As You Wish

  She took the cold beer Alejandro handed her and leaned back in her chair. “This is disgusting,” she said. “That little twerp Leonardo copies someone else’s design and gets paid six figures. We kill ourselves doing the actual work and we barely get a living wage.”

  Alejandro said in Spanish, “Then you should make a better design.” Diego translated.

  “He’s a plant expert, not me. All I’ve done in garden design is draw a circle on a piece of paper. And I only did that because I wanted—” She stopped. The men were looking at her hard. How did she know about Alejandro’s knowledge of plants? “Besides,” she said loudly, “Mrs. Bellmont wouldn’t listen to me. What do I know about gardening?”

  “You know as much as that little thief does,” Alejandro said, and again Diego translated—while frowning at his brother.

  “She wants some famous name to do it, so she can brag to the other women.” Elise stood up. “Maybe I should say my name is Caliente and that I have a degree from some made-up school in Italy.”

  The two men were staring at her.

  “What?” She looked down at herself. Her clothes were too big and she’d already pulled sticks out of her hair. “What’s wrong?”

  “A rich man’s daughter,” Alejandro said. “Bryn Mawr.”

  “I understood that name.” She didn’t wait for Diego to do an unnecessary translation. “Bryn Mawr isn’t exactly known for garden design. I studied a lot of art history. The closest I ever got to learning about garden design was studying Monet’s water lilies.”

  The men were still staring at her.

  Elise’s voice was rising as she tried to make them understand. “Mrs. Bellmont would never look at anything I proposed. She and my father can’t stand each other. He said that one time she made a pass at him, and after he turned her down, she...”

  The men had their backs against the kitchen counter. They were waiting for her to see what they did.

  “A woman scorned,” Elise said. “It’s quite possible that Audrey Bellmont would love to hire the daughter of a man who humiliated her.”

  Alejandro and Diego smiled at her. A seed—a big one—had been planted. Elise got the drawing pad and pencils out of her suitcase. Where did she begin?

  Diego put a plate of refried beans and rice beside her. “We go back to the Bellmonts’ on Friday. You have two days to come up with something to show her.”

  “But I don’t know how to do this,” Elise said. “I’ve had no training. I don’t even know the size of the garden.”

  Diego picked up the rolled plan off the countertop. “It’s all here. Just change it.”

  “But—”

  “Eat, then get to work,” Diego said.

  Elise had an overwhelming sense of “I can’t” and “I don’t know how.” Alejandro said, “I hate the fishpond,” and Diego translated.

  “Me too,” Elise said. “Her dogs would eat the poor fish. One time my mother said that Audrey Bellmont wanted to be a professional dancer but she got married instead so she gave it up.”

  Again, the men were looking at her.

  “A dance pavilion,” Elise said. “A concrete form. Round. Then a building of lattice where she can sit. In the back, it has mirrors and a ballet barre.” She picked up the pad and began to sketch. She knew just where it could be built in the garden.

  Hours later, when she fell asleep over her sketch pad, it was Alejandro who carried her to bed.

  “I’m dirty,” she murmured, half-asleep.

  “You can shower in the morning.”

  She was too sleepy to notice that he spoke in English. “Pink astilbe. No! Red firecracker plants. What are those funny-looking ones that curve? They’re thick and fuzzy.”

  “Coxcomb.”

  “Right.” She yawned. “You have to choose the plants. What grows on Long Island? Isn’t there some kind of wild orchid around here?”

  Her eyes were closed and Alejandro kissed her forehead—then wiped his mouth. She was indeed quite dirty. She was barefoot but otherwise fully clothed, but he didn’t dare remove anything. Smiling, he went to his own bed. He was glad to see that the scared look was beginning to leave her eyes. Maybe it was on its way to being permanently gone.

  The next morning, Elise was at the kitchen table when the men came in to breakfast.

  She still hadn’t showered.

  Alejandro leaned against the counter, drinking coffee and smiling at her. He looked at Diego. “Tell her I’ll come by for her at noon and take her to get whatever she needs.”

  “You tell her,” Diego said, and went outside to begin loading the truck.

  But Alejandro said nothing as Elise was engrossed with the drawings, and the men left her there. At noon, Alejandro returned to the house. Elise had showered and put on some of her own clothes. As she got into the truck with him, she started talking. “I have no idea if my plan is any good or not. I’ve not seen anything else like it. Worse is that I can’t remember exactly what my mother said about Mrs. Bellmont. Maybe it was sarcasm and she never was a dancer. I’m planning what I call a Dancer’s Garden, but she may hate it.”

  Elise sighed. “Anyway, I think the cabana should be wired so there can be music. I found some sculptures online for copies of Degas’s ballerinas. I like coming around a corner and seeing something beautiful. Mrs. Bellmont has over two acres so I could do a lot with that.”

  She put her head back against the seat. “The truth is that I don’t know what I’m doing.” Alejandro just smiled at her as he pulled into a parking lot in front of a used bookstore.

  It was one of those places that had lots of old hardbacks on shelves, on the floor, stacked on chairs. Nothing in the store had been cleaned in years.

  “Perfect!” Elise said as she got out of the truck.

  Inside, he held the books as she picked out ones on garden design and a few on dancing.

  “It’s a good thing you can’t understand me because I want to tell you that you are the most beautiful pack mule ever put on this earth.”

  Alejandro did his best to look blank, but she saw his smile.

  After he paid for it all—and the books were wonderfully cheap—he drove her to an office supply store and she got paper, pencils, and a scale ruler.

  * * *

  When Elise awoke on Friday morning, she lay quietly in the twin bed and listened to Alejandro breathing. Usually, she woke thinking of pouncing on him, but today she wanted to slip in beside him so he’d hold her and say encouraging things—in his choice of language. In Swahili for all she cared. She just needed someone to tell her she could do this. Could push herself onto Mrs. Bellmont, who she remembered as a rather bad-tempered woman—like her mother.

  Elise closed her eyes for a moment, thinking about how she was the product of two very aggressive parents. Win at all costs! had been their motto. And that included their daughter.

  They’d never seen a reason for Elise to make any decisions of her own, from her clothes to her friends, her education, even to her husband. As a child, Elise had realized that the easiest way to deal with them was to just give in. They loved her, didn’t they? They had her best interests in mind, didn’t they?

  It was only after she found out that her parents had always known about Carmen that she doubted everything.

  When Alejandro turned in the bed, she looked at him. Sleepy-eyed, whiskery cheeks, he was one fabulous-looking man. He raised his eyebrows in question.

  “I’m scared,” she said. “If I reveal myself to Mrs. Bellmont, what if she calls my father? He hired security guards. What if he shows up with them?”

  Alejandro shook his head, then threw back the sheet and went to her. He took her shoulders and pulled her out of the bed to stand in front of him. For a moment, he put his forehead to hers, his hands tight on her shoulders.

  She took a few deep breaths. “Okay, I get i
t,” she whispered. “Be strong. Have courage. Believe.”

  He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to look into his eyes. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. But he didn’t. He spun her around and pushed her toward the bathroom.

  Laughing, she shut the door behind her.

  By the time she got out, showered and cleanly dressed, Alejandro and Diego were at the breakfast table. Her drawings and notes had been stacked up neatly, all ready to go.

  “I was thinking,” Diego said in Spanish as he looked at his younger brother. “Since Carmen seems to be staying away, you should move into the room with me. Give our guest some privacy.”

  Elise’s hands froze on her drawings.

  “No,” Alejandro said mildly but with all the firmness of a rock talking.

  She looked away so they wouldn’t see her smile. She was becoming used to waking to the sound of his breathing, to seeing him smile at her. To sharing thoughts and feelings—and adventures—with him.

  Friendship, she thought. It was completely undervalued as an aphrodisiac.

  Diego got them in the truck and he was silent as he drove toward Mrs. Bellmont’s house. Alejandro sat with his arm behind the seat, sort of around Elise, but not.

  Elise suddenly realized that all her fears were for herself. What might happen to her. But it dawned on her that the success or failure of this venture would also affect them. It must be in their minds that she could, well, dump them. She could get the design job, then hire one of the more glamorous landscape companies, the ones with the green vans with gold lettering on the sides. Their workmen wore nice uniforms.

  “You’re not going to let me down, are you?” Elise asked.

  “What?” Diego asked.

  “If I get this job, you aren’t going to tell me it’s too big for you, that you don’t have enough men or tools or whatever, are you? I’m not going to be alone in this, am I?”

  Alejandro seemed to know what she was doing, but then he knew his brother well. Diego always worried that everything good was going to turn bad.

  One of Elise’s hands was on the truck seat and Alejandro squeezed it.

  “I have thousands of cousins at home,” Diego said, “and I’ll bring as many as I need to help. And I know men who do concrete. You want handmade tiles for your little house? I can get them.”

  “Yeah?” Elise said. “What else can you get for us?”

  The silence in the truck was broken as Diego began to talk. He hadn’t let on that he was seeing this as his big break, but it all came out as he talked nonstop on the way to the house.

  When they got there, Alejandro got out, put his hands on Elise’s waist, and swung her down. “Gracias,” he said.

  “Too early for that! I haven’t yet done anything to earn thanks.”

  Alejandro just smiled, and they went to the back to get tools out of the truck.

  Elise wanted time to go over her sales pitch, but Mrs. Bellmont was waiting for them—and she seemed to be in a bad mood. She was telling Diego to take out some flowers that she didn’t like.

  “When Leonardo gets here, all this will have to go. Just clean it up now and he’ll oversee everything later. Whenever he bothers to get here,” she added.

  When she started back toward the house, Alejandro gave Elise a push, then a glare. “Okay, okay!” she said, and took her drawings from him.

  All the workmen were watching her. Miguel’s usual laughter was gone.

  “How did I get the job of savior?” Elise muttered, and Alejandro grinned. When she started toward Mrs. Bellmont, he pulled her baseball cap off to let her blonde hair fall to her shoulders. She shook her head to loosen her hair, put her shoulders back, and strode forward.

  “Mrs. Bellmont?”

  “Yes?” She sounded angry. “What is it?” Turning, she saw Elise and her eyes widened. “You’re—Oh good heavens! Everyone is looking for you.” She glanced at the men behind her. “You haven’t been with them, have you?”

  Elise didn’t answer that. “Is it true that you used to be a dancer?”

  Mrs. Bellmont blinked a few times, then smiled. “Why, yes, I was.”

  “I thought so. It’s in the way you move. I wonder if I could show you—”

  “Why did you run away from your wedding?” Mrs. Bellmont demanded. “The rumor is that you have mental problems.”

  The memory of that ride in the trunk of Dr. Hightower’s car came back to Elise. And how Kent had lied about the pills he gave her. But as she looked at Mrs. Bellmont, she knew she couldn’t tell the truth. To tell on Carmen would hurt her brothers.

  “I found out that Kent is gay.”

  “No!” Mrs. Bellmont said. “That gorgeous young man? But then, that should have been a giveaway. You poor thing. How did you stand it?”

  “I couldn’t, so I had to run.”

  “And this?” She waved at the men behind her, who were only vaguely pretending to work, and her eyes fixed on Alejandro.

  “Sex,” Elise said. “Wild, never-ending sex. Alejandro doesn’t speak a word of English and I love that about him. He’s the perfect antidote to Kent and his...well, his nothing.”

  Mrs. Bellmont gave Elise a speculative look. “You’re not at all how your mother describes you, are you?”

  “If you mean bland, with no personality, no, I’m not like that.”

  For a moment they looked at each other, then Mrs. Bellmont nodded at the big drawing pad Elise was holding. “I take it you have something you’d like to show me?”

  “I do.”

  “Will it enrage your father?”

  “Beyond all understanding.” Elise was beginning to smile. “And my mother too.” She lowered her voice. “And it will get rid of that annoying little Leonardo and his silly little fishpond. You go with my design for your garden and you can invite students from Juilliard up for the weekend and dance with them.”

  “OMG as the kids say, but you sound just like your father trying to sell something.”

  “Take that back!” Elise snapped without a smile.

  Mrs. Bellmont laughed. “Come inside and let’s talk.” Turning, she walked to the house.

  Behind her, Elise gave a double thumbs-up to the workmen. Diego and Alejandro were smiling hugely at her.

  * * *

  It was two hours later that Elise left Mrs. Bellmont’s house. As she went back toward the men, she nodded with every step. “We got the job,” she whispered. They were all standing in front of her in silence, waiting for her to elaborate. “She liked all of it. The building, the dance floor, the sculptures, everything. It’s a six-figure contract and we’re going to need—”

  Elise took a breath. “How the hell do I know what we need?” She looked at Alejandro. “I BS’d my way through all of it. I told her that what I didn’t know, you guys do. Have any of you ever built a twenty-foot-long dance pavilion?”

  For a moment, they looked at her blankly. They weren’t builders! Then Alejandro jumped up on the flat top of a low wall and went into the stance of a flamenco dancer. He stamped his left heel a few times.

  “We don’t need a dancer, we need a builder!” Elise said. Alejandro looked so puzzled that they all burst into laughter.

  “Down!” Diego yelled at his brother. “There’s work to be done.” He stopped for a moment, then turned and put his hands on Elise’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”

  It was the first time in her life that Elise had been congratulated on something she’d done. Like all the other kids in school, she’d been given trophies no matter what they achieved, but this was real. So okay, her position as her parents’ daughter got her inside the door, but it was her ideas that had won the job.

  “Hold on!” she said, then stuck out her cheek and tapped it. “All of you. Now!” Grinning, one by one, the men kissed her cheek—except Al
ejandro.

  Miguel said he didn’t think it would be good to set the garden on fire before they even began, so Alejandro better not touch her.

  At that, Alejandro grabbed Elise, bent her over his arm and... And kissed her cheek. “Damn!” she said when he released her, and everyone laughed some more.

  All day, as they worked, there was a sense of excitement in the air. For years, Diego and his men had put up with bad designers and inept homeowners who told them what to do and how to do it. But in just one morning they had changed status. This was going to be their job!

  That night everyone piled into Diego’s rented house. Someone brought a little barbecue grill and others showed up with beer and tequila. Diego called his wife at home in Mexico and told her he was going to be hiring more people—and maybe in the fall she could come here to live.

  All in all, it was a glorious party and Elise didn’t fall into bed until midnight. Alejandro stood over her smiling. “You’ve done a lot for all of us,” he said softly, his Spanish sounding beautiful in the moonlight that came through the window. He started to turn away, but looked back at her. “About that promise to just be friends... I’m ready to go back on it.”

  A very sleepy, not fully sober Elise put her hands up in invitation.

  Alejandro took them and kissed her palms, but then put them down and stepped away. “Only when you’re fully sober and know exactly what you’re doing. I’m concerned that once you and I start, it may never end, so you need to be really sure of what you’re doing. As for me, I know exactly what—who—I want. Good night.” He left the room.

  * * *

  The next morning, as Diego was driving to the job, he couldn’t stop grinning. All morning he’d talked endlessly about their new business. Elise sat in the middle, Alejandro beside her, both of them so sleepy they could hardly sit up—or maybe they wanted an excuse for her to lean against him.

  The ride was long since Diego had a job in the country. He’d been trying to branch out from just lawn care so they were repairing a stone wall today. Earlier, he’d told Elise that she was to talk to the owner’s wife.

  “And say what?” Elise asked, yawning. Diego glared at her.