Normally, Pedro wouldn’t consider going, but it occurred to him that there would be a lot of people there, and it could be a good opportunity. “Yeah, buddy, I’ll see you there. Listen, I wanted to chat with you about Gaby, my new wife. She’s starting a real estate business, so if you know of anything.”
“Of course, I’ll let you know. I think my cousin Eugenio is selling his ranch in Tepeji. Call him. I’ll put you through to Gloria so she can give you his contact details.”
Pedro jotted down “Gloria” next to Javier’s name, just as Gaby had instructed. Secretaries liked to be called by their names.
He went through the a’s and had at least ten leads to follow up on. He scheduled breakfasts, lunches, and a round of golf with Gonzalo Arteago. At three he sat down for lunch with Gaby and told her about his morning. Gaby took notes, and they divvied up the tasks and follow-ups.
“Gaby, my love,” said Pedro excitedly, “I just realized something. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.”
“What, Pedro, what?”
“The share in the country club!”
“What?”
“It’s mine. The share is in my name. They don’t allow women members. Gaby, it’s worth almost three hundred thousand dollars!”
“But you’re not going to sell it,” said Gaby.
“Why not?”
“First, because we don’t need to sell it. I told you that we’re going to come out ahead. Don’t you see? We already have over twenty leads. Some are bound to pan out. You’re not even up to the letter d. Second, because you need it. Those golf outings are going to net you a lot of opportunities, my love. You need to have access. And third, because the first thing we would buy if we had the money would be that very same share in the country club, so there’s no point in selling something you want to buy again. What we do need to do is put my name on it so that I can use the gym.”
“What would I do without you?”
“And I you?” said Gaby tenderly, imagining herself in the gym with all those society ladies.
Three weeks later Pedro closed his first deal. The following week two more came through. They rented an office and hired a secretary.
They considered calling the agency “Gaby de León” but in the end decided upon using an English name, Lion and Lion. Its logo was a medallion with two lions standing up, their front paws raised like in the Exchequer Great Seal of England.
45
The Laboratory
He’d been married to Marti for nearly nine years and run fifteen marathons. Pedro felt like he was bursting, like his internal seams were ripping. After giving it a lot of thought, he decided to visit his cousin Rodrigo. With few words, because the last thing he wanted was to be indiscreet or expose himself in any way, he explained that if he had to jerk off one more time he was going to jump out the window. He needed sex, and Marti was not providing enough.
“You need a pro. Someone who won’t interfere with your family life, who can’t blackmail you, who doesn’t even know your name,” Rodrigo said. “Request a different girl each time. You won’t be disappointed. When you feel the need, call them, and they’ll set you up within the hour at a house in Las Lomas. The girls and the house change frequently. That’s how they’ve kept up the business for over twenty years without a scandal.”
Pedro jotted down the number on a piece of paper and began stuffing it into his wallet.
“No, dumb-ass, don’t put it there. That’s the first place they check. Why don’t you memorize it to avoid problems? If they change numbers, I’ll let you know. Oh, and don’t be alarmed when you call them. I think they answer ‘Medical Services.’”
Pedro tried to memorize the number, then stored the paper in his sock in case he forgot it. He’d forgotten to ask Rodrigo if he could call during the day. Marti kept close tabs on him even at the office, but it would be much harder for him to sneak out at night. He left feeling excited.
He went to the southern section of the city, where they’d just bought some buildings. The traffic moved surprisingly well, but on Avenida Universidad it came to a complete stop. That’s when he saw a handwritten neon orange sign that said “Laboratorios Sol.” He parked the car and stood outside the place on the ground floor of an apartment building. The windows were covered with black iron bars. She was standing behind the counter wearing a white lab coat. He stared at her for a while, unsure of what to do. When she looked up and noticed him, he had no choice but to go inside.
Feigning nonchalance, he said, “Is this your lab?”
“Yes, it is,” she said, laughing. “I’ve been here three years and can barely pay the rent.”
Slowly, Marisol came around the counter and stood beside him. She was a lot thinner.
“Don’t be frightened,” said Marisol, reading his thoughts as she gestured toward a wall of jars. “I’m not anemic—look, iron. It’s one of the blood tests we run most often. Hepatitis, red blood cell counts. The problem is that people who have health insurance go to their network providers, and those who do not, don’t pay. I’d like to do blood work for people with insurance, because their labs can’t cope with the demand. But I need someone with influence for that.”
The weight of her hand was the same. As was her scent. It seemed the most natural thing to him, as though ten years had not passed. She let him embrace her. Holding Marisol in his arms, Pedro felt strong and protective. He would buy her a real neon sign, send her warm food every day, and inquire among his friends for a contact with the Ministry of Health. After asking permission with his eyes, he kissed her. He had never needed it as much as now. Marisol stroked his hair.
“Wait a moment,” she said, and went to shut the door.
She took his hand and led him to the basement, where among boxes, machines, and two microscopes, there was a small folding bed covered with the pink wool blanket from her old room. She sat on the bed, and Pedro rested his head between her legs like a child.
“How have you been?” she asked him. “I saw you married that girl, the one who was your girlfriend.”
“How do know about that?”
“I always knew. Besides, it came out in all the papers.”
He flushed, feeling momentarily ashamed. He felt like an arrow had pierced the shield of his lies. Marisol knew. How much more did she know? Yet she hadn’t betrayed him. Pedro sat up and hugged her. He recalled the times they’d shared. He kissed her tenderly and removed her lab coat. He tried to hold back once he was inside her, but he couldn’t.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry, I know you can last a lot longer.”
Pedro wanted to make love to her again, but Marisol gently dissuaded him.
“It’d be better if you asked me out to eat someday.”
He left feeling furious. He didn’t even know how to screw anymore. He’d barely lasted a minute. What type of man had he become? He was no longer a man. As soon as he got to his office, he called Medical Services and set up a date.
46
The Pregnancy
Marisol sensed that she’d gotten pregnant while they were screwing. How had she fallen back into that old trap of the unhappy knight in shining armor? Why had she given herself over to supposedly comforting him? Hadn’t she learned that he always used her? She’d been stupid, and she alone was to blame. She should’ve taken precautions; she’d even thought about it in the moment. She didn’t stock condoms in the lab, but there was a pharmacy nearby. She was about to warn him not to come inside her, but he came so soon and, anyway, like an idiot she didn’t want him to know that she wasn’t sexually active. She wanted Pedro to think that she had lovers and that she was still attractive.
It pissed her off to care about the opinion of someone who shouldn’t have mattered to her. It was a weakness that angered her. So did the fact that, despite her efforts, the lab was not successful. She could barely afford food for herself, let alone pay rent. She’d reached the end of her resources and her imagination. Her brother posted si
gns in most of the hospitals, and they both handed out pamphlets at bus stops every morning. She had visited over a hundred medical offices, and only three or four referred patients to her. The rest had implied that they wanted a commission, but she couldn’t afford to pay commissions. She knew she should go back to them, tail between her legs, and ask for referrals, tell them that she would pay them somehow. And now this!
She didn’t hesitate for a second. Her decision not to have the child was so visceral, so automatic, that it took her by surprise. She considered searching for her maternal instinct, to see if it even existed, but then thought better of it. Best to leave it alone in case I should find it and start having doubts. Then I’d really be screwed, she thought.
Having an abortion did not bother her. The embarrassing part was revealing that she was pregnant. It bothered her that others would find out how uncouth and weak she had been. Especially after the hard time Marisol gave Vanessa when she’d had to get an abortion three years ago.
She’d met Vanessa many years back when they both worked as hostesses. She found her crying in that stinking bathroom at the end of their shift. Some asshole had torn her stockings, and the owners were going to dock her pay. At the time Marisol didn’t even know her name. But she kept a pair of stockings hidden in her bra because she was terrified that they wouldn’t pay her. They’d already tried it once when a drop of ketchup had dripped on her uniform, but they’d let it go in exchange for a pinch on the ass. Marisol didn’t really want to lend this stranger stockings, but Vanessa’s sad look—plus her own fury at the thought that the bosses would come out ahead again—made her give them away.
Vanessa had paid her back immediately, and they’d been friends since, even though they had little in common outside the workplace. Marisol started dating Pedro, while Vanessa kept whoring around with no long-term prospects. Once Marisol was done with Pedro, she dedicated herself to the lab, but Vanessa remained her friend. She had an uncle who was a doctor, a mean bastard who had made her pay for the procedure even though she was his niece.
“I’m risking a jail sentence,” he’d said by way of justification.
Marisol picked up the phone to call Vanessa. The sooner the better; she knew her friend could go days without checking in.
47
Sex
It drove her insane: his body’s harmonious defined proportions, his toasted-bread aroma, the taste of his saliva, the coordinated dance of their tongues. Their capacity for pleasure was natural and automatic. They looked at each other, thought about each other, and their genitals immediately throbbed like those tiny lights on electronic devices that are always turned on. They left their names behind. They were no longer Adriana and Mauricio; they were “love,” “baby,” “honey,” “sweetie,” “good-looking,” and “hot stuff.” They called each other everything; they accepted any name because in the end their desire ruled everything.
Normal things stopped mattering. Whether it was hot or cold, indoors or outdoors, day or night, or whether the restaurant was good or bad, the only thing that mattered, and the only thing they could do, was to be together. They rushed to meet up, and as soon as they did they enjoyed themselves and became enraptured.
Adriana knew that it couldn’t last forever. That knowledge enhanced her enjoyment even more. She remembered failed kisses where, after the initial desire, she wanted only to get away. She recalled teeth that scratched, tongues that shoved and gagged, and lovers who disappointed.
Mauricio had known his share of women: inhibited, demanding, screaming women who negotiated terms, who cried, repelled, accused, or were frigid and felt nothing at all. One woman had even confessed that she’d lost all sensation because the surgeon severed the nerves around her aureole when making incisions for her implants. Adriana was the exact opposite: pure sensation and enjoyment. He loved watching her delight, twisting with pleasure, moaning, and panting—she seemed to have no inhibitions.
They would snap pictures to make sure that the moment was real, that it wasn’t a dream. Surrounded as they were by cameras and tripods, it seemed normal to record their intimate moments. They took care to make them artistic. Mau was a natural-born model. He could hold any expression without distorting his features. It surprised him how much he liked having his picture taken, how much he enjoyed being seen and then seeing himself later. He started taking pictures of her. He asked her to pose; he looked for her best angles, the curve of her hip, and the line of her jaw. Adriana’s body was flawed, but Mau worked with shadows and body parts: her buns were hills, her white back a ski slope.
They spent the days in Central Park working on Adriana’s project. Right away Mau fell naturally into the assistant’s role. He scouted locations, looked for attractive families with children, asked them to pose, helped with the staging and lighting, and directed the other assistants. With Adriana’s help, he soon learned how to use the equipment and began to get to know the work he wanted to create.
48
The Moon
Marta’s hair started falling out. It was a while before she realized it. At first she dismissed the odd hair on her brush or in the drain of the hotel bathtub, but when it started coming out in tufts, she became alarmed. She suspected it might be a side effect of the sleeping pills.
She stopped taking the pills and started making healthy changes, like running in the park every morning. She had always been a good runner; it was time to get back to that. She also started smoking more in order to eat less. Then she checked out of the hotel room and rented an apartment at the Plaza Hotel. She didn’t feel she could face going back to Mexico and her mother’s empty home.
Recalling Mau and his promises, she resolved not to drink alone. Marta slipped into a backless Jil Sander dress and put on gold earrings, then fluffed her thinning hair into a back comb to give it more volume. Putting on makeup relaxed her—applying the foundation and blush to emphasize her cheekbones, curling and lengthening her eyelashes, outlining her lips for fullness. When she was done, she looked like a porcelain doll. Lace-up eight-inch heels in black patent leather, also Jil Sander, completed the look. She called a car service and had the driver take her to Box.
It was immensely satisfying to watch a sea of people part in order to let her pass. Marta ignored the young woman who wanted to charge her admission. She had never paid to get into clubs, and she wasn’t about to start. However, she tipped the coat-check hostess one hundred dollars to look after the white fox stole. It had been her mother’s, and she did not want to lose it.
She felt tremendous relief upon entering the club. The music and first few drinks made her once again feel like the world spun on her axis. Why had she struggled with sleep when this was her true nature? Nightlife, noise, bodies pressing up against her—these things kept her from feeling alone. She pretended that Mau was waiting for her at one of the tables in the far end while she did whatever she pleased.
She met the gaze of a man who’d been staring at her and was soon sitting at a table with musicians who had pot and cigarettes. No one said anything about them smoking. They laid out a few lines of coke on the table and snorted it greedily. Marta felt completely renewed— dancing, enjoying herself, letting one of the men touch her under the table.
That morning, the previous night was a collection of memory gaps, but the overall sensation was ecstatic. Her head roared, but there was no chatter. Instead of internal dialogues, there was throbbing and a beeping that quieted everything. She took two aspirin. She tried untangling her hair but couldn’t. In the process more of it fell out. She tied it in a ponytail and went for a run.
She slept late and went running when she woke. Then she shopped. She’d gotten to know some of the employees at Bergdorf, and it pleased Marta to be recognized upon entering the store. Afterward she’d take a nap or watch some television before going out dancing at midnight. She would rarely stay in watching movies.
One autumn evening Marta noticed the moon on a jog through Central Park. The days were getting shorter
. She didn’t know if the moon was waxing or waning, but she wanted to follow it, like the star that seemed to trace her steps after passing between the leaves. She thought about the Mexican moon. “México” means the place where the sun and moon come together. She thought about Ixchel, the Mayan goddess sometimes associated with the moon. She felt the force of the hate she carried inside.
Her stomach was burning up even while her legs marked the pace. Why had she been brought into this world? She cursed her father and all the men she had known. Marta even cursed Mau for having left her. He had always accepted her without judgment, right down to her seductions and madness, but no longer.
She watched the moon while she ran, wanting to unload the guilt she was carrying. Perhaps, she thought, she could reconcile with her father, but that was impossible while Gaby was in the picture. There was not enough room for both of them, just as there wasn’t enough room for her and Adriana. She begged the moon to tell her what to do with her strength, her anger, her life. She kept running.
49
The Pictures
Mau used the camera to shoot Adriana while she slept. He went over her feet, her neck, and the curve of her back between the sheets. He turned on the computer and opened Photoshop.
Earlier that day they’d taken pictures of a Senegalese family, copying a work by Fra Angelico that they’d seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mau found the painting beautiful in its simplicity: Saint Joseph kneeling on the left with his hands raised in surprise; the naked Child resting on a blanket on the ground; and Mary, completely in profile, kneeling next to the Child with her hands in prayer. In the background was the geometric and primitive manger, like a Yucatecan hut, and the donkey and cow leaning in their heads.
Becoming Marta Page 15