by Livia Ellis
“I don't know.” Henna stood in front of a three-way mirror wearing a red dress while holding a white in her left hand and a black in her right hand. “The red is just a touch too hooch for a wedding. I can't wear white. I love the black, but I really can't wear black for a wedding. Well, I could...” She looked at herself then at him. “What do you think?”
He looked up from his phone for a moment, scrutinized Henna from behind in the red, understood her point about the dress he personally preferred being perhaps a touch too sexy for a wedding, then let her know what he thought. Whether she listened to him or not, was one of those things he knew might or might not happen. “I like the yellow.”
“Which yellow?”
He jabbed a thumb towards the entrance of the boutique. “The one in the window.”
The sales woman, knowing a sale when it walked in the door, scampered away for the yellow dress he'd noticed when they entered the shop. She was back a moment later with the dress that Henna took into the changing room.
He sat and waited in a contented silence, happier than he'd been in two years. Small, simple things that seemed so unimportant before, mattered more than he realized. Having to spend his morning sitting in a boutique while a woman he enjoyed the company of dithered over which dress she wanted was heaven.
She came out of the changing room in the flouncy, airy, feminine yellow dress he'd spotted.
“It's a bit princessy.” Henna looked at herself in the mirror as she moved.
“Do you like it?” He knew the right questions to ask.
“Yes,” she said. “I like it a lot. But it's just not what I would normally wear.” She looked down at herself then up at him. “I don't know.” She looked at the tag for the price, then made a grimace. “I do like it, but I may never wear it again.”
His phone rang and the number on the screen couldn't be ignored. He stood from the chair as he answered the call and told his goddaughter Esmeralda to hold for a moment. “Henna,” he said. “I like the yellow. Get the yellow.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed a credit card over to the sales woman. “Get them all. I like them all. I need to take this.” He held his phone to his ear as he walked out of the boutique.
“Esmeralda,” he said as he stood outside in the warm morning sunshine. “Tell me you are fine. I want to hear that you are fine and that you are coping better than you were yesterday.”
“I'm not fine,” she sobbed. “How can Romeo do this to me? He barely knows her. I can't believe Hector left without me. He locked me in a closet. Can you believe that? My own brother locked me in a closet.”
“Esmeralda, are you lying again?” He slipped on his sunglasses and reached for both a lighter and cigarettes. Then he remembered he'd quit smoking. Only Esmeralda could make him wish he’d clung to that particular vice.
She was silent except for sniffles on the other end. “Maybe exaggerating. He did lock me in my bedroom.”
“Did he? I'll ask him.” Past experience told him that he had to give her the benefit of the doubt. Hector very well might have locked her in a room rather than have to deal with her temper with kindness and compassion.
“Fine,” she said. “Maybe he didn't lock me in my bedroom. But he did leave without me. I have every right to be there.”
“You shouldn't be here. It would be too painful for you to see Romeo move on so completely.” He studied the traffic, made up mostly of scooters and busses. The few cars that went by were well maintained according to local laws.
“I hate you,” she shrieked. “Why are you so mean to me?”
He kept his voice calm as he silently tried to find a solution to all of his goddaughter's problems. “Esmeralda, you know I love you as if you were my own daughter. I know you don't hate me, and you know I'm not mean to you. Romeo is not going to change his mind. You were never going to get back together again.” He silently said a small prayer that Romeo and Eden truly did have the eternal love they believed they’d found. If not for them, then for himself. The thought of Romeo and Esmeralda together again chilled his blood.
“Bullshit!” The sound of something fragile smashed into a thousand pieces punctuated her shout. “If I were there, he'd change his mind.”
“Romeo is happy, and he is going to marry Eden tomorrow. If you showed up now, he would only be angry with you. You have to accept that life moves on.” He did everything he had been told to do. He kept his voice calm and level and tried to be both truthful and reasonable.
“That is hilarious coming from you!” Esmeralda shouted. “You are one to talk. Life moving on, indeed. I'll move on when you move on.”
“I met someone,” he said. “I was going to wait to tell you in person, but maybe you need to know now. Life does move on when you least expect it to. I promise that someday you will meet a man who will make you very happy.”
“I'm never going to be happy again.”
“You will. I promise. Now do me two things. Call Doctor Winterhalter and tell her how you are feeling. If you want to go back to the rest-home, just tell her and I'll make sure the arrangements are made.” Another silent prayer ran through his thoughts. Esmeralda locked up safely in Switzerland would give him the freedom to enjoy his life. Esmeralda free to do as she liked, equaled sleepless nights.
“Stop calling it a rest home!” she shouted. “It's a crazy house.”
“It's a hospital, and we both know that. I won't call it a rest home again. Okay? We are always honest with each other, so we'll be honest about that, too. Do you want to go to Switzerland and see Doctor Winterhalter? Stay for a few weeks? Rest. Make sure you're eating properly. I don't want you to get sick again.”
Silence except for breathing came over the line. “Maybe that might be a good idea. Will you come visit me?”
“I will come and visit you.” That he could easily do. He looked inside the store and saw Henna looking at jewelry as the sales women wrapped up the dresses. He would take her with him.
“Is she nice? The woman you met.”
“She's very nice.”
“Pretty?”
“Very pretty.”
“She makes you happy?”
“Very happy.”
“Smart?”
“She's a doctor.”
“Will you bring her to Switzerland?”
“I will ask her to join me.”
“Are you going to tell her I'm a crazy anorexic with emotional problems?”
“I'm going to tell her you are a princess and that I love you like my own daughter.”
“That's better than a crazy anorexic with emotional problems.” Esmeralda paused for a moment, but Eduardo felt she had something more to say. “I want him to be happy, you know.”
“I do.” He believed that, on a very basic level, Esmeralda wanted Romeo to be happy.
“I made him miserable.” That was an understatement.
“You two were very young to be so intensely involved with each other. It wasn't healthy for either of you.” Not even a little. He needed to get off of the phone. He couldn't tell her he needed to get off the phone without running the risk of her either refusing to take his calls in the future or having another breakdown.
Esmeralda didn't respond for a long moment. “I don't want to talk to you anymore. I'm bored with this conversation.” The call ended abruptly.
“Who was that?” Henna asked.
“My goddaughter, Esmeralda.” He kissed her on the mouth. “I told her that I met someone.”
“You and I really do have different definitions for discreet.”
“She needed to hear something good.”
“She's Romeo's ex, isn't she?”
“Yes.”
“Not taking him getting married very well?”
“Not at all.”
“If it's any consolation, I understand. I've been in her shoes more than once. Tell her I recommend cake and a day-spa. And whatever she does, do no spend any time looking on Eden and Romeo's wedding website. It'll just d
epress her.”
He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I will let her know. Come. I want to spend a lot of money on you and spoil you.”
“You've already spent a lot of money on me,” she said. “Four dresses that didn't come cheap are more than enough.”
“You'll wear the yellow for the wedding?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then you need something to wear with it.” Before she could object, he put nudged her along to the Cartier boutique down the row.
His phone rang several times while he nudged Henna into trying on increasingly more exquisite pieces until finally she had a pair of emeralds in her ears he was certain she'd steal before handing back over to the salesman. Every call he ignored, but two. One from Doctor Heike Winterhalter, Esmeralda's psychiatrist, confirming that his goddaughter would be returning to her care for the foreseeable future, and that he did not threaten to never speak to her again if she didn't go willingly. The other call came from Gloria.
“I need to take this,” he told Henna before turning to the salesman. “I want to see emerald pendants when I'm back. Something to go with the earrings. Maybe a bracelet.”
He stepped outside and turned his attention to the call.
“Guess who I just talked to?” Gloria asked.
“Esmeralda.” He had anticipated this call coming from either his mother or Gloria.
“So…how many guesses do I get to figure out who the pretty, smart doctor who has captured your heart is?”
“How many do you need?”
“You think maybe you could have told your own daughter before Esmeralda? I mean…” She screamed a little. “I get that you like Henna. Fine. Fair enough. That was pretty darn obvious last night. And by the way, seeing my own father act like a…a…”
“A grown man?” he offered.
She screamed again. “I just…” Another scream. “You could have just told me.”
“I was going to tell you, then I had Esmeralda on the phone and she needed to hear something positive. Did she tell you she's going back to Switzerland?”
“She told me that if she didn't go willingly, you were going to have her security people tie her up and force her to go back to the hospital against her will.”
“Because that is something I would do to our Esmeralda?”
“I figured she was probably exaggerating.”
“I would like you to keep this between us. Henna doesn't want her family to know we are intimate.”
“Must you put it like that?”
“Do you want me to tell you that we are lovers?”
“That's worse.”
“Call it whatever you want. Just keep your mouth shut.”
“Might be too late for that,” she said.
“Who knows?”
“Other than me? Romeo, Hector, and Eden?”
“You're joking.”
“No. We just finished playing tennis together when Esmeralda called. They're all here right now. Along with Midge. She knows, too.”
“Put Midge on the phone.” He waited a moment as the phone exchanged hands.
“Hey handsome!” Midge greeted him with a cheer. “Good choice! My niece is a diamond!”
“She takes after her aunt,” he said warmly. “Do me a favor?”
“Sit on these four and make sure they keep their collective yaps shut?”
“Exactly.”
“I'll do my best. You know Fatima is on the hunt for you?”
“I don't want to know this. I have to go. I'm at Cartier with Henna. Tell them I will not have the four of them making her angry with me because they know something she would rather not have made public just yet.”
“I'm on the case,” Midge said.
They ended their call, and he returned to the cool interior of the store. Henna sat where he'd left her. On the counter in front of her rested a selection of emerald pendants. A gold band as thick as his finger wrapped around her wrist.
“Give us a minute.” He dismissed the salesman with a nod. “So…how grateful will you be if I get you these?” He touched the square stone in one of her ears. “This?” He wrapped his hand around the bracelet around her wrist. “And this?” He picked up a generous-sized square emerald pendant that just needed a chain.
“I…” She looked at him. “Honestly, I'd probably be a little uncomfortable. I'm not used to getting gifts like this.”
“What was the last gift you received from a man who wasn't a family member, a professional acquaintance, or your friend, Simon?”
“You mean like a boyfriend?”
“Exactly.”
“I need to think.”
He waited as she thought.
“That long?” he asked after a minute.
“It's been a while. Give me a moment.”
He waited as he wondered how it could be possible Henna didn't have a string of men trying to get her to be theirs exclusively. It confounded him.
“Okay,” she said at last. “But you have to promise not to laugh.”
“I am not going to make that promise.”
“Fine,” she said. “My last real boyfriend gave me a blender for my birthday.”
“A blender?” He laughed. “You're making a joke. What kind of man would give a woman a blender for her birthday? I wouldn't even give my mother or my daughter a blender for their birthdays. That's not a gift, that's an appliance.”
“He wasn't very imaginative.”
“It doesn't take much imagination to walk into a jewelry store and buy a bracelet.”
“I should have made you promise not to laugh.”
“Henna.” He bent in and kissed her. “Let me tell you what I want.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to be the kind of woman who not only loves to get beautiful gifts, but also the kind of woman that expects to get beautiful gifts. You are so much more valuable than you realize, and I want to be able to treat you as well as you deserve to be treated without making you uncomfortable. I am glad you have chosen the wrong men in the past. Now I can treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”
“I just don't want to seem greedy.”
“How is it being greedy when I am willingly giving you what I want to give you?” He lifted her hands in his and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “I wish I could make you see how I see you. So I'm just going to show you. Don't be uncomfortable. Just accept that you are worthy of being treated better than you have been in the past.”
“Isn't it a bit soon for jewelry?”
“No. I've given you my body already. I'd like to think that's more valuable than earrings.”
“No more blenders?”
“No more blenders. Now tell me truthfully, how grateful will you be?”
“Very, very grateful. Probably best we finish up here so I can show you in our room how grateful I would be.”
“Would your gratitude include putting on that little black thing you bought at the lingerie store?”
“It might.” Her arms wrapped around his neck as her mouth met his.
He lifted a hand and waved over the salesman. Henna peppered his cheek with kisses as he gave the pendant he liked a poke then gestured to the earrings and the bracelet. “I'll take these. Put a chain on the pendant. She'll wear it all out.”
The salesman took the credit card he handed over and disappeared.
“Thank you,” Henna said, her arms wrapped around his neck. “You realize I could easily get used to expecting this sort of treatment.”
“That is my plan.”
In the hotel room, behind the door with the security lock flipped into place, Eduardo walked around the room closing curtains and adjusting the air-conditioning. He turned off his phone and set it to the side. The world could wait for an hour or two. He considered undressing, then decided he'd rather be undressed. So he lay on the bed and waited.
He was a patient man who had just spent a fair amount of money on dresses, shoes, underwear, and jew
elry. He hadn't done this for the promise of sex. He would have done it for any number of reasons. But on that afternoon, at that moment, he knew his generosity would equal an experience with Henna that would be as memorable and worthy of repeating as any they'd previously had.
“Condoms.” He shot up from the bed after checking the nightstand. It was just as empty as it had been after they'd used the last condom that morning. “Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered. “If my afternoon is ruined because I forgot to buy condoms, I am going to be very angry with myself.”
He went to the desk. Henna's giant bag of condoms might still be around. Or it might not. She may have handed it over to Leo. In a way, he hoped she had. Considering the number of his female friends and relatives Leo had fornicated with in one form or another, giving him a large bag of condoms seemed like an excellent idea. The bag was in the desk. Along with a photograph of a man on a postcard. On one side was a headshot. On the other, the man's vital statistics and the instructions to “call me” along with a phone number and a name.
He picked up the desk phone and dialed the number. A man answered. He hung up. “This annoys me,” he grumbled. “This annoys me far more than it should.” He stared at the picture. He knew the man from somewhere and somehow. But what was the connection?
Henna's mobile phone rang. Simon. He answered the phone. “Simon?”
“Uh, yeah.” Simon said. “Eduardo?”
“Si. Henna is in the bathroom. Does she have any friends named Antonio or Anton?” He tapped the postcard against his palm.
“Uh, well, yeah. My cousin Meadow's boyfriend is named Antonio. She and Henna are pretty tight. So I guess you could say that Tony is a friend of Henna's. Any particular reason you're asking me this? You know, I can just call back.”
He looked at the card. “What is his family name?”
“Last name? Uh, Martinez. Yes, Martinez. I'm sure of it. Antonio Martinez. But everyone calls him Tony. At least, I think everyone calls him Tony. We call him Tony. He might actually hate that. Do people call you, Ed? Eddie? Or is it always Eduardo?”
“Eduardo. Do not ever call me Eddie. Would you describe Antonio Martinez for me, please?” He looked at the picture of Antonio Martinez. He needed no additional confirmation to know there were men other than himself interested in Henna. Young men. Men who were no older than his son. Men who had pictures of themselves printed on postcards. What kind of a man would do such a thing?
