Page 16 of Spiders in the Grove

Noticing his interest in me, Cesara steps up closer—I can’t tell if her jealousy is over me, or Joaquin—and she hands Joaquin a glass of champagne.

“Lydia has been with me three weeks now,” Cesara tells him. “She’s already surpassed everyone I’ve ever had under me.”

“So, then maybe this one will last longer than the others?” Joaquin says in a darkly comical way, and then brings the glass to his lips.

Cesara smiles, and then coils her fingers around my elbow. “Oh, yes,” she says, “I like this one. A lot.”

Joaquin easily catches the hidden meaning behind her comment.

His attention shifts when another man enters the room behind us. Joaquin raises a hand, and waves the man over, smiling hugely as if they’ve known one another for many years—now Joaquin is the one with ass-kissing body language.

“Robert,” Joaquin says, “meet Cesara and Lydia; Cesara, Lydia, meet Robert Randolph.” He steps around to stand at Robert’s side, facing us, champagne class clutched in his hand. “They are the trainers of ten of the girls up for auction tonight.”

The man named Robert kisses Cesara’s hand, and then with reluctance he shakes mine.

“A pleasure, Mr. Randolph,” Cesara greets.

I nod respectfully, already knowing he doesn’t care to speak with me.

“What color is your card?” he asks.

“We are red,” Cesara answers.

Red cards identify trainers with their girls.

Robert nods. “I will pay extra attention to red tonight,” he says, and kisses Cesara’s hand again.

This man, probably one of the big buyers, is, without a doubt, one cruel and heartless bastard that any girl unfortunate enough to be sold to him tonight will wish she had died during training, instead. I can see it in his eyes, his hard-lined forty-something face incapable of a smile in any form: he is a rapist, and a murderer, and has no tolerance for mistakes or imperfections. It’s why he didn’t kiss my hand—with the blaring scar across my throat I’m worth less than trash to him. The handshake was simply out of respect, probably for Cesara, who is quite beautiful. And unblemished.

But is this ‘Robert Randolph’ the ever-elusive Vonnegut?

No—I don’t think so; I’ve never seen this man before, and there’s nothing in his eyes that suggests he has any idea who I am, either.

In under thirty minutes, the place is packed; every table and chair in the theatre has been filled. Some buyers have brought their property along, young women and men, sitting on the floor at their feet—it disgusts me to see such things; I wish I could just grab a gun from one of the guards and spray the place with bullets. I glance down at Sabine, my property, sitting obediently at my feet, her head lowered, back straight, hands folded within her lap, legs tucked underneath her bottom. I’m sorry, Sabine, that you’re here. I’ll do everything I can to keep this from being the rest of your life. She slouches, and as if Izel’s ghost lives inside of me, my hand snaps out and I grab her by the back of her hair, wrench her head back on her neck and force her to look up at me. “Keep your back straight or I’ll permanently bend it,” I hiss into her shrinking face.

I know Cesara is watching—that was the whole point.

Joaquin Ruiz walks out onto the stage and the dozens of conversations going on all around me cease in an instant. As Joaquin speaks into a tiny mic affixed to the lapel of his suit jacket, his hands free, motioning, his voice fades from my ears, replaced by my own: Not one of them looks familiar, I say to myself as I study the big buyers sitting at the tables closest to the stage in front of me. Not one of them! Joaquin goes on and on, detailing the rules and bidding procedures for new and return buyers; he discusses with the audience the importance of ‘no touching’ and ‘no speaking to the merchandise’ and all of the other stuff I purposely close my ears up to—I hear it, but I also block it all out. Besides, it’s something I’ve heard so often in my life that it’s stamped on my brain like a cancerous lesion.

Deciding that maybe I was wrong about Vonnegut being one of the big buyers, I turn my attention on the other, less conspicuous men in the room.

“What are you doing?” Cesara whispers next to me.

I snap out of my investigation, and turn my head in her direction, already knowing what she’s referring to: I wasn’t paying attention.

“I thought I recognized someone,” I answer effortlessly, and I lean in closer to her, point discreetly in the direction I had been looking when she caught me, and I whisper, “That man, second table to Mr. Randolph’s right, I can’t be sure, but I think I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

Cesara looks with curiosity at the man in question, whom I chose from the crowd on a whim, and then she smiles at me confusedly. “You can’t be serious, Lydia—you don’t know who that is?”

I glance at the man again, really having no idea, but getting the feeling I’m about to look like an idiot to Cesara.

She leans in closer, her shoulder touching mine. “That’s Andreas Cervantes; you’ve probably seen one or two of his films; he’s one of the top directors in the U.S.”

I never watch movies, or television, or pay much attention to anything concerning famous people, unless it’s directly related to my work—wow, I’m an eighty-year-old woman in my twenties. I shake it off, surprised by how disappointed that makes me feel, and I just play along.

“I never cared about who made the movies,” I say. “They’re not in them, so why should I?” I shrug.

Cesara smiles, and I feel her hand patting my thigh.

---