Something She's Not Telling Us - Darcey Bell Page 0,63
of her. Then the feeling passes.
Ruth had warned him that jealousy is one of her “fatal flaws.” He’d never heard it as a warning, exactly. Now he thinks maybe he should have paid attention to the implicit threat. Be faithful . . . or else.
Ruth pushes her way through the guests, holding a package like a shield or a weapon.
Mom and Charlotte sense the tension and come over to them. Ruth hands Mom the package, and—against all odds—Mom obeys Ruth and opens it.
The mask casts a spell on the party. For a moment no one breathes.
Reyna says, “That’s a very beautiful mask.”
“I know.” Ruth’s voice is so cold that Reyna flinches.
Mom seems to like it. “Thank you,” she says.
Everyone starts breathing again.
Around them, everyone’s eating and drinking. Several feuds are patched up. No one wants the evening to end. Rocco looks at his watch. When do the mariachis arrive?
Everyone except Rocco and Ruth and Daisy drinks margaritas. It’s a miracle that Rocco has stopped thinking of sobriety as a torture. He appreciates Ruth abstaining for his sake. Solidarity is a good thing for a couple, if that’s what he and Ruth are.
Yet even without alcohol, he feels a little high. He finds himself talking to his brother-in-law in the way you can only talk to someone in the middle of a crowded party.
Eli is complaining about the theater director whose ideas are becoming more impractical. Not only does he want the witches to fly in harnesses, but when the knocking portends the discovery of Duncan’s murder, he wants it to be a blast of electronic noise.
Rocco has heard most of this, but now Eli complains that no one takes him seriously. Because he made his money in business, no one believes he knows anything about the theater. Rocco’s about to say something encouraging when they hear, from the kitchen, a loud male voice.
Then Luz shouts, in Spanish, “You can’t go in there!”
Rocco thinks: Reyna’s boyfriend.
Reyna seems to think that too. She moves behind a pillar.
A man in a neat white shirt and black pants rushes onto the patio. Rocco takes a few warning steps toward him, stands between the intruder and Reyna. But the man isn’t looking for Reyna.
It’s Ruth. The stranger confronts her, glowering and shouting.
Rocco could take the guy out if he had to. He had to do that once, in a bar, to protect a waitress from a drunken customer. He hadn’t liked it, but he’d done it, and he could do it again.
The guy’s saying that Ruth never paid him for driving her from Mexico City. He makes a check-writing motion. Rechazado. Bounced. Ruth’s check has bounced. Is this guy an idiot, accepting a check from a gringa tourist?
Ruth is very persuasive. Maybe she convinced him that it was the only way she could pay him. Maybe she knew that no one here goes to the police.
Either Ruth’s Spanish is better than she’s let on, or she recognizes the guy. She understands what he’s saying.
“I paid you,” she says in English. “I asked for a receipt, but you said it wasn’t necessary. I’m sorry if I didn’t tip you enough. I was figuring things out. It was the middle of the night. I was stressed and exhausted—”
Somehow Rocco feels certain that the guy is telling the truth. He also senses that this is about something besides money. No Mexican would risk a scene like this, especially not a guy who depends on tourist business in a tourist town. Ruth must have insulted him. What did Ruth do?
“How much do we owe you?” Rocco asks.
Ruth is staring at Rocco, half annoyed at him for not taking her side, half pleased that he’d said we. How much do we owe you? He and Ruth are a we.
The man mentions a sum. Around seventy-five dollars in pesos.
Ruth still has Rocco’s credit card, not that the guy would take it. Luckily, yesterday, Rocco withdrew a hundred dollars from an ATM. He counts out what the man demands, then adds 15 percent as a tip.
He says, “I apologize if there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“There is no misunderstanding,” Ruth says. “He’s lying. Don’t you believe me?”
Mom has waded into the fray. “Rocco’s right. Something went wrong. And we’re in this man’s country. We wouldn’t even be here if the conquistadors . . .”
Mom has swung directly into righteous margarita mode. Rocco senses that everyone here knows what a long lecture might be in store.