“Nice dress. I love the colours,” Verónica said.
Frida came over and kissed her on the mouth. Still standing close, she whispered, “And I love the colour of your lips.”
“I thought you were over that.”
“You think too much.” Frida’s right hand stroked her ass over her dress then went under it and touched the edge of her underwear. Verónica didn’t move or put up any resistance.
“I thought you weren’t going to wear any underwear to make things easier for that guy,” Frida said, as her fingers delved under the G-string.
“You think too much.”
“Touchée.”
“I’m the one who’s being touchée, wouldn’t you say?”
Frida removed her hand and stepped away without dropping her gaze. Petra came out of the shower naked and drying her hair.
“Hey, you two look so beautiful. I’m going to lower the tone in my jeans.”
“Tight jeans beat bare legs,” said Verónica.
“Men are so basic.” Frida was still looking at her.
“Women too.”
Just then Verónica’s phone rang. It was Ramiro, who was already at the door of the hotel. In ten minutes Petra was ready, and the three went out together.
He was standing waiting for them beside his 4 × 4, a shining silver Hilux that didn’t appear to have spent much time out in the country mud. Ramiro had put on a shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He greeted them pleasantly but made no comment on their appearance. He was either shy or very used to driving girls like them around in his pickup. Petra sat in the front and chatted breathlessly to Ramiro. She even smoothed down the collar on his shirt.
It was a short drive. At the end of town the street became an asphalt road and, less than a hundred yards further on, there was a gate. This was no simple country gate but seemed to be the entrance to a club or something similar. There was a security booth with two guards, who hurried forward to block their way. Ramiro waved at them and drove on in the direction of some lights that could be seen in the distance. Two hundred yards further on, fields gave way to a parking area for vans and sports cars. From here you could hear the sound of music and a DJ who obviously thought he was in Ibiza.
Rising in front of them was a three-storey house in a minimalist style. They walked around it to the back and found the hub of the party. A human tide was jumping, dancing, drinking from cans of beer or from large glasses of some concoction prepared at the bar by two bartenders who mixed drinks with more speed than skill. These two were also in charge of serving champagne. The partygoers could help themselves to beers and white wine from enormous vats of ice and water. The red wine was on a table surrounded by glasses and plates of snacks.
Verónica saw Petra take Ramiro’s hand and lead him to the middle of the dance floor. Was this an excuse to leave her alone with Frida, or did she actually like Ramiro? Frida suggested they go and get drinks. The bar was thronged with people, so they went to pick up beers first then joined the queue of people waiting for cocktails.
“I want to say something to you before I get drunk,” said Frida, who had already drunk quite a bit during dinner in the restaurant at the hotel. “I don’t like that guy at all.”
“Ramiro?”
“Not at all. And before you say something silly, let me be clear this has nothing to do with jealousy. And I love men. Some of them. But this Ramiro is bad news.”
“On what do you base that?”
“Instinct, a hunch, call it what you like.”
A boy who was also fighting to get served pointed at their beers. “Not fair,” he protested.
“In love and war everything is fair,” said Frida.
“So are you in love or at war?” the boy shot back, but he got no answer.
Finally they arrived at the bar. Frida asked for a mojito and Verónica a double whisky. The whisky wasn’t good, but it could have been worse. The boy was with a friend now and came over to chat them up. They weren’t bad-looking lads. Frida said she wanted to dance, so the four of them headed to the dance floor. After a while the girls delicately detached themselves from their companions and returned to the drinks area.
“No way I’m getting back in that chaotic queue,” said Verónica as she saw Ramiro and Petra coming towards them, Petra wiggling her ass in her tight jeans.
Verónica complained about the drinks situation and Ramiro looked at her with surprise. “My dear, whatever you want you shall have.”
He went inside the house and returned minutes later with a bottle of ten-year-old Chivas Regal and another of Herradura Añejo tequila.
“Come, I want to introduce you to Nicolás Menéndez Berti, the owner of this house,” Ramiro said to her, and Verónica liked the way he addressed this to her alone rather than to the three of them.
They went towards a group standing by the pool. Even from a distance it was clear who the owner of the house was: he was the centre of attention for everyone around him. Ramiro walked over and embraced him. He said something that Verónica couldn’t quite catch and the owner of the house turned towards her.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Verónica. I’m Nicolás.”
“Congratulations on the party. What a beautiful house you have.”
“Yes, it’s pretty, but the land is even better.”
“Which land?”
“The house sits on the edge of an estate of 2,500 acres. You should see it.”
“I bet.”
“Are your European friends having a good time?”
He seemed older than Ramiro and was a little shorter and more solidly built, like a recently retired rugby player. He obviously liked imposing his physical presence, getting noticed. Seven centuries ago he would have been sitting on a throne observing how his subjects entertained themselves. Something else caught Verónica’s attention: Nicolás was the only one who didn’t have a glass in his hand.
“How dreadful that the owner of the house hasn’t got a drink,” she said. It was a technique she had developed: whenever she had a difficult interview, she disguised the questions she thought might be contentious, or which the interviewee might answer with a lie, as an innocent aside.
“I don’t drink alcohol, and alcohol-free drinks are boring,” he answered.
Their group was joined by a trio of youths who must have been about twenty-five, perhaps younger. One of the men kissed Ramiro on the cheek. Ramiro introduced him to Verónica: “This is my younger brother, Nahuel.”
The younger brother kissed Verónica with the indifference of one who knows he is handsome and observed, then moved away from them with Nicolás. Verónica was beginning to tire of these patrician, beautiful and wealthy youths. Ramiro wanted to take her back to the dance floor, but she felt the pull of that bottle of whisky. Back at the drinks area, they found Frida on her own, guarding the bottles. Verónica asked her where Petra was. Frida pointed at the dance floor. “She went off with that guy.” They poured themselves another glass of whisky.
Verónica wanted to go to the bathroom. She had to fend off a couple of creeps who were determined to drag her onto the dance floor as she crossed part of the garden to get to the toilet facilities, which came with changing rooms and showers. Verónica could imagine that beyond the garden there might be a soccer pitch and tennis courts to provide amusement for the bored young people during the day. She came out of the toilet thinking about how irritating she found people like Nicolás and bumped into Frida, who was waiting for her at the door.
Taking her arm, Frida moved her to one side. “What are we doing, Verónica?”
“In what sense?” Verónica asked, without irony.
“This party, us here. We should leave.”
“You and I? The three of us?”
“All three. I really don’t like this place.”
“You don’t like Ramiro, and now you don’t like the party.”
Frida stepped towards Verónica, who took a step back.
“I can’t stand women who lead m
en on. Or women, either.”
“You really don’t get it, Verónica.”
“What I get is that these last two days I’ve been at the mercy of what you do or don’t do. All it took for you to lose it was a man coming onto the scene.”
“They’re two different things. You’re confusing things, mixing things up. All we want is to share this journey and make it the best it can possibly be for all three of us. What’s happening here with all these people who are out of their heads, with guys who won’t take no for an answer, is something else. Can’t you see there are loads more men here than women?”
“Look, Frida, we’re all three of us grown up. If you don’t like the party, leave. If Petra wants to go with you, fine. If tomorrow you want to set sail for China, that’s your right. And the same applies to me.”
“I thought you were sharper than that.”
Verónica considered answering back but she was too angry. She simply said “Bye, Frida” and walked away, leaving the Norwegian alone. Walking quickly, she stamped across the ground as though delivering hammer blows. She didn’t feel like going back to Ramiro, so she went off to one side, to be alone for a while. What Frida had said was right: the guys here were unbearable. There was something else, too, and now she saw it: the age difference. Most of the men here were in the thirty-to-forty bracket. The girls, on the other hand, seemed mainly to be in their twenties. Come to think of it, Frida and Petra were in their twenties too. She was the only thirty-something at the party, or one of just a handful.
Hoping to escape the men who continually approached her (couldn’t they bear to see a woman on her own? Why did they think women must always have a male beside them?), she went back to the place she had last seen Ramiro but didn’t find him there. Finally, he appeared from inside the house.
“Come, I want to show you something,” he said and took her hand, steering her back towards the house. Although there were a few people indoors, it was clear the party was outside and that only a privileged few had access to this enormous room, perhaps only Nicolás’s close friends.
Ramiro took her up to the first floor. Verónica suspected this was a ruse to get her into one of the bedrooms. There was nobody on this floor, further feeding her suspicions. Ramiro opened a door and they entered a room in darkness. He switched on the light, revealing a master bedroom.
“Wow, that’s beautiful.”
The painting was about three feet high. At first she could make out only colours, but if she looked more closely she could see the body of a reclining woman, like Goya’s La Maja Desnuda. A surrealist version of the naked Maja.
“It’s a Chab.”
“A what?”
“A Víctor Chab, quite recent. I love it. Nico beat me to it and bought it in Buenos Aires. I offered him twice what he paid, but the little shit doesn’t want to sell.”
“Nico collects art too?”
“I got him started. He’s got the makings of a nice little gallery.”
They stood looking at the painting for a few minutes. Then Ramiro kissed her. They spent almost as long kissing as they had spent admiring Chab’s Venus. Verónica still thought this was all a ploy to get her onto the bed. So she decided to take the initiative and began pushing him gently towards it.
“Not here. Let’s go to my house,” Ramiro said.
“I can’t. I’m with the girls.”
“Are you their nanny? If so, I should let you know that one’s escaped. I’m pretty sure I saw the Italian coming into the house with a guy. If you like we can look in all the rooms so you can tell her we’re leaving.”
“How will they get back?”
“Someone will take them. Worst-case scenario they’ll have to walk, but it’s only half a mile back to the hotel.”
There was no point staying there any longer. Was she going to look for the girls and take them back to the hotel? Throw herself at Frida? She decided to go with Ramiro. She’d talk to Frida the next day.
Verónica waited for Ramiro to go and say goodbye to the host. No doubt he’d gone to brag that he was taking her back to his place. Verónica didn’t mind about that. She lit a cigarette and Ramiro appeared just as she was tossing the butt onto the ground. In the interim she saw neither Frida nor Petra, nor did she care that she hadn’t seen them.
IV
A few years previously, Verónica had worked on a magazine targeted at female readers. One of those publications that, with their articles on cooking, fashion and sex, deliberately place women a step below men. And everything is aimed at the upper-class (or aspiring to be) white heterosexual woman. One of the articles she’d had to write was about the sexual fantasies of women while they fucked. That required consulting sexologists, psychologists and the odd celebrity with erotic cachet. Since it was an article that had to be written urgently and she was short of time, and since the subject matter didn’t seem all that serious to her, she did something she had always considered a grave sin in journalism: she made up quotes. She interviewed the current hot celebrity, but the specialists were all characters she dreamed up. And the fantasies that these experts on the subject explained to her, in lurid detail, were also the fruit of her imagination. She sent the article to her editor, one of the few male editors still working on this kind of publication, with two results:
One: her article was rejected. Apparently her imagination was not similar enough to that of the rich, white heterosexual women who read the magazine.
Two: the editor asked her out to dinner. An invitation she turned down perhaps a little too firmly, because she never had a piece published in that magazine again. They didn’t even pay her a cancellation fee for the article.
Sometime later there was a third consequence: she opened up a user account on a pornographic website in order to write stories and so channel her fervid imagination. But the few stories she had written always covered the same territory: sadomasochistic relations between a man and a woman.
Among the many fantasies Verónica had included in that article was that of getting turned on by thinking of a woman while fucking a man. Something that hadn’t happened in her case before but was within the realm of possibility. What she had never imagined was that the thought would recur so often for her. She kissed Ramiro and thought of Frida’s mouth. Ramiro caressed her and she remembered the other girl’s tongue between her legs. When Ramiro penetrated her, she imagined Frida’s fingers inside her. She came thinking of Frida, semi-naked, putting sunscreen on Petra down by the pool.
When, later, they started all over again with kissing, Verónica made an effort to concentrate on Ramiro, on his body, which he clearly worked on in the gym, on his weightlifting biceps, but it was useless. She couldn’t get Frida out of her mind.
Perhaps Ramiro had intuited some of this, because while they were in the kitchen making coffee he asked what the deal was with Frida.
“What do you mean by ‘the deal’?”
“I don’t know. Just that she seemed a bit unfriendly. Whereas Petra’s really nice. It’s so weird that they hardly knew each other and then started travelling together.”
“It’s not that weird. But it’s true that the trip has become a bit more complicated in the last few days.”
Ramiro poured coffee for her and offered a sweetener. Verónica reminded him that she took it unsweetened.
“Of course. I noticed that yesterday. And you don’t drink orange juice.”
“Well, I didn’t drink it yesterday. I’m not that set in my ways.”
“Coming back to the girls, I don’t think you need that kind of complication in your life, do you? You can stay here in Yacanto and let them go on without you.”
She answered with a smile and they went back to bed. A couple of hours later, Verónica had reached a conclusion: she needed some distance from Frida. She couldn’t carry on behaving like a teenager with a crush on the girl who sat next to her at school. She needed a few days alone, without the girls. But she also didn’t feel like having to explain herself, and s
he definitely didn’t want to stay on in Yacanto del Valle. Ramiro was sleeping peacefully, without snoring. A point in his favour. She got dressed, realizing that she had a slight headache. Hesitating over whether or not to wake him, she walked to his side of the bed and passed her hand over his forehead. Ramiro opened his eyes.
“I’m off. I’m going to carry on north. On my own.”
“When will I see you again?”
“Let’s write to each other. I’ll come through Yacanto on the way back for sure. My return flight leaves from Tucumán.”
She had no plan, at least at that moment, to see Ramiro again.
Back at the Posada de Don Humberto, the night receptionist was still on duty. She asked him to prepare her bill. In her room, she took two aspirin, showered, put on comfortable jeans and a T-shirt. Everything else went in the suitcase. For a moment she thought of leaving Frida and Petra a letter at the reception desk, then decided it would be better to get going and write to them from her next destination: Cafayate. They were sure to be heading that way, or perhaps they would stop sooner, in Amaicha del Valle. In any case, all the northbound buses went through Yacanto, so they wouldn’t have any trouble getting transport. When she went downstairs to pay her bill, Mariano – one of the owners – was already behind the desk.
“Tell me what you didn’t like about our house that you should leave so soon.”
“It’s not that. I love the hotel. I just need to travel onwards.”
“Are the other girls staying?”
“I think they’re leaving sometime this morning, but I’m not sure.”
From the moment she left her room until the moment she was in her car, turning onto the provincial highway, Verónica feared bumping into the girls and having to explain herself. She would have felt like a thief, skulking away in the night. But now she was on the road. Verónica thought she’d put on some music. Frida’s MP3 player was still connected to the car stereo, and she should have gone back to return it to her. She didn’t, though. Instead she put on the music Frida had been listening to. The voice of a woman singing in Portuguese, and then a man, drifted from the speaker. Without taking her eyes off the road, she looked to see who was singing: they were called Ana Carolina and Seu Jorge. The subject seemed very sad:
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