“You do?” he questioned, needing an answer.
“Yes.” She leaned in with a necessity to be closer to him. Meeting her halfway, he twirled a curl from her hair on his finger. Then he placed his hands on his neck, urging her face toward his. Their lips touched gently with feathery strokes as if in the most romantic of dreams.
“What?!” questioned Doña Chona.
“Your daughter has consented to go out with me,” informed Dario. “I hope you approve.”
“Caramba, what?!” burst Doña Chona.
Eloisa sighed, exasperated. “Mama, he's already told you three times.”
“I think I'm losing my hearing because I heard him say you had consented to be his girlfriend.”
“Yes, Mama, I did,” Eloisa declared.
“Caramba, it's still very early in the morning,” Doña Chona asserted, pinching herself. “Maybe I'm still in bed and dreaming this. Yes, that must be it!”
“This isn’t a dream, Doña Chona,” assured a patient Dario.
“No, Mama, it isn't,” Eloisa burst. “Stop pinching yourself.”
“I just don’t understand how you got my daughter to be your girlfriend, Dario,” blurted an emotional Doña Chona. “She can’t stand you!”
“Mama!” chastised Eloisa.
Dario smiled with patient amusement. “I guess she’s changed her mind. Lucky me. Very lucky me.”
“In that case, can I speak to you in my room privately, Eloisa?” rushed Doña Chona, her voice shaky with emotion.
Eloisa squeezed Dario's hand before leaving the living room and following her mother to the master bedroom. Doña Chona closed the door after Eloisa stepped in.
“Double caramba, I just don't understand any of this!” Doña Chona burst, her nose flaring. “How is it that you're going to start a relationship with this arrogant man?”
“You dislike him that much?”
“I don't understand what's in your head. Will you be happy with such a person?”
“Mama, it's you who I don't understand,” Eloisa burst. “You're the one pushing your daughters towards every man with a good job including, may I remind you, the exasperating Ralph Cola.”
“Mija, I know I've been foolish in the past. In wanting my daughters to not suffer the misfortunes of their cousins or of previous rotten relationships, I've been blind to a lot.”
“Just a little blind, Mama,” Eloisa pointed out with a smile.
“Caramba, I've made some mistakes, no question, but I can't stand by and let you make a huge one.”
“I'm not making a mistake.”
“Listen to me, my daughter. I love all of you the same, but you Eloisa, you're special.”
Eloisa shook her head. “No, Mama, I'm—”
“Yes, yes you are. Stop arguing with me. And there is no way I'll be happy if you’re with someone who is responsible and hard working to be sure, but who can't make you happy.”
“He can make me happy,” Eloisa asserted firmly. “I love him, Mama.”
Doña Chona eyed her with surprise. “You do? That snobby jerk?—really?”
“He may be rough on the outside, but inside he's melted butter.”
“He's melted butter?” questioned Doña Chona with disbelief. “Caramba, are you sure? Maybe the aspirin you took the other day for your headache had a weird effect on you!”
“He's the one who went with me to get Lola. Without him, I doubt if I could've been able to get her out of Wayne's clutches.”
Doña Chona’s eyebrows shot up. “He did that?”
“Yes, and he paid off the house.”
Doña Chona almost toppled over from her chair. “Caramba, he paid off the house?!”
“It wasn’t a mistake in Ralph’s records. Dario paid off the house.”
“Are you absolutely sure?!”
Eloisa nodded. “I confirmed it with Chencha and then I forced Dario to tell me the truth.”
Doña Chona’s eyes were round like marbles. “Caramba, what a wonderful thing to do for a family—pay off the mortgage!!!”
“You can't tell him about what I told you, though. He doesn't want anyone to know about his good deed.”
“Why does he hide all that kindness?”
“He’s much shyer and modest than he looks, Mama.”
Doña Chona hugged her. “Okay, mija, you've got my blessing. Caramba, I never thought I’d say this about Dario Quintana but what a man!”
Epilogue
Many happy and fulfilling months later, Carmela and Fernie had a lavish wedding with all the trimmings. Guests sobbed with unrestrained emotion at the ethereal celebration. Dozens of different kinds of white flowers adorned the church and a profound feeling of bottomless love filled the air. No one could remember ever seeing a more jubilant and stunning couple.
About this time, Chencha ran off with the gardener. She quickly divorced Ralph Cola who was shell-shocked and couldn’t understand why his wife had left him—and for a gardener of all people. But Chencha was deeply in love for the first time in her life. Fortunately, during her brief marriage to Ralph, her parents had paid the last payment of the mortgage to their house. They had insisted on not getting any freebies from Ralph who they couldn’t stand. Ralph was upset that he had already given the house title to Chencha’s parents and couldn’t punish her family for what she had done to him.
He bitterly broke every fragile object in his home when he learned his ex-wife had gone as far as marrying the gardener and immediately getting pregnant. Ralph’s parents comforted him by telling him that she wasn’t good enough for him anyway. He decided that the real problem had been that he had lowered his standards with Chencha and would now raise them as high as they could go by going to Europe on his next vacation and finding a wife with royal blood.
That’ll teach Chencha! he blurted to himself. That lower-class bimbo! She’ll get hers when she learns that I walked down the aisle with a relative of the Queen! Chencha will know what she lost then!
He didn’t know that to Chencha he would always be Ralph Rodent.
Meanwhile, as Ralph was in the middle of his delusions of grandeur, Eloisa and Dario married each other with eyes wide open the day after Eloisa graduated from the university. She had decided to take the summer off before going to graduate school since she wanted to spend time with her new doting husband.
In the limousine and on the way to the wedding reception, Dario turned to Eloisa and kissed her with such intense and fiery ardor, she had to firmly remind herself that the honeymoon wouldn’t start until later. She smoothed her white billowy dress as it sparkled against the black interior of the limo to keep everything in perspective.
“That was quite a kiss, Mr. Quintana,” she murmured. “I'm glad I'm off for the summer.”
“Not as glad as I am,” he mentioned as he squeezed her waist while pecking her lips.
Eloisa gave him such a hug that he had to take his cell phone out of his pocket before it got crushed.
His dark eyes set on hers. “Thank you for that hug, Eloisa.”
“You're very welcome.”
“You still haven't told me where you want to honeymoon,” Dario declared.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I asked you first,” Dario shot back, amused.
“Shouldn't this be a mutual decision?” asked Eloisa.
“It will be, but first you have to tell me where you want to go. The sky is the limit. You just have to tell me where.”
“There’s a place I've always wanted to visit,” she murmured. “But I’m not sure you’ll want to go.”
“I’ll be happy wherever you are—as long as we’re together,” he proclaimed. “I’ve been without you for much too long. Please tell me where you want to go, my love.”
“You can't laugh,” Eloisa said.
“Why would I laugh?”
“Most people want to go to a resort area,” she asserted.
“I know one thing, that you
are not like most people,” he declared as he pecked her lips. “Once and for all, tell me where you want to go?”
“Alaska.”
Dario started chuckling.
“You told me you wouldn't laugh!” Eloisa burst, hurt.
“I'm laughing because that's where I want to go.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Why do you want to go there?” she questioned.
“A warm cabin with you under the covers with me. What more could I want?” he declared quietly, grinning.
Eloisa returned the smile. “I guess we're a good match.”
“A very good match,” Dario murmured, his lips reaching for hers.
Pride and Preference Page 9