Delia's Heart

  Why wasn’t she going out on date tonight, too? I wondered. Wasn’t there anyone she had interest in? It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but I was afraid to do it. I thanked her, hung up, and went down to wait for Adan.

  Sophia’s door was still shut, and I heard no music or anything coming from her room. She was probably in a deep pout. Maybe Fani was wrong. Maybe all of this would finally drive her to be decent.

  Adan was right on time and as handsome as ever, in an emerald-green sports jacket that highlighted his eyes. He brought me another single rose. I half expected to see Tía Isabela there to greet him and fawn over him as well, but she didn’t appear. We went out to get into another one of his sports cars. He said it was an Aston Martin, and when he told me what it costs, I lost my breath for a moment. He laughed at my reaction.

  “I didn’t pay that much,” he said. “We have some influential friends in the car business. I’m sure you know the irony, Delia. People with the money to pay for things also have the connections to get them for a much lower price. It’s the same everywhere.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am sure.”

  We drove off. I looked back once and thought about Sophia stewing in her pot of anger back in her room. Fani’s warning was like a persistent chant. Sophia wouldn’t simply fade into the woodwork. Every day, I would have to be alert and expect some new trap set for me.

  “You’re in very deep thought tonight,” Adan said. “Everything all right?”

  “Sí,” I said.

  He didn’t believe me, of course. He told me that when I had a delicious dinner and met his friend, I would cheer up.

  “Charles Daniels is a world-class chef,” he said. “His close friends call him Chuck. He’s been to what is known as a cordon bleu cooking school in France, but he’s better when he cooks Italian. We went to undergraduate school together, and then he veered off and followed what he always wanted to do, be a chef. His father, who owns public storage facilities and a good-size trucking business in Los Angeles, wasn’t too happy about him not joining their business. He didn’t see his son becoming a chef as anything to brag about, either. He does have an older brother, however, who is working with his father.”

  “Like you.”

  “Yes, like me, which isn’t lost on Chuck’s father. He’s always pointing me out to him, but Chuck’s happy about owning his own place and doing what he loves. He’s a jolly guy, lots of fun. He treats the dishes he creates as works of art. Wait until you see how he presents everything.

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” he added, whispering as if there really was someone else in the car who could overhear. “Someday, I’m going to build a bigger restaurant for him, and we’ll go into business together.”

  He looked at me to see my reaction.

  “I’m serious,” he emphasized.

  “Oh, yes.”

  He shook his head. “I see you’re not easily impressed,” he said. What kind of reactions did he expect from me? “Actually, I like that about you, Delia. I don’t think there’s an artificial bone in your body.”

  “Artificial bone?”

  “You know, phoniness. You’re authentic from your head to your feet,” he explained. It reminded me of when Fani had first begun speaking to me and telling me I was an authentic Mexican who could work in an authentic Mexican restaurant.

  “I am only who I am,” I said.

  The restaurant was somewhat smaller than I had expected, but I was not disappointed in the food or Adan’s friend Chuck. When he was able to do it, he joined us at our table, and he and Adan told one funny story after another about their college experiences.

  The contrast between them physically couldn’t be any greater. Chuck Daniels looked like an authentic chef, rotund, with premature jowls and roller-pin forearms. When Fani first showed me any attention at the private school, Sophia, jealous, of course, tried to turn me against her quickly by telling me that beautiful girls and handsome men like to be friends with people who are less attractive. It makes them stand out more. It was another way for her to insult me. I thought about it and asked her, “So, then, why are you not her best friend?”

  I didn’t ask it with any nasty tone, but it was enough to send her flying off to complain to her girlfriends about me and how I was impossible to help. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but wonder if what she had said could be true. I wondered about it now. What did Adan and Chuck have in common that would make them so close? Perhaps I was hoping to find something that would turn me away from Adan, but it didn’t take long to see that he and Chuck had a definitely warm and sincere friendship. Later, Adan would tell me Chuck was the brother he had never had.

  “I’d do anything to help that guy,” he said. “And I will. His father gets me that angry.”

  He slipped out of his unpleasant mood quickly, however, and talked excitedly about our boat trip to Catalina.

  “I’d take you someplace else,” he said after we had left the restaurant, “maybe dancing, but I want to get you home early. I want you to be fresh and awake tomorrow so you don’t miss a thing.”

  When we drove up to mi tía Isabela’s hacienda, he didn’t get out immediately, however. He shut off the engine and sat there. I didn’t know what to make of his silence. I was getting nervous.

  “I’m glad I met you at this particular time in my life, Delia. I feel my father and I are starting the final liftoff of a rocket ship. I imagine you’ve been told some pretty racy stories about me. I know I have something of a reputation. I’m sure your cousin Edward has warned you about me.”

  I started to protest, but he put his hand up.

  “It’s all right. I’m not saying I don’t deserve the notoriety. I just want you to know you’re the kind of girl who can make a guy like me grow up.”

  He smiled and leaned in to kiss me softly. Then he pulled his head back a little and looked at my eyes. If I ever sensed I was losing my grip on any restraint, I sensed it at that moment. It would make me feel so guilty later, but I brought my lips to his waiting lips and kissed him. He held on to me firmly. Then he lowered his head to my shoulder and whispered, “I’d better get you out of this car now, or I won’t let you out at all.”

  He sat back, opened his door like someone truly trying to oppose the demands made by his own body, and got out to come around and open my door. In silence, he walked me to the front door of the hacienda, where he pretended to be a gallant Zorro and kissed my hand.

  “Buenas noches, señorita,” he said. “Sueños dulce.”

  “Pleasant dreams to you, too, Adan,” I said in a voice that seemed to rise out of my heart.

  He smiled and hurried down to his car. I waited until he got in and started away, and then I entered the house in a daze. I felt as if I were floating up the stairway. Sophia opened her door as I approached my bedroom. I imagined she had been sitting at a window and watching for us. She was in her nightgown and barefoot.

  “I do not want to fight with you anymore, Sophia,” I said.

  She folded her lips into a wry smile. “That’s okay. I’m not going to start an argument or anything. In fact, I’m going to be your friend. I just thought you’d like to know where my mother was tonight, or rather, who she was with.”

  “I do not—”

  “She went out with Adan Bovio’s father,” she said quickly. Then her smile widened. “She’s just using you, just like she uses everyone else.”

  She stepped back into her room and closed her door.

  I stood there listening to her words echo in my ears.

  Maybe I should be grateful she was so spiteful. Adan’s words and good looks, the whole warm evening, and his kisses had lifted me into a place so high I could no longer see Ignacio’s face. It was truly like personally delivering him to the third death.

  Now, thanks to Sophia, like a balloon losing air, I sank back to the earth, where promises like beautiful bubbles floated by and then burst.

  I hurried to bed and the sanctity of sleep, where I could escape fr
om Fani, from Sophia, from Tía Isabela, and from Adan Bovio and see only my grandmother and hear only her voice.

  But just before I got into bed, I saw the headlights of an approaching vehicle wash over my windows. I looked down and watched as Adan’s father got out and opened the door for Tía Isabela. He kissed her when she stepped out, and they held each other very closely. They looked like serious lovers already. A terrifying thought sizzled in my mind.

  If I did something to ruin her pursuit of Adan’s father, she would see me as she saw my mother, once again ruining her plans for a loving relationship.

  It was the emotional world in which she lived and from which she could never escape.

  We were all in little traps, perhaps of our own making.

  13

  Open Water

  I almost overslept and probably would have if it weren’t for Tía Isabela. She came bursting into my room, carrying a large shopping bag.

  “Why are you still sleeping? You didn’t come home very late,” she cried angrily. “Get up, get up, get up!”

  I ground the sleep out of my eyes and sat up.

  “I know they didn’t serve you anything alcoholic at the restaurant. You’re underage, and if there’s one thing Adan Bovio has to avoid, it’s corrupting the morals of a minor, or at least being caught doing so. Well?”

  “No, I was just—”

  “Just get out of bed,” she said. “I want you to put this on today.”

  I watched her dig into the bag and pull out what she called a sailing outfit. First, there was a beaded screen-print tank top. The print was of a small island with palm trees. Then she pulled out a hooded light green jacket and a pair of light green elastic-waist pants with front pockets.

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed that green is Adan’s favorite color,” she remarked, and set the clothing on my bed. She pulled out a matching green sailing cap from the bag and reached in again to produce a pair of what she called women’s navigator shoes. “They’re made to walk on slippery decks. Well,” she said, “why are you still sitting there gaping at me?”

  I got up quickly and headed for the bathroom.

  “Get into these clothes, and come down for a light breakfast. We don’t want you getting seasick,” she called after me.

  If I ever felt I had pressure on me to perform and make her happy before, I had twice as much now. I was surprised at how well the outfit she had bought fit me, including the shoes. When I went down to breakfast, I discovered she had already dictated to Señora Rosario what I would eat. It was to be merely one poached egg on a single slice of toast.

  “No, no, no,” she said, coming into the dining room while I was eating. “Don’t pin your hair up like that. It makes you look too severe. I want it loose. Let it blow in the wind. Men like to see that.”

  She didn’t wait for me to take out the pins. She went ahead and did it herself, fluffing my hair the way she wanted it to set.

  “Has Sophia risen and eaten her breakfast already?” I asked. I didn’t think Tía Isabela had relented to let her be served in bed again.

  “Sophia? She’s probably competing with you. I relented a little on her punishment and said she could go out if she kept decent hours and behaved. We’re better off keeping her from being too idle around here. She’ll only get into more mischief by pouting. I know her too well.”

  “What do you mean, she’s competing with me?”

  “She went with Christian Taylor an hour or so ago, supposedly to a picnic up in the mountains in Idyll-wild. I can’t imagine her settling for a picnic. Frankly, I’m disappointed in Christian. I thought he had better taste.”

  How could a mother speak so about her own daughter?

  “I’m going to lend you this bag,” she continued, and showed me a green bag that looked as if it had been purchased to match my outfit. “You can carry your change of clothes in it. I just decided you should put on your new bathing suit now and wear it under your outfit.”

  “Bathing suit?”

  “I expect you’ll do some swimming, but even if you don’t, you’ll probably do some sunbathing with Adan.”

  She took the bathing suit out of the bag to show me. It looked like something a stripper would wear. She glanced at her watch. “Hurry and finish. I’d like to see how you look in this.”

  She stood over me to encourage me to gobble down my last two bites.

  “Come into my room,” she ordered. “You don’t have to go back upstairs.”

  I followed her out and down the corridor. She tossed the bathing suit at me and stood back.

  “Well, put it on,” she ordered.

  “It looks too tiny.”

  “Nonsense. It’s very becoming. You have a great body, perfect for such a suit. There are literally thousands of girls your age who would kill to have your figure and be able to wear a suit like that. Put it on. We don’t have time for false modesty.”

  “It is not false, Tía Isabela.”

  “Whatever. Just put it on.”

  I took off my new clothes and my bra and panties while she stood by waiting. Then I slipped into the abbreviated bottom and the small top. There was little left to imagine about my body, I thought.

  “I had a figure just like yours once,” she said, admiring me. “I remember when my husband first saw me in a bathing suit like that. I knew from the look on his face that I had hooked him like a fish and would reel him in.”

  She stuffed my bra and panties into the bag.

  “I’ve put in a small makeup kit for you, tissues, and a new hairbrush. You have everything you need now. The restaurants you’re going to for lunch and dinner are not formal. They’re both beach restaurants. Because you’ve been so good these past few days and listened to what I tell you, I’ve bought you this,” she added, and handed me a small case. “Go on, open it. I want you to wear it today.”

  I opened it and saw a beautiful watch with an emerald-green leather band.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Of course, it is. Now, have a good time, and don’t say or do anything to embarrass me.”

  Señora Rosario came to the doorway. “Señor Bovio has called from the gate,” she said.

  “Which Señor Bovio? Adan?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Dallas.”

  “Okay, Delia. Go on. Get dressed.”

  I hurriedly did so.

  “I won’t be home when you get back,” she told me as I put on my new outfit, “but we’ll have time to talk about your day tomorrow at breakfast. Late breakfast,” she added.

  She handed me the bag and nodded. Adan was waiting in the entryway. He wore his own sailor outfit and cap and looked as if he belonged in a movie.

  “Wow,” he said when he saw me. “Perfect. That’s a perfect outfit, and we have terrific weather today. The sea isn’t too bad at all.”

  He opened the door quickly. I supposed I looked so nervous he was afraid I might change my mind. Instead, I smiled at him and hurried out. I couldn’t help feeling I was being swept along in a wind I couldn’t possibly resist. We were on our way.

  “Did you enjoy last night?” he asked.

  “Yes, very much. I like your friend.”

  “Yeah, he’s great. Fani is fond of him as well.”

  Since he had brought up her name, I thought I could speak about her. “Why does she not go out more?”

  “You mean on dates?”

  “Yes, sí.”

  “Fani is a little too particular about the men she sees. Sometimes I think she’s asexual, not interested in men or in women.”

  He laughed at the expression on my face.

  “I’m just kidding, but she is too into herself to be in a relationship. She puts herself too high up. No one can reach her. Don’t worry,” he added quickly. “I’m not speaking out of school. I have this same argument with her all the time.”

  As we drove to the sea, he talked more about his youth, the times he and Fani had been together, once when their families even met in France.

&
nbsp; “She’s probably the closest friend I ever had who happens to be a girl,” he said. Then he turned to me and smiled to add, “Until I met you.”

  In my mind, I was imagining a boat perhaps a little bigger than a fishing boat, but when we parked and Adan nodded at his boat, I was amazed.

  “That’s it.”

  “Where are the sails?” I asked.

  “There are no sails. It’s a powerboat. My father bought it last year from a friend of his, and we actually have used it only a half-dozen times since.”

  He grabbed his small bag, and we stepped out of the car.

  A tall, thin man in a T-shirt and jeans stepped out onto the deck as we walked to the boat’s slip.

  “Everything’s set for you, Mr. Bovio,” he said. “The kitchen’s stocked just as you requested. She’s gassed up and ready.”

  “Thank you, Bill,” Adan said, and turned to me. “I was thinking last night and decided it would be stupid to get off the boat for lunch. We’ll dock and have our own lunch on the boat, okay?”

  “Yes,” I said, still wide-eyed.

  “Let’s tour the boat first,” he said, and the man he called Bill extended his hand to help me board. Then he nodded at Adan and got off.

  “Thanks, Bill. See you later,” Adan told him.

  He brought me first to the bridge to show me the boat’s sophisticated electronics. We had to climb a short ladder. There were two brand-new-looking comfortable chairs in front of the panel in the up position. He explained it all, the radar, the sonar, all of it, but I heard very little. It wasn’t that it was too complicated for me as much as that I was still in awe.

  Through a portal under the bridge, we entered a small living room with a television set, leather sofa and salon chairs, a small kitchen with modern appliances and a small dining table. There was a short stairway from the salon to the staterooms, where there were two queen-size berths and room for two more in bunks, bathrooms, a sitting area with a desk and two full bathrooms with showers. There was even a clothes washer and dryer.