Naked in LA (11 page)

“Even if you had the fairy tale you’d fuck it up.”

“I’d like to give myself the opportunity. I’m leaving town, Angel.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I can, unless you plan to shoot me and throw me in the river with some of your ex-associates. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I don’t have my father to worry about anymore so there’s no reason for me to stay.”

“You going to run after Garcia, is that it?”

“Where’s my bag and my keys?”

“I asked you a question, is this about Garcia?”

“He thinks I’m crazy, Angel, and you know what? I think he’s right. Now where’s my bag?”

He looked sulky. He leaned against the door. “You’re not leaving here.”

I sat down. “Okay. But you can’t stand there forever. Sooner or later you got to sleep or go out and dump a body in the river or something. So either you get your goons to tie me up and throw me in the trunk, or give me my things and get the hell out of the way.”

“You know your trouble? You don’t appreciate nothing. You know how much I spent on you?”

“I think you got your money’s worth, I got lockjaw to prove it, but if you like I can give you an IOU. What’s the bill?”

His face screwed into a grimace. “Don’t go,” he said.

I touched his cheek, but when he tried to touch me back I held his wrists and stopped him. “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” he said, like he only just knew it.

I pushed him back on the bed. I would give him this one last time. I took off his clothes and did all the things he liked, with my mouth, with my hands. But I promised myself I would not let him touch me, never again.

I kissed his neck, his chest, cupped him in my fingers, made him groan and twist. Then his eyes went wide; it was all over so quickly. I went into the bathroom to wash up, and when I came back my bag was on the antique oak table in the middle of the room. He was standing out on the balcony, his back to me, staring at the sea.

I opened my purse. The cutting of Reyes and me was gone. I guessed there was no point in asking him where it was, he would have torn it up and tossed it away. It seemed Angel was finally jealous of someone.

I left the diamond necklace he gave me on the table.

“Goodbye, Angel,” I said.

“You’ll be back.”

“No, I won’t.” I said, and this time he must have known it was true.

Chapter 16 

It was a bright, warm day when we buried Amancio Fuentes.

Statues of angels stood guard above those who could afford them, those who couldn’t made do with a few words of praise in Spanish or Italian, some sculpted marble and perhaps a photograph. Family crypts extended like a city street along a narrow walking path.

I had an umbrella to keep off the sun. I was touched by how many of Papi’s old friends had come, though a few of them looked as if they weren’t doing that well themselves. One of them used to own one of the best restaurants in Havana, now he was the janitor at a high school.

The priest said a few words and we lowered him into the ground. Lena held tightly onto my arm during the committal.

Afterwards I told her I wanted to be alone for a while and she said she’d wait for me by the gate. I stood in the shade of a cedar out of the Florida sun, listening to the whisper of the leaves overhead, the call of a jaybird.

When I left, Angel was waiting for me in the back of his Chrysler. His driver wore oversized sunglasses and stood in the shade of the trees smoking a cigarette. I saw some men out on the road watching the car through binoculars, taking photographs. Either press or the police, I supposed.

I stopped by the car. He wound down the window.

“Thank you for coming.”

“This doesn’t have to be the end,” he said.

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I’m going to Los Angeles.”

“Still this acting shit?”

“Yes, Angel. The
acting shit.
”

“You’ll end up a stripper, they all do.”

“I’ll take my chances. I’ve got dreams, Angel.”

“Everybody’s got dreams, what they end up with is reality.”

“Well some realities are better than others.”

“Fuck you,” he said and wound up the window. Then he wound it down again. “I ever find out you’re with Reyes, I’ll kill you both.”

And the limousine drove away, out of the gates.

I took a last look at the flat. It had been home for three years, ever since we arrived in Miami. All I had ever dreamed of was to one day get away from it. Now I lingered, couldn’t tear myself away.

There must be thousands of girls out there like me, I thought, who dreamed about becoming a movie star. Angel was right, most girls ended up as waitresses or strippers. But I was not going to think about them, or the odds stacked against me, because I knew I was going to be the one dreaming the hardest.

Besides, whatever happened, I would have my self-respect, and that was going to be important because now, whatever I did, Papi would be watching me. When he was alive I could lie to him; now that he was dead, he could see everything I did.

I couldn’t get Angel’s voice out of my head:
I ever find out you’re with Reyes, I’ll kill you both
. He hadn’t scared me, he had given me hope, suggested the possibility of finding Reyes again. But surely that was over after he’d seen me with Angel in the Fontainebleau.

Lena was waiting outside in the car, she had offered to give me a ride to the bus station. I shut the door firmly behind me, picked up my suitcase and walked away from Miami.

Chapter 17

Los Angeles

It was a hot day in the Valley. It wasn’t even summer and I was sweating as soon as I stepped out of the shower. I stood in front of the fan, naked, to put on my make-up. The last thing I did was shrug on my uniform and check my purse. I would just about make rent this week; the photographer who took my folio shots had cost a lot damned more than I had counted on. I knew this was going to be hard but not this damned hard. I didn’t even have an agent yet. Every waitress, bar girl and stripper in this whole city wanted to be an actress.

The couple next door were still going at it. You could hear every damned thing through these cheap motel walls.
Dios mio
, it was eleven in the morning, didn’t they even plan to stop for breakfast? The way she was moaning, she had to be a hooker.

I grabbed my bag and headed out. I was going to be late for my bus.

There was a swimming pool out front, but it had emptied out a long time ago, probably during one of the earthquakes. This city shook like a jelly on a plate. Nothing looked sadder than a derelict pool on a summer day in California. There was a crack along one of the concrete walls at the shallow end and now management used it to dump old furniture.

“Come on in, the water’s fine.”

I stopped, recognized the voice straight away. He had salvaged a deckchair from the junk at the end of the pool and he was sitting there with his eyes closed and his face turned to the sun like he was waiting for a waiter to bring him his cocktail. He was wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt like the ones the tourists wore in Havana, and there was a copy of
Variety
magazine open on his lap.

“Reyes?”

“Nice place you got here. Service is a little slow, I ordered a beer half an hour ago and it still hasn’t got here.” He took off his sunglasses and gave me the benefit of that million-dollar smile. “Good to see you again, princess.”

I couldn’t believe it. My humiliation was complete. “How did you find me?”

He came up the steps, slapping
Variety
against as he thigh as he walked. “I’m insulted you even asked that question.”

“Did Angel tell you?”

“Angel and I don’t talk much, you know that. It was a friend of mine, Jack Rubenstein. Ruby was telling me you’d left Miami and come here to pursue a career outside of office management.”

“How did he know that?”

“Ruby knows everything that happens in Miami. That’s why we’re friends.”

“But why did he tell you about me?”

“Because I asked him to find out. I was sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thank you. He’s at peace now, at least.”

“I hope it was quick at the end.”

“Reyes, he was an invalid for most of the time we lived in Miami. He suffered every day. Quick at the end does not make up for three slow years of suffering.”

“He didn’t deserve that. I only met him a couple of times but he always seemed to me like a decent man.”

“He was the best.”

He walked with me down to the highway, hands in his pockets. He looked so different from Havana, when he always looked like a playboy out of a Peter Stuyvesant advertisement, and Miami, where he looked like a desperado. Now here he was, dressed like he was about to go on vacation. I realized Reyes was a chameleon who could change his persona with every shift in geography.

So who was he really?

“Nice uniform,” he said. “Interesting colour. Is that what they call puce?”

“It has the added benefit that if a customer throws up on you, it doesn’t show.”

“You see, that’s thinking ahead. You must have a very smart boss.”

“He’s Greek and he keeps trying to feel me up in the kitchen. Have you come here to gloat?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know.”

He just smiled and stood there, doing a good impression of the most charming man I’d ever met. I tried not to look too eager, but if he’d gone to the trouble of tracking me down then I supposed there must still be hope for us after all.

Or perhaps there had been, until now. The last time he had seen me I looked like Jackie Kennedy. I was wearing the diamond necklace Angel had given me and every man in the bar had turned his head to stare at me. Now I was dressed for yet another diner and I had on hardly any make-up. I was just out of the shower and my hair was a mess. He must be regretting that he went to so much trouble.