Delia's Gift

  Later, while crashing a party for Ignacio’s sister at his home, Sophia and her friends deliberately stirred up Ignacio and his friends. Sophia told them Bradley was in that same house with another girl he was seducing. They left the party and went looking for him, and when one of Ignacio’s friends threw Bradley through a window, he was cut badly and bled to death before any help arrived.

  Ignacio had faked his own death in the desert to throw off the police pursuit, and I had kept the secret, dreaming of us being reunited, even when I was seeing Adan Bovio. I was sure this had angered Fani. She loved being a matchmaker, and I had never revealed my secret correspondence with Ignacio and his existence to her. I thought she was more annoyed about that than anything.

  My cousin Sophia had found out about my planned rendezvous with Ignacio in Mexico and secretly had alerted the police, not even warning her own brother. Ignacio was arrested moments after we had met in the village. Despite my emphatic denials, he thought I had been the one to arrange his apprehension in return for some generous reward that would enable me to continue living the rich, high life in America. Afterward, he wouldn’t respond to any of the letters I had sent to him in prison.

  All of us almost went to prison. Tía Isabela had to get political help from Señor Bovio and some of her own powerful friends to intercede for Edward, Jesse, and me so we could return and not be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a criminal. But in saving us, she had demanded that Edward have nothing more to do with me. She was always jealous of our relationship. Earlier, she had forced me to spy on Edward to confirm that he and Jesse were lovers. It had almost destroyed my relationship with Edward until he discovered what she had done.

  Mi tía Isabela had continually threatened to have the authorities prosecute me and his companion, Jesse Butler, if Edward disobeyed. He and Jesse had been very upset with me for not having told them the truth, but Edward could never hold a grudge against me. He had simply wanted to protect me and Jesse, so he obeyed his mother. We hadn’t spoken since the day he left to return to college.

  I had been returned immediately to a servant’s existence in mi tía Isabela’s hacienda and had been sent back to public school instead of the private school. Sophia had soaked up the pleasure of lording things over me again. I had plodded along, just counting the days until my eighteenth birthday, but Adan Bovio had come around to ask me on a date. Once Adan had learned about Ignacio and my involvement, I thought he would not want to see me anymore. His father was running for U.S. senator, and I imagined he was not happy about his son being involved with me.

  Of course, I had been surprised and reluctant when he appeared. I had been embarrassed about not telling him the truth about my relationship with Ignacio. However, I couldn’t drive him away. Adan had been so sincere and loving, and my aunt had pressured me, telling me this was my final opportunity for a decent life. I knew all she wanted was to continue climbing the social ladder herself.

  Adan had invited me on his boat again. That had led to a terrible disaster when we were caught in a windstorm and he was fatally injured. I had thought my life in America was surely over, even when I realized I was pregnant with Adan’s child.

  Now, after all of this, here I was in Adan’s mother’s room, listening to his father’s plans to make my pregnancy easier.

  “Sí, sí, I know all about that fiasco in Mexico,” Señor Bovio said. He shuffled the air between us as if the words still lingered. “We won’t discuss it. What’s done is done. I’ll see about Fani,” he added. “Is there anyone else with whom you are friendly or have been friendly, girls at the public school, perhaps?” He raised his eyebrows. “We should be very careful about whom we invite to this house.”

  “No one at the moment, señor. However, I do want to finish my schooling and get my high school diploma,” I said. “Someday I hope to go to school to be a nurse.”

  “Sí, that’s a good thought. You should pursue a career. I’ll get you into a very good nursing college. A friend of mine is the president of an excellent one on the East Coast.”

  “East Coast?” I smiled. “With a baby to care for, it will be some time before I am able to attend a nursing school, señor, but there are surely ones not far from here.”

  “Sí, you are right. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. As you have said, you still have to get your high school diploma. I told you at the clinic that I would look into home schooling or some tutoring. Don’t worry about it. Leave it all up to me. It’s nothing for me to arrange someone qualified to come here and get the job done.”

  “But really, I could attend the public school and…”

  “No,” he said sharply, and then took a breath to simmer down and smile again. “That would be unnecessary and foolish under these circumstances.”

  “I have only a month of school remaining, and I’m not much more than two months’ pregnant, señor.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want you mixing with so many people, people from much poorer conditions, unsanitary conditions. You know yourself how some of those schoolmates of yours in the public school live. They bring in diseases, flu, and now, with your being pregnant…well, it’s not necessary to take any of those risks. I’ll look into it for you. I’ll get you all the books you need, everything. Don’t worry. I’m very friendly with the commissioner of education. I can make these things happen. Do not think of them again.”

  I saw that these, too, were words inscribed in concrete. It was futile to argue about it. Maybe he thought I would find another boyfriend at school, even while I was pregnant, and run off to live far away with my baby.

  “Whatever you think best, señor.”

  “Sí, good. The doctor will be here this evening after his regular duties,” he said. “He’ll check you out, and we’ll go slowly from there. In the meantime, I’ll have them prepare something for you to eat for lunch. You can make yourself comfortable. You can wear anything you find that will fit you until we get you your own new clothes. You will see that much of what is here has barely been used. As Adan used to say, my wife was a clothes junkie, and you’re not far from her size. She was about your height, and you have a similar figure. There are pictures…” He waved at some of the framed photographs. “I have many more in my office downstairs, her films, her photo shoots. You can see them later.”

  He smiled and just stared at me as if I were some window through which he could look back at a happier past.

  “She wasn’t much older than you are when we first met,” he said, just above a whisper.

  “Gracias, señor,” I replied, bringing him out of his musing.

  His smile dimmed and faded like a light slowly going out. He shook himself as if he had just felt a chill. “Sí. Let me see about the lunch. Just rest,” he told me, and started out of the suite.

  “One more thing, Señor Bovio.”

  He paused.

  “When you came for me back at the clinic this morning, you promised you would take me to my village in Mexico so I could visit my parents’ and my grandparents’ graves.” I smiled. “You even joked about flying me in a helicopter.”

  He nodded. “Sí. I’ll look into it, but first, let’s be sure the doctor thinks it’s okay.”

  “Why shouldn’t it be okay, señor? I’m not a fragile person, even though I’m pregnant. Mi madre worked in the soybean fields until she was into her ninth month.”

  He took a step toward me. “That’s true, Delia. Women did do that and still do that now back there. They have to in order to put food on the table, but we don’t have to do that. And no one ever talks about the miscarriages and the babies born dead or sick. I’m sure you’re not fragile, but why not be cautious, Delia? You have to look after the welfare of more than yourself now, no? You wouldn’t want to do anything that could result in a disaster, would you? You would never forgive yourself. Besides, it won’t be that much longer. What are a few more months in your life? You’re young. Am I right, Delia? Well?” he insisted when I didn’t immediately acquie
sce.

  “Sí, señor.”

  “Good,” he said. “Then we agree.” He flashed another smile and was gone before I could say another word.

  Maybe he was right, I thought. Maybe I was being selfish to think otherwise. And besides, I was certainly not suffering. I laughed at my good fortune. I was sure mi tía Isabela wouldn’t have sent me home first class. At this moment, if Señor Bovio hadn’t come to see me, I would be traveling and bouncing on some smelly, old bus on a dirt road in Mexico, working my way back to who knew what.

  Look where you are instead, Delia Yebarra, I told myself.

  I gazed about at the beautiful furnishings, the velvet drapes, the thick, soft carpet, and the enormous vanity table with wall mirrors. Actually, there were mirrors everywhere, even on the ceiling. It was the suite of someone who was in love with her own beauty, I thought, keeping in mind that Señor Bovio’s wife had been a movie actress.

  I rose and looked into the walk-in closet. There was a wall of mirrors in there as well. It looked as if there were acres and acres of clothing hanging on the racks. I could see tags dangling from garments she had never worn. I had never seen so many shoes in one person’s possession. Shelves filled with them went up to the ceiling. There was surely double the number that Tía Isabela had, and there were wigs, all lengths and colors and styles, neatly hanging on a wall. Perhaps Adan’s mother had needed all of this to attend so many celebrity functions and public-relations events.

  Yet there was another consideration. As beautiful as all of this was, and as convenient as Señor Bovio would make everything for me, I couldn’t help wondering whether or not I would do more harm than good by staying. In my heart of hearts, I still believed that the evil eye had attached itself to my destiny ever since I had first left Mexico. The ojo malvado was always there to work a curse just when things looked good. I remained convinced that everyone who got too close to me suffered. My cousin Edward had lost an eye in a car accident when he rushed out to get Bradley Whitfield for attacking me. Ignacio was now languishing in a prison, sentenced to six years. Adan had been killed on the boat. Perhaps I was better off returning to the poor village in Mexico and accepting my fate. Perhaps it would be better for everyone if I just slipped away and made my way home.

  As I gazed out the window at the gardens, the tennis courts, and the pool, I heard my poor Mexican village call to me. I could hear the whispered pleading, Come back, Delia. Come home, and accept who you are. Stop trying to fight fate. You cannot hold back the tide.

  But then I remembered the terrible pain in Señor Bovio’s face at the hospital when he learned that his son had died. He was a shell of a person whose soul had gone off to be with his son’s. The realization that his son’s child was growing inside me brought his soul back to him and filled him with renewed hope. How could I run off and leave him like some rich fruit dying on the vine? How could I be so cruel? How could I be so selfish, especially when he was doing so much to make me comfortable and to ensure the health and welfare of my baby?

  No, Delia, I told myself. You must learn how to take advantage of good fortune when it comes to you and not dwell on memories of sadness and defeat.

  I thought of heading to the bathroom to take a shower, freshen up, and get into different clothing. Because of all there was to choose from, I was sure I would find something to wear. For a while at least, as I went back to the closet and sifted through some of the garments, my attention was taken off everything else. I felt like a little girl in a candy store told to take whatever she wanted.

  But then I heard mi tía Isabela’s unmistakable voice. She was just at the bottom of the stairway, arguing with Señor Bovio. I stepped out of the closet and moved closer to the double doors that had been left slightly open and heard her say, “Are you mad, Ray? Why would you bring her here? The girl had a nervous breakdown and was in a clinic.”

  “I am not bringing only her. I am bringing my son’s child.”

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous. Let me send her back where she belongs and get her out of everyone’s hair once and for all. I should never have sent for her after her parents died. She doesn’t belong here.”

  “My son’s child does not belong in some backward Mexican village to grow up uneducated and live like some peon,” he countered angrily. “You didn’t think you did, and you were willing to defy your father to pull yourself up and out. Should I remind you of the things you told me? How you described this village to which you want me to send my grandchild?”

  Those words and his tone obviously took the wind out of her sails. She mumbled something, and the next thing I heard was her coming up the stairway. She was wearing one of her pairs of sharp, high-heeled shoes that gave her the staccato footsteps I knew all too well. They were usually the drumbeats of her anger and rage. I backed away from the door.

  Despite quickly feeling as though I had been taken to a fortress because of the walled-in property, the gates, and the security guards, and despite all the ways I was being insulated from the outside world, the arrival of mi tía Isabela was still terrifying.

  When she had found out from the clinic doctor that I was pregnant, it seemed to please her and to justify her sending me off. Her big threat was that she would not arrange for an abortion. She was surprised when I told her that was fine, that I didn’t want one, but she looked happy about that as well. She knew that being an unwed mother would make my life even more miserable back in Mexico.

  “Fine. Be pregnant. I’ll make arrangements immediately for your return. Get yourself prepared for your life as a peasant. Go back to speaking Spanish,” she had told me.

  She had started to leave when I stood up and defiantly replied, “The truth in any language is still the truth, and the truth is that you are the one who suffers, Tía Isabela. You have no family. You will suffer all three deaths the same day your body dies, but don’t worry, I’ll light a candle for you.”

  I was referring to our belief that we die three times, once when our bodies die, once when we’re interred, and finally when we’re forgotten.

  She had just walked out after that. And then, before she could have me sent away the following morning, Señor Bovio had come to see me and had taken me off to be here with him.

  Now she was back, surely frustrated and annoyed, which made her more of a threat, more like a scorpion. She was coming to sting me in whatever way she still could. I could hear it in the clacking of her footsteps on the hallway’s marble floor.

  I retreated to the chair at the vanity table, and a moment later, she stepped into the bedroom suite. She was dressed as elegantly as ever, wearing one of her favorite wide-brimmed Palm Springs hats and one of her designer suits. As usual, her face was caked in the makeup she took hours to perfect before she set foot out of her house. She looked about the bedroom suite, shaking her head.

  “How ironic that he put you in this bedroom,” she began. “He never let me in here, never unlocked the door when I came to this hacienda.”

  She paused and stepped farther in so she could continue to drink in everything she could see in the suite.

  “I imagine he hasn’t changed a thing all these years,” she muttered. “And this obsession with black panthers just because she played one in a horror film. Idiotic.” She sniffed the air. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he sprays her favorite perfume periodically to keep the scent of her alive.”

  “You are smelling the fresh roses, Tía Isabela.”

  “Really?” She laughed. “Men and their perverted secrets and weaknesses. They’re such fools. She betrayed him, made him look like a cuckold, and he still worships her memory.”

  She was referring to the stories about Señor Bovio’s wife having affairs with actors and directors. Supposedly, she had been killed in an automobile accident in France while she was on some rendezvous with the director of the film she was shooting. The director lived and, of course, denied the stories, but I sensed that even Adan had come to believe they were true.

  She turned to m
e, nodding her head with a look of pity and disgust. “You’re such a fool, too, Delia. Can’t you see?” she said, raising her hands and spreading her arms. “He’s put you in a tomb, a museum. Why has he kept all this? Did he expect his wife to have some miraculous resurrection?” She made a guttural noise that sounded like a growl. “It makes me so damn angry to think he led me to believe he might ask me to marry him when all the while, he was still married to this…this illusion. I can tell you this,” she said, waving her hands as if she were driving away flies, “if he had married me, I would have torn this room apart and redone it from top to bottom.”

  She nodded at it all as if she thought the furniture was trembling at her threat. Then she turned her attention back to me and spoke in a softer, almost loving tone.

  “I know you don’t trust anything I say and especially any advice I might give you, but you had better heed me, Delia Yebarra. You’re playing in my world now. Get on the first bus out of here, and go home. Go back to the village in Mexico, where you belong.

  “No matter what Señor Bovio tells you, no matter how rich and expensive the gifts he lavishes on you are, make no mistake about it. He still believes his son is dead because of you. He thinks you bewitched him. If Adan hadn’t come back for you, he would never have been on that boat that day, and if you hadn’t lost control of the steering, he might not have suffered such a terrible accident. In the days following Adan’s death, Señor Bovio muttered all these things to me repeatedly.

  “And don’t think his priest talked him out of them,” she added. “There’s no forgiveness in him. He has a bloodline that goes back to the Aztecs. He lives for vengeance. I know him through and through, Delia. You,” she said, now stabbing her right forefinger at me, “are in for a terrible time. Go home before you suffer some horrible fate.”

  She opened her purse and took out a wad of bills.

  “Here,” she said, “is more than enough to get you home and even set you up in some comfort down there. I’ll send you something more once you’re there,” she said. “You’ll have what you need to get by. I promise.”