She shrugs and taps manicured nails against her thin lips. “Well, I’m sure she’s used to it by now. This is nothing compared to being made a fool of to the entire nation. My god, Mateo. What kind of girl are you seeing, huh? Making my little girl cry like that.”
My hands curl and uncurl. “Little girls cry all the time. It wasn’t anything Vera did.”
“Except stealing her father away from her. That’s what she did.”
“You don’t get it.”
“No. I don’t. And I’m glad. If I were to understand you and your motivations, that would mean I have the brains of a snake.”
“Are you sure that you don’t?”
“You watch yourself, Mateo. I mean it.” The way she focuses on me, just like the reptile she says she’s not, I know she’s being serious. “Don’t make me change things for you, because I will.”
“Are you threatening me?”
She looks down at her pointy shoes. “No. I’m not. And I know I’d have to build a really good case against you if I wanted to take Chloe Ann away from you. You won your rights fair and square, didn’t you?” She looks up, and we know she’s talking about the money I paid her off with. “But if I see anything like this again, I can’t promise that other people won’t take some kind of action.”
“Action? What the hell are you talking about? Other people?”
She lifts one brow and a malicious little smile tugs at her lips. I know what she means, at least the people part. Her family. The blue bloods who once had ties to the royal Spanish bloodline, the most pretentious, bitter in-laws you could have. “Just keep my daughter out of the papers. And keep yourself out of it, too. If me or my family have to be dragged through the mud one more time, things won’t be so easy anymore. You know that you got off easy with all of this, don’t you?”
I wiggle my jaw back and forth to relieve the tension, but I don’t say anything. I just push past Isabel and leave. But when I’m out at the car and I hear the door slam shut, I can’t help but turn around. Chloe Ann is at the second story window, hugging her plush panda bear close to her, staring at me with big eyes.
My heart shatters into pieces. I raise my hand to wave at her but she only turns and moves away from the window, disappearing into the darkness of the room. It takes all that I have not to break down, not to lose it. I get in the car and take a few moments to regain my composure, to slow my heart, to will away the dull ache inside. Isabel was right. I did get off easy. Everything before seems easy compared to the pain of right now and the pain that I know will follow.
Chapter Seven
I’m starting to feel like a prisoner in my own house. I don’t mind it so much, but Vera seems restless, like a caged animal. When I get back from Isabel’s, we decide not to chance having our photographs taken again and just stay inside for the evening. We order greasy Chinese food and finish off two bottles of expensive wine from my makeshift cellar in the front closet, but I know Vera is itching to go outside and let loose. She’s a bit drunk, as I am, and though we are feeling unfettered, I know the feeling is temporary. It’s a Band-Aid, but it’s a warranted one. We need to ignore the wounds for now.
It’s late when the phone rings, and once again it’s Isabel. I sigh, giving Vera a tired look, and she nods, heading toward the washroom with her glass of wine. She doesn’t need to give me privacy, but it makes me feel better if she’s not within earshot of my ex-wife’s potentially vile words.
Thankfully, Isabel is brief. She tells me that she’s taking Chloe Ann to see her parents over the weekend and I won’t be able to see her. I would normally take issue with this, but I let it pass. It worries me, as it should, that this could be the start of a new pattern, but at the moment I don’t really feel I have a leg to stand on. The wine wouldn’t help me win any argument either.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
I turn in my chair as I put the phone back into my pocket and give Vera a curious look as she walks toward me. Yet another English saying that I don't know. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
She gives me a soft but tired smile and sits down on the armrest. I immediately wrap my arm around her waist and pull her down into my lap, where she comes to a rest with a tipsy giggle, her hair obscuring the impish smile on her face.
"Explain," I demand. "Or I will punish you with kisses."
She raises her brow. "Followed by punishment with penis?"
I shrug, glad she’s acting playful. "That can be arranged. Now tell me, my Estrella."
She sighs and buries her lips into my neck. I can't help the small moan that escapes from me, nor my hardness building beneath her ass. It would feel so good—so good—to just succumb to the physical, to take all this mental anguish away. I close my eyes and fight the urge to pick her up and take her to the bedroom, the only other way I know how to make her feel safe and sated, the only way I know how to escape during a time like this.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," she says against my throat, "is a saying. I don't know where it's from but it means nothing is scarier than a pissed off bitch." She pauses, sucking in her breath, and I know she fears she's said the wrong thing. "Sorry," she quickly adds, and I feel her body tense up beneath my fingers. "I didn't mean that Isabel is a bitch."
She is still so skittish over her words these days, it’s like she’s second guessing every aspect of her being. I cup the back of her head with my hand and let the softness of her hair wash over me. "I know you didn't," I assure her. "And, well, she is being a bitch." And that’s a major understatement.
"Can you blame her though?" she asks, her voice rising in pitch, and when she pulls away from me, her eyes are wet. It breaks my heart. I'm getting tired of my heart breaking, and I know that this isn't going to change anytime soon. Every day there is another weight on us and another crack appears.
"No," I tell her honestly. "I cannot blame her."
A silence lapses over us, heavy like a cloak.
Finally she clears her throat. "She's going to hurt for a long time," she says. "She's going to be angry. This isn't going away. I thought everything was behind us now, that she'd move on. You've been divorced for a year, if she's still this mad a year out . . ."
"She is mad because I am back with Atlético," I tell her. "She is mad because of the paparazzi, the way they are hounding us again. She is mad because she feels she is being made to look like a fool. If I had just stayed with my head down, she wouldn't be doing this."
"But you can't live your life in fear, Mateo," she tells me.
I smile at her and brush her sunset hair from her face. "And neither can you."
She settles back against my body—sinks, conforms, melds. She is a second skin. She is a part of myself I can't bear to separate from. I pray I never have to. I pray we can survive whatever is coming our way.
And I can feel it coming, that tension, that storm rolling in with each day. I’m so terribly afraid that my plan isn’t going to work, that she will be found out, that she won’t find a job, that she won’t get into the school. I’m so afraid the stars will take their brightest one away from me.
I pick her up in my arms, and for all her pillowy curves, she weighs nothing more than a feather. I take her down the hall to the bedroom and throw her on the bed. She glows in the ochre lights from the street that stream in through our windows, and it isn't long before we are both naked and I am climbing over her, pinning her arms above her head and drinking in her body like the most beautiful, decadent wine.
I will devour her until all of this is gone.
I will consume her until we are all that's left.
I push inside her and let my hunger take over.
I let my hunger take us to a better place. Hot, slow, and fleeting.
Fleeting.
When we wake up the next morning, tangled in each other’s arms, the sun shining through the windows, it feels like we only have each other and that’s all that is left.
Maybe it has always been that way.
/>
I throw myself into my work. I get to the stadium early, and I leave late but it doesn’t do anything to discourage the photographers who are sometimes waiting by the road just for a glimpse of me. I can’t understand it, why even a photo of me getting into a car means something to them, and after a while I stop trying.
Vera keeps busy too, filling out all the paperwork for school and laying low. Several times Claudia has called or come by, and while they have fun drinking and dancing around the living room, I’m starting to feel like a parent who has grounded a kid. She even forgoes her Spanish class, and I teach her instead. As much as I don’t like it when Vera goes out, I realize that she needs to let loose and have fun. She’s too free of a spirit to be cooped up, even when there’s plenty of sex to distract her.
When Wednesday morning rolls around, I pick up Chloe Ann from her day camp. Vera stays at home—this time with no objection—and I head over there with a plan in mind. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to talk to these mothers at the camp to set them straight.
When I walk into the school building where the camp is held, I’m immediately met with hostile eyes. Every single woman is staring right at me with the same expression: pursed lips, a single raised brow, a discerning glance.
Chloe Ann runs right to me.
“Papa!” she cries out, throwing her arms around my leg. “You came.”
“Lucky thing,” one woman with terribly dark lip liner whispers to another. “She doesn’t have to be traumatized by that puta again.”
I eye the woman sharply. “Excuse me?” I say loud enough for everyone to hear.
The woman doesn’t look afraid. She pastes on a fake smile that looks like a chalk outline. “How are you, Mateo? We missed you last week. At least, your daughter seemed to.”
“Papa,” Chloe Ann cries out, pulling on my trousers. “Can we go, please?”
I place a kind hand on the top of her head. “Just a minute, darling,” I tell her, then turn my attention back to the woman. “You know, I and I’m sure any parent here, would appreciate if you didn’t use such words in front of the children.”
The daycare teacher, Mrs. Caro, looks up from putting toys away in a box. She’s the only woman who looks concerned. All the other women are still staring at me with utter hatred in their eyes. It’s only now that I realize the look has always been there, I’ve just never noticed. Of course they hate the man that screwed over one of their own, and of course they hate Vera, whom they consider the whore—the other woman.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the lip liner woman says haughtily. “If anyone is saying bad words around your daughter, it’s not me. Perhaps you should go ask your teenage girlfriend what she’s been saying. Maybe she needs her mouth washed out with soap.”
The woman elapses into a fit of giggles, leaning against her friend while all the children are oblivious. She’s oblivious too, to that fact that out of everyone, she’s the one who is acting like a teenager.
I can’t stoop to her level. I won’t give her a reaction.
I stand tall and grab Chloe Ann’s hand and lead her away. The woman calls out behind me, “Give my regards to Isabel. Tell her we miss her.”
I suck in my breath but keep going. We are in the parking lot, almost at the car, when the mullet-headed photographer appears out of nowhere and starts taking pictures, the bulbs flashing.
I immediately step in front of Chloe Ann, shielding her from the lights, from the lens, and I can hear her whimper in fright behind me.
“Get out of my face,” I sneer at the photographer, putting my arm out in front of me. I want nothing more than to let loose a string of expletives, but considering what I had just said earlier, it would make me hypocritical.
Still, this situation calls for it more than anything else.
“Is your daughter being abused, Mr. Casalles?”
The question catches me so off-guard that my mouth drops open, and I can only blink until a flashbulb blinds me again.
“I beg your fucking pardon?” So much for not swearing.
“Your daughter,” the man continues. Click, click, click. “She was crying, distressed when I last saw her. Your girlfriend, is she abusing her?”
“What the fuck?” I yell, fist raised, and Chloe Ann cries. I quickly grab her, unlock the car, place her inside, and shut the door, the tinted windows protecting her from the scene.
I whirl around to face him like I’m facing an attacker. “Now, please, what the fuck are you talking about? No one is abusing anyone. My girlfriend picked up my daughter from day camp. They had ice cream. My daughter was upset about something or other as little girls do, and you, asshole, decided that was a great fucking time to take the damn picture. If anyone is abusing anyone around here, it’s you. Stalking me every fucking place I go, terrorizing me, my girlfriend, my daughter. You’re disgusting.” I turn around to put my hand on the door handle. “And if I see your face again, I’m going to rip your head right off.”
The photographer stops shooting for a moment, and the pause is enough that I turn around to look at him. He’s staring at me with a strange smile on his face. “Are you threatening me, Mr. Casalles?” he asks. “I think you might be. Mr. Casalles threatens local journalist as he stands on the brink of another mid-life crisis. Why don’t you make things easier for me and tell me what pussy you’re going to trade your current model in for?”
I don’t think. I barely feel. I just throw the punch.
I manage to bypass the camera and hit him square in the nose. I was always good at getting it in the goal. He yelps in pain, and his camera goes smashing to the ground. I don’t think anything has ever felt so satisfying, but the feeling only lasts a moment until I hear Chloe Ann crying from the car.
I’ve really screwed up this time. I can hear voices behind me, and some of the mothers from the day camp have seen the whole thing. I hope they got everything that led up to the hit too, but knowing their single-minded vindictiveness, it probably wouldn’t make a difference.
And so, I panic. As the photographer, holding his nose and swearing his head off, stoops down to gather up his shattered camera, I get in the car and quickly start the engine. I peel backward out of the parking lot—Chloe Ann sniffling in the backseat—and onto the road.
I leave the incident behind, but I know it won’t leave me.
When I get home, Vera has left a note that she has gone out for a short walk. Chloe Ann has calmed down, and I try to explain to her why daddy did what he did. It’s difficult because what I want to instill in my daughter is the ability to shoulder what life throws at her without getting physical or losing composure. I don’t want her to believe that it’s okay to hurt someone just because they hurt you.
I think I’ve gotten through to her; she seems to understand, nodding her small head and staring down at her little hands.
When Vera comes back, she immediately sees something is wrong. Thankfully, Chloe Ann is smiling now and doesn’t seem to harbor any resentment toward her.
“I messed up,” I tell Vera, and I realize how stricken my voice sounds.
Her face crumples and she grabs my hand, leading me over to the couch.
“Tell me,” she implores, sitting down and pulling me down beside her.
Knowing that Chloe Ann is preoccupied with a coloring book and can’t understand English at any rate, I launch into it from the start, from arriving at the day camp and having to deal with those horrible women, to driving away from the scene of the crime, Chloe Anne crying in the back.
I place my face in my hands, lean over my knees, and try and hide myself from the world. Vera rubs her hand slowly up and down my back but doesn’t say anything. There is no “it’s going to be okay” because how on earth is everything going to be okay? How could it? Things were bad before, and I just drove that last nail in. It doesn’t matter that I may have had the right to lash out, but I know this photographer and the parasite that he is, and he won’t take this lying down.
<
br /> “He’s going to press charges,” I mumble into my hands.
Her rubbing pauses. “He said that?”
“I just know.”
And I’m right. The next morning I receive a phone call from the police department informing me to get a lawyer because Mr. Carlos Cruz wants to charge me for assault. I end up taking a sick day from work just to get everything all sorted—the last thing I want is for Pedro to know about this, and I need to do all that I can in order to keep it under the covers.
I knew it won’t be easy. My lawyer, whom I had seen far too much of over the past year, tells me there is a good chance this won’t go to court and that it can be settled otherwise with large sums of dough. Apparently I am good at paying people off. But he isn’t too optimistic about it staying out of the papers, not in the meantime anyway.
When I drop off Chloe Ann at her mother’s house, I am tempted to just tell her everything right there. That way it won’t be a surprise when she reads about it. But somehow I can’t bring myself to do it. There is this tiny little hope inside me, shining dimly, that perhaps Mr. Cruz will be so ashamed or embarrassed about the incident that it won’t make the tabloids at all.
It is only later that I realize I should have said something. Even if the photographer doesn’t speak, there is a chance Chloe Ann might if Isabel asks her about her stay. To say I spent the rest of Thursday a nervous wreck is an understatement.
Now it’s Friday. It’s ten a.m. and I’m back at my desk, absently watching old plays and winning goals on my computer in an attempt to better understand the team. I can barely concentrate. I am pretty much useless. My knuckles hurt, but I bet his face hurts even more.
There is a knock at my door. I turn around in my seat to see Pedro on the other side of the glass, motioning for me to open it. I don’t know why he doesn’t just come in since it’s not locked, but he is the type of guy to engage in minor power struggles throughout the day.