The Sisters of Alameda Street

by Lorena Hughes

  Malena stood in the foyer, paralyzed. She didn’t want Amanda angry at her for not coming with her to the nightclub, but she didn’t want to upset Ana either. Yet, no matter what she did, someone would be annoyed. She tried to focus. She hadn’t come to this house to partake in family feuds. She had a goal but she’d been letting the sisters’ demands distract her. Talking to Amanda tonight might not work; not after the incident with Enzo. Plus, she always got irritated when Malena dug into the past.

  The answer to her dilemma stood in front of her. Of course, how could she not see it? Amanda had left her purse on the coat hanger. The purse with the armoire key. Malena scrambled toward it, as quietly as possible, and opened the zipper. She couldn’t believe how bold she’d become. Amanda was seconds away from coming out of the bathroom, Rafael could walk downstairs, and Trini could bring a tray of tea to the women in the living room. Malena could hear the radionovela loud and clear in the living room. The only thing that separated her from them was a wall.

  Malena’s fingers flew through Amanda’s things: house keys, checkbook, lipstick, mirror, a hairbrush. She heard the toilet flushing. She fumbled with Amanda’s things until she felt the armoire key with her fingertips. She took it out and slid it inside her brassiere. She closed the zipper at the same time the bathroom door opened.

  When Amanda stepped out of the bathroom, Malena was still holding the purse.

  Amanda frowned.

  “Here.” Malena handed her the purse. “Amanda, please forgive me. I don’t think I can go with you tonight. I don’t want Ana to call my mother. You understand, right?”

  Amanda sighed. “Fine.”

  She left the house as Malena watched—the cold key pressing against her skin.

  Malena could still hear Rafael’s muffled voice through the wall and the creak of the wood coming from the hall. Gripping the armoire key in her hand, Malena waited for all the noises in the house to cease. Only after everyone had fallen asleep could she sneak into Amanda’s room. But if she waited too long, Amanda could come back.

  When the only sound remaining was her own breathing, Malena pulled the covers off. She stepped out of bed, hoping her squeaky mattress wouldn’t upset Claudia’s sleep, and tiptoed to her roommate’s side. Filtering through the curtains, the outside post light illuminated Claudia’s face. Her eyes were tightly shut.

  Malena crept into the hallway, mentally counting the twenty-five steps that separated Claudia’s room from Amanda’s. Feeling the doorknob, she opened the door and made her way to the night table. She turned the lamp on and removed the key from her robe pocket to unlock the armoire. Abigail’s diary was in the same spot she’d last seen it.

  She took it out and sat on Amanda’s bed, leafing through the pages.

  Abigail talked a lot about a boy she met at María Teresa’s wedding. Someone called Victor, whom Malena remembered as the young man from the photograph in the sewing machine. Most of the pages were dedicated to him, even though Abigail said somewhere that she’d agreed to be Enrique’s girlfriend. Malena scanned through the pages. She didn’t have much time and she had to find something else about her father.

  Toward the end of the notebook, she found his name again.

  Today, I became engaged to Enrique Hidalgo.

  Enrique and I will be married sometime this year.

  He’s a good man. I should be happy, right?

  I must forget about Victor. He doesn’t love me.

  I will forget.

  The rest of the diary was charred black.

  A voice as loud as thunder startled her.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  Chapter 37

  Malena dropped the diary to the floor, afraid to turn toward the voice.

  There were two vertical lines on Javier’s forehead. For a minute, he reminded her of Rafael.

  “What are you doing in my aunt’s room? Why are you going through her things?”

  “Keep it down, please,” she begged, heat rising to her face. “I have a good explanation for this.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “You do? I would love to hear it.”

  “I do, but can we talk somewhere else?”

  She picked up the diary from the floor and returned it to its spot in the drawer. She locked the armoire, sensing Javier’s glare at her. She moved quickly, before he had a chance to do or say something. Turning off Amanda’s bedside lamp, Malena quietly dropped the armoire key on the floor, hoping Javier wouldn’t notice.

  In two steps, she was by his side. The obscured hallway light cast sinister shadows on his face, making his usual peaceful demeanor dark and menacing. She stepped out of the room, followed by this man who’d turned into a stranger in a matter of seconds.

  “Can we go to your room?” she whispered.

  He led the way down the hall to one of the few rooms in the house she’d never seen.

  Javier’s room was simple: a bed, a night table, and an armoire in the corner of the room. There was also a chair and a guitar on his bed. He pointed at the chair and Malena sat down. He paced the room.

  “Well?” He sounded like a school principal.

  She hadn’t had enough time to think of a convincing lie. How could anyone explain snooping? The lie might come out worse than the truth. Though Javier seemed upset at the moment, she leveraged the possibility of telling him the truth. So far, he’d been loyal to her. He had never told anyone that her luggage had been in that hotel, or that he’d found her fumbling in the dining room the night she was looking for the accounting notebooks. He hadn’t judged her when she danced with Sebastian on New Year’s Eve, and he’d gone along with her idea of baking a cake for Alejandra. He seemed trustworthy enough. But then again, he would probably feel more loyalty toward his family than her.

  He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Lili? Are you awake?”

  “There’s something very important I have to tell you. But you have to swear you won’t tell anybody else.”

  Javier frowned. “Go on.”

  She rested her hands on her legs. “I’m not María Teresa’s daughter. My name is Malena Sevilla.”

  He stopped his pacing. “What?”

  “Sit down.” She pointed at the bed. “I have to tell you a long story.”

  Malena took a deep breath. Where to start? Her father, his death, and her mother’s letter. She told him everything, including the information she’d gathered since her arrival. He listened intently, tense fingers on his lap, and an increasing look of disbelief.

  “I can’t believe you lied to us,” he finally said.

  “I know it’s wrong, but I was afraid your mother and aunts would send me away without an answer. I still am.”

  Javier flopped down on his back, staring at the ceiling. He was quiet for a long time.

  “I’m sorry I lied,” she said. “But do you see how important this is?”

  “Yes. I see that.”

  She braced herself for the insults she expected would come her way.

  He sat up. “So any of them could be your mother, including … mine?”

  She nodded. “She did have that handkerchief with my father’s initial.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. It could have been anybody’s.”

  “True.”

  “What about Tía Amanda?”

  “I don’t have much on her, other than the birthmark and Enzo accusing her of having an affair with my father. This afternoon, Enzo implied she was responsible for her husband’s suicide.”

  “Tía Alejandra?”

  “Nothing. Although Amanda told me she had been in a convent for some time, which seemed strange to me.”

  “A convent?”

  “She also acted suspiciously when I found the accounting books, remember?”

  “No.”

  “She hides a newspaper clipping in the workshop.”

  “Where in her workshop?”

  “In her desk. She seemed very disturbed by it once.”

/>   “Okay. I can look for it. What about Tía Abigail?”

  “Well, she was engaged to my father.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “There’s an image that has been in my mind for years. Perhaps one of my earlier memories of Tía Abigail. When I was little, I liked to hide from my mother. One time, I hid in Tía Abigail’s bedroom. My aunt came in shortly after, unaware that I was hiding behind the curtains. I still can’t believe she didn’t see me.” He ran his fingertips over the guitar strings. “She had a corset under her dress and when she removed it, her stomach stretched out, and it was huge. I remember thinking it was funny that she was thin everywhere but her stomach.”

  “You think she could have been pregnant?”

  “Absolutely. Unless she had a tumor in her stomach, which she didn’t.”

  Malena’s head felt light. She rested it on her hand. “But wait. She had another boyfriend besides my father. Victor. I just read about him. He left her because he was going to be a priest, and so she decided to marry my father.” She dropped her hand. “Something doesn’t fit in this picture. Why would she give me away if she was engaged to my father anyway?”

  “Well, what if her child wasn’t Enrique’s, but Victor’s?”

  “But Enrique raised me. I must be his.”

  “Maybe she didn’t love Enrique and didn’t want to live with him.”

  Malena hugged her waist. “Are you sure it was Abigail you saw? It couldn’t have been someone else?”

  Javier was pensive for a moment. “No. I don’t think it was anybody else, but I can’t be completely sure. It was a long time ago.”

  “There’s something else,” she said. “After my father died, I found a stack of checks written to a man named Cesar Villamizar. I don’t know why Enrique was paying him, but it turns out this man works for Sebastian at El Heraldo. Do you know him?”

  “No. Do you think he may have had something to do with your father’s suicide?”

  “Maybe.”

  “This is what we’ll do,” he said. “Tomorrow, you go to the newspaper and meet this Cesar. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can find that newspaper clipping you saw in my aunt’s desk.”

  She exhaled. “So that means you’re not going to tell on me?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  Malena felt like hugging Javier, but she simply said, “Thank you.”

  The headquarters of El Heraldo de San Isidro were hard to miss. According to Javier’s directions, all Malena had to do was find the one building that seemed most out of place in all of downtown. She spotted it immediately, across from the Iglesia de Santo Domingo. Somehow, she couldn’t associate this ornate, industrial construction with this town, much less with Sebastian.

  The building was as cold and gray as it looked from the outside, with marble floors and unusually high ceilings. After a slow elevator ride to the fifth floor, the doors opened with a squeak. She walked down a long corridor, the walls decorated with portraits of Sebastian’s ancestors, the men who’d founded the newspaper. The last frame was a painting of Ignacio Rivas. Even if she hadn’t looked at the label, she would have known this man was Sebastian’s father.

  Malena knocked on a door with a metal plaque that read PRESIDENCIA.

  A round-faced woman with a kind smile and wide hips opened the door for her.

  “Buenos días,” Malena said. “I’m here to see Mr. Rivas. My name is Liliana Paz.”

  “Follow me, please.”

  The foyer had a desk and a black leather sofa. Behind the desk was a closed door. The secretary entered the room. Malena could hear their voices, his voice, though she couldn’t discern what they were saying.

  After a minute or two, the secretary returned with Sebastian.

  “Lili? What are you doing here?”

  She ran her hands over her yellow sleeveless dress—another one of Amanda’s gifts. “I was in the neighborhood and decided to stop by and see the newspaper. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

  “Well, I have a meeting with my editor coming up.” He ran his fingers through his hair, resting his free hand on his hip. Christ Almighty, he looked so attractive when he did that. “But maybe Pamela can show you around? Or if you come back later, I can do it?”

  It was tempting. To come back later. To spend that time with him. To see what he did all day. But she had to stay on task. He said he had a meeting with his editor, with Cesar.

  “Your editor? Isn’t that … what’s his name? Cesar? My father’s friend?”

  He raised a brow. “Yes. That’s him.”

  “Maybe this would be a good opportunity to meet him?”

  “Sure … if that’s what you want.” He looked surprised, or maybe annoyed, or maybe he was just too busy for all this nonsense. “Pamela, would you call him in, please?”

  While Pamela made the phone call, Sebastian turned to Malena. “Would you like something to drink? A coffee, an herbal tea, water?”

  “No. Thank you. I’m fine.”

  His gaze meandered over her body, as if studying her new dress. One of his hands felt his front pocket. He fished for a cigarette from a box of Lucky Strikes.

  “Cigarette?”

  She shook her head, mesmerized by the grace of his movements, recalling the feel of his hands in hers, his arm around her waist, the smell of his neck. He lit the cigarette and took a drag. As he did, the lines in his forehead relaxed. His eyes didn’t leave hers for a moment and the office, the building, didn’t seem so cold anymore. But the heat was coming from inside of her. Traveling up her legs, through her core, all the way to her face. Under his gaze, she loosened her satin scarf a bit. Maybe she should have accepted the glass of water.

  Pamela hung up the phone and sat in front of her typewriter. The minutes went by slowly, in a silence sporadically interrupted by Pamela’s typing. Sebastian stared at Malena through a cloud of smoke. She smiled. And then, as if coming out of a trance, she realized she didn’t have much of a plan. What would she say to this man, this Cesar? Was she supposed to speak to him in front of Sebastian?

  A bald man walked into the office. He greeted everyone with a general “Buenos días” and stood in front of Sebastian, resting his thumbs behind his suspenders. Malena had never seen him before. She’d been hoping that somehow she would recognize him and know exactly who he was.

  Sebastian held his cigarette between his thumb and index finger. “Cesar, this is Miss Liliana Paz. She’s Manuel Paz’s daughter. She says you and her father are good friends.”

  Cesar studied her.

  “Manuel Paz?” He repeated after Sebastian.

  What had she done? Exposing herself in this manner in front of Claudia’s fiancé? She might as well shout her real name to all who could hear.

  “Yes,” Sebastian said. “Married to María Teresa Santos?”

  “Oh, yes, yes.” Cesar smirked at Malena and offered his hand to her.

  Say something! This is your chance! But Malena’s mind had gone blank. Sebastian must think she was an idiot for sure.

  The ringing phone interrupted their awkward silence.

  “Presidencia?” Pamela said. “Yes, he’s here.” She covered the receiver with her hand, her nails the color of a ripe tomato. “It’s for you, Mr. Rivas. The mayor.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, Lili. I must take this phone call.” He grasped the phone. “Señor Alcalde, what an honor.”

  Cesar was scrutinizing her. “So, Señorita, how can I help you?”

  Malena turned her back on Sebastian and Pamela.

  “Mr. Villamizar, the truth is my father asked me to talk to you about a friend the two of you have in common. See, my father has been trying to locate this friend for a while now and thought you might know something about him.”

  Cesar smiled gallantly. “Of course, Señorita Paz. I’d be glad to help. What is his name?”

  “Hugo Sevilla.”

  Cesar’s jaw tensed the instant she uttered her father’s assumed name. He glanced at Sebastian before speaking.<
br />
  “I’ve never heard that name before.”

  “How strange,” Malena said. “I’m certain my father mentioned your name. I think he said something about Hugo owing you money.”

  “Your father must have me confused with someone else, Señorita.”

  Malena peeked at Sebastian. He was watching them while on the phone.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” Cesar said. “I have to prepare for an important meeting.”

  He left the office before she could respond.

  Sebastian hung up the phone. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, Sebastian.” She extended her hand toward him. “Thank you very much for your time. I won’t distract you anymore.” They shook hands. She removed hers promptly and headed for the door before he could say more.

  She rushed down the hall. Cesar was the one she was looking for. He’d known her father. She could see it in his eyes. But what had been their connection? Was this man involved in his death? She had to talk to Javier. He would know what to do. As she waited for the elevator, a memory flashed through her mind. She recalled her phone conversation with Julia. She’d mentioned something about a strange visitor the night before Papá had died, and she said they’d gotten into a fight. Julia had described him as a bald, thin man in his early fifties.

  Just like Cesar.

  Now that Malena so desperately needed to talk to Javier, he was busy with a client. Malena squeezed behind the counters and walked toward the back office, exchanging a meaningful glance with Javier. She would wait for him there since Claudia and Rafael were also in the store tending to other customers.

  Amanda’s voice echoed from the hallway, raised in anger. She was in Alejandra’s workshop. Malena entered the storage room and shut the door. From there, she could hear Amanda’s voice.

  “I know you took it!” she was saying.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alejandra answered in a cool, controlled voice.

  “Well, you’re the only person in this house who would have an interest in getting into my things. Or should I say one thing in particular?”