Minnie wasn’t aware of the decision to move but she surged to her feet, the pain in her shoulder forgotten. The movement dislodged Carmen and sent her sprawling across the tiles, proving that she was wearing a thong, after all.
It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. The huge swell of heat and pain and fury inside her wasn’t satisfied by simply dropping Carmen on her ass. Minnie stood with her chest heaving, unable to think of words that would exorcise the shockwave of emotions Carmen had initiated. There were no words that would do.
So Minnie threw herself at the woman instead.
* * * * *
Calli stood frozen for a moment, unable to comprehend that two grown women were rolling on the tiles, tearing at each other’s hair, kicking, punching and scratching. Then her mind clicked back into gear and she moved forward, cautiously trying to figure out a way to separate them.
Most of the people in the kitchen had gathered around them. It was an echo of schoolyard fights, except these people were not cheering and encouraging the pair. They were watching with expressions that ranged from amusement to outright horror. Calli thought she understood the horror. They were watching an American woman trying to beat the crap out of their beloved president’s daughter.
That gave her more reason to pull them apart as soon as possible. She had to minimize the damage this would cause.
Two strong hands wrapped around her waist and lifted her off her feet. She was carried out of the ragged circle surrounding the two rolling women and placed back on her feet. She twisted around, only nominally surprised to find it was Nick who had her. “We must stop this!” she said.
“No. Let them go.” He turned back to watch the fight. “Let them fight it out.”
Calli bit her lip. “These people will only see Minnie beating up Escobedo’s daughter!”
He kept his eyes on the fight. “Even locked up in the boardroom I got to hear a repeat of what Carmen said to Minnie.” He shook his head. “We’ll let it run itself out.”
Carmen and Minnie got to their feet, staring at each other balefully. Carmen stood nearly a foot taller than Minnie and probably outweighed her. But Minnie had a light in her eyes that Calli had never seen before.
Minnie reached out for one of the cast iron pots sitting on the table by her hip and weighed it in her hands.
Carmen lunged for the chopping knife in Mama Roseta hands and whipped it up. “Huh!” she crowed.
Nick moved fast. He grabbed Carmen’s wrist and wrenched the knife out of it. “No, you don’t,” he said. “You want a piece of her, you take it with your own hands.” He glanced at Minnie. “You too.”
Minnie put the pot down. “Right,” she said and curled her hands into fists. “No problems.” She rushed forward and barely before Nick had stepped away, threw a punch that took Carmen in the jaw. Hard.
Carmen staggered backward but recovered and surged forward, her own fists flailing.
The fight lasted another three bloody minutes. Calli watched, amazed, as the two women sank to the floor, staring at each other and panting, the adrenaline and energy gone. Both had split lips and Carmen had a bloodied nose. There were scrapes and cuts on both of them, but Carmen’s skin had fared worse because she had more of it exposed in the first place.
Nick waded in then. He grabbed Carmen’s arm and hauled her to her feet. “You come with me. You too, Calli. You need to hear this.” He lifted his voice. “Everyone else—go back to what you were doing.” He repeated it in Spanish and reluctantly, the people who had gathered began to separate and go about their affairs.
“Josh, take care of Minnie,” Nick said. Calli was startled to realize that her uncle had been in the room all along. Josh moved around Carmen and halted. “Where did she go?”
The floor where Minnie had been sitting was empty.
* * * * *
Nick pushed open the door to the dining room. Past his shoulder, Calli saw about twenty men sitting around the table look up. All twenty jaws descended rapidly as they took in Carmen’s state.
Carmen stared at the floor, as sulky as any school girl.
“Los caballeros, necesito el cuarto,” Nick said.
At once, they all scrambled to their feet and headed for the doors, clearing the room as he had asked them to. Nick pushed Carmen inside and strode around the room, shutting the sets of doors.
Calli moved down to the sideboard, dug ice from the ice bucket and wrapped it in a napkin. She handed it to Carmen. “For your lip.”
Nick shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at his niece. “This time you’ve pushed my tolerance too far, Carmen.”
She finally looked him in the eye. “That little Americana had it coming. Did you hear what she said to me?”
“I have absolutely no doubt she was provoked into it. I have no intention of opening up an investigation to figure out who said what because it would be redundant. The fact is, I’ve given you too much freedom and tolerated too much of your abuse under the mistaken assumption that you should be given time to come to terms with your father’s death, in whatever way you needed to do it.”
“You dare—”
Nick sliced his hand through the air in a cutting motion. “Enough!” he roared.
Carmen shut up, but Calli could see that mentally she had not backed down an inch.
Nick took a breath. When he spoke again it was in a soft, controlled tone. “You’re behaving as badly as Minnie, if not worse. The parties, the men....” He waved a hand at her clothes.
“Minnie, Minnie, Minnie,” Carmen spat back. She dumped the napkin on the tabletop with a muffled thud. “She isn’t the fucking orphan here, but everyone rallies around her like she is.”
Nick was very still for a moment and Calli knew that Carmen had hurt him. “You know I am here for you.”
“Is that your own guilt, Uncle? I read the papers too. I’ve been around you and my father long enough to understand that she,” she spun to point at Calli, “is the reason the rebels kicked you out of Vistaria so fast.”
Calli swallowed. This was a fact she had wrestled with herself, so getting pissed at Carmen would just make her a hypocrite. She held her teeth together tightly, riding out the humiliation of having Carmen speak it aloud.
“These American women are helping destroy our country,” Carmen added.
“These American women,” Nick returned, “are the reason we still have a toehold on our country at all. If you’ve only confined your reading to tabloid headlines, then your four years at Harvard were a complete waste and that’s a disappointment to me.” He again took a controlling, calming breath. “Calli personally saved the life of one of Vistaria’s most gifted captains. If she had not, then he would not have been in Pascuallita when the insurrectos made their move. He would not have rallied what was left of the personnel on the base and led them and held them together for another twenty-four hours.”
“So what? The base still fell.”
“Yes, but twenty-four hours later than it would have if he had not been there. Do you not understand how many lives that saved? Not soldiers’ lives, but common Vistarian lives? While the base stood, Pascuallita stood. While Pascuallita was held, the civilians had a chance to flee to the coast and escape the island.” Nick waved his hand toward Calli. “Because she saved his life, she saved the lives of thousands of others. Don’t ever denigrate what Calli and Minnie have done, because they have done far more to help Vistaria than you.”
Carmen glanced at Calli and she thought she saw chagrin in her expression, hidden behind the resentment and anger.
Nick thrust his hands into his pockets again. “You’d better learn to appreciate these American women because that gifted captain I just spoke about intended to marry the one who just beat you up in the kitchen, and the one behind you will be my wife within the week.”
Shock jolted Calli. She could feel her eyes widening but could do nothing to hide her surprise. She could barely think for the high buzzing in her mind and through her nerves.
“You have a brilliant mind,” he told his niece. “You could be using it to help me win back Vistaria.”
“What would you know of my brilliant mind?” Carmen’s voice was husky. The woman was close to tears. “You’ve never paid me any attention. You coaxed my father into pushing me off to college as soon as it was decent because I was cramping your style.”
“I saw your potential. Your father would have married you off to a diplomat somewhere and called his duty done.”
“How was that any different? You still got rid of me.” Carmen turned and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Nick said sharply.
“What do you care?”
Nick looked at her steadily. “You need to start taking notice of what’s around you. I mean really looking. For someone so smart, you’re terrible at reading people. Minnie does it far better than you.”
Calli knew he’d mentioned Minnie’s name deliberately. He was using Minnie to make Carmen see his point.
“What is that supposed to mean?” She was furious.
“I mean you were wrong about Calli. You’re wrong about Minnie. You’re also wrong about me.”
Carmen walked right up to him. She was tall, but Nick was taller. “Oh, I might be wrong about them. I’ll concede that point because I know I’m not so good at reading women. But I’m damn good at understanding men, Nicolás Escobedo, and I’ve read you from cover to cover. I’m not wrong about you. “
She smiled, but there was no humor in her expression. “Because you’re a bastard and your mother was Irish, you’re more Vistarian than any of us and you have Vistarian attitudes about women. You saw me as a girl-child who would grow up into a worthless woman, just like every other Vistarian man saw me.” She jerked her chin toward Calli. “So Calli and Minnie helped Vistaria. Did they do that because you let them, or despite you trying to stuff them back into their assigned boxes?”
She flounced away, her head in the air and didn’t see the spasm of shock on Nick’s face.
Calli moved around the table to rest her hand on his arm. “She’s wrong,” she said softly.
His answer was low. “She may be right.”
Chapter Six
Minnie stumbled down the service lane and out into the formalized vegetable garden, holding her churning stomach, a hand clapped over her throbbing mouth. Beyond the high rows of staked tomatoes was a trellised passion fruit vine. She grabbed the trellis for support, leaned over and vomited.
When she was done, she kicked sand over it and staggered inside, under the trellis. There was a bench sitting in the dappled shade and she curled herself up on one end of it, shivering and only partly aware of her aches, bruises and cuts.
She kept hearing Carmen’s voice, “At least I’m not stupid enough to get the men I sleep with killed.” Fresh cold sweat gathered at her temples with every repetition. Her stomach rolled again.
“It’s not true. It isn’t true,” she whispered.
Duardo had made his own choices, just as she had. What was it he used to say? He’d translated it and used her knowledge of English to get it just right. She could hear his voice even now. “Nothing you do can make anyone do anything, mi pequeño. For every act starts first with a decision to act and you have no control over that decision.”
Why had she acted—reacted—to Carmen’s goad in that way?
Guilt, pure and simple.
But, if Duardo was right and everyone made their own decisions, then how could she have caused his death?
Her mind shied away from that poser. It was more comfortable to mourn and miss him. The big laugh, the warm arms. Above all, the warm arms and the length of his hot body against her. That was how they had been when he’d first translated the thought about decisions and control. That had been in his home, in Pascuallita.
Minnie sighed as she recalled that very special twenty-four hours. Frankly, she had been terrified at the thought of meeting his family.
* * * * *
She tugged on Duardo’s hand one more time. “Are you really sure you want to do this?” she asked him as they walked up the cobbled, crooked and very steep street toward the houses at the top of the hill.
“Why would I not?”
“Because in Vistaria, meeting your boyfriend’s mother means something completely different than in the States. In the States, it’s just a passing moment.”
Duardo nodded. “That is very true.”
“So, are you really sure?”
He smiled. “More sure than you. What makes you so afraid?”
She could feel herself blushing. “Your mother won’t approve of me.”
“She will adore you,” he said instantly.
Minnie shook her head. “Most mothers don’t approve of me,” she confessed. “You remember me telling you how I have...well, how I can generally talk to most men, get friendly with them?”
Duardo’s smile broadened. “I am a man. I do not need to remember you telling me. I know that quality for myself. I have seen it at work.”
“Right, well, reverse that effect and that’s what I do to guys’ mothers.”
He stopped right in the middle of the road, dropped his suit bag and gym bag at his feet and turned to face her. He took her face in his hands and his dark eyes were warm. “That is because most mothers are protective of their sons. My mother has had to get used to the idea that she cannot protect me anymore. I am a soldier, a captain in the Vistarian army and soldiers sometimes die. She has learned to accept that. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her, despite their public location. “Besides, my mother has so much to do she has no time to be protective.” He picked up his bags again, took her hand and began climbing the steep road. “And I am a big boy, no?”
Minnie sniffed. “There’s always a little boy inside the big one,” she said darkly.
Duardo laughed and turned through the gate of a big, rambling house. It was typical of the style of housing in Pascuallita—many leveled houses that clung to the sides of hills and outcrops, with orange tiled roofs and lead-lined windows, and big beam and plaster walls built with good timber hewn from the forests surrounding the town.
Duardo pushed open the front door and drew Minnie inside.
She was instantly bombarded with impressions—good cooking smells, laughter far away in a room somewhere, a conversation in quick Spanish beyond the walls of this room, warmth, richly colored furniture and dim, warm-colored light. The house was big but felt incredibly cozy and comfortable.
“This way,” Duardo murmured, pulling her through what must be a formal front room into the room beyond, from where the warm light spilled. There were three steps up into the room and he went first and drew her along.
It was a kitchen as Minnie had suspected and it was full of people. When they saw Duardo there was an outburst of furious Spanish. Women threw themselves at him and the hold he had on Minnie’s hand was lost as he hugged them back, kissing cheeks and talking back.
Minnie could feel herself drawing back toward the doorway. She couldn’t help it. It was one of those rare occasions where she felt completely inadequate, dumb and ugly. There were four women and one man in the room and all of them were gorgeous, including the man. Duardo’s good looks were clearly a family trait.
The oldest woman had to be his mother. Her hair was tied up in a bun on the top of her head and was grey at the temples. But her eyes were young and she was still tall, upright and slender. She had Duardo’s eyes with long lashes and there were wrinkles at the corners, showing that she smiled a lot. She wore Levi’s jeans, topped with what suspiciously looked like a very old army-issue fatigue shirt. When she turned, Minnie saw Peña stenciled across the top of the pocket and hid her smile.
Duardo stepped back to grip Minnie’s h
and again and bring her forward. “Cada uno, éste es Minerva Benning.”
“Minnie,” she amended hastily.
They were all just staring at her.
“Ella es americana, y su español no es tan bueno como nuestro inglés, así que cambiemos, aceptable?”
“English is fine,” said Duardo’s mother, stepping forward. “You have the perfect name for one who is with Duardo, do you not?”
“I do?” Minnie blinked, astonished.
“Minerva was the Roman goddess,” she explained. “The goddess of wisdom and...” She frowned and looked at Duardo. “¿Cuál es ‘valor marcial’ en inglés?”
He laughed. “Military skills and courage,” he translated.
“Hell, that’s not me at all,” Minnie said.
“A goddess, yes,” Duardo said. “That does make you perfect. Minnie, this is my mother, Isabela Santos y Narvaez.”
Isabela smiled at her. “You are hungry?”
“A little,” Minnie confessed.
“We eat in a little, okay?” Isabela marshaled the other women and the man into a ragged row. “But first, my family.” She pointed to the other man—a slightly younger version of Duardo, but with wire-rimmed glasses and a sharp way of looking right through her. “This is Cristián.”
He nodded at her. “Forgive, but inglés not. Not.” He shrugged. “Better as—” and he waved his hand in the air as if he were writing on invisible paper.
“Cristián writes better English because he is always chatting on the Internet,” Duardo murmured.
Cristián rolled his eyes. “I study also.”
“He will get the first degree in MSN Messenger protocol,” said one of the younger women, stepping forward. “Hi. I’m Téra Alejandra. As you’ve probably figured out, us three are triplets.” She pointed at the other two women. “That’s Trini Juanita. She hasn’t got much English. But she speaks some of everything and she spends as much time on the Internet as Cristián.”
Black Heart Page 7
