Nacho Figueras Presents

by Jessica Whitman

  Suddenly the crowd was even quieter than before. Everyone was frozen in place.

  “Mom,” gasped Noni. “Mom, stop.”

  “I mean, why not live in a sham of a marriage when there was all this to hold you here, right? Twinkle lights and delicious champagne and roses and lanterns. Life is beautiful here. Why would you ever leave?”

  Alejandro and Sebastian quickly moved through the crowd, joining Noni and Enzo.

  “Señora,” began Alejandro, “that is quite enough.”

  Noni put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Mom, please.”

  Benny shook her off and gave Noni and her brothers a wolfish grin. “Aw, look, Pilar’s boys have come to defend her. That’s so sweet. What good kids. And look, my daughter is defending her, too. Because,” she said loudly, appealing to the crowd, “because Pilar has managed to buy my daughter just like she bought her husband.” She turned back toward Noni. “Show them your birthday jewels, Antonia.” Her smile twisted and an angry sob tore through her. “Show them how Pilar is going to steal you away from me, too!”

  Noni stepped in close and took Benny by the arm. “Come on, we’re going inside.”

  Benny pulled away, but before she could say more, Pilar had crossed the garden and stood defiantly in their way.

  “Why did you never cash the checks, Benny?” she said quietly, ice dripping from her voice.

  Benny looked at her and then looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She started to walk away, but Pilar grabbed her by the arm. “The checks that Carlos wrote you every month. Every one of them came back uncashed. My lawyer explained this to me after Carlos died. From the sound of it, you and Noni could have used the help. So why didn’t you cash them?”

  “What checks?” said Noni.

  Benny shook her head. “Why would I do that?” she said. “Why would I give Carlos any reason to take away my daughter?”

  Noni felt dizzy. “Mom?”

  Pilar raised her chin. “Whatever he felt about me, or you, I know Carlos would have never abandoned his child. She was his daughter, too. She needed help and you refused to take it.”

  Sebastian and Alejandro drew in closer to Noni, exchanging questioning looks.

  “We were fine!” said Benny. “We didn’t need his help. If I’d taken his dirty money, I’d have been playing right into his hands. It was hard enough, keeping ahead of him, moving every few months to make sure he didn’t catch up. That money would have led him straight to us.”

  “Wait, he was looking for me?” Noni felt like the floor was tilting. “You told me he wanted nothing to do with us, that he didn’t care.”

  Benny looked at her pleadingly. “He would have taken you away. Don’t you understand? And now,” she said, sobbing, “he has. He left you all this money and he delivered you right into the hands of his family. I mean, just look at you!” She flailed her hands at Noni standing with her brothers. “And now,” she sobbed harder, “I’m going to lose you just like I always knew I would!”

  She was starting to get hysterical, but Noni wasn’t sure she really cared. She could only stand and stare.

  “Niña,” said Enzo softly, “I am going to take your mother out now, okay?” He looked at Pilar and the Del Campo brothers. “You’ve got Noni?”

  They nodded as Enzo gently put his arm around the wailing Benny and led her through the crowd into the house.

  Noni looked at her brothers. “Did you all know?”

  Sebastian and Alejandro shook their heads.

  Antonia looked at Pilar. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Pilar shrugged. “She is your madre. I did not want to come between you. It was not my secret to share.”

  Noni nodded, understanding. She took a deep breath and laughed rustily. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, you guys. That was horrible.”

  Pilar took her hand. “It is nothing. Come, let us get something for you to eat.”

  Noni nodded and then looked around. “Where’s Max? Tell me he didn’t see all that?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “No, I’m sure he missed it. I saw Jacob take him inside the house before it all began.”

  * * *

  Enzo gently took the drink from Benny’s clutched hand, passed her a tissue, and waited patiently while she blew her nose.

  They were in the sunroom. Enzo, hoping to calm her down, had led her in and shut the door behind them.

  The sunroom was a long room that ran down the south side of the house. Instead of walls, it was made up of floor-to-ceiling leaded glass windows and had a magnificent view of the barn and the polo field beyond. On one end of the room was an enormous stone fireplace, almost big enough for a man to stand in. On the other end was a fully stocked bar. Pilar had furnished the room with comfortable antique green-painted wicker. A tastefully worn pink and green oriental silk carpet covered the brick floor. There was a large iron and glass coffee table with a top that folded back like a jewelry box, and inside Pilar displayed a revolving collection of bird nests, feathers, pretty seed pods, and other natural ephemera she had picked up around the farm. There were also several antique wrought-iron étagères that held Pilar’s extensive selection of orchids and ferns.

  Benny flopped down on a chaise lounge and glared at Enzo. “I suppose you think I ruined the party?”

  Enzo raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “Well, there’s still the cake. Perhaps that will help.”

  Benny’s mouth quirked briefly at one side, but then she frowned again. She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes and sighed heavily.

  “Fuck,” she said, “I’m a horrible mother.”

  Enzo looked at her. “I don’t know. You made Antonia into who she is today, and since I am awfully fond of how she turned out, I don’t think you could have been entirely terrible.”

  This time Benny laughed. “So, you and my daughter, huh?”

  Enzo nodded. “Sí. Me and your daughter.”

  Benny shook her head. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. This family will eat you both alive.”

  Enzo shrugged. “Perhaps, but I’m willing to take the risk. There is no life for me without Antonia.”

  Benny looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then looked down and slowly rubbed her fingers over the back of her other hand. “I’m getting arthritis,” she admitted shyly. She sighed again. “I really did love Carlos, you know. And he loved me.”

  “I believe that.”

  “I was very young. Much younger than him. But we were like”—she made an exploding gesture with her hands—“fireworks, you know? I met him at a bar in the city. I was working as a cocktail waitress, putting myself through art school. He took me back to the hotel with him that night and we spent a week in bed.”

  She smiled to herself, remembering.

  “But you know, it wasn’t just sex. It was like we never ran out of things to talk about, either. We fascinated each other. There was chemistry between us, of course, but it was more than that. I thought, for a while, that we were actual soul mates.”

  Enzo nodded.

  “When I got pregnant, he told me he was going to leave Pilar, that he wanted to start a new life with me. I thought I had done it, you know? I had found this amazing man, and we were going to have this beautiful child together, and I had my art and he had his horses, and we were going to have the most wonderful life…”

  She reached over to claim her drink back from Enzo and took a sip. “But he didn’t leave her,” she said blankly. “All through the pregnancy, he said he would. But he never did.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Enzo simply.

  She nodded. “He only saw Antonia once, just after she was born.” She smiled. “Noni was the most beautiful baby. You can’t imagine.”

  He smiled in return. “I think I can imagine.”

  “I had already given up on Carlos. I knew he would never leave Pilar. That his family here was the family he had chosen. But when he held Noni, something happened. I watche
d him fall instantly in love. He looked at her in a way that I had never seen him look at anyone before.” She laughed bitterly. “Certainly not me, at least. He looked…greedy, almost. That was when I knew that he would take her from me if he could. He didn’t want me, but he wanted her. And that’s when I knew we had to run.”

  She shook her head and rubbed between her eyes. “I know that Noni’s childhood was hard in lots of ways. I was probably not always as on top of it as I maybe should have been. But at least we were together, right? A child needs her mother. I mean, what would she have been here? Can you imagine Carlos just coming home and plunking this kid in the kitchen and saying, ‘Hey, boys, here’s your new sister! Hey, Pilar, here’s my bastard daughter!’ You think Pilar would have just smiled and opened up her arms and embraced her?” She snorted. “Except that she did, I guess, as it turns out. But the old man had to die first before she was willing.”

  She looked at Enzo, seeming to take his measure with her eyes. “You’re not one of them, are you? You’re not part of this whole crazy family dynasty thing?”

  Enzo shook his head.

  “So, what do you think? Do you think Noni is strong enough to deal with all this? All this money, this insane lifestyle…I just feel like it will ruin her. I’m afraid she’ll get sucked into something she’s not equipped to handle. She could lose a piece of her soul, you know?”

  Enzo thought for a moment. “I was part of a family like that once,” he said hesitantly. “I lost myself in the way that you worry will happen to Antonia. I understand what you’re afraid of, because I think, if you had asked me that question even a year ago, I would have agreed with you. That you can’t be part of something like this and not be changed for the worse. But Noni is strong. She already knows who she is. And this family—Pilar and Alejandro and Sebastian, Kat and Georgia—they are not what you think.”

  She looked doubtful and opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand.

  “You were right about Carlos. Carlos was about the money and the image and the power. He was about winning and he cared very deeply about how people saw him. I think maybe you were right not to let him take Noni. From what I have heard, Jandro and Sebastian did not have the easiest of childhoods. Now that Carlos is gone…this family is somehow different. Did you ever meet Victoria?”

  She shook her head. “No, but Carlos talked about her often.”

  He nodded. “I only knew her for a brief time, when I first started working for the Del Campos. But she was an extraordinary woman. While she was alive, Carlos, well, he was obviously not perfect, but she held him in check. After she died, he just seemed to lose his way. He ran wild. The family fell apart.”

  He looked out the windows at the dark summer night, considering. “Now, all these years later, it’s like she’s here again somehow. I mean, not her literal presence but her…spirit, her influence. When I see the Del Campo family together now…” He smiled. “Well, I think I would like to be a part of it.”

  He looked at Benny. She had tears in her eyes.

  “As long as Noni and I are here, Benny, there will always be a place for you here, too. If you want it.”

  Noni reached out and grasped his hand. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Noni walked through the house, a plate of cake in her hand, trying to find Max and Jacob.

  She wasn’t quite ready to face her mother yet, though she knew it was inevitable. She thought that Enzo would be able to handle her, at least for a little while longer.

  She smiled to herself. The man tamed wild horses, after all; even Benny Black should be easy compared to that.

  Noni had already checked all over downstairs with no luck and was starting to worry a bit, but then she rounded a corner and saw her dogs, tails wagging, sniffing at the closed door to Sebastian and Alejandro’s childhood bedroom.

  “Good girls,” she murmured, giving them each a little lick of frosting off her finger. She knocked on the door as she entered. “Jake? Max? You guys in here?”

  They were standing by a half-packed suitcase on Max’s bed. Max looked as if he had been crying, and Jake was running his hands through his hair in an exasperated way. When he saw Noni, he quickly reached into the suitcase and picked something up. “Finish up, Max,” he said to his son before he turned back to Noni.

  Noni looked at him and a sliver of fear struck her heart. “What are you guys doing? Why are you packing?”

  “Daddy says we have to leave now. Before the cake even!” Max blurted as he carried over some clothes from the bureau.

  Noni handed him the cake. “Well, here, I can take care of that, at least.” She smiled at Jacob, trying not to show her worry. “Leave? To go where? What’s going on?”

  Jacob bent to retrieve a pair of Max’s shoes from under the bed. “I can’t do it, Noni,” he said quietly. “I can’t go to jail.”

  Noni’s eyes shot to Max, worried about what the boy was hearing. She was relieved to see that he seemed distracted by his cake and a handheld video game he had found on the floor. “What…what do you mean? I thought we agreed—”

  “No,” said Jacob as he angrily threw the shoes into the suitcase. “You came up with a plan where everything worked out the way you wanted. You get Max, and you get your money, and you get to stay with Enzo. And I…I get conveniently shipped off so I’m out of everyone’s way.”

  “No, that’s not fair. That’s not what…I want to help you.”

  He slammed the suitcase shut and locked it. “Oh,” he said, “you still can.”

  She didn’t notice the gun at first. He kept it very close to his body, hidden in his sleeve. After a glance over at his son, Jacob shook his sleeve back long enough for her to see it was pointed straight at her. She gasped, jumping back in terror.

  He shook his head and whispered, “Stay calm. I know you don’t want to scare Max.”

  “Jake, what are you doing? This is insane.”

  “I didn’t want it to happen this way, Noni. I really do care about you. If you had just gone with the plan—”

  “The plan was never going to…to…work,” she stuttered.

  He shrugged. “Well, now we’ll never know, will we?” He gestured at her with the gun. “Get out of the way. We’ve got a new plan now.”

  * * *

  Enzo and Benny were still sitting together in the sunroom when Pilar burst in. “Perdon a mé,” she said. She was a bit breathless. “Did you talk to Noni? Or Jacob or Max? One of the servers said they just saw them all drive away in Noni’s truck.”

  Enzo froze. He felt an icy flood of fear fill his limbs. What if Noni had suddenly changed her mind? What if he had lost her after all?

  Then he heard Benny gasp.

  He turned to her. She was chalk white.

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “You guys, Jacob…Jacob is in trouble with the law…some drug thing…and he was so upset that Noni wouldn’t…” She took a deep breath. “I told him that maybe if he just tried to talk it through with her, they could find a way to fix things. I didn’t think he’d actually ever…Oh God, I think that he might have done something terrible.”

  Chapter Forty

  Noni was relieved when Max finally fell asleep. She could feel the gun pressed into her side through Jacob’s pocket as she drove, and she had been too terrified to answer the little boy’s chatter and questions. She’d felt like she was hearing him from underwater.

  “I don’t understand what we’re doing,” she said to Jacob. She tried to keep her voice calm and matter of fact. She didn’t want him to know how scared she really was. “Can you at least explain it to me?”

  They weren’t heading out of the Hamptons like she assumed they would be. Instead, he had told her to drive to the Shelter Island Ferry, and now they were in line to get on the boat.

  “You don’t need to understand,” he said. “It will all be fine in a little while.”

  “Listen.” She pinched herself to keep her voice from shaking
. “I know you’re scared. I know that you are under an incredible amount of stress. But…it’s me, Jake. You don’t have to use a gun on me. We can talk this through.”

  He shook his head. “I tried to talk it through. You didn’t listen.”

  She slowly pulled onto the ferry and turned off the car. The ticket taker started making his way down the line, collecting money. He walked up to the window.

  “Don’t say a thing,” hissed Jacob. “Don’t even look at him. Just roll down your window.”

  She rolled down her window, careful to keep her eyes in front of her, even when the man said hello.

  “Hey,” grunted Jacob in return. “One way.” He reached across her and handed the man some money and then took the ticket.

  “Roll it back up,” he whispered.

  She looked at him. “Please,” she said.

  He gestured at the window. She rolled it back up.

  He met her eyes quickly and then looked away. “I know this seems bad,” he said. His voice took on a wheedling tone. “But I’m really doing this for Max. He needs you. I need you. We can’t do this without you.”

  “Don’t you dare use Max as an excuse,” Noni spit out, suddenly enraged. “That’s bullshit. You’re delusional if you think you’re doing Max any favors by dragging him into this. There are a million other ways we could fix this.”

  He shook his head violently. “Not without me going to jail. Not without Max losing his father. You of all people should know what it’s like not to have your father.”

  She flinched as if he had struck her. “This is nothing like what happened to me. Nothing. He doesn’t have to lose you. I told you I would—”

  His face flamed red. “What kind of father would I be from behind bars? What would that do to Max? Seeing his dad in prison?” He poked the gun into her ribs. “Just drive,” he said tonelessly.