Evenings at the Argentine Club Page 12

  He turned his head when the other men watched her walk out to the back porch. “Hey, Victoria,” he said with no particular emotion, though his voice maintained its rough edge.

  “I, I came to measure the rooms, but… I don’t have a tape measure.”

  He immediately unhooked a tape measure from his belt, took eight long steps toward her and handed her his.

  She took it. “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” Then he went back to telling those guys that they either work their sorry, lazy asses off to complete the pool by the end of the week or not come back at all.

  Jeesh, she thought, and went back into the house. Eric wanted to install the same flooring in the dining room, living room, and hall. When she’d mentioned hardwood, he’d gotten excited, so wood it was. In the kitchen, she’d install hardy eighteen-inch tile. The three bedrooms would be recarpeted.

  Taking the tape measure in hand and dropping her purse in a corner, she got to work. She borrowed a notepad from a guy working on the electrical in the kitchen.

  “It’s Eric’s,” he said. “Sure, use it.”

  She had to get her act together if she was going to do this. The electrician helped her measure the kitchen. She was able to handle the living room and dining room on her own. Then she moved on to the bedrooms.

  Eric strolled in while she worked. He crossed his arms and leaned on the wall. “Need help?”

  “No, I got it.” She took notes. “Bad day?”

  “Nah,” he said. “Just a tense last half hour.”

  She walked past him to the other bedroom. “Wanna share?”

  “The pool guys I hired were sent home by my dad and replaced by these jerks, who tell me I’m not only going to have to repaint the pool but install a whole new pump.”

  “Hmm.” She measured the room quickly, since it was almost identical to the previous room. “Don’t you plan for unexpected things like that?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I do.”

  “So you’re not upset about the paint and the pump, but about what your dad did.”

  “I found those guys sitting on their butts drinking beer, and it pissed me off, that’s all. They said it was too hot to work, and they were waiting until the sun went down.”

  “You didn’t believe them?”

  He laughed. “I don’t care. I want them to finish today, if possible. It they don’t want to work in the heat, someone else will.”

  Victoria left and entered the master bedroom with a private bath. She still thought that what really bothered him was his father’s interference, but if he didn’t want to acknowledge that, she wasn’t going to ask again.

  He took the end of the tape measure and helped her hold it while she measured the room. They worked in silence. “Thanks,” she said, then wrote down the last of her needed numbers. He let his end go, and it snapped back into the roll. “Okay, I’m done.”

  He smiled. “How was your day?”

  She shrugged. “I checked out a university that offers interior design degrees. Felt completely incongruous walking around the campus full of young, skinny kids. I’ll be the oldest and fattest student in the program, but I’m considering it.”

  “Now why would those be the only things you noticed about the university?”

  “Good question,” she said. “I’m insecure?”

  He took the tape measure from her hand. “You’re not too old to finish your college degree. And you look good. You really do.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “I’m not. I’m honest.” He held the tape measure under her own nose. “Get your own supplies from now on, and get the floors ordered mañana. Okay?”

  “And if I don’t, I shouldn’t come back. Right?”

  “Oh no.” He grinned. “You I want back.”

  For a second she wondered if there was a hidden meaning in there somewhere, but she ignored his words, wished him a good night, and took off.

  Jaqueline turned on her computer. A Christmas gift from Victoria last year, which she’d thought at the time to be an absurdly expensive gift for an old woman. And here it was August and she couldn’t imagine what she’d do all day without it.

  She pulled up the Google page and stared at it. Then out of curiosity, she typed in lonely mom. Everything from lonely women looking for sex to mommies wanting to chat about their babies popped up on the screen. Then she saw a site on empty nesters and wondered if that was what she was. Her children were gone. Well, Victoria still lived at home, but she was never around. And her husband… well, she saw him in bed at night, where they slept side by side like strangers.

  She clicked on the Web site. Read some interesting articles and took down notes on books they recommended. Books with titles like The Next Fifty Years: A Guide for Women at Mid-Life and Beyond and Awakening at Midlife. She ordered them and a couple of others.

  Then she read some of the messages in one of the chat rooms and sighed. Speaking to a bunch of strangers struck her as bizarre. Why would she want to share her personal business with a bunch of people she didn’t know? Enough people knew about her personal life at the Argentine Club. Besides, she had friends. It wasn’t new friends she was looking for, it was… a life.

  With another sigh, she was about to exit when she got an instant message, saying simply, hi.

  “What in the world?” She pushed some hair out of her face. The question male or female? flashed on the screen. Hesitating, she looked around the living room that she knew to be empty, but she still felt self-conscious about spending time frivolously playing on the computer. She typed female.

  Kids?

  Yes, she wrote.

  I mean how old?

  They’re both adults.

  Married?

  She blushed. Was this a man she was talking to? Silly as it was, she felt unfaithful. Regardless of the fact that Victor hadn’t always been faithful to her, she’d respected him, her children, and herself enough to honor her marriage vows. Yes, she wrote.

  Happily?

  She fumbled with the mouse, ready to turn off the computer. She had no business in a chat room for lonely women. She might not be happy with her husband, but that was no one’s business but her own.

  I’ll take your silence as a no. Me neither. My husband and I hate each other.

  Jaqueline paused. Her husband? So this wasn’t a man. A ripple of relief washed over her. And she settled further into her chair. I don’t hate my husband, she started… .

  Victor spent an entire week at the Santa Monica site going over details. He hired a firm that would be in charge of staffing both restaurants once they opened in about five months. So much to think about.

  The woman they assigned to him from the firm took him out for drinks. She was only slightly older than Victoria. Made him feel old when these kids were running the world.

  “You’re staring,” she said.

  He shook himself mentally. Then reached for his drink. “Sorry. I was thinking about what I’d give to be young again.”

  She laughed, feminine and delicate. “You don’t look old.”

  He looked okay for his age. Sort of like Sean Connery and Anthony Hopkins had, he’d aged well. “Too old to be noticing women half my age.”

  “Once you become a millionaire, women won’t care how old you are.”

  Victor shook his head. That might be the case, but he wasn’t interested in fucking a teenager. In his younger days, he’d done his share of fooling around. Jaqueline had even caught him once. She’d stayed with him because the kids were young and she was dependent on him. But she’d probably stopped loving him that day.

  If he could take back what he’d done, he would. Prior to his affairs, Jaqueline used to look at him like he was the most intelligent, most amazing man in the world. She hung on his every word. Worshipped him in a way that made him feel unstoppable.

  Until he’d blown it. After that, she’d simply tolerated him. As the years went by, she’d learned to like him again. Maybe even respect him for
being a good father and provider, but love… it was gone.

  Maybe he’d finally find a way to earn it back. “The only woman I really want is my wife back.”

  “Did she leave you?”

  “No. She should have. But she didn’t.” He ordered another drink and decided that was as much as he wanted to share about his personal life with this very beautiful young woman. “Now, let’s talk about staffing my restaurants.”

  Standing beside a sparkling, brand-new backyard pool with his father in front of him, Eric ran his fingers through his hair for the tenth time. “All I’m saying is that if you’re going to hire anyone to work on my house, you run it by me first.”

  “I hired professionals. You hired a couple of day laborers.”

  “No.” Eric raised his voice. “I hired a couple of college kids that work at a pool service company. They were cheap and they knew what they were doing. Your guys cost me three times as much and I had to threaten them to get them to do their job.”

  Antonio shrugged. “They did a great job.” He looked at the clear blue pool.

  Eric wasn’t getting through to him, and he didn’t have any more time to discuss it. “Yes, they did. Now, just don’t hire anyone else, okay? I’ve got everything covered.”

  “What about the wall in that back bedroom? Who’s going to replace the drywall in there?”

  “Why would I want to replace the drywall?”

  “It’s rotting or something.”

  “What?” Eric marched into the house. Like a torpedo, he zeroed in on the problem.

  “Right there,” Antonio pointed to a discoloration on the wall.

  Eric balled his fist and hit the wall a few times. “Son of a bitch.” He looked up. “It’s moist.” Hurrying outside, he propped a ladder against the house and climbed onto the roof. When he got to the top he didn’t see a problem with the roof. There was no water getting through there. Besides, there wasn’t enough rain in California at this time of year to cause the wall to have permanent moisture. That meant that pipes from the laundry room on the other side of the bedroom must be leaking. Fucking great.

  Eric climbed down.

  “See, you need to replace that drywall.”

  “Dad,” Eric said. “I’ve got bigger problems than that.” And he went inside to call his electrician. The guy said he had a plumber he worked with who was good and reasonable. Whatever that meant.

  After he got that settled, he went back outside. Antonio rested in the sunshine beside the pool. The sight of his old man calmed him down and reminded him that job-related problems were unimportant. He’d get things fixed. Didn’t matter. “Relaxing?”

  “It’s nice out here. So, you want to go out to dinner? Take something back to your mother?”

  “No, actually, I need to go home and change. I’m going out with Victoria tonight.”

  “Oh?”

  “With some of our friends from high school.”

  “Good for you. And Victoria is a nice girl. Your mother really likes her.”

  Eric grinned and took a seat beside Antonio. “She does, huh?”

  “I’m just saying… if you’ve got interests aside from friendship, your mother would be all for it.”

  Nodding, he gazed at his old man. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “No problem.”

  “I dated this girl once. She was cute, had a kid. I bought a couple of properties in her neighborhood. I thought maybe things were going somewhere. I really liked her son. But… she didn’t feel like home.”

  “When the right woman comes along, you know it. You don’t have to force it,” Antonio said. “I knew I wanted to marry your mother after only a minute of talking to her.”

  “You were trying to sell her a vacuum,” Eric said, unable to hide his smirk and wondering why any woman would be interested in a corny guy forced to sell vacuums door to door.

  “I was trying to sell her mother a vacuum, and the second they answered the door and I realized they were Argentine, I knew I had the sale.” He stared at the pool and smiled. “Your mother listened to my bullshit sales pitch and references to Argentina and didn’t buy any of it, but her mother did. When she went to write me a check, Lucia told me I had a gift and that if I used it well, I would probably be a powerful man one day.”

  “Was that her way of telling you you should become a politician?” Eric laughed. “Maybe you should have—you always have been better at selling yourself than products.”

  “I was about to leave thinking, I don’t care what her opinion of me is, I got the sale. And then she invited me to the Argentine Club so I wouldn’t have to feel so melancholic about missing my country, and I knew she had me. She knew I’d used our country as a gimmick to get her mother to feel an affinity to me, and now I was stuck. I had to pretend I was excited about spending time with other Argentines. After I’d practically cried about how much I missed my country, how could I not go?” He chuckled. “Her mother took my address, my phone number, and made sure I showed up at the club. But by then I wanted to go anyway to see that smart, pretty girl who trapped me in my own sales pitch.”

  “Well, you hit the jackpot with Mom.”

  “I did. And you will too one day, son.”

  Eric leaned back in the chair, wove his fingers together, and rested his head in his hand. He wanted to have the kind of marriage his parents had. In all the years growing up with them, he never once heard them raise their voices or fight. They disagreed about things, but they always worked things out.

  “You know why I asked Victoria to help me with this house?” he asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. “I really couldn’t give a shit whether she had any skill at decorating or not. It was because when I walked into my old bedroom and saw what she’d done, I had to fight back tears. It was perfect.”

  “Sometimes I go in there and look at the pictures of you as a boy.”

  Eric stared at his father, a lump growing in his throat. “I wanted to go knock on her door, wrap my arms around her, and hold her tight. She captured my childhood on one wall. She captured me.”

  “She’s a special girl.”

  “Yeah. I’m not saying she’s it or anything, but I look at her, talk to her, and I feel… at home.”

  Chapter Eleven

  After a hot shower and refreshing shave, Eric got dressed and packed the rest of his clothes into his three suitcases that held almost all his belongings. He looked in the mirror. Ready as I’ll ever be, he thought. He carried the suitcases out to the living room.

  His mother, who was sitting on the couch with a basket of red, green, and gold yarn, noticed immediately. She put her knitting needles down on her lap. “What in the world are you doing?”

  “The house is ready enough for me to move into it.”

  “But… you’re fixing it up to sell. Why would you want to live in it?”

  Eric sat beside her. “I like to live in the houses I fix up. That way I’m working on it constantly. Taking notes on what works or doesn’t work. Making changes.”

  Jaqueline frowned. “But, nene, it’s been so nice having you home.”

  “I’m not going far, Mami. I’m a short phone call away.”

  Her gaze locked with his. “I know you’re a man and need your privacy, but we’ve tried to stay out of your way.”

  Taking one of her hands, strong from work, he held it in his own much larger and much rougher hands. “You’ve been fantastic,” he said. “But let’s pretend I never went away. I’d still have my own place by now, right?”

  “Maybe, but—”

  “No maybes. I would. And since my return has turned into more than just a few days’ visit, I don’t want to bunk in my childhood room indefinitely. Okay?”

  “Not really okay.” She pouted with a smile. “But I’m happy that you’re staying longer to work. Promise you’ll come have dinner with us.”

  “Not every night, but often.”

  “Ahi, Eric. You don’t make mothering easy.”

&nbs
p; He laughed.

  “Going out with your friends tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “With Victoria?”

  “Yes.”

  “You like her?”

  “Always have.”

  “I like her.”

  “I’ve heard.”

  She laughed under her breath and leaned across to kiss him. “Maybe you do need your own place. Can’t bring girls home to your parents’ house, can you?”

  “That’s not why I need my own place. But in a weird way, I’m glad you understand. Can I leave my radio and computer equipment here for a while?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  He stood. “Thanks for understanding, Mom.”

  “What are moms for?” she said, somewhat resigned.

  He dropped one more kiss on her cheek and headed out. That hadn’t been as difficult as he’d anticipated. Strange, but his mother seemed to be handling things better than his father.

  Victoria took care to dress well for the dinner cruise Eric had booked. The weight she’d lost made her clothes fit better. A pretty summer chiffon dress she bought last summer, because it flared out over her hips without clinging to them, was now loose around her back and chest. She was looking forward to seeing some of her friends from high school as much as he was. Everyone had gone away to college or gotten jobs and were busy building careers. And though she’d gotten together with some of them the first few years after school was over, eventually she’d let those friendships dissolve.

  Eric suggested picking her up at her house and driving to Newport Beach together. Her first reaction had been that she could drive herself. They weren’t going as a couple, and she didn’t want him or anyone else to get that idea. But when she told him she’d rather meet him there, he insisted that it was dumb to take two vehicles.

  “I’ll pick you up,” he said.

  He came to the door dressed in light tan Dockers and a tropical button-up shirt, looking carefree and happy. He chatted with her parents. Jaqueline was wonderful to him, as always. But her father, who was still not speaking to her, grunted and hid behind an Argentine newspaper.