“Oh. The plot thickens,” he said. “Anyway, to change the subject, Jesse has made all the arrangements for our Mexican trip. We’ll be down for lunch on Saturday to review everything. It’s not that far off now.”
“I look forward to seeing you both,” I said.
“As for everything else, Delia, take it slowly. The right way will show itself to you in time,” he said, “and I’m confident you will make the right choices.”
“Gracias, Edward.”
“Hasta luego.”
“Sí, see you soon,” I said.
I sat thinking for a while after I hung up. I had promised Ignacio’s mother I would stop by one more time to bring him things she wanted him to have. I would just be more careful about it, I thought. I wondered if I should speak with Santos, too. He had to be warned about Sophia.
Adan didn’t wait for me to return the call. He called again, sounding a little worried because I hadn’t rushed to call him back.
“I was just about to call you,” I said. I made my conversation with Tía Isabela sound longer, but he knew I had already spoken with Fani. He said a strange thing.
“Be careful about how much trust you put in her, Delia. I love Fani, but she is almost her own species.”
“What does this mean, this species?”
“She can change moods, allegiances, very quickly and without any apparent warning or reason. She’s been good to me and sometimes bitterly cruel to me. Of course, she immediately regrets it, but she’s a complicated person, and you’re a sweet and innocent young woman who may be a little too trusting still.”
I’m not as innocent as he thinks, I thought. He would come to that conclusion quickly if he knew the truth about Ignacio. Thinking about it, I told him of Edward, Jesse, and our plan to take a trip to my Mexican village.
“If those two weren’t gay and he wasn’t your cousin, I’d be very, very jealous,” he said. “I’ll miss you, even for that short a period.”
I quickly told him about Tía Isabela taking me to his father’s fund-raiser, and that returned a cheerful tone to his voice. He went on and on about it, the food, the entertain
ment, the people we would meet.
“There’s a good chance the governor might stop by. He has a vacation home in Rancho Mirage, you know.”
I agreed to try to see him during the week, but I soon discovered Tía Isabela had seen to that. She had him meet us at the dress shop the following Wednesday so he could take us to dinner. I was surprised that Sophia showed no signs of envy when she heard about her mother taking me to the fund-raiser. She told me she hated those sorts of things.
“You’ve got to watch everything you do and everything you say. And the people there are mostly old and stuffy. You’ll see,” she said. “I’ll have my girlfriends and some boys over for a party around the pool,” she told me. “Just don’t dare say anything to my mother about it. I don’t care if she finds out as long as it’s afterward.”
Maybe because she knew Adan was going to meet us at the dress shop, Tía Isabela spent nearly two thousand dollars on a gown for me. The shoes were seven hundred. She promised to lend me some more of her jewelry as well. Even though I knew in my heart that she had other motives for doing what she was doing, I let myself be treated like her daughter. The salesgirl, excited about the purchases Tía Isabela was making, had to comment and tell me, “Your aunt must be terribly fond of you. You’re lucky.”
I welcomed her envy. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but at least for a short while, I could feel loved and imagine what it would have been like if my mother had been blessed with Tía Isabela’s wealth and opportunities, and we could have gone off together, perhaps to Mexico City to shop and eat at fine restaurants, laugh and take delight in each other’s company. Maybe, just maybe, I hoped, Tía Isabela had longed for such a relationship with her own daughter and was at least enjoying these moments the way I was.
But as soon as Adan arrived, she transformed from a loving aunt and surrogate mother into a socialite. Her voice took on a more correct and formal tone. Even her laugh was different. It was more of a forgery, dishonest, affected. She treated Adan as if he were a little prince and we had to pay royal homage. She laughed hard at all of his jokes, widened her eyes at his comments as if every one of them were brilliant enough to be written into books.
What threw me the most, perhaps, was how much and how enthusiastically she built me up, boasting and bragging about my achievements at school, my grasp of English, even my cooking abilities, even though she had never tasted anything I had made. After a while, I was so embarrassed I could barely glance at Adan.
Adan was polite and went along with everything she did and said, but once in a while, he winked at me to let me know he wasn’t as gullible as he pretended. I was relieved when the dinner was finally over and we could go home. My body had been frozen in such a tense state the whole time I was actually exhausted. Señor Garman had already loaded the car with my things. We said good night outside the restaurant with Tía Isabela standing off to the side to watch Adan kiss me. As if it were a stamp of approval, she kissed him on the cheek, and we got into the limousine.
“What a wonderful young man,” she said as we were driven away. “It’s nice when a father can be proud of his son and a son can be proud of his father. Do you realize what it would mean for you if Señor Bovio was elected, Delia? You would be in Washington society, mingle with the powers that be. It’s incredible to think that a girl who lived in a house that was more like a barn would exchange greetings with a president or ambassadors. Aren’t you excited?”
“I am not married to Adan Bovio, Tía Isabela. I have only gone on some dates with him.”
She laughed. “You can’t be that dense. I saw it in his eyes when he looks at you, Delia. You’ve hooked him. He’s head over heels in love with you.”
I turned away so she couldn’t read the expression on my face. She was already imagining Adan’s and my wedding, calling it the biggest social event of the decade. More to put an end to all of this fantastic talk than anything, I mentioned that Edward and Jesse were coming on Saturday to review our trip plans.
“What? You can’t tell me you’re still considering doing something as stupid as that. You can’t!”
“Why not? I have promised them, and they are very excited about it.”