Playing With Fuego

by K. G. MacGregor

  Juan’s partner was Brian, a fair-haired Anglo like me. Their friend Michael—presumably the one whose business Pepe and Mari were courting—was balding but blue-eyed, which told me he probably wasn’t Hispanic either.

  Then there was Pepe’s wife Lucia, who might have weighed a hundred pounds with bricks in her pockets, a stunning contrast to her portly husband. Apparently, she hadn’t gotten the memo about casual dress, as she had on a flowing silk jumpsuit in pale orange, something I might have worn to a formal ball…assuming I ever went to such things.

  I was introduced as Mari’s friend Daphne, a director at one of Miami’s most successful foundations. Technically true, since my title was Director of Community Relations, but more than a little aggrandizing.

  Mari clarified our relationship for the guests by wrapping an arm around my waist as she steered me to a seat. Eddie soon appeared with our daiquiri and mojito and announced dinner would be ready in forty minutes.

  Eight o’clock? Hispanics usually eat much later in the evening. I figured we’d eat around ten, but then it occurred to me our hosts were being hospitable, since not all of us have digestive systems that run on Hispanic Time.

  In the meantime, taking in the sunset from the upper deck of a yacht with my gorgeous, rich friends, I was so, so overstimulated. Especially with Mari’s arm around my waist.

  One thing I appreciate about most bilingual Cubans is how they remember to speak English in the presence of those like Brian, Michael and me. Not that I understood any of what they were saying tonight. Financial lingo might as well be Spanish to me.

  “…with the lowest residual security,” Pepe explained. “Yes, they’re load funds but they’re heavily managed. Mari herself handles much of the research on the key performance indicators.”

  “Including site visits last year to eleven manufacturing and distribution centers throughout Latin America,” she added.

  “In other words, we don’t base our investment decisions on earnings statements and corporate investment brochures. We verify it on the ground, and if the benefit cost ratios are found to be in decline, we pass. Iberican looks for rapid capital appreciation, and we’re committed to ongoing review of assets. Our objective is...”

  I could barely hear the motors of the modern yacht as we churned slowly underneath the MacArthur Causeway Bridge into the calm waters beside the old Miami Herald building, where I had an almost overpowering urge to shout, “I can see my house from here!” Then we turned out toward South Beach, past the small man-made islands that were home to Miami’s mega-rich sports and media stars.

  Mari leaned in, and with her voice barely above a whisper, said, “I promise we won’t talk about this much longer. You doing okay?”

  “I’m fantastic. Don’t worry about me. Do whatever you need to do.”

  Michael was gawking at the waterfront mansions as much as I was. “Which one of those is yours?” he asked Pepe.

  “I can only dream. For one of those, I’d have to charge much higher commissions.” He hugged his wife. “And then there would be the matter of talking Lucia into leaving the Gables. I’d stand a better chance of convincing all of you to invest with Lehman Brothers.”

  I actually got that joke. Lehman was the brokerage firm that went under in the early days of the financial crisis. My father had lost a bundle with them, but fortunately his holdings were diversified. Pepe’s remark made me wonder how the crash had impacted not only Padilla Financial as a firm, but Mari and Pepe personally. They sure didn’t seem to be suffering, but then neither were any of the other investment survivors. It was just the poor schmucks like me whose meager wealth was tied up in tanking real estate.

  Suddenly Pepe rose and clapped his hands. “Enough about business. Let’s enjoy this beautiful evening.”

  He and Lucia led the men down a front staircase to the bow. Mari stayed put and so did I…especially since her hand was on my hip and I wouldn’t have moved even for a cockroach.

  “It gets crowded up there. We can go later. Sorry about all that investment talk.”

  “It’s all right. I finally have an idea what you actually do for a living.”

  “The evil money changer.”

  “I have nothing against capitalism as long as it’s fair.”

  “Fair is good. Our aim is to be the first investment firm on the bandwagon when a new or restructured business takes off. That’s when risks pay the highest dividends, before other investors come on board.”

  “And why you hold certain investments back for just your premium clients.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So the people who already have the most money are the only ones who can make the most money.”

  “Technically true, but they also assume the highest risk because they can most afford to lose. By the time we bring our more conservative investors into the mix, the rapid growth has slowed but at least it’s steady. That’s a win-win.”

  Still, it’s only a win for those with money to invest. What are the rest of us supposed to do while guys like Juan and Michael hoard all the money?

  I forced a smile, noting with no small bit of irony that I had no business grousing about the One Percent while I was personally enjoying the fruits of their investments. Since they were kind enough to ask me along on this extravagant dinner cruise, I decided not to entertain any more rude thoughts about how any of them got their money or what they did with it.

  “I take it you travel a lot, Mari,” I said. As if she needed even more glamour in her life.

  “Just a few times a year…mostly South America and the Caribbean.”

  “I had a job offer from Global Hotels in Boston that would have taken me back and forth to Europe every couple of months. Instead I followed Emily Jenko to Miami and wound up traveling to exciting places like Liberty City and Little Haiti.”

  She started to answer then snapped her mouth shut as she looked away.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Something. What were you going to say?”

  “I’m in the business of giving financial advice to people, and I sometimes do that when I shouldn’t. This may be one of those times.”

  “I know, I know. You would advise me to walk away from my mortgage and go back to Boston.”

  “Still yes to the first, but I have no advice for what you should do about Boston. I was just going to suggest that you quit dwelling on a choice you already made. Whether it was right or wrong is irrelevant because you can’t change your decision to come here. What matters is what you do now.”

  “I’m sure that’s comforting for your investors after they’ve lost their entire nest egg.”

  “Except that wouldn’t happen because I’d never let any of my clients put their whole nest egg in one place. But assuming they lost big…yes, it would still be my advice because I’m a financial planner. By definition, I plan for the future, not the past.”

  I wondered if her clients found her as confident and charming as I did, or if I was just under her Lesbian Spell. She made me want to go out and rob banks so I could give her all the money. Then she’d seek me out at cocktail parties the way she had Carlos Moya, and I’d get to see her light up with a smile when I made a little telephone with my pinky and thumb.

  “You need to call someone?” Mari asked.

  Apparently I’d actually done that instead of just imagining it.

  “No, I was just thinking your phone must ring off the hook if that’s the sort of advice you give your clients. We’d all be better off if we didn’t dwell on our mistakes.”

  “Absolutely.” She slid her fingers along my forearm until they linked with mine. “I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other night, when I said I needed a better class of friends. That business at the concert…I wanted to cut out as soon as the performance was over and you insisted we stay. I should have realized I was insulting the performers, and I respect you for getting in my face about it.”

  I hadn’t exactly gotten in
her face.

  Not that I had anything against her face.

  “Anyway, that’s a long way of saying I think you’re pretty classy.”

  I could feel myself blushing, and for once, it wasn’t because I’d said or done something stupid. “That’s about the nicest thing anyone ever said about me, Mari.”

  There we were, alone on the sun deck with a fiery pink and blue sky in the background. Kissing her seemed like a really good idea.

  Then Eddie appeared to tell us dinner was ready.

  Mari held my hand all the way to the table, finally letting go so we could cross ourselves as Pepe offered a solemn grace. Finally, I got a payoff for those childhood catechism classes.

  Dinner was a delicious mixed green salad with goat cheese and sweet guava vinaigrette, followed by roast pork tenderloin with seasoned rice. I had no idea where the food was coming from until Benito, a round man in a chef’s jacket and toque, emerged from below to take a bow.

  Juan, who had spent most of the evening talking finance with Pepe, directed his attention to me as Eddie cleared the dinner plates. “So you’re the director of a foundation, Daphne? Which one?”

  I was reluctant to correct him because I learned from Gisela that titles are very important in Hispanic business culture, and Pepe had seemingly gone out of his way to present me as more credentialed than I was. Nor was I comfortable with letting Juan think I ran the place, so I borrowed Pepe’s words. “I’m one of the directors at the Miami Home Foundation. We use federal and community grants to renovate homes in blighted neighborhoods.”

  Michael snorted with unmistakable contempt. “Sounds like another one of those government giveaway programs. You let your house fall into ruin and we’ll take other people’s money and fix it for you.”

  Lovely. Mari and her uncle were schmoozing business from a Tea Party asshole. “We’ve been around for over thirty years, so that’s enabled us to document the positive impact of our work, not only for the families that benefit directly, but also for the surrounding neighborhoods. Good housing grows the tax base, fosters business development, establishes a foundation for growing wealth among those who have traditionally struggled economically, and of course, improves the health and safety of people in ways that save public resources down the road.” This is the case I make every time I approach a business or organization for volunteers. A simple act of generosity makes a huge difference to the big picture.

  “I don’t necessarily disagree with your results, but your underlying assumption is that we—and by that I mean taxpayers—should be renovating private homes. No matter how you slice it, that’s a straight-up redistribution of wealth.”

  I looked to Pepe in hopes he’d steer the conversation elsewhere but he abruptly left the table to speak with Eddie. What I knew for certain was I didn’t want to get into a back-and-forth with Pepe’s investment prospect on the politics of urban development, especially when there was a growing likelihood I’d eventually say something to insult him. Deliberately.

  Mari waded into the discussion instead. “I can’t speak for the government, but Padilla Financial has been very glad to sponsor some of the Home Foundation’s work.”

  “Which you do by choice,” Michael said. “I have nothing against anyone who wants to give their money away, but when the government hands out our money like that, it’s socialism.”

  The boat turned sharply and picked up speed, and Eddie finished clearing the table.

  “Gentlemen, perhaps you’d like the bow for the trip home,” Pepe offered, his hand sweeping toward the narrow passage on the deck.

  Once they left, Lucia slid down to join Mari and me at the end of the table. “You’d think someone with as many Cuban friends as Michael would know better than to trivialize socialism and redistribution of wealth in the presence of a man who saw all of his family’s property seized by a revolutionary.”

  Mari chuckled. “No Cuban cigar for Michael.”

  “Just a quick ride back to the dock,” Lucia added. “We’ll eat dessert after they’re gone, and there will be twice as much flan for us.”

  As we chugged back toward Bayside, Mari and I climbed the ladder and found ourselves alone again on the sun deck. Not just alone, but sitting side by side with her arm around me. If I leaned into her shoulder, it would be almost like snuggling.

  “Sorry about Michael. You handled him just fine.”

  “I hope I didn’t screw up your business deal.”

  “Don’t worry about it. There are some people you don’t want to do business with and Michael’s one of them. Answering to him down the road would be a serious headache because he’d be looking over our shoulder the whole time to make sure we didn’t give any of his money to people who didn’t deserve it. It’s good we got to see that now.”

  The lights from the city danced off the water, causing Mari’s dark eyes to sparkle. I really, really wanted to kiss her. Just one of those little casual smooches, where I might nibble on her bottom lip. No tongue, not on the first kiss…unless she kissed me back that way. I’d let her take the lead if that’s what she wanted. Whatever I did, I needed to be discreet about it. The guys out on the bow were all turned the other way, but I didn’t want to take any chances in case she was one of those people who—

  She kissed me.

  Okay, that worked too. Just a quick little smack on the lips like she’d been doing it all her life. Next thing I knew she’d scooted even closer and was looking out on the water with a smile that said she was very pleased with herself.

  I was pleased with her too.

  No longer in his white jacket and bow tie, Eddie hopped off the boat at the dock and fastened the moorings. By the time we got back down to the lower deck, Pepe was already shaking hands with the men as they stepped off.

  Lucia appeared from below and presented us with a rolled up paper sack. “Eddie fixed our flan to go. Think that was a hint?”

  And both of ours were in one bag. Think that was a hint?

  I leaned into Lucia and we traded cheek kisses, and then I shook Pepe’s hand. “Thank you both for a great evening.”

  “It will be more fun next time,” Lucia said. “We’ll make a day of it and go to Bimini.”

  Yachting over to Bimini with my new friends. “Wonderful.”

  The walk back to the car was quiet, which was okay with me because when I’m holding hands with someone for the first time, that’s all I want to think about. Mari’s hand was supple, with slender fingers that wove through mine like ivy on a trellis. Her polished nails brought to mind her first day on the jobsite when she’d worn through my work gloves until her hand bled. I squeezed it now in a silent apology. What an asshole I’d been.

  We broke our grip long enough to get into her car and out of the garage, but joined again as she barreled up Biscayne Boulevard like she’d just robbed a bank.

  “That was fast,” I said when she came to a sudden stop in front of my building ten blocks later.

  “Too fast?”

  “If you mean the driving, yes. If you mean the end of our evening, yes to that too.”

  “Yeah, we got back to the marina sooner than I thought we would on account of Michael. We could always…”

  “I’m off tomorrow.”

  She leaned against her door, crossed her arms and gave me the sexiest look I’d ever seen. And I do mean ever. “I have a spinning class at seven thirty.”

  “I have an alarm clock.”

  Chapter Eleven

  I skipped the usual tour I give when someone stops by, where I show off the grand view from our balcony and all the modern conveniences of a moderately luxurious new building. By the time we stepped off the elevator, the bedroom was the only part of the house I wanted Mari to see.

  Shoes were the first things to go, followed by my overshirt, which I tossed toward the loveseat that took up a whole corner of the room. What a fight that had been, with Emily arguing for a king-size bed that would have swamped the entire bedroom, and me wanting the quee
n so we could also create an intimate reading space where we could enjoy the gorgeous view.

  Wrong on so many levels—not the loveseat part. I was absolutely right on that one. But it was way wrong to be thinking about my ex-girlfriend just as I was about to have sex for the first time in over two years. Was it also wrong for me to wish there was a camera on the ceiling that would let her watch me getting it on with somebody as hot as Mari?

  Mari tossed her shirt on top of mine and I decided I’d spent enough brain cells on Emily Jenko for tonight. My introspection about the tragic end of our relationship was officially over.

  I wrapped my arms around Mari’s waist and pulled her to the bed, deciding I wanted to make love to her first in case the world ended in the middle of our romp and one of us didn’t get a turn on top. She wrestled me for a moment as if she had the same goal in mind, but then I felt her surrender as she settled onto her back.

  With our faces only inches apart, I looked into her eyes and held my gaze until she matched it. This was something I’d always done, a ritual to be sure we both were communicating the same feelings to one another. Oddly enough, the habit began as part of my sexual fantasies when I was only nine years old, years before my first intimate encounter. That’s when I first heard that sexual relations were meant to be a form of communication without talking, what two adults—always a man and a woman, but I never imagined it that way—did to express their feelings of love. I coupled that with my father’s advice to look someone in the eye when talking to them, so I never made love without making eye contact too.

  Since I’d gone to Catholic school, I’d been taught that sexual relations also meant making lots of Catholic babies. By the time I reached puberty, most of my schoolgirl friends were light years ahead of me in sexual maturity because I had so many confusing questions that weren’t being asked at all, let alone answered, so while they dreamed about sex as the ultimate expression of procreational love, I saw it as a chance to communicate other things. When they finally discovered sex could be even more fun if it had nothing to do with creating blessed zygotes, I was already there.