The Infamous Miss Rodriguez: A Ciudad Real Novella (2 page)

“How dare you threaten me,” the photographer blustered. “I would never be so dishonorable as to sell you Miss Rodriguez’s photographs. I wouldn’t know what nefarious purpose you’d put them to.”

Vicente gave him a hard look, filled with the promise of violence, and was pleased to see the man quail under his gaze. Vicente was not a large man, but years of fending for himself among all kinds of rough men had taught him the art of intimidation and when he wanted to he could be as threatening as one of those bulky-armed thugs with which he was very well acquainted.

“No one’s threatening you,” Vicente said calmly. “All I’m asking for is your cooperation. You’re a businessman, Mr—” Vicente cast about for a name and found one on a stack of trade cards on the counter. “Mr. Sanchez. Surely you understand that I’m making you a fair offer. Especially since the girl isn’t of age.”

Miss Rodriguez must have been only three or four years younger than Vicente himself, which would put her at twenty-three years old, but she looked young enough that Sanchez blanched. Mumbling something about valued customers and bullying ruffians, he handed over the film.

Vicente gave the two canisters a thoughtful look. There was nothing in the plain black cases to indicate if they really contained Miss Rodriguez’s photos and he
had
promised to be thorough.

Sanchez noticed his hesitation and asked, hopefully, “Have you changed your mind?”

“I have.” Vicente jerked his head into a nod and walked around the counter, aware of Sanchez’s wary gaze. “You’re going to develop these and I’m going to watch you do it, to make sure you haven’t fobbed me off with film full of photos of your great-grandmother.”

“And then—”

“And then we’re going to destroy them.”

Vicente followed Sanchez into the dark room, leaning against the closed door as the photographer got to work, a scowl on his face.

Developing photographs was a boring, smelly business, and it was some time before Sanchez finished pinning the last dripping rectangle of paper into the clothesline that stretched from one side of the room to the other. Like magic, images had begun to appear on the blank paper. The one closest to Vicente was slightly out of focus. It showed the deep, smooth curve of Miss Rodriguez’s naked back, dark against the painted background but not as dark as the thick curls that tumbled over one shoulder. Her head was half turned, and the camera had caught the glint of determination in her eye as well as the luster of pearls around her neck.

Hardly knowing what he was doing, Vicente reached up to pluck the small rectangle. He held it for a moment, until a sound from Sanchez, who was fussing over a pan full of something that smelled like it’d dissolve his bones, made Vicente snap out of his reverie. Without waiting for them to finish drying, he began to tear down the rest of the photographs from the clothesline.

“What am I to say to her when she returns for her photos?” Sanchez asked sullenly, watching as Vicente pocketed his day’s work.

“That her aunt sends her compliments,” Vicente said, and tipped his hat to Sanchez. He waited until he was at the door to turn around and say, “If any photographs of her appear in which so much as one of her gloves is missing, you have my word that I’ll be paying you another visit. And I can promise you, Mr. Sanchez, that it will not be as pleasant as this one has been. You might want to spread the word to your fellow photographers.”

Vicente strode out into the street. It may have meant more work for him, but he couldn’t wait to see what Miss Rodriguez tried next.

I
t was the perfect plan
. Or it would have been, if the photographer hadn’t managed to spoil both rolls of film.

“I’m sorry, Miss Rodriguez,” he said, unable to meet her eyes—whether from embarrassment at his mishap or because he’d seen her unclothed, Graciela didn’t know.

“All right,” Graciela said, undaunted. “We’ll just have to take them again. Set the background up like last time while I undress behind the screen.”

“I—that is—I’m afraid that my camera—”

Mr. Sanchez mumbled another handful of words, all of them inaudible, but Graciela didn’t need to hear them to know that whatever he’d claim happened to his camera, her aunt had been behind it.

She’d intended to mail the photographs to some of the gossip papers—and to the Board members for good measure, perhaps with a cheeky note scribbled on the back—in hopes that at least one of them would decide to print the photos before her aunt could manage to dissuade them. And if one of the photographs should accidentally slip out of her handbag while greeting Alvaro’s mother at the dinner they were attending that weekend, then all the better. With no photographs to mail, that particular plan was no longer viable.

Graciela left the photography studio empty-handed, so disappointed at this last failure, she didn’t even stop for roasted peanuts on her way home.

She found Beatriz waiting in the parlor when she arrived, reading a newspaper in one of the armchairs by the window, a steaming cup of coffee on the table beside her.

“You have to see this,” Beatriz said the moment Graciela walked through the door.

Graciela took off her white gloves and laid them on a side table before accepting the newspaper Beatriz had held out. It was open to the wedding announcements, Graciela saw, her heart beginning to pound before she read the three-inch square of print announcing that invitations had been sent out for the wedding of one Alvaro Medina and one Graciela Rodriguez.

Marching to her aunt’s study, she wrenched the door open and burst inside, exclaiming, “How could you?”

Rodriguez women tended to be tall, but Aunt Elba looked dwarfed by the mahogany expanse of the desk behind which she sat, open ledgers before her. She looked at the newspaper in Graciela’s hand and removed her spectacles, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her gently sloping nose. “Now, Graciela, do be reasonable. You and Alvaro have been engaged for months now.”

“But we agreed to wait until next year for the wedding.”

“You forced my hand, Graciela. I couldn’t afford to wait any longer, not knowing what you’d decide to do next. So I persuaded Alvaro to hold the wedding sooner rather than later, before his brother leaves for Europe.”

Graciela was reeling. “But he leaves in three weeks.”

“There’ll be just enough time to put together a small reception. They won’t expect too lavish an affair, given how little time we’ll have to prepare, and it’s just as well, as I don’t think our finances can will allow for anything too grand.”

“But—you can’t—
I
can’t—” Graciela’s fingers clenched around the newspaper, creasing it beyond repair. “If you make me marry him, Aunt Elba, my life might as well be over.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Graciela. It’s marriage, not a firing squad.”

“It’s worse,” Graciela said grimly.

Aunt Elba made an exasperated noise. “Why must you be so difficult? I’m only trying to look after you.”

“I’m twenty-three years old, Aunt Elba. I don’t need looking after.”

“It’s clear to me that you do. Nude photographs, Graciela?” With an impatient gesture, Aunt Elba motioned to her worn blotter on which, Graciela realized with a sinking feeling, lay the photographs she had taken the day before. “What
can
you have been thinking?”

Aunt Elba would never be so rude as to ask Graciela if she ever thought at all, but the question was implied.

Graciela met her aunt’s eyes. “That I’m willing to do anything I have to do to keep from you from forcing me to marry Alvaro Medina.”

“I’m hardly forcing you,” Aunt Elba snapped. “Oh,
why
don’t you want to marry him? You were happy enough when he started courting you. And don’t say that he’s cruel to you, because I’ve yet to see him treat you unkindly.”

Graciela felt her throat tightening. She had tried explaining to Aunt Elba why the thought of marrying Alvaro filled her with dread, but the collection of little indignities were insignificant enough to make her aunt more certain Graciela was only trying to be contrary.

Three weeks. Three weeks until her life all but ended.

A wave of panic swept through her. She had three weeks to break the engagement and this time, she could not fail.

* * *

T
he elder Miss Rodriguez
was quiet for a long time after her niece left. Vicente, who’d been standing in a corner of the room while the girl pleaded for a reprieve, would have withdrawn to give her privacy. But they still had business to go over. Before he could broach the subject of his payment, however, Elba Rodriguez began to speak.

“I never wanted this—any of this. Not the house, not the factory, not the raising of her. Her grandfather took care of everything after my brother and his wife died and I was only happy the responsibility hadn’t passed to me. And then he became ill and told me I was the only one he trusted to keep his factory going while Graciela came of age. I’ve spent the last eight years trying to do my best by her,” she said, sliding her spectacles back onto her nose, “but perhaps this engagement…” Her lips flattened, which made the faint lines around her mouth look deeper. For a moment, she looked as stubborn as her niece. Then she sighed, and scrubbed her face with her hands. “She makes me feel like an ogre but it really is for the best. She’ll realize it eventually.”

He’d been the one to tell her to move up the date of the wedding. Her niece was so determined to make a spectacle of herself, it had seemed to him that it would be smartest to settle things once and for all. It
was
the smart thing to do—but perhaps not the kindest. She’d seemed genuinely distraught at the thought of marrying Medina. Vicente didn’t know her reasons for not wanting to consent to the marriage but it was clear they weren’t trivial. Then again, even to someone like Vicente who had been forced to eke out an existence from a very young age, no reason, serious or not, was good enough to coerce someone into tying themselves to another person for a lifetime.

Vicente wrenched the thought away and turned instead to the subject they’d been discussing before she’d burst in.

He cleared his throat. “About my introduction to the Medinas. I think it’s time something was arranged, Miss Rodriguez.”

“You did manage to avert disaster—again. Very well. I’ll have my secretary procure you an invitation to the Gonzalez’s dinner on Friday. It’s white tie so you’ll have to dress accordingly.
Can
you dress accordingly, Aguirre?”

“I’ll manage.” He had no proper evening clothes but it would be easy enough to procure a serviceable set of tails from one of the rag shops near the waterfront, as rich men like Alvaro Medina got new clothing so frequently half the time the suits were barely worn by the time they trickled down to the lower orders. Vicente reached for the photographs still splayed over her blotter and slipped them back into his pocket. “I’ll keep these safe for you until after the dinner party.”

Miss Rodriguez gave him a narrow look. “Surely you don’t think I’d renege on our agreement.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Vicente said. “But my line of work has taught me to be cautious. I’ll see you on Friday, Miss Rodriguez.”

G
raciela had
read plenty of novels where beautiful young girls railed against their engagements to gruesome old beasts. Her own fiancee was young, handsome, charming and very, very wealthy.

She looked at him from under her eyelashes as they sat across from each other at Mrs. Gonzalez’s dinner party. He was cutting into a slice of roasted guinea fowl and chatting animatedly with the elderly spinster sitting beside him, who looked charmed by whatever he was saying. His dark brown hair shone in the light from the electric bulbs along the wall and the silver candelabra on the table.

It might have been easier if he’d been ugly. Physical ugliness she could overcome. It was the internal kind that was more difficult to overlook, especially when it grew more and more evident with every day that passed.

He glanced over to her and gave her a slow smile, and Graciela, hoping her dislike showed in her face, gave him a nod in return.

The lack of warmth in her response didn’t seem to bother Alvaro. After the early days of their courtship, Graciela had found that the more she demonstrated her lack of interest, the harder Alvaro pursued her. She’d heard often enough that men liked the thrill of the hunt when it came to courtships and Graciela’d always had the uncomfortable sensation that Alvaro saw her as prey.

A word from the hostess brought Graciela’s attention back to the dinner party.

It was the usual sort of affair. Twenty four people sat around Mrs. Gonzalez’s table, their voices as loud as the symphony of frogs and crickets that came from the tall doors on the far side of the room, which had been left open to let in the breeze. The strong scent of damp vegetation and tuberoses wafted in instead, and mingled with the smell of perfume and sweat and the citronella candles used to ward off mosquitoes.

The air was awfully still that night, and between the stultifying chatter, the suffocating heat, and the very fine Spanish wine Mrs. Gonzalez had served, Graciela was feeling more and more like tearing her off gown and prancing up and down the table in her underclothes. She poked the tines of her fork into the stuffed quail on her plate. The conversation was moving along familiar lines, and so was the dinner. After the quail would come hare in a wine sauce, which would be followed by dishes of stewed figs in syrup and an array of tropical fruit for the benefit of a visiting Frenchman. Then the women would withdraw and amuse themselves until the gentlemen returned reeking of cigar smoke and the conversation would resume its dreary pace.

On the other side of the table, Graciela could see Mrs. Gonzalez’s eldest daughter, Camila, trying to look interested as she listened to General Espaillat drone on. From past experience, Graciela knew he had two favorite subjects: the single campaign he had been involved in roughly thirty years before, and the pigs he was raising in his farm. Maybe she
should
jump onto the table, if only to give everyone something new to talk about.

As it turned out, a new subject was introduced without her having to leave her seat.

It was the man sitting at her right who brought up the speech Senator Benitez had given the week before. His hair, so pale a brown it was almost blond, blazed against the darkness of his tails. He’d arrived late, as the party was going in to dinner, and Graciela hadn’t had a chance to catch his name or any particulars other than a comment Aunt Elba had made some moments before. As she studied him, Graciela wondered where she had seen him before. He looked vaguely familiar but he was not part of her usual set—perhaps someone’s relative from out of town.

Or perhaps not.

He began to speak and his soft, melodious accent marked him out to be a foreigner. Graciela turned away from her side of the table, where one of Mrs. Gonzalez’s acquaintances was trying, unsuccessfully, to converse with the Frenchman. The foreigner—he sounded Argentinian to Graciela, was proving to be fairly knowledgeable about Ciudad Real politics.

“If you ask me, it’s the poor who will feel the sting of his decision,” he was saying.

He spoke bluntly, without any of the usual niceties. No— he wasn’t of their set at all.

General Espaillat and the other men at the table were listening to him speak, some thoughtfully, some as if they wanted to contest his words, but all with a degree of attention that made evident their interest in what he was saying.

“Benitez is a charlatan,” General Espaillat all but bellowed. “Just like his father. A radical. He thinks he can change the way we’ve run this country with his so-called reforms? It’s not progress he’s proposing, it’s
ruination
.”

Graciela didn’t follow politics, as a general rule, but something the Argentine had said reminded her of an article she’d come across the week before, while perusing the newspaper for ideas to aid her in her campaign. “I believe Mr. Aguirre has a point. Partial enfranchisement, though it’d be welcomed by some people, would only allow for the continued disregard of the issues that affect the lower classes.”

The Argentine smiled at Graciela. Surely it the wine that was suffusing her stomach with warmth and not the curl of his pink lips. “That’s a very interesting observation,” he said.

“The lower classes are uneducated, and therefore in need of our guidance,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “The men can already vote, and much good it does them. Women would only be used as pawns by candidates who would pander to their sensibilities in order to get their vote.”

Graciela had seen plenty of men get pandered to come election time, and she said as much.

“It’s not entirely the same thing” Alvaro said, in a tone that made it clear that he thought she knew nothing of what she spoke. “Now, come, gentlemen. I don’t think this conversation is appropriate for the dinner table. Let’s spare the ladies the unpleasantness and change the subject to something cheerier.”

Graciela held back a scowl. If only he’d spare her the unpleasantness of having to marry him.

Marrying him wouldn’t be
unpleasant
, exactly. Alvaro knew how to make himself agreeable and he’d never said an unkind word to her. But neither did he respect her opinions or even acknowledge she had any, and something in the way he spoke to her made her feel…small. As tiny and unimportant as the winged insects fluttering around the lamps.

Comfort—wealth, even—and a handsome, good-humored person to sit across from at the breakfast table. To hear Aunt Elba speak, it was no more than anyone had a right to expect. Perhaps it was foolish of her, but she’d always wanted
more
.

The conversation moved on to less contentious topics and the Argentine was quiet beside her. Graciela turned to him with an attempt at a smile.

“Tell me, Mr. Aguirre, what is it you do? I seem to recall Aunt Elba saying you had an interest in the manufacturing industry. You’re an industrial engineer, I believe?”

“Of a sort.” A girl might be inclined to think less of her own charms around men like him.

But after a moment, he tore his attention away from Alvaro and finally turned his intense gaze toward her.

Graciela had always been the sort of girl who collected attention—and beaus—as a matter of course. She had never been a wallflower of felt invisible in any way. But when Mr. Aguirre looked at her, she felt, suddenly and a little uncomfortably, as if she were being truly seen for the first time. As if he could see not the manufacturing heiress in the expensive frocks and middling jewelry that everyone else saw, but
her
.

For a second, she floundered under the weight of his gaze, her skin prickling with heat. Then, with more difficulty than she would ever admit to, she recovered her composure, asking the first thing that came to mind. “Where are you from, Mr. Aguirre? Your accent sounds Argentinian only—a little softer, perhaps.”

“I was born in Buenos Aires but I’ve lived in Chile most of my life.”

“Oh? And how for long have you been in here in Santa María?”

“Only a few months but I’m already captivated by her charms,” he said, lifting his wineglass and half inclining his head in her direction.

Ah, that was more like it. Answering his attempt at flirtation with a practiced smile, Graciela lifted her own glass and touched it to her lips.

Unlike the other men at the table, Aguirre was clean-shaven. The absence of whiskers lent a curiously vulnerable appearance to his face and for a fleeting moment, as Graciela studied his bare lips, she wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

Maybe she ought to. Graciela pictured herself doing it right there at the dinner table, pulling him by the necktie until those soft pink lips met hers. Alvaro would have an apoplexy and so would his mother, and the Gonzalez girls would have gossip enough for the next three decades. But poor Mr. Aguirre might keel over from the shock of it and really, it was not the thing to go about kissing men to whom she’d just been introduced even if it
would
solve all her problems.

She would have to save that plan for when things got truly desperate.

Alvaro had kissed her, more than once. It hadn’t been altogether disagreeable but neither had it made her see stars, the way she’d heard Ruth Gonzalez say she had when her beau kissed her for the first time.

Across the table, Alvaro was deep in conversation with General Espaillat. They spoke of the General’s pigs— Camila looked grateful to have been spared the subject—and Graciela could see that Alvaro knew exactly the right things to say, the right questions to ask, to make General Espaillat feel there was nothing more interesting to Alvaro than the precise diet of his prize sow.

He was perfectly capable of extending her the same courtesy and yet, time and time again, he chose not to. How little did he think of her that he was incapable of seeing her as a person?

Graciela realized she was wringing the napkin on her lap. With some effort, she smoothed it over her thigh. As she did, Mr. Aguirre caught her eye and gave her a knowing, sympathetic glance.

Things were not desperate enough to drive her to kiss other men at the dinner table. Not yet. But if it should come to that, she could do far worse than the man sitting beside her.

* * *

I
t had taken
Vicente all of ten minutes to see why Miss Rodriguez was fighting so hard against the marriage to Alvaro Medina. The man treated her as if she were a puppy yipping at his heels—tiresome, but too inconsequential to bother with. And the worst thing was, no one seemed to notice.

Or perhaps they simply didn’t care how desperately unhappy the marriage would make her. He had seen it from the moment they’d stepped into Mrs. Gonzalez’s overstuffed and overwarm parlor and it was even more clear as he saw her casting brooding glances across the table at Medina.

As for the part he himself was playing in the damned mess…

Vicente tried to brush off his growing uneasiness. He’d been a thief all his life. The only difference was that now all he was stealing was her chance at happiness. If it was the price he had to pay for her aunt’s help, then so be it. Miss Rodriguez would be unhappy in her marriage but she would have food and clothes and a roof to sleep under every night. Vicente, with his dwindling stack of pesos, had only a vague plan and Elba Rodriguez’s word standing between himself and the grinding poverty he’d fought so hard to escape.

Escape it he would.

The dinner had gone even better than he’d expected. Ciudad Real society was not an accepting lot when it came to outsiders, but a fancy suit and an introduction by Elba Rodriguez had led them to believe that he was, if not precisely one of them, at least one of their sort, and any irregularities in his behavior could be explained away by the fact that he was from somewhere else. He’d heard more than one overdressed society belle whispering about the dashing foreigner; it amused him as, in his regular clothes, he’d be so unimportant he wouldn’t draw a single glance unless he were on fire… and likely not even then.

More important than that, they had listened to what he had to say and allowed him to take part of the conversation as their equal as they never would have if they’d met him on the loading docks. For the duration of the dinner party, he had felt what it would be like to be a part of it all.

In another lifetime, perhaps—Vicente had no illusions about his place in their world. A job at the Medinas’ factories was all he could hope for and much more than a child thief from the slums of Santiago deserved.

Still, as he laid back on his lumpy cot later that night, the image of Graciela Rodriguez appeared in his mind’s eye and he saw again the way her eyes glimmered in the candlelight, bright as the pearls ringing her long, graceful neck. She hadn’t seen him standing in the shadows when she’d burst into her aunt’s study a few days before, just as she hadn’t seen him shadowing her every step for the past three months. But she’d noticed him tonight. For the first time, he’d been the recipient of her attention and the weight of it had threatened to unspool the tightly coiled desire in his belly.

To think that Alvaro Medina, with his millions and his good looks, couldn’t manage to make her happy. Vicente had no hope of ever attracting the notice of someone like her but if it were to happen, by some freak of fate…