Page 42 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name
“It’s a work thing.”
She shook her head, confused. “A work thing? But it’s one o’clock in the morning.”
“I service freight haulers, baby. They come in at all hours.”
She stared at his face. It was a lie. She wasn’t sure how she knew it, but she did with absolute certainty.
She had a fleeting fear he might go to see another woman. But his expression hadn’t been the one of a man reading a booty call text. It was the expression of a man who had, as he’d put it,complicated shit in his life.
Shit that could get you really hurt.
He lifted her chin between his thumb and forefingers. Kissed her once on the mouth. “Julia. Baby. I’m sorry.”
He opened the passenger door for her, and she hopped off the car and got in. He whistled for Tequila and the dog loped across the beach towards them. She threw herself into the footwell with sandy paws and licked Julia’s knees.
Daniel was quiet as he drove the short distance up the hill to her house. He pulled up in his usual spot but didn’t quit the engine. He leaned across the console to kiss her goodbye and reached down to hold Tequila’s collar so she didn’t jump out when Julia opened the door. Then she found herself standing in her drive, still a little stoned, watching his red taillights recede.
And she realized then that there were two Daniel Castaños. There was the Daniel that watched her dance and made her feel perfect even when she wasn’t. The Daniel that held her in the sand while she cried and offered to take her into the city in the middle of the night to get pancakes. The Daniel whose sweatshirt still hung in her wardrobe, like a protective talisman against her own dark thoughts.
Then there was the Daniel with bloodied knuckles and with the word ALONE down the side of his face. The Daniel who had gripped a man’s throat until he’d gone blue and pointed a gun at another man’s head like he’d done it a hundred times before.
The Daniel who had friends you didn’t want to make enemies of.
It was that Daniel she didn’t want to know. So, she shoved that version of him away. She forced it into that box in the back of her mind, where she kept all the other things she didn’t want to face.
And she vowed never to examine its contents again.
* * *
“Goddammit.”
Salsa splattered like horror movie gore all over Belinda’s only good white shirt. She grabbed a handful of napkins from a holder on the table and tried to blot the stain but ended up making it twice as large.
A passing waiter saw her predicament and said in heavily accented English, “I’ll get you a cloth,sen~ora.”
A damp dish cloth appeared, and she grabbed it, dabbing at the stain. Her attempts only turned the large red stain into a larger pink stain.
The waiter who had brought the cloth hadn’t moved, as if watching Belinda dab at her left boob was fascinating.
Annoyed, she glanced up, only to find it wasn’t a waiter at all. It was the proprietor, Mr. Tostá.
He looked fidgety and kept glancing around the restaurant floor. Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead, as if talking to a customer had suddenly become an illicit business.
Belinda kept a lid on her impatience. Marti´n had called her last night, proclaiming to have information. Information he would only impart in person. She proposed a meeting at a downtown coffee shop to ensure neither of them would be recognized. But Martín clearly didn’t trust Belinda any further than the tiny man could throw her, because he’d insisted on meeting her here, in familiar territory.
He dithered for a few more minutes, pretending to write something lengthy on his check pad. Finally, he stuck his hand into his apron pocket and pulled out his cellphone. He tapped at the screen, then placed it on the table by Belinda’s right elbow. “Her name is Julia,” he said in a low tone. “She’s his girlfriend.”
She dropped the cloth and picked up the phone. On the screen was a photo taken from within the restaurant. The photo, captured from the counter’s vantage point, showed a young white woman seated at a table near the door. Belinda swiveled her head and saw the same table, currently occupied by an elderly couple.
The woman in the photo was blond. Early twenties. She was looking up at a man who had just come in the door. A man who was unmistakably Daniel Castan~o.
Hello Blondie.
She swiped through, found three more photos of the same subject.
“You say she’s his girlfriend?” she asked, looking up at Marti´n. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Sebastián introduced her that way. They left together.”
