She looked curiously at him, as most women did. He had a neatness, a blackness of hair, a whiteness of smile, that bewitched the lot of them. He was like a finely polished piece of silver.
He wondered if the girl was a maid who, like the driver, had been sent to greet him, but something about the boldness of her eyes made him doubt this.
As he approached her, smiling, ready to extend his hand in greeting, ready to charm her, she looked over his shoulder at the young driver standing behind him.
“Fito, can you take our guest’s luggage upstairs, to the Butterfly Room?” she asked, and then she looked Ulises up and down, like a woman examining a fish at the market. She smirked.
Her lack of deference established her identity. This was no housemaid.
“I’m Mr. Linares,” he said. “And who would you be?”
She began walking, no proper hello escaping her lips. “My aunt asked that you come to the sitting room when you arrived,” the girl said briskly.
He followed her with his smile firmly in place and spoke with a friendly voice. “Then you are Miss Inclán’s niece. She speaks fondly of you.”
Her aunt had done no such thing, it was a mere pleasantry that he thought might chip at her surly disregard, but the young woman did not reply, and the smirk turned into a chuckle. They walked in silence.Perhaps she’ll be trouble,he thought.
She led him into a room smothered by worn velvet curtains and upholstery that had faded with the passage of time and the might of the sun. The furniture was old mahogany and walnut, polished and scented with beeswax, and, though out of fashion, solidly made. A piano was tucked in a corner; the ivory keys were chipped and had a yellow cast tothem. The Turkish carpet on the floor had been patched to cover up damage—ancient stains, or else the holes left behind by frenzied moths. Insipid watercolor landscapes adorned the walls, and there was a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe with a cross made from a palm leaf stuck to its glass, which no doubt would be replaced with a fresh cross after the next Palm Sunday came around.
It must have been a handsome house years before, fashionable in the days of gentlemen in top hats and ladies in corsets, now diminished in stature. It was not at all to his taste. He liked everything brand-new. Bright colors, metallic and chrome accents, mirrored finishes and black lacquer, animal prints, faux-bamboo coffee tables in bold brass. He longed for the things he spied in newspaper ads, in films, like the divans on which lay gorgeous starlets, supine, with their gleaming locks brushed high.
The niece was still not speaking to him. She drifted toward the piano and stared at him with those eyes that were both bold and curious. He thought about attempting to initiate a conversation once again, but he was exasperated by her aloof treatment and stood stubbornly in place, looking at one of the watercolors as if entranced by the mediocre painting, ignoring her just as she’d ignored him.
But then, unable to contain himself, he glanced at her, and there she was with a hand resting lightly upon one of the piano keys, still looking at him with that piercing curiosity and that mocking twist of her lips.Annoying minx,he thought.
A dog pushed the door open with its snout, ran into the room, and began to bark at him. The girl’s focus snapped and she turned her face toward the doorway, which now stood wide open.
“Inés! Will you calm that animal down and get it out of the room?” asked a middle-aged woman.
This must be Perla Inclán, at last. He’d sent her his photo but had not asked for hers in return. When she hadn’t bothered to mail him a snapshot, he’d assumed she’d have missing teeth or be balding or simplyugly. He knew enough not to press for pictures; some women wanted to maintain the illusion that they were svelte sylphs budding with beauty and youth.
She was dressed all in dove color, wearing a prim blouse and skirt. From her neck dangled a silver crucifix. Her hair was pinned back in an unflattering bun that looked like a bread roll, her plucked eyebrows made her face seem too stark, and she had been too heavy-handed with the rice powder. Well, she was no nymph in a grove, but she wasn’t a gorgon either.
Although her figure was too thin—he liked women with shapely curves and generous bosoms, not rail-thin waifs—her clothes had been cut with great care, flattering her, bringing out her best features. Yet there was a severeness to her face that sharpened it in unpleasant ways, and the little lines bracketing her mouth and fanned around her eyebrows seemed to have been traced with a firmness that hinted at anger suffused with melancholy.
Yes, she was better put together than he’d imagined, though it wouldn’t have mattered to him if she was a hideous hag. In his line of business, looks were extraneous. Money was what mattered.
The dog jumped onto a bright yellow settee, horrifying the woman in the dove-colored suit. “Not there! That’s the couch that belonged to Monsignor Luis Manuel! Get that animal!”
She gestured to the younger woman.
The girl rushed to capture the dog in her arms and there was a struggle as it tried to escape her, but finally the animal was shoved outside the room and she closed the door.
Once silence reigned again, Ulises smiled his charming smile. “You must be Miss Perla Inclán. I’m delighted to meet you,” he said, and extended his hand. The woman shook it and gestured to a plush chair the color of old wine. He sat down.
“I hope you had a pleasant trip, Mr. Linares,” she said. She had a rich, dignified voice that matched her neat clothes and the shiny cross aroundher neck. He could picture her going to church each week with her mantilla upon her head and her hands firm upon the rosary.
A godly, serious woman who—as her ad had said—was “seeking a reliable, thoughtful gentleman for correspondence and friendship.” But even though she had the faint air of a Mother Superior at a convent, when he smiled that devilish smile of his, he saw in her eyes that her interest was piqued.
“The pleasure has increased now that I’m here,” he said, and the woman practically blushed as his smile widened, her dignified façade cracking a smidgen.
She brushed a hand against the top button of her blouse, as if making sure it had not come undone, and when she looked at him again, her composure had returned.
“Some accident befell you?” she asked.
“Pardon me?” he replied.
“Your jacket,” she said, and plucked a cigarette from a case.