“Emiliano Zapata.”
The man shines a thin flashlight on a sheet of paper. When he lifts the paper closer to his eyes, Emiliano sees the holster on the man’s hip. After he finally finds Emiliano’s name, at the very end of the list, the security guard opens the door.
The foyer inside sparkles in the light of a chandelier with hundreds of prisms in the shape of frozen tears. The trumpets from a mariachi band blare from somewhere in the back of the house. To the right of the foyer is a dining room with a table covered with wrapped presents and vases full of roses. Two women stand in front of the table holding champagne glasses. Their necks, wrists, and fingers glitter with jewels. To the left, a step below the foyer, Emiliano sees a room with a blue-felt pool table, brown leather chairs, and lamps that glow with soft yellow light. Encyclopedia-looking books line one of the walls, while the other is covered with colorful paintings of Mexican villages and bustling marketplaces. In this room, men in dark blue and gray suits stand with thick tumblers in their hands. Despite Paco’s loafers, Emiliano feels shabbily dressed. He’s glad he opted for socks.
He stands paralyzed, dazed by the opulence. Everything looks luxurious but also comfortable. He could easily imagine himself in one of those brown chairs or playing pool. Which way does he go? Should he put the cake on the table next to the silver-wrapped boxes with silky red ribbons? Sooner or later he has to do something, take a step in one direction or another. No one has noticed him standing there like a scared rabbit, but that could change any second.
The end of the foyer seems to lead to another hallway. That hallway seems to point north. When in doubt, follow Polaris, the North Star. That’s a Jipari rule. The mariachi band is playing one of his mother’s favorite songs, and he draws comfort from that.
He’s about to leave the foyer when a young woman in a black dress and frilly white apron turns a corner and almost bumps into him. She smiles a beautiful smile that instantly reminds Emiliano of his sister. “Emiliano?” she asks.
He nods, grateful to find a friendly face.
“Perlita told me to look out for you. I recognized you from your picture in the newspaper.”
“Newspaper?”
“When you won the big soccer game in Chihuahua.” Her eyes fall on the cake. “What a gorgeous cake!”
“For Mrs. Esmeralda. My mother made it.”
“Those little whirls of frosting are very difficult to make.” The young woman starts to take it from his hands, but stops when Emiliano hesitates to let it go. “I’ll put it in a safe place and let Mrs. Esmeralda know it’s from you and made by your mother.”
He allows her to take the cake. “It’s a liqueur cake, my mother’s specialty,” Emiliano tells her.
“I can’t wait to taste it when no one’s looking,” the young woman whispers to him. “Come, I’ll take you to Perlita. She’s by the pool.”
They walk to the end of the hallway and stop in front of some glass doors, through which he can see a stone terrace full of people, and beyond that, the turquoise light of a pool. Emiliano hesitates.
“Go on,” the young woman says. “The rich people’s bark is worse than their bite.”
He laughs. How does she know he’s not one of the rich people? Is it that obvious? She smiles at him one more time before she walks away.
That was pleasant, Emiliano says to himself as he opens the glass door and steps bravely onto the terrace. Pushed against the walls of the house are tables with dozens of hot and cold dishes. There’s more food and more different kinds of it in one place than Emiliano has ever seen. It’s like a banquet scene from a movie about the Roman Empire. When he looks at the abundance of desserts on one of the tables, he feels a pang of sadness. His mother’s masterpiece will be lost in all that richness.
But the sadness dissipates when he sees Perla Rubi sitting at a table by the pool. She’s with a group of people her age—their age. When she sees him coming down the steps from the terrace, she jumps up and walks toward him, arms outstretched, to hug him as if he was lost and is now found.
“I was worried about you!”
“Why?”
“You’re so late. I thought you were going to get here around six.”
“It was a rough day.”
“You’ll have to tell me about it. Come on, I want you to meet my cousins.”
Emiliano is used to shaking hands when being introduced, but neither of the two young men nor the young woman sitting at the table gets up when Perla Rubi introduces him, so he simply nods and gives a babyish five-finger wave to each one. He tries to remember their names, but the only one that sticks with him is the name of the last person: Federico. Perla Rubi drags a chair from the next table and Emiliano sits.
“He’s a hunk!” the young woman whispers in Perla Rubi’s ear, loud enough for Emiliano to hear. Blood rushes to his face. “Look, I made him blush. How cute!”
“Veronica, behave!” Perla Rubi says. Emiliano repeats the name to himself so he won’t forget.
One of the male cousins is looking at his phone and laughing to himself. The other, the one named Federico, is staring at him with cold intensity. There is something about his ears that seems out of proportion with the rest of his head.
“Are you hungry? Want something to drink?” Perla Rubi waves her hand until she catches the attention of a boy with a tray at the other end of the pool.
Emiliano notices that the tables are decorated with miniature piñatas, and the image of Javier’s shack, with its plywood walls and tin roof, flashes in his mind.
“So all of you are related?” he asks, for something to say. He instantly feels stupid. Perla Rubi already told him they were cousins.
“Carlos is my mother’s brother’s son. Veronica is the daughter of my aunt, my father’s sister. And Federico is the son of Veronica’s father’s uncle, so we’re distant cousins, I guess.”
“Extremely distant,” Federico adds, looking at Perla Rubi in a way that makes Emiliano immediately dislike him.
Carlos reaches for his can and chugs whatever beer is left in there. When the boy with the tray reaches them, Perla Rubi says, “Mario, bring us plates of different things. A little of everything. As many of those small plates as you can fit on your tray.”
“Bring me another one of these.” Carlos shakes his empty beer can.
“Three more?” the boy asks.
Emiliano shakes his head. “A Coke for me, please.”
“You don’t like beer?” Federico asks.
“I like it. I just don’t drink it.”
“Rum? Tequila? Wine? Scotch? Do you like anything a man would drink?” His tone is not friendly. The guy is a jerk.
“I don’t drink alcohol,” Emiliano says, forcing a smile.
“Oh, how sad!” Federico exclaims.
“Why?” Veronica asks Emiliano, serious.
He shrugs.
“Emiliano belongs to an explorer group,” Perla Rubi jumps in, pride in her voice. “Part of their code is not to drink or do drugs. Isn’t that right, Emiliano?”
“An explorer group? Like the Boy Scouts?” Federico asks.
“I love their cookies!” Carlos says, clapping his hands. “We buy them when we go shopping in El Paso.”
“That’s the Girl Scouts, idiot!” Veronica says.
Emiliano reminds himself that these are Perla Rubi’s relatives and he should be nice to them for her sake. “There are some similarities with the Boy Scouts, but we’re more focused on desert survival.”
Perla Rubi moves her chair closer to him. “Emiliano’s the captain of our school’s soccer team. We won the state championship last year, as you know.” She directs these words at Federico.
“Anyone can play soccer,” Federico responds. “Try hitting a tiny ball with a wooden mallet while your horse is at a gallop.”
“Federico is on our country club’s polo team,” Veronica tells Emiliano. “They think they’re oh so hot, even though it’s the horse that does all the work.”
&n
bsp; “Very funny,” Federico says. He turns around. “Where the hell is that kid?”
“He’s trying to figure out what to bring us,” Veronica says, glancing up at the terrace.
“You could walk up and get your own beer, you know,” Perla Rubi says. “Moving your own legs now and then would do you good.”
“Ooo! Touché!” Carlos laughs and picks up his phone again.
Federico says to Emiliano, “Ever been on a horse?”
Emiliano thinks of his bike. When Sara gave it to him, she said it reminded her of Don Quixote’s horse, Rocinante. “I’ve been on a burro. He had these really big, ugly ears.” Emiliano stares for a few moments at Federico’s ears. “Does that count?”
Federico’s smirk changes to a frown. Perla Rubi giggles, then pulls Emiliano out of his chair. “We’ll be back,” she tells the group. She’s walking with him, laughing, waving at someone on the terrace.
“What?” he says to her when they’re away from the group.
“I had to get you out of there before you lost it and beat the crap out of Federico.”
“I wasn’t going to lose it.”
“They’re just silly—don’t mind them. Let’s see if we can find my mother so you can wish her a happy birthday like we planned.” She squeezes his arm. “Are you all right? You seem upset about something.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been a very strange day.”
She stops in the middle of the steps and turns to him. “Anything bad? Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Everything’s okay.” He notices for the first time the soft, white dress that Perla Rubi is wearing. Not white, exactly, but the creamy color of a pearl. She seems so rich, like everything else in her house. Not just money-rich, but rich with life and color and happiness.
“Did you have trouble getting here? How did you get here anyway?”
“I drove here in a Mercedes.” Did he really have to mention that it was a Mercedes?
“What?”
“It’s a long story. I did a friend a favor and took his father’s car to the repair shop, and then it got too late to take the car back to him and still make it here in time, so he let me keep it overnight.”
“Mmm.” The look on Perla Rubi’s face says she doesn’t quite believe him. “I didn’t know you had those kinds of friends.”
He smiles and squeezes her hand. “Stick with me, young lady. I am full of surprises.”
Perla Rubi smiles back and blushes.
Mrs. Esmeralda is waiting for them at the edge of the terrace. He’s met her before, when she’s come to pick up Perla Rubi from school. Emiliano extends his hand, but Mrs. Esmeralda hugs him instead. It’s a delicate hug that makes him think of a monarch butterfly, the kind he saw on the Sierra Tarahumara.
“Thank you for the beautiful cake,” she says, smiling at him. “Diana told me your mother made it.”
“It’s her specialty. It has coffee liqueur.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Mrs. Esmeralda says, “but I told Diana not to put it out with the other desserts. I’m going to keep it all for myself. Maybe I’ll let you have a piece, Perla Rubi, if you are good.”
“I will be. I’ll be very good.”
Mrs. Esmeralda hooks her arm through Emiliano’s and tells Perla Rubi, still smiling, “I’m going to take him to meet your father.”
“Papá?” Perla Rubi asks, surprised. “Why?”
Mrs. Esmeralda shrugs mysteriously. “I don’t know. Your father told me he wanted to talk to him.”
“Don’t worry,” Perla Rubi says to Emiliano. “His bark is worse than his bite.”
Emiliano grins as he tries to remember where he heard that phrase recently. It’s supposed to make people less afraid, but it usually has the opposite effect. There’s no need to be nervous. He should be excited. This is his opportunity to show Perla Rubi’s father that he is worthy of his daughter. Isn’t that the plan? “I’ll see you,” he says to Perla Rubi.
“Bye!” Perla Rubi says, excited. She’s happy that he’s getting all this attention from her parents, he can tell.
Mrs. Esmeralda is wearing a silky, soft, pale green dress with her hair flowing over her shoulders. A silver-and-emerald necklace jiggles gently when she walks. Emiliano is glad he chose the cake as a present. Whatever he was going to buy her with his thousand pesos would have looked pathetic on Mrs. Esmeralda.
“I hope you didn’t have too much trouble getting here. I know you live far away,” Mrs. Esmeralda says. They are walking through a kitchen that seems larger than Emiliano’s entire house. The girl who took the cake smiles at him, or at Mrs. Esmeralda, he’s not sure. “Don’t forget to take your mother’s platter when you leave. Diana will have it ready for you.”
“Thank you.”
“I could get Jaime to take you back home if you wish.”
“Thank you. I have a way to get home.”
They walk up a staircase made of white granite. Mrs. Esmeralda stops and says to him, “I wanted to tell you how glad I am that you and Perla Rubi are good friends.”
“Thank you,” Emiliano says. Does he imagine a slight weight on the word friends?
“It’s really been good for Perla Rubi to help you with your studies. I’ve noticed, I don’t know, a greater maturity and sense of responsibility ever since she started tutoring you. And, of course, Jorge and I are very grateful that she has you to watch over her at school.”
“Thank you” is the only thing he can think of saying. Sometime in the near future, he hopes he will come up with something to say other than thank you.
Mrs. Esmeralda continues, “Jorge and I don’t care about material things, believe it or not. We care about hard work. Perla Rubi has told me how hard you work with the school’s soccer team and helping poor kids with Brother Patricio and the …”
“Jiparis,” Emiliano says.
“Jiparis. What a nice person Brother Patricio is, isn’t he?”
“Yes. He’s a good man.”
“We’re always happy to contribute to his causes. Oh, look.” They stop by a small table placed against a wall. On top of it is a vase with black and white designs. “Perla Rubi told me about your Mexican folk art business. How enterprising on your part. I collect folk art too! This is a vase made by the indigenous people of Michoacán. Isn’t it beautiful? Do you work with pottery in your business?” She looks at him expectantly.
“No, pottery like that requires special clay and paints and furnaces. The folk art objects that my kids make are from everyday, easy-to-find, inexpensive materials.”
“Your kids?”
“The younger Jipari kids make things for me to sell.”
She smiles. “That’s sweet.”
Mrs. Esmeralda starts walking and Emiliano follows her. Javier and Memo and the other Jiparis are his kids, kind of. He got them interested in creating things once he saw they had the patience and attention to detail needed to be good craftsmen. He gives them money for materials when they don’t have any. He sells their work at the best price he can get. He gets a fair fee for what he does. He never thought of the arrangement as “sweet.”
Emiliano thinks of the miniature piñatas that Javier makes. If he accepts Mr. Reyes’s offer, he’ll need to convince Javier to load the piñatas. Javier’s family is barely surviving. The money that they make from the loaded piñatas would make their lives so much more comfortable.
They turn left at the top of the stairs and stop in front of the first closed door. Mrs. Esmeralda raps on it gently.
“Come in,” a man’s voice says. It is difficult to determine whether it is welcoming or not.
“Don’t let him intimidate you,” Mrs. Esmeralda whispers to Emiliano. “Sometimes he interrogates people like the lawyer he is. If he asks you a question you don’t feel like answering, just say, ‘That’s a very good question. I’ll have to think about that.’ It’s what Perla Rubi and I do.” She winks and then opens the door for him to go in alone.
The room is dark except for the p
ale glow of the open laptop on the glass desk. Emiliano waits for his eyes to adjust and then sees the back of a reddish-brown leather chair with the top of a man’s head over it. The man swings the chair around and covers a cell phone with his left hand. He’s younger than Emiliano imagined him, with a closely shaved face, a light blue shirt with a white round collar, and a thin lavender tie—all elegant, handsome, refined. “I’ll be right with you,” Mr. Esmeralda says. “Emergency. Have a seat.”
Emiliano sits in one of two beige chairs. The leather on the chair is buttery soft, and Emiliano has to keep himself from sliding to the front of the seat. The built-in bookcases are full of crystal bowls with glittery engraving that Emiliano cannot read. Prestigious awards, probably. There’s an order and simplicity about the room that reminds Emiliano of a very exclusive jewelry store where people walk softly and speak in whispers. He has never met Mr. Esmeralda, though Perla Rubi told Emiliano that her father saw the Pumas play in the state championship. She said he thought Emiliano was the reason the Pumas won that day. Sitting there in the semidark room, listening to Mr. Esmeralda talk, Emiliano remembers the winning goal: a perfect cross from his foot to Paco’s forehead and into the net.
So much is happening so fast. He is either getting “checked out,” or Perla Rubi’s parents want to make sure that he knows his place and stays there. They would be doing these things only if they know Perla Rubi likes him. The conversation with Mrs. Esmeralda was more positive than not, all things considered. What matters is that she recognized he’s a hard worker, and the Esmeraldas believe in hard work. What was it she called him? Enterprising. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? That’s what he likes to do—“enterprise,” whatever that means. He leans back a little into the chair. He’s not nervous now. On the contrary, he feels like he sometimes does out on the soccer field, like he belongs here and can move freely.
Mr. Esmeralda puts the cell phone faceup on the glass desk, rises from his chair, and walks around the desk, hand outstretched.
“Jorge Esmeralda.”
“Emiliano Zapata.” He tries to stand, but Mr. Esmeralda pushes him gently back in the chair. The man sits down in the adjacent chair, putting his right foot over his left leg.
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