From Barcelona, with Love (27 page)

Buena filled their wineglasses, the girls had their Fanta orange with lots of ice and a straw—and Cherrypop told Mac the story of her name.

Then out of the blue Paloma said, “Mac, will you find my mom?”

“I'll try,” he said, and she fell quiet again.

The remains of the paella were cleared away, slices of chocolate cake brought for the girls, a mousselike sorbet for Lorenza and Mac, who eyed the chocolate cake longingly. Sunny would have given him the cake, but then Sunny knew him.
Really
knew him, with all his foibles and quirks and moods and work ethics, as no other woman ever had. Not even Lorenza. They had been different people when they knew each other. There was more than twenty years of living coming between them now.

But he was here for Paloma and now he had a question for the girl. “If there was one thing, only
one
thing, you remember most about your mother, Paloma, what would it be?”

“Her singing,” Paloma said promptly. “She sang all the time. Not just in the shower, y'know, but like
always.
And she wrote music, lovely songs. I can remember the words to some of them. She would never give up writing her songs, I know that.”

Mac suddenly realized he had his link. He looked at Lorenza and said, “From children comes the truth.”

Cherrypop stared at him. “What does he mean?” she whispered to Paloma, who shrugged, mystified.

Mac should have guessed. It was really so simple. Bibi's talent was too much a part of her. She might give up everything else: her home, her lifestyle, even give up her daughter, but she could never give up her music. It was
who
she was. Somewhere out there, Bibi was still working, she was still writing her songs, and somebody must be singing them. Somebody might even be recording them. Bibi's talent was not lost. If she were still alive, that is.

 

Chapter 39

Bodega de Ravel

After dinner, both the girls
went off to watch TV. It was very late when Mac pushed back his chair. “Thanks for the wonderful dinner,” he said to Lorenza.

“I enjoyed having you.”

Lorenza didn't want him to go. She glanced out the open French door. A moon lit the vineyards. “It's such a lovely night, why don't we go for a stroll? I can show you my orchids. I grow them for exhibition, in a special temperature-controlled greenhouse. It was one of Juan Pedro's hobbies and I've kept it on.”

“In memory of him,” Mac said. He went and stood next to her, put a hand on her warm naked shoulder where the filmy caftan had slid off.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek. That flowery scent was in his nostrils again. “I've got something I need to work on, calls to make.” He straightened up and glanced at his Timex. It was late but he'd bet he wouldn't be waking Lev up.

Lorenza desperately wanted to keep him with her; she wanted more, she wanted so badly to have that special kind of love again, that overwhelming sexual feeling when a man put his arms around her and told her she was beautiful, that she was lovely, that he loved her, he would always love her. She was a woman suddenly madly in love again and she wanted her old lover back. It was as simple as that.

“Please?” she said, turning her face up to his.

Mac was looking at a lovely woman he cared deeply about, but time had moved on.

“You asked me to come here for Paloma's sake,” he reminded her. “I think I might be on to something and I have to work fast, before Bruno Peretti shows up with a court order and takes Paloma back to California.”

“Oh God! He can't do that!” Lorenza cried, shocked out of her love-dream.

“He might be able to,” Mac said. “And I have to find a way to stop him.”

*   *   *

Paloma and Cherrypop
were sitting at the top of the stairs, eavesdropping. Giggling, they wanted to hear what grown-ups said to each other when they were alone.

“It's so romantic,” worldly-wise Cherrypop said. “I mean, Lorenza's crazy about him, anybody could tell. Wouldn't it be wonderful if he fell in love and they got married. Then you could keep Mac all to yourself, right here at the bodega.”

She beamed her toothy excited smile but Paloma was frowning. “Mac's in love with Sunny,” she said. “And Sunny's beautiful, and she's kind, and…”

“And what? Anyhow I've never met Sunny so she doesn't count.”

“Nor has Lorenza met Sunny,” Paloma said, her loyalties suddenly divided. And that's when they heard Mac say that her stepfather could get a court order and take her back to California.

“Oh my God,”
Cherrypop whispered. “He
can't
do that.”

“No … please,
no
…” Paloma cried. Mac hadn't told her of that possibility; all he'd said was he would try to help, and now look what was happening.

She gripped her arms round Cherrypop's neck, so tight Cherrypop thought she might faint.

“What shall I do?” Paloma's voice was muffled, her face hidden in her friend's neck as though she wanted to disappear.

Cherrypop thought for a minute. It never took her long to make a decision. “We'll run away,” she said.

“Where to?”

“Hmm, I don't know yet.” She tossed her long blond braid back over her shoulder, and hunched over, elbows on knees, thinking.

“Don't you know anybody we could run away to?” Cherrypop asked at last. “I mean, like I have my uncle Julio in Murcia, but it might cost a lot to get there and anyhow he'd probably just send us back again, and then what?”

Paloma groaned. Lorenza and Mac's voices were coming closer. Mac was saying goodnight, heading for the stairs. The two shot up and ran into Paloma's room, where they threw themselves on the bed, scared.

“He almost caught us,” Cherrypop said, still caught up in her idea of a pair of vagabonds running away. Or “on the lam” as she remembered they said in movies. It was all so exciting. Except the part about Paloma's horrible stepfather of course.

But Paloma had sat up straight again. “Maybe I should just talk to him,” she said.

“The
stepfather
? You couldn't, he wouldn't even listen, besides he just wants your money.…”

“Not
him
. Mac,
idiot
!”

Despite the seriousness, Cherrypop giggled. “Aw, what the hell.” She yawned, suddenly exhausted. “Let's just watch TV. We can figure out what to do tomorrow.”

Tomorrow seemed a long way away. Paloma turned on the TV and they sat cross-legged on her bed, watching. It was an interview show recorded a couple of months ago. They'd seen it before, but then Jacinto came on and sang. Paloma and Cherrypop thought he was wonderful. He was their favorite.

 

Chapter 40

Barcelona

Bibi was at
Jacinto's house behind the glass partition of his private recording studio, wearing earphones and listening to him singing her song. The background music was already recorded; Jacinto's group had done a fabulous job, and strings and brass would be added tomorrow.

She leaned her head back, eyes closed, hardly believing this was her little song.

She loved it here, wrapped in the security of the small soundproofed recording studio. Other than the sound engineer, she was alone with Jacinto. The song ended on a rush of exhilaration, a deep thrusting beat that at first had seemed out of place with her sensitive lyric, then quite remarkably had suddenly filled her quiet song with joy instead of pain.

“It's about finding yourself,” Jacinto had told her earlier when they had gone through the lyrics together, this time with her tentatively singing along, deliberately keeping her voice small so he would not recognize her usual sweet throaty growl. “That's what you meant, isn't it?”

She admitted it was and he told her in his opinion finding yourself was not necessarily filled with pain. It could also be a joyous process.

“Who knows,” he said, with a tender smile, “you might even like the new person you become.”

Now, he stopped singing and silence filled the space. The melody still thrummed in Bibi's ears as Jacinto pushed his way through the glass doors, back into the sound booth.

“How was it?” he asked the engineer, who always worked with him and knew exactly what he was looking for.

The engineer made an affirmative circle with his finger and thumb. “Spot on. Five takes. Not bad for a last-minute setup.”

“I think I've got one more to go.”

Jacinto walked up to Bibi. He took her earphones off then took her hand and walked her through the swinging glass door into the recording area.

Bibi waited, bewildered, while he pulled up a stool, sat her on it, arranged a mike at the correct height in front of her, tilted it so it was close to her mouth.

“No. Oh no, I'm not going to sing,” she said, shocked. “It's
your
record. I gave it to you, it has nothing to do with me.”

“
Vida.
” He fell silent and looked at her.

She turned her head away. Of course he knew who she was, he had right from the beginning, and now he was asking her to sing. And she knew if she did, all would be lost. The new anonymous life she had made for Paloma with Lorenza and Jassy would be gone. Her daughter would no longer be the little Spanish girl with no ties to her mother's lurid past, no murders linked to her name, no suspicions and bad memories filling her mind. Just an ordinary girl, who had forgotten all about her by now.

“Vida?” Jacinto did not touch her, he did not take her hand, just leaned in close to her. She could feel his body heat, see the rise and fall of his chest, the deep ink-blue tattoo spiraling down where his shirt buttoned.

“I won't ask you to sing,” he said, quietly. Bibi glanced nervously up to see if the mikes were off. The engineer had gone outside for a cigarette and they were alone.

Jacinto said, “I told you how much I loved the way you spoke your lyric, at Rodolfo's. You were just under my voice, a faint girlish echo. It gave another dimension to the song. I'm asking you to do that again. I want to catch the softness of your voice, the undertone of passion you so obviously felt and that came through in the words you wrote. Of course, I've given your song an upbeat almost Latin rhythm, I've given it a catchy salsa bridge, a hard bass line. I told you there'll be the strings sweeping in the background, and those almost Cuban-sounding trumpets, but it's
your voice
under mine that will make this record. Vida, I'm asking you, please, please, will you do it for me, one more time.”

He took her chin and turned her face to his so that she was forced to look at him. “
Please,
Vida,” he said. And then he whispered, “Your secret will be safe with me. You can trust me.”

His breath was on her cheek, his lips hovered near hers, his eyes were hypnotic. He was so young, so beautiful, and so talented.

“I trust you,” she said simply. He smiled. And then he kissed her.

It wasn't by any means a passionate kiss, merely a brush of his cool, firm lips against hers. And then he called the sound engineer back, fixed her mike all over again, and then for the first time in what seemed forever, but was in fact only a little over two years, Bibi was back recording one of her own songs.

*   *   *

A couple of hours later,
when the recording engineer had left and the lights were dimmed, Bibi and Jacinto sat hand in hand in front of the big board, listening to the playback. Jacinto adjusted the treble here, the bass there, taking out an echo, leaving a space for the brass to come in. Then he sat back in the big leather swing chair next to Bibi's and together they just listened.

Her little song came roaring out at her, filled with raw energy, filled with joy, her own voice, breathy, sexy, underscoring Jacinto's rocking growl. It was so different from what she had intended; instead of a song about a woman filled with pain, it was a song for youth everywhere, for young people in search of themselves … and maybe finding it.

“Sweetheart,” Jacinto said, as they sat on for a moment in the deep silence left when the record finished. “You are wonderful.”

Bibi took a deep breath. It was time for the truth. “If you betray me, and tell the world who I am, you know you are guaranteed a hit.”

“I'll never betray you,” he said, without taking his eyes from hers.

She believed him, and hand in hand, they walked out of his studio and into the night.

Jacinto's house was surrounded by a garden with high walls to keep out fans and photographers. It was late and the moon shone its brilliant white light onto a narrow dark blue swimming pool that looked as still and deep as the bottom of the ocean. They walked to the edge, staring into its depths, then suddenly Jacinto tugged his shirt over his head and threw it onto the ground. He unzipped his jeans and pulled them off, balancing on the edge of the pool, laughing. He stripped off his undershorts and for an instant stood there naked.

“Last one in's a coward,” he said, making a neat arcing dive into the inky water.

Bibi had time to notice that the swirling tattoo that began at his throat ended at his belly. And that there was another tattoo of a pierced heart just above his pubic hair, and that he had an erection, and that oh my God he was so beautiful and she was so turned on she almost didn't know what to do with herself.

Then it came to her; yes she
did
know. Of course she did! She
wanted
Jacinto. She wanted his arms around her, his body on hers, she wanted that erection beneath the pierced heart tattoo inside her. She wanted all of him and she wanted it now.

Jacinto surfaced and trod water at the opposite side of the pool. “Well?” he said mockingly.

One thing Bibi had learned in all those years as a performer, an entertainer, was how to strike a pose and look sexy. She did it now as she unbuttoned her shirt and let it hang open, half revealing her breasts. She slid out of her jeans, out of her neat white cotton little-girl underpants, suddenly embarrassed by them and wishing she had worn a sexy thong—which anyhow now she did not even possess. She stood for a second, hands held modestly over the red pubic hair she kept waxed in a neat strip, then in one quick move she threw off the shirt and dived into the pool.