"Have you been in Acapulco long?" Although his accent was thick, Enrique's English was quite good.
I hesitated, looking up at Joaquin, not sure how to answer.
"We've been married almost twelve years, Enrique," Joaquin laughed off the question.
Enrique reddened.
I wanted so badly to look at my watch to see how much more of this I had to sit through. A tray of hors d’oeuvres came by, and I reached out for something to eat. Anything to get my mind off of the man staring at me. Even in his embarrassment, Enrique never took his eyes off of me.
Once Joaquin made his announcement, the small crowd of people gathered around us went silent. A nervous tinkling of glasses rang out.
"Dónde estabas, Joaquin?" a rich, feminine voice called out from behind us.
A slow, wicked smile appeared on Joaquin's face, and he turned us to face the woman who approached.
A familiar cloud of thick, black hair surrounded a face I would have recognized anywhere. She was a little bit heavier, but as beautiful as the day she disappeared from the university.
"Mercedes?" I am sure my face went as pale as a ghost. I turned to look at Joaquin.
A fit of nervous energy ran through my body. Joaquin's hand at my waist clamped more tightly. His malicious smile grew wider.
"I was meeting my wife," Joaquin said, his voice placid and smooth, as if he were talking about taking a trip to the grocery store.
"Your wife?" Mercedes gasped. "What is she doing here?" She looked pointedly at me, her eyes narrowing.
"We are moving to America. I’m leaving you. I'm leaving Acapulco." He let go of my waist and gripped my hand instead.
“Then it is true,” she said. “You really did marry her? It wasn’t a lie?” Mercedes looked to me for confirmation.
I nodded.
This was what he needed me for. As an escape. As a way out. But when did he and Mercedes get together? After I left for home?
All those years I worried about Joaquin's state of mind, and he had moved right into another relationship without a thought about me.
“I told you the truth, Mercedes. I’m not a free man. Now you can see for yourself.”
When I had seen Joaquin in the hotel lobby days ago, I thought his expression had been one of hurt and anger. But now I understood he had been hatching his plan even then. I stepped back into his life out of nowhere, and he found a way to take advantage. To hold the divorce over my head, when he probably didn't care one way or the other if I stayed married to him.
The crowd tensed around us, listening closely to the domestic situation unraveling right before their eyes.
"You're leaving Acapulco? Leaving Mexico?" Mercedes’s deep brown eyes lost their spark. "But what about Ariana? You will leave her, too?"
I remembered the girl in the photo in Joaquin’s office with her eyes so like his. Mercedes was Ariana’s mother?
Joaquin let go of my hand. He stepped forward and grabbed Mercedes by the upper arms. His fingers dug deep into her flesh. He whispered, but not so soft that I couldn't hear, "This is over, Mercedes." He thrust her away from him, and she tripped backwards into a table. Stumbling for a moment, she caught herself.
Her eyes penetrated mine. Pure venom flashed in their coffee-hued depths. "His wife," she spat out. Her gorgeous hair radiated from her cruel face in soft waves. “Did you know that he was with me the whole time? When you were making all those stupid plans? He didn’t love you. He never loved you.”
Mercedes words hit me like a sack of bricks. The years I had wasted wondering if I’d made a mistake. Wondering if Joaquin missed me, worried about me. It had never been real. None of it. The shame of it burned me. What a little fool I’d been. What a stupid little nineteen-year-old fool.
“Ah, but I married her, didn’t I, Mercedes? I married her.” Joaquin grabbed a glass of champagne off of a waiter’s tray as it passed by.
The crowd parted behind us. Someone made her way through the small gathering of people surrounding us.
“Is it true, Suzie?”
Janice’s face paled and her thin lips trembled. “Are you married to Joaquin? Are you his wife?”
Where did she come from? I thought Janice had gone back to her room with George. How did she find us?
Oh, God. James.
My blood ran cold as ice in my veins.
She can’t tell James.
“All those years ago—when you stood me up—you were married to him and didn’t tell me?”
I reached out for her, grasping at her arm, her hand, anything I could touch. But she pulled away from me. “No, it wasn’t like that, Janice. I swear to you.”
With a sheen of tears in her eyes, she shook her head and backed away. “You lied to me. You lied to James. You even lied to your own mother. How could you do that, Suzie? What kind of person are you?”
She melted into the crowd. “Wait! Let me explain.” I yelled over the din in the ballroom. “I can explain. Please don’t. Janice, come back!”
To finish my explanation would be useless. She’d headed straight out the door and probably right up to the suite James and I were sharing.
She loved James. She might have been my friend first, but she wouldn’t keep something like this from him. Not after I had betrayed her, too.
My arms, still reaching out, froze. Panic trapped me there in that crowded, stuffy ballroom. Strangers pressed all around me, watching me as if I were a circus sideshow. I had entered the room on Joaquin’s arm, and now I would leave alone and humiliated. I had no one here who cared about me.
Mercedes, her face a mask of anguish and rage, slapped Joaquin hard across the face. “You don’t deserve to be a father, pendejo.”
Joaquin didn’t react to the slap or the insult. His beautiful hazel eyes hardened. “Vete,” he barked, hands clenched at his sides. “It’s over. I never wanted you. Never.”
Mercedes turned away from him, graceful even in her humiliation. I had been frozen by my fears, and yet she managed to exit with her head held high, her face radiant and beautiful. To her, the last twelve years no longer existed. They were erased in an instant.
I envied her—the ease with which she walked away from the man who caused her so much pain.
I gave one last look at Joaquin. I saw now what I had never seen before—the cruelty hidden behind the sparkling eyes and sensuous mouth.
I thought about James up in his room, sleeping, believing I slept next to him. I needed to talk to him, tell him why I had lied, tell him I was sorry. Before it was too late.
James’s single dimple flashed in my head, and I knew how much I needed to see him smiling at me again, his crooked, sweet smile. Meant just for me. How wrong I had been to make him wait for me all those years. How painful patience must have been for him. Yet he had endured it all for me.
For me.
My feet became lighter. I pushed through the crowd toward the open ballroom door. The heat of people pressing together bore down on me. I needed to be free. I needed to get away.
I exited into the lobby and didn’t look back.
*
I ran into George on my way to the elevators. He flagged me down, concern etched deep on his face.
“Have you seen Janice? She headed for the restrooms ten minutes ago, and I haven’t seen her since.”
My thoughts were solely on getting into that elevator and seeing James. I mumbled, “I have to go,” and pressed the button on the wall to call the elevator.
George grabbed my shoulder, “Do you know where she is? Is she all right?” They had been drinking, it was late, and they were in a foreign country. I could understand his concern, but my mind focused on getting to James, on explaining myself to him.
The elevator doors slid open. I slipped inside, pressing the button for our floor. The doors closed, but George held them back with his hand.
“Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. She’s okay. She’ll be back down in a minute, I’m sure,” I snapped at
him for no good reason. Anger at my own mistakes consumed me.
George stared hard at me and then shook his head. His hand slid off the door.
The elevator doors closed, and I slumped against the wall. I blinked my eyes to stop the tears from falling. I had no time to feel sorry for myself. I started this, and now I needed to own up to it. No more lies. No more secrets.
The doors opened on the fourteenth floor. I stepped into the pristine hallway. I welcomed the silence.
I wondered if Janice would be there when I got to our room. I knew it would be too late to tell him the truth myself. My feet refused to move any faster.
Up ahead, the door to our suite opened.
My heart skipped a beat. A flush of heat came over me. I had to keep moving forward. I couldn’t stop now. I couldn’t run away anymore.
A swath of bright blue appeared, and then the familiar, slim figure of Janice.
I was too late. The truth was out. The lies had caught up with me.
She closed the door and turned toward me.
I knew she saw me in the long, quiet hallway, but she looked past me.
As she came nearer, I could see her tear-stained face, her lips thin and tight. I stopped and watched her pass. The hem of her cerulean dress swirled around her straight legs, a mist of blue. I couldn’t stay silent. I had to know.
“What did you tell him, Janice?” My voice sounded hoarse, ragged.
She said nothing as she passed me.
I raised my voice a notch, “What did you tell him?” My limbs shook.
Her footsteps faded away behind me. She gave no answer.
My feet carried me to the door. My mind became a fog of grief and longing. I wished I could go back years ago. The night when James changed my flat tire. When he smiled at me for the first time and revealed that dimple in his thin, dear face. I wanted to hold that day in my hand, like a precious stone, and keep it safe.
I smiled through the tears. I reached for that image in my mind and held onto it for strength. James loved me. He did. He truly did. And love was supposed to conquer all things.
I took my key card out of my purse and swiped it through the reader.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“So, have you told your mother yet?” I asked.
Joaquin and I lay out on the grass in Xochimilco one sunny February afternoon a few weeks after our engagement.
My head in his lap, he brushed tendrils of hair off of my face. “No.”
“Why not? She’s going to find out eventually.”
“My mother wouldn’t understand. She’s worried that you will take me away from her. I already told you that.”
“But she’ll understand it even less if we keep it from her.”
“Trust me. It’s better this way.”
Something about that statement made me uneasy for a split second. Had he only been interested in getting married to prove a point to his mother? But then I brushed that thought away. Of course not. His motives were the same as mine. I didn’t want to tell my parents. I wanted to show them I was an adult. I could find, fall in love, and marry a good man all without them needing to approve of him. Besides, it had been so much easier not to let real life intrude on my romance. Talking to my parents would only take away some of the magic I’d found with Joaquin and the feeling of everything being right in the world.
“All right.” I tilted my head back, angling for a kiss. He leaned down and obliged me, his lips tasting mine gently.
“And that means you can’t tell your family either.”
“I won’t.”
“I don’t want them doing something to stop us. Keep us apart. I couldn’t live without you.”
“Oh, Joaquin. I know once I tell them, they’ll love you.”
“But right now, I want it to be just between you and me. No one else. Not yet, anyway.”
“All right. I can do that.” I planted another quick kiss on his mouth, and then sat up. My prone position on the grass was a little too tempting for us both.
“How about the first of May? That will give us time to get the paper work together, the money we’ll need to pay the court.”
“Money?”
“Eighteen hundred pesos.”
Quickly working the math in my head, I said, “Four hundred and fifty dollars? Where are we going to come up with money like that?”
“We’ll get it. Don’t worry, querida. Nothing’s going to stop us from getting married. I promise.” He stared at me for a moment, and then a light turned on in those beautiful hazel eyes. “Hey, why don’t we go to Acapulco?”
“Acapulco?”
“For Semana Santa, in April.”
Semana Santa was the Mexican equivalent of Spring Break. Janice and I planned months ago to take a bus trip to the Yucatán and laze on the beaches of Cancún. It would be our last opportunity to see the country before the headache of finals and packing up for the trip home. Janice called it our “Last Hurrah.” For me, it would be a way to make up for all the time I hadn’t spent with her in the past few months.
“Just you and me—” he rubbed my arm slowly, “on the beach, in the sunshine. Nothing to worry about.”
My breath quickened at his touch. Being alone, together for one whole week without his mother, my friends, school?
“Let’s do it.” I was finding it way too easy to break my promise to Janice. Another one.
Smiling wickedly, he leaned into my body, giving me a slow, deep kiss that ignited a low-burning flame. If it weren’t for the fact we were surrounded by people in a busy, public place, I might have slid my hands under his t-shirt to feel the warm hardness beneath. He had the most gorgeous body.
His hand crept up my arm again, softly brushing my skin, driving me mad with the possibility of us being alone. For a week. In a motel room.
I pushed him gently from me, and he groaned with a laugh, “You would do that.”
“Do what?” I asked innocently, standing up and brushing grass off of my skirt.
“Make me want you more than I already do.” He looked up at me from his spot on the grass, appraising my bare legs.
I smiled inwardly at his confession, glad to know I drove him to distraction. I would hate to be the only one suffering. I reached out my hand to help him up from the ground.
“I think I like the view from here just fine,” he confessed, a lascivious grin on his face.
“Come on, I’m hungry.” I tugged at his hand playfully.
“You’re thinking of food at a time like this?” He got up off of the grass.
“No, but food might get my mind off of what I’m really thinking about.”
We strolled toward a cluster of food vendors near the water, the brightly-painted kiosks striking against the washed-out blue of the late-winter sky. Young lovers strolled along the walkways, holding hands, whispering to each other. Just like Joaquin and me.
Were we the only ones planning to elope in this crowd of happy couples? Our secret settled heavily inside of me. I ignored the weight of it and led my fiancé toward a booth selling pozole.
“My favorite.” Joaquin sat at the counter and took a deep whiff of the pork and hominy soup.
As we waited to be served, he looked over at me. “So, if we want to take this trip to Acapulco, that will cost us some money.”
“Mmm, I suppose so.” The cook behind the counter handed us our steaming bowls full of broth and succulent meat.
An idea formed in my mind, “I could cash in my plane ticket home. That would give us enough money to pay for the trip and the court fees.”
To my mind, I wouldn’t be going home anyway. In June, I would be Mrs. Joaquin Hernandez de León. I would be living with my husband here in Mexico City. I wouldn’t need a ticket to the States. At least, not right away.
“Are you sure?” He’d half-emptied his bowl already, clearly worrying only increased his appetite.
“Of course, I’m sure. The ticket would go to waste.”
A smile lit up his handso
me face.
Our plans were coming to fruition. We only had to wait for the permission from the Mexican government for our wedding, and we had almost three months before we would need it.
“I’ll get the money, and you make the plans.” I blushed as I imagined what kind of plans he probably already had made for our trip.
*
“You’re not going with me to Cancún?”
Janice and I were sitting together at a long wooden table in the library several days later, trying to do some studying before it closed.
“I can’t, Janice.”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?” Her eyes appeared watery, on the verge of tears. “I’ll bet you’re going somewhere with Joaquin, aren’t you?” She buried her nose in her Mexican history book.
“You know I don’t want to hurt your feelings, don’t you? But Joaquin and I—”
“Things have gotten serious, right?” The sarcasm in her voice was unmistakable.
“Right,” I sighed, knowing I couldn’t own up to the truth.
“And you don’t have much more time to spend together, right?”
“Right.”
“That’s a load of crap, Suze.” She slammed her book shut. The librarian sitting behind the front desk gave us a hard stare.
“What do you mean?” I whispered back, pretending to be deep into my Latin American Authors book to keep the librarian off our backs.
“I mean, we don’t have a lot of time left to spend together in Mexico either.”
“I know.”
“You know, but you don’t care.” Janice pushed her book aside. She uncapped a pen and began doodling on her notebook, drawing pictures of palm trees on deserted islands.
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She stopped drawing and looked up at me, her expression flat, her eyes empty of their usual warmth and humor.
“I do care, it’s just that—”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve heard it before enough times.” She scribbled over the palm trees and islands, making a mess of her notebook page. “This weekend is Joaquin’s birthday. This weekend is our two-month anniversary. This weekend Joaquin’s taking me to a football game at UNAM,” she mimicked in a sing-song voice.
Acapulco Nights Page 14