Janice turned around to face me. “What’s wrong, Suze? You look positively ill.”
Joaquin, handing his keys to the valet, didn’t hear our little exchange of words.
“Too many margaritas,” I confessed, hoping she would believe me. “And all that vodka. I guess I need to eat something.”
“Well, let’s get inside, then.”
Joaquin opened the passenger’s side door for her.
“What a gentleman.” Janice took the offer of his hand to help her out of the low-slung car.
His perfect teeth glittered in the dusk. “De nada,” he rumbled.
Watching him from the back seat, I could imagine the young man he used to be. How he had charmed me with his good looks and confidence the very first time I met him. But now I could see the charm wasn’t just for me. He poured it on for Janice, too. Had he acted this way when we were dating? I couldn’t remember very clearly. But I could remember those hands on my body and his full lips kissing mine.
My body flushed at the memory.
Funny how some details I could never forget, but others were so elusive.
Before he could turn his attention on me, I pulled on the door handle. Joaquin had his hand on the small of Janice’s back, guiding her toward the sidewalk and the benches outside the restaurant entrance. I took the opportunity to get out of his car and step up onto the curb unassisted.
At the click of my sandals on the concrete, he looked over Janice’s shoulder and frowned. I didn’t care. So I looked the fool for not waiting for his escort. Or possibly made him the look the fool. I couldn’t be sure. Tonight would be hard enough without obsessing over these small details.
“Señor Hernandez, bienvenidos.” A short man in a dark suit greeted us at the entrance. Clearly, Joaquin dined here often. I wondered what other women he may have entertained. Unwanted jealousy pricked my heart.
Why should I care what Joaquin had been up to all these years? I had left him hanging. He had every right to move on with his life, meet other women. But for some reason, I didn’t want to be rational.
I needed to call James when we got back to the hotel room. At that moment, I wished for his voice in my ear. James had shared everything with me: his childhood, his previous relationships, his hopes and fears. I knew him better almost than I knew myself, and he thought he knew me. I wanted to confess it all to him. Reveal I was married to a man I hardly knew anymore. I wanted to believe James would forgive me.
But what if he didn’t?
That one niggling doubt kept me here at the restaurant, even though I wished I were a million miles away. What if, when James heard the truth, he left me? His heart had been badly broken once, and it took him years to get over it.
If he found out about my lies, would he still trust me? Would he still love me? Would I be just another woman who broke his heart?
I couldn’t bear the thought of it.
I steeled myself for the coming evening. Waiting for the bombshell to drop and for Janice to declare our friendship over, my engagement a farce, and my life one big lie.
Oddly enough, it never did drop.
*
Somehow we made it through dinner without one word about our dating history or our marriage. Joaquin must have sensed Janice’s ignorance of this fact, as he, too, chose to keep silent on the topic.
He had gotten us the table with the best view in the place: right in front of a huge set of French doors that opened out to a balcony. We overlooked the mouth of the bay and all of Acapulco to the south. The lights sparkled and reflected off of the black waters in a breathtaking sight. Joaquin sure knew how to impress.
“So, were you surprised, Suze?” she asked me, all smiles and giggles. As if she had really pulled one over on me.
Oh, if she only knew.
“Oh, yeah, you got me good. I didn’t expect to see Joaquin here.”
“I know. I couldn’t help myself.” She unfolded her white dinner napkin and set it on her lap. “I mean, I wanted to come back to Mexico, but never in a million years did I think we would run into Joaquin!”
The host at our table smiled. “I assumed the last time I saw you,” he looked pointedly at me across the table, “would be the end our friendship. But imagine my shock when Janice called a few weeks ago to let me know about your plans.”
“Yes, imagine the shock.” I took a sip of wine.
Janice didn’t seem to notice the tension in the air. “And he’s been so nice about setting everything up—giving us one of the best rooms. Such great service. Everything’s so perfect.”
“I’m glad you are enjoying your stay so much already.” He patted her hand in a friendly gesture. “It’s the least I can do for two beautiful ladies.”
“Your hotel is fantastic. The food, the service, the suite—everything,” she declared, taking a drink of wine. Having Janice there made light conversation easy. “We signed up for the kayaking, but I want your opinion, Joaquin. Which would be more fun: the kayaking class or windsurfing?”
“I didn’t think Susie was the adventurous type.” He eyed me over the rim of his wineglass.
“She’s more into practicing her volley on the tennis court, but she promised she would do whatever I wanted on this trip. Right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Even if it means she has to learn to do tricks on a trapeze—”
“Not that again. Could you please explain to her what ‘closed for safety reasons’ means?” I looked at Joaquin. Keeping the topic of conversation off of the past was vital. I would do anything to distract Janice from our days as foreign students in Mexico and my history with Joaquin.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she countered.
“Tell that to the guy they probably have stashed away at the local hospital with a broken pelvis,” I said.
A white-coated waiter arrived at our table with a tray weighted down by plates and steaming food.
“Ladies, our meal has arrived,” said Joaquin. “We will have to continue this debate later.”
The waiter set a plate in front of me laden with meats, a variety of mole sauces, and piping hot corn tortillas. I got in one last jab, “I’m not learning how to do flips twenty feet in the air.”
“But you promised.” Janice dug into her food. Not even a friendly argument could stop her from eating.
“That was before I knew resorts were turning into circus training camps.”
“Enough, you two.” Joaquin held his hands up between us like a referee in a boxing match. “We can discuss this later, no?”
Janice spent the rest of the meal prodding Joaquin for ideas about places we should visit and things we should do during our stay. Things that didn’t include trapezes or bodily harm of one form or another, thank goodness. The light banter made it easy to forget the tension from earlier that evening. Having Janice there kept the atmosphere superficial. Joaquin was an old friend and nothing more. How easy to convince myself of that when downing delicious Mexican cuisine I didn’t have to pay for.
As we waited for coffee and dessert, Janice excused herself to the ladies’ room. I knew she hoped I would come along so we could gossip about my old boyfriend, but I saw this as the opportunity to talk to Joaquin in private, even if only for a few minutes.
The moment Janice left the table, my nerves returned.
“So, you decided to come back to your husband? Ready to play wife now?” All friendliness and light had gone. Joaquin shifted from first gear into third without using the clutch.
I hadn’t prepared for such a quick onslaught. “That’s not fair, Joaquin. You don’t have any idea what happened, why I chose to do what I did.” My stomach twisted into knots.
“No, you’re right. I don’t.” He picked up his wine glass and swished around the last few sips of his chardonnay. He paused for a moment and assessed the color of the drink in the candlelight. “So why don’t you tell me all about it? You had cold feet? You wanted to run home to your mother? You had a boyfriend back in the
States, and I was your fling?”
His last comment struck close to the truth. Close enough, anyway. I didn’t have a boyfriend back then, but I had one now, a fiancé who loved me and who waited for me to come home to him. I didn’t want to make things worse by bringing up James, however. “That’s not it at all.”
He set his glass on the table.
“I loved you, Joaquin, I really did.”
“Loved?”
“Yes, I did.” I let that sentence sink in. “But I was young, we were only nineteen. I didn’t know what I wanted.”
“And you do now? After hiding for how long?” Before I could answer, he pushed his plate aside and narrowed his eyes. “This meeting was no surprise.”
“What do you mean?”
“You chose Acapulco—my hotel—for a reason.” He stroked his goatee.
“No, that’s not true. Janice made all the arrangements. I had no idea that you—”
“She’s your little helper. You couldn’t face me alone, so you had to drag her along.”
“It’s not that at all,” I sputtered, but the truth seemed so ludicrous. Janice picked this place, not me. But why would he believe me? After everything I’d done to him, I didn’t blame him for being suspicious.
“Then, please, tell me how it is, Suzie. Clearly, I can’t figure it out for myself.” He leaned back against the soft cushions and crossed his arms.
“Did you guys miss me?” Janice appeared at the table.
The tension hung thick in the air. Joaquin managed a friendly smile, and the hard line of his jaw softened ever so slightly—he returned to being the congenial, old friend once again. As if nothing had transpired between the two of us.
“Ah,” exclaimed Joaquin as our waiter approached, tray in hand. “Here is our dessert.”
Although my mood had soured, I took a spoonful of flan and listened as Janice and Joaquin continued their earlier discussion about tourist attractions in Acapulco. What a different dinner this would have been if Joaquin and I were just old friends. I envied Janice’s relaxed demeanor, the questions asked with a wide smile of pleasure, the dessert eaten without the twinge of bitterness in her stomach.
I pushed aside my plate, and thought of tomorrow and the phone calls I needed to make. The candles flickered in the light wind that blew through the open French doors, and I looked out over the darkened bay, my thoughts swirling in my head.
CHAPTER FIVE
I remembered the day I met Joaquin – the day that started all of this in motion. It had been dusty, dry in Puebla, Mexico. Janice, Mercedes, and I stood in the hot sun, bags sitting in the dust at our feet, right near the gated entrance to the university where we were attending school as foreign exchange students.
“Hitchhiking? In Mexico?” Janice squawked. “Nobody’s hitchhiked safely in the United States since, like, 1950 or something.”
When Mercedes, my Mexican roommate, invited Janice and I to visit her family in Mexico City, we assumed we would be going by bus. Traveling by bus in Mexico was cheap, but Mercedes told us the buses were too slow. If we went by bus, we wouldn’t reach the city until dark.
She convinced us of another, faster way to travel. And we trusted her—up until now.
“We do it all the time here,” Mercedes said. “I wouldn’t hitchhike on the road, but right by the gates?” She gestured at the eight-foot-tall iron gates that protected the entrance to the school. A small building between the gates housed the guards who checked the IDs of all car and foot traffic coming onto the school grounds. “It’s perfectly safe.”
Without waiting for us Americans to be convinced, she waved at a small brown sedan that pulled up to the gate. As the driver waited for the guard to allow him to exit university property, Mercedes approached his passenger side window.
Flashing her most winning smile, Mercedes tapped gently on the glass. The young man inside leaned over and rolled down the window to get a look at the attractive girl.
Mercedes eyes lit up when she saw the driver. Did she know him? She leaned inside the car and kissed the driver soundly on each cheek. Definitely not a stranger.
I couldn't hear a word she said, but her smile grew bigger and her head bobbed with excitement.
A quick nod told us this guy would graciously take on three female passengers. "Come on! Get in. This is an old friend of mine from high school. He won't bite." Mercedes grabbed her bag from the pile in the dirt and climbed in the front seat.
Janice looked over at me, “Well, if he's a friend of Mercedes—”
"That's true." I tried to get a glimpse of the driver through the glare of the windshield. How providential that this guy happened to be visiting Universidad de América Central on the day we needed a ride to the city.
"I'm sure he's a nice guy." Janice picked up her bag and climbed into the back of the car.
We both looked forward to a weekend away from the small campus. Most foreign students spent weekends in the dorm, doing homework or sticking together like a bunch of scared rabbits. How were we supposed to soak up any Mexican culture like that? We had made a pact before we decided to study abroad that we would make the most of our time here in Mexico. Here was our opportunity.
Janice and I had had enough of sitting together in the cafeteria on a Saturday afternoon or aimlessly wandering the campus. We wanted to experience new things. Mercedes had offered us that chance.
My bag looked lonely there in the dust, so I picked it up and carried it toward the car.
Mercedes, smiling in the front seat, laughed at something the driver said to her. Because of the glare, I couldn't get a good look at our chauffeur. But seeing the gleam in Mercedes dark eyes and how she swept her long, thick hair off the back of her neck, exposing the soft nape to the warm air, this was no ordinary high school buddy driving the car.
As soon as I clanged the door shut, the driver sped out of the university gates and headed toward the nearby freeway. Without any air conditioning in the car, we rolled down every window to let in the breeze. This made it impossible for Janice and I to hear much of the conversation going on up front, but we could talk without anyone overhearing.
Janice made the first observation, “He’s gorgeous!” She didn't seem to care, either, if anyone noticed her staring at the driver's profile. If he turned his head, he would surely see the unadulterated lust in her eyes.
“Is he?” At that moment, I looked up at the rearview mirror, hoping to see at least one little feature reflected there—a nose, an eye—anything.
He looked right at me!
I blushed and looked away, but not before I got a good look at his face.
He was startlingly handsome. Most Mexicans I had met so far were traditional mestizo in looks: short, broad nose, very dark skinned, slight of build. His skin, instead of burnished bronze, was a warm honey color, and his eyes were a greenish hazel and were wide-set.
Since I arrived in Mexico two months ago, he was the first Mexican male to catch my attention. I had a feeling he knew it.
Mercedes, knowing our Spanish to be rudimentary at best, turned to give us the basic facts of our driver. “This is Joaquin. He was visiting a friend at our university, and now he's on his way home.”
“Hi, I’m Suzie, and this is Janice,”
He smiled a toothy smile that I could see reflected in the rearview mirror.
“Do you always pick up strange girls on your way home?” I asked.
“Strange girls?” Joaquin looked back at the highway in front of him. “Who said you were strange?”
Mercedes pushed him lightly on the shoulder, laughing at his joke. “Oh, don’t listen to her. We're grateful that you picked us up. If we had taken the bus, we wouldn’t have gotten to the city until late.”
Joaquin looked directly at me when he responded, “And then you would have to take the Metro—three beautiful señoritas at night on the Metro? Not such a good idea, eh?”
I had a hard time following the conversation from the back seat with the wind
blowing loudly into the car. Looking out the window, I watched the countryside go past. High above us stood the magnificent Mount Popocateptl, a volcano that hadn’t erupted in years. It was the highest point in the range of mountains that ringed Mexico City to the south. With snow on its crown most of the year, it formed a perfect pointed peak. From the university we had a clear view, and it made for the most spectacular sunsets.
“Don’t you think he’s cute?” Janice asked me.
“I guess so, if you’re in to that type of guy.”
“What type of guy? Gorgeous, tall, and muscular?” She rolled her eyes at me, as if I were a fool.
Joaquin said in his fluent, yet accented, English, “Hey, no secrets back there. It’s three of you against one of me.”
He turned his head to talk over the seats, and I got a good look at what Mercedes drooled over. His profile was even better than what I had seen in the rearview mirror.
Mercedes drew Joaquin’s attention back to her, using her one advantage over us: Spanish. She sped up the conversation, knowing Janice and I wouldn’t be able to keep up.
I leaned back and looked over at Janice, “Can I borrow one of your CDs?” I pointed at her bag on the floor by her feet. Might as well make the time pass. It would be too hard to try to keep up a conversation from the back seat.
“Sure.” She handed me the whole bag, and I unzipped a side pocket where Janice usually kept a few CDs for traveling.
“Thanks.” I grabbed the first case I saw and put the disc into my CD player. As music filled my headphones, I slipped into a comfortable state—staring out the window at the passing scenery and trying to keep my thoughts off the beautiful man sitting in front of me.
*
“Quieres una torta?”
The deep, male voice startled me out of a restless sleep.
For a moment my mind couldn’t comprehend what he asked me. I rubbed my eyes and pushed a sweaty strand of hair out of my face, “Huh?”
“He wants to know if you’re hungry. We stopped at a torta stand.” Janice jabbed me in the ribs.
Acapulco Nights Page 4