“What are you doing here, Victor?”
He was dressed in one of his nicest suits, a pale gray number that hung just so on his solidly-built frame, with a crisp white shirt that provided a sharp contrast to his dark tan, and he held a box wrapped artfully in gold paper and ribbons, so the answer to my question was obvious. But I still wanted an explanation from him.
“I’m here for Luisa’s party, of course. She invited me.”
“She’s dead,” I muttered.
“What was that, mi amor?”
“Never mind.” I took the box from him. “I’ll tell Mamá that you dropped this gift off, but you couldn’t stay.”
“Lying to your mother on her birthday? Tsk, tsk.” Victor shook his head in a reproachful manner, then snatched the present out of my hands.
With a groan of frustration, I made another grab for the box, but he stepped back so that it was out of my reach. Not wanting to play keep-away with my ex for the rest of the night, I placed my hands on my hips and scowled at him.
“You can’t stay, Victor. It would be completely inappropriate. This is a family gathering, and you are not family.”
“Ah, but Luisa disagrees and since this is her special day, I think we should respect her wishes.”
“Victor!” My meddlesome mother sashayed up to the door, carrying a plate of Papas Rellenos (stuffed potato balls.)
“I was wondering when you were going to show up. Why are you standing outside? Pilar, where are your manners? Let my guest in.”
Grudgingly, I stood back so that Victor could enter the condo.
He kissed Mamá once on each blush-streaked cheek, then said, “This is for you,” and presented her with his birthday gift.
She beamed like a teenage girl who’d just been given her first corsage by her date to the junior prom. “Aren’t you sweet? Isn’t he sweet, Pilar?”
Tiresome, relentless, and purposely dense would have been the words I would have chosen to use when describing Victor, but to each their own.
“Just put your box on the table over there, and I’ll open it later. We’re about to eat out on the terrace, so follow me.”
“Please, let me carry that plate for you, Luisa. It looks heavy, and your hands are so delicate.” Victor poured on his own special brand of unctuous charm.
“Such a gentleman!” My mother gave me a meaningful look that said, ‘See, what a prize you’re missing out on?’ as she handed Victor the appetizers.
I rolled my eyes in return.
We walked out to the terrace, where the rest of the family was waiting for us, and I gave quick hugs and kisses to the relatives I hadn’t had a chance to greet earlier.
“Please, everyone, take your seats,” the party’s hostess instructed. “I’ve got name cards at each place setting. Victor, you’re on my left, and Pilar is next to you.”
I would have rather sat between Rique, my weirdo cousin who smelled like the pet store where he worked, and my great-uncle Juan, who had to gum his food because he refused to wear his dentures, but I did as I was told like a good daughter.
The first three courses passed without incident, but things got dicey a few minutes after the Ropa Vieja con Arroz was served.
“So, Isidora, have you found a job yet?” Aunt Brigida asked in between bites of the beef. It was an innocent enough question and I don’t think she was trying to start trouble, but Izzy immediately got defensive.
“No, but I’ve been looking.”
“You had an interview today, didn’t you?” my father inquired.
She shrugged. “Yeah, but it was a total waste of time.”
“Theirs, I’m sure,” my older sister snarked.
Izzy let her fork drop, and it hit her china plate with a clang so loud that it made me and several other people at the table flinch. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you’re not exactly ideal employee material.”
“What would you know about being ideal employee material? You’ve never worked a day in your entire life. You went straight from Papá’s house to your husband’s. The only things you know how to do are: get married and get pregnant.”
“Being a wife and mother is very hard work,” Ana said indignantly.
“Not if you job-share with a housekeeper and a nanny.”
Ana had no immediate rebuttal for that, so Solana, the eldest of my father’s three sisters, took the opportunity to jump into the conversation. “Izzy, if you’d like to come and work at the bakery with me, there’s an opening. The girl who was working the cash register on weekends just quit.”
Solana owned a very profitable panaderia in the heart of Little Havana. Her Cuban bread was so good (perfectly crispy crust - warm and doughy on the inside) that it was almost legendary. Devoted customers lined up outside her shop at the crack of dawn every day so that they could buy loaves fresh from the oven when she opened at 7 a.m.
“Gracias, tia, but I don’t think I’m cut out for—,” ‘a job that would require me to wear a hair net’ probably would have been the rest of that sentence if my mother had let Izzy complete it.
“You shouldn’t be so quick to say ‘no,’‘’ she advised. “Solana could teach you to bake, then you’d have a trade to fall back on if you don’t find a husband. Like Pilar. She’s got her psychology practice, which is a good thing because it doesn’t look like she’s ever going to get married.”
I heard my cousin Sancha snicker.
“You might be wrong about that, Mamá.” Izzy winked at me from across the table. “Pilar’s got a new man in her life.”
“No, I don’t,” I mumbled because my mouth was full of plantains.
“Oh, come on, Pilar. You talk about him all the time,” she teased me.
Victor turned to me, his face darkening as if a storm cloud was passing over his head. “What’s she talking about? Who’s this man?”
“I have no idea. Isidora, how many glasses of Sangria have you had?” If this was my sister’s way of diverting attention away from herself, I did not appreciate it.
“Only one. Don’t be shy, Pilar. Tell everyone about Ford. That’s what she calls him,” she clued my family in, “but his full name is Dr. Jonathan Fordham.”
“Oooooo, a doctor,” all three of my aunts murmured their approval.
“Is he a real doctor, or just a psychologist like you?” my bitchy cousin Nita wanted to know.
“Ford’s a medical doctor - a psychiatrist. But he is NOT my man.”
“I should hope not.” Victor threw his napkin down on the table with disgust. “That gringo’s not worthy of you.”
“What do you know about Ford and his worthiness? You only met him once.”
“Once was enough!” he declared. “I disliked him instantly.”
“Because he was talking to me.”
“Because he has no respect for women. He pushed you into a wall and injured your beautiful head. He could have killed you.”
My father eyed me with concern. “Is this man abusive, Pilar?”
“No, Papá. What happened was an accident that was mostly my fault. If I hadn’t been on the phone being harassed by Victor,” I paused to make a face at my former boyfriend, “I would have been paying more attention and I would have seen Ford coming up the stairs. He felt really badly about bumping into me.”
“He has shifty eyes.” Victor lodged another complaint against the man he perceived to be his rival.
“Shifty, as in deceitful and untrustworthy? You must be confusing Ford with yourself,” I retorted hotly. “There is nothing shifty about Ford’s eyes. They are very expressive and full of honesty and intelligence.”
“What color are they?” Sancha wondered.
“They’re this really vibrant shade of blue . . . like Daniel Craig’s.”
“Ooooooo, Daniel Craig,” several of the women at the table cooed.
“Pilar likes Ford,” Izzy said in a singsong voice.
“Well, of course, I like him. He’s a nice person, as well as a friend and a colleague, but that’s as far as it goes.”
“Why?” Mamá asked, leveling dark eyes at me.
“Huh?”
“If this Dr. Fordham is such a wonderful man, why don’t you want to be more than friends with him?”
I stabbed some shredded meat with my fork. “Because he’s married.”
“You’re involved with a married man?” Nita made it sound scandalous.
“My relationship with Ford is perfectly innocent and above board. It is possible for two mature people of the opposite sex to have a platonic relationship based on common interests.”
“Not really,” Izzy muttered, and I shot her a ‘shut up or die’ look. “What? I’m just saying that in my experience . . .”
“Which is vast.” Ana couldn’t resist making a dig.
Izzy ignored her. “. . . in my experience, a man and a woman can’t be ‘just friends’ forever. Sooner or later, an attraction will develop, and then the clothes will start flying.”
“I know you’re not familiar with the concept, Izzy, but there is a little thing called ‘self-control,’” Ana asserted.
“Self-control has its limits.”
“She’s right.” Dear God, had my mother just agreed with Izzy? Somebody needed to call the Pope because I was pretty sure that that qualified as a miracle. “You’re playing with fire, mija.”
“You should listen to your mother,” my aunt Drina counseled.
“Yeah, you don’t want to be a homewrecker,” Sancha moved closer to her rat-faced husband and placed her hand over his as if she needed to protect him from me.
“You’re all being ridiculous,” I grumbled irritably. “I talk to Ford about work, and we go out to lunch once in a while—”
“Who pays?” Nita queried.
My brow furrowed with confusion. “What?”
“Who pays when you go out to lunch with this Ford guy?”
“Well, he does—”
“Aha! Then, it’s a date!” my cousin crowed triumphantly.
“A man should always pay for the meal. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do,” said an old, shaky voice from the other end of the table.
“Yes, thank you, Uncle Juan. Ford’s just being polite. And besides, he makes a lot more money than I do, so he can afford to treat.”
“Ah, so your business isn’t doing well, and you’re hurting financially.” Nita and her sister, Sancha, shared a sly smile. I knew that it would make their day if I admitted to having trouble with my practice. They had a combined IQ somewhere in the double digits, and it had always galled them that I’d achieved a higher level of education than any other woman in our family and now had a prestigious career.
“On the contrary, business is booming. I just got three new clients this week and I’m totally overwhelmed with referrals.” If my nose grew, I had no one to blame but myself.
“Are you sure, mija? I’d be happy to give you a loan,” my father offered.
“Thank you, but there’s really no need.”
“You should take the money. Supporting Izzy has got to be a huge financial burden.”
“She doesn’t support me, you cow!”
“Isidora, don’t call your sister a cow,” Mamá admonished. “She just lost 17 pounds at Jenny Craig and she looks very pretty.”
Ana turned crimson, and Nita, who needed to lay off the merengues herself, smirked.
“If she’d marry me, Pilar would never have to worry about money again,” Victor chimed in.
Solana turned to Drina. “Was that a marriage proposal?”
“Oh, mija!” My mother clapped her hands together excitedly.
I was just about to pinch myself in hopes that the self-inflicted pain would rouse me from the nightmare I found myself trapped in when Aunt Brigida crinkled her nose and asked, “Did you leave something in the oven, Luisa?”
“I turned the oven off twenty minutes ago. You’re imagining it,” my mother said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Where is Pilar’s engagement ring, Victor? If you’re going to ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage, you’re going to need a ring.”
“Well, I hadn’t really—”
“I smell smoke, too,” Rique remarked, which came as a shock since it was the first time he’d spoken all evening.
Everyone started to sniff.
“It doesn’t smell like burning food . . .”
“No, you’re right,” Sancha concurred with her sister. “It’s more like burning fabric.”
I glanced quickly around the table, silently counting small, dark heads. There were only two. “Where’s George?”
Ray lifted the tablecloth and looked underneath it for his son. When he shook his head, Ana rose to her feet and screamed, “George Arthur Castaneira!” at the top of her lungs.
He suddenly appeared at the sliding glass door that led from the terrace to the living room. He had black smudges on his face and he was hiding something behind his back.
“Yes, Mamá?”
“What have you been up to?”
“Nothing. I—” The high-pitched beep of a fire alarm interrupted him, and pandemonium ensued as everyone leapt to their feet and stampeded into the living room amidst cries of “Call 911!,” “Try not to breathe in the smoke!,” and “I’m too young to die!” the latter coming from my mother, of course.