The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,106

him again, I thought I’d have an opportunity to prepare, that I wouldn’t be so caught off guard and too tired to properly string two words together. I also didn’t anticipate the audience of journalists ready to seize on any morsel of news. Newsrooms are veritable dens of gossip, and I can only imagine what everyone else will have to say about this.

Rafael stops in front of my desk.

“What brings you to the Journal offices?” I ask. “We haven’t seen you in some months,” I add then nearly kick myself for making it sound as though I’ve noticed, as though I’ve missed him.

“I came to say good-bye to Will,” Rafael answers after a beat, his usual smile gone, his manner more serious than any I’ve seen him adopt before. “And you.”

“Good-bye? But you’ve been gone, haven’t you? Didn’t you just get back?”

He nods, his gaze not on me, but on some point over my shoulder.

“Where are you headed?” I ask, my voice low.

“Cuba.”

Awareness dawns on me as a chill seeps into my bones. After all, I just wrote a story about this.

The navy was prepared for the war, but the army is a different story. They’ve decided to allow volunteers to join in an attempt to swell their ranks. They needed an additional fifty thousand bodies, but over two hundred and twenty thousand volunteers have been accepted. The volunteers have come from all parts of society, sons of wealthy families searching for adventure in wartime, other less well-heeled men looking for opportunity. We sounded the call of patriotic duty. One hundred thousand men joined on the night after the Maine exploded; an estimated million total have offered to serve in the military. They’re gearing up to wage war against Spain in the Pacific and Caribbean.

“You’re going to war.”

“I am. It seems my connections and knowledge of Cuba along with my language skills are of some value to the military. And there’s little money can’t buy, including a place in the army.”

I wrote some of those pieces, calling for men to serve to honor the patriots who died in the Maine explosion. If something happens to Rafael, will I have his blood on my hands?

“But you’re not a soldier. War is a serious business. What if something—”

What if something happens to you? What if you are injured? What if you die?

He smiles now, but the emotion hardly meets his eyes. “Have a care, Grace. It seems time I fought for something other than myself. I thought you admired action, fighting for what you believe in.”

“I do—but—”

“Will you worry for me?” His voice is low, and he asks the question idly, as though he couldn’t care less either way.

“Of course I will.”

For a moment, it looks like he might say something else, but he holds his tongue. I wish we were in a position to have an honest conversation without everyone’s eyes on us, but if I ask him to go somewhere more private, I’ll draw more attention to the situation than I’d like, and his reputation as a playboy is too firmly cemented, and the respect I’ve earned here is too tenuous.

“In that case, I will endeavor to stay alive,” Rafael replies.

I desperately want to say something else, something that will keep him here, as I try to understand how in the course of a few moments so much has changed.

If I never were to see him again, if he no longer was on this earth, it would be a great blow.

I care for him.

More than I ever thought possible.

I am still reconciling this new emotion, looking at him as though he is someone I have never seen before, when he says:

“Good-bye, Grace.”

I open my mouth to call him back to me, but he is already gone, his back to me, walking away, past the rows of desks filled with typewriters and keen-eyed reporters, and I am left staring after him, fear flooding me.

Thirty-Seven

Evangelina

For several months, I’ve traveled around the country, meeting with independence clubs, attempting to raise awareness and funds for the cause. Everywhere I go, I am greeted with warmth and enthusiasm, but the more I speak about my experiences, the more it feels like they happened to someone else, as though I am telling someone else’s story. The story of my life, the one Grace and I worked on together, was published, although the girl spun on the pages bears little resemblance to me. Grace wrote me a letter apologizing for the changes, for the unknown authors who