcia had probably blown over by then.
I didn’t have any clean Loredo polos, so I checked the shirts in my closet. Red? No. Emerald green? No. Pink? Hell to the no. I settled on a beige one that looked pretty nondescript and put a big note in the middle of my mirror that read DO LAUNDRY.
When I got to the trailer, I made the coffee like I usually did. When I came into the conference room with my tray of paper cups, Camilo said, “
Aquí está la guajira con el café
”—here’s the country girl with the coffee.
“I’m as close to a guajira as you’ll ever get,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. Camilo just gave me an evil-looking grin.
Walter came in, and I hoped he hadn’t heard Camilo’s comment. After the meeting, I did my regular walk-through of the site, checking progress against the schedule, then went back up to the trailer to make my changes. As I walked in, Estefani answered the phone.
“He’s right here,” she said. “One minute, please.” She put the call on hold. “Your mother on line two.”
I hurried to my office. Why was Mami calling me at work? Had someone seen Walter and me in Naples and spread the word along the Cuban coconut telegraph, all the way to my parents?
“Mami?”
“You have to talk to your sister,” she said in Spanish.
“Why?”
“Didn’t you listen to any of my messages? Ay, what kind of children have I raised! One of them ignores me and another one won’t leave me alone!”
Then I remembered all the messages and texts from the day before. “Slow down, Mami. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Maria del Carmen has left Hernan and moved back into her old room. And why? Because she’s not happy.” She pronounced that word,
feliz
, like it was the most terrible curse in the world. “Have I been happy all my life? Of course not. You would have to be an idiot to feel that way. But did I walk away from my husband? No! Not even when my parents told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life, that I would be ruined, that they would never talk to me again. How can she do this, Manny?”
I let her keep going until she ran out of steam. “Is Del there?” I asked when I had the chance.
“She’s at work. I have the baby here. I am too old to be a mother again, Manuelito.”
“You’ll always be a mother, Mami. I’ll go over to Sedano’s at lunch and talk to Del.”
“
Que Dios te guarde
,” she said.
Yeah, I was definitely going to need God’s help to deal with Del, I thought as I hung up. I tried to update the construction schedule, but my mind kept drifting. What was Del’s problem? I’d thought things were better between her and Hernan after I babysat that Saturday night, but that must not have been enough.
We were a Catholic family, but divorce wasn’t unheard of. Would it be a big deal if Del and Hernan broke up? It would be painful for both of them, and for little Fabiola, but it wasn’t the end of the world.
Walter Loredo was divorcing, and I’d already seen two couples who had married in high school get divorced; it was hard to find the right person, I guessed, if you weren’t yourself yet, if you still had a lot of changing and growing to do.
I itched to get off-site and visit Del, but had to wait till after our lunch meeting, which dragged on. The pipe Pierre was waiting for still hadn’t come in. Demetrio, the super in charge of all the concrete work, had turned back two trucks that morning with mix that didn’t meet our standards, and his crew was falling behind. The electrical super, Oscar, said the drawings for warehouse two were missing a step-down transformer to convert the high-voltage power that came in from the lines to low voltage for equipment use.
“Where do we stand?” Walter asked Oscar.
“I called the electrical engineer and verified the specs. Then I called our supplier, and they’re shipping one out today. Should be here in two days. But that will throw the schedule out of whack.”
“Manny, make sure you’re on top of that,” Walter said.
I nodded. Ruben, the HVAC superintendent, said that his work would be delayed while we waited for the transformer too. Walter groaned.
As soon as the meeting was over, I walked out to Estefani’s desk. “I’ve got to go see my sister. I won’t be gone long.”
“She okay? Your mom sounded pretty frazzled.”
“We’re Cuban,” I said. “Everything’s a drama.”
“Hey, I’m Ecuadorian. My family’s just as bad.”
I drove over to Sedano’s. “I already had my break,” Del said when I walked up to her at her register.
“Ask if you can take another one,” I said. “Mami sent me to talk to you.”
“
Cristo mío
!” She shook her head. “Give me ten minutes.”
“I’ll be in the café.” I bought myself a pineapple soda and sat down, and Del joined me as I was finishing.
“I wish I had someplace else to go,” she said, sliding into the chair across from me. “Can Fabi and I come stay with you, Manny?”
That was a horrifying thought—my Cuban sister in the same apartment with my randy roommates. After Gavin’s first casual trick, she’d be hotfooting it back to Westchester and all my secrets would be exposed. “No way. You wouldn’t want to live with us.”
“I could get accustomed to a fancy building with a doorman and a view of the bay. Why don’t we come over tonight?”
My mouth dropped open and she said, “I’m kidding, Manny. I’ll probably go back to Hernan in a couple of days. I just need to shake him up.”
“How?”
“He never does anything sweet for me anymore. No flowers, no chocolates. I’m more than just the maid and the babysitter.”
“You couldn’t have a conversation?” I asked.
“I’ve been trying to talk to him for ages. But he’s always too tired or hanging out with his friends or some other lame excuse.” She shook her finger at me. “When you settle down, Manny, remember there are two people in every relationship. All right?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I’ll make a note of it.”
She kicked me under the table. “Don’t be a goof.” She stood up and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Thanks for coming over, mi ’mano. I appreciate it.”
“Let me know if things get too hairy at home,” I said. “I’ll try to intervene.”
She waved at me and walked toward her register.
On my way back to work, I called Mami. “I spoke to Del. She’s trying to teach Hernan a lesson, make him pay attention to her.”
“This is not the way to deal with a husband,” she said. “
Se consigue más con una gota de miel que con un barril de hiel
.” You get more with a drop of honey than with a barrel of gall—the Spanish equivalent to the English phrase about catching flies with honey rather than vinegar.
“I’ll remember that next time I’ve got honey and vinegar,” I said. “Give Del some time, Mami.”
“I’ve already given that girl twenty years. Thank you for talking with her, Manuelito.”
“It’s what big brothers are for,” I said. “Adios, Mami.”
Weekend Plans
It was almost two o’clock by the time I got back into my office. I was so into my work that I didn’t notice the afternoon draining away until I looked at the clock just before five. I hoped that Walter would come by my office and ask if I could hang around late, but soon after I heard him saying good-bye to Estefani and the door closing behind him.
Before I left the trailer that evening, I stood outside his empty office and took a deep breath. He didn’t have to report his whereabouts to me. I had to get accustomed to the fact that for now, at least, I was just his employee, though I hoped we’d have at least a few moments together.
The next morning I walked out to warehouse one after the meeting, and it felt weird, because it was the first time I’d been inside since the roof went on. Unshaded bulbs connected directly to long cords hung from the beams and swayed in any breeze. As the trades moved in, the concrete floor had become a maze of framework and stockpiles of materials.
Steel studs were bolted into tracks laid on both the floor and the ceiling, laying out the office and the single restroom. It was fascinating to recognize details from the drawings coming to life and the way my brain was able to connect the two.
I was back in my office shortly before the noon meeting when Estefani buzzed me that Walter needed me in his office.