Evenings at the Argentine Club Page 8

  Eric hadn’t had a mate in years. When he’d first moved away, he’d taken his own mate and bombilla and searched for Latin markets that sold the yerba tea. But since he traveled so much, eventually he gave up and packed away his mate gourd for good. He took the drink when his mother offered him the first sip. “Thanks, Mami. I’m glad to be home, too.”

  “Cariño,” Antonio said. “Eric is here for a visit, okay? Don’t go laying a guilt trip on him.”

  “I’m not.”

  “It’s okay, viejo,” Eric said. “I’m glad she’s happy.” He looked across to Victoria, wanting to change the subject. “So you know my mom kept me updated on your marital status.” He angled his head. “But she didn’t say anything about a boyfriend.”

  “You mean do I have a boyfriend?” Victoria asked.

  “You know that’s what I mean.”

  “Eric!” Lucia said, though it appeared to him that she looked pleased.

  Victor frowned.

  Jaqueline and Antonio didn’t say a word.

  “What?” he shrugged. “I’m just curious.”

  Victoria looked amused. “No, no boyfriends. My dad chases away any man who shows any interest. And my mom scares them by talking about weddings and babies on our first date.”

  Eric laughed.

  Now it was Jaqueline’s turn to look horrified. “I don’t scare away your boyfriends. What a thing to say.”

  Eric noticed that Victor didn’t deny his part in making Victoria’s love life difficult.

  “I just wanted to ask Victoria if she was interested in getting together some of our old high school friends. Maybe we can all go out while I’m in town. And I didn’t want some jealous boyfriend trying to kill me. One black eye is enough.”

  “I don’t hang out with anyone from high school anymore, Eric. In fact, the only ones I still see are the ones that go to the Argentine Club.”

  Eric passed the mate back to his mother, who refilled the gourd with sugar and water and offered it to Victoria.

  She took it. “But we can look them up if you’re interested.”

  “Would be fun, wouldn’t it?” He wasn’t sure how long he was going to stick around. Part of it depended on how the flip went. It also depended on whether he could live this close to his family again after all this time. He watched Victoria sip from the bombilla, which was a special metal straw that filtered out the tea leaves as you drank, and thought, not for the first time since seeing her again, that she’d grown amazingly beautiful.

  “No problem,” she said. “Let’s get together next week and go through the last numbers I had on everyone.” She gave the mate back to Lucia.

  “What a great idea! You can plan a reunion without waiting for the school to do it,” his mother said, reminding him for the millionth time that his ten-year high school reunion was this fall. Every time he called, she asked if he was planning to attend. And now he was sure she’d insist he hang around at least until then. She’d latch onto anything that gave him a reason to stay close by. He leaned over and placed a kiss on her cheek. He might just let her convince him.

  Victoria spent the entire following week preparing for the Saturday wedding party that had reserved the back of the restaurant for their reception. Although she rarely worked the floor serving customers—the waiters in black and white suits with bow ties did that—this day, she helped to set all the tables, to prepare the plates for the waiters to serve, to cut the wedding cake, and to clean up after the last of them went home. Victor had been in during the morning and lunch rushes, then had gone to an investment meeting he was holding at the Argentine Club. He’d joined a venture capital association and contacted a few angel investors who appeared interested. He’d drawn up a business profile and had meetings during the week, and he said he also wanted to present it to friends from the club.

  He came back to the restaurant late at night to help close up. La Parrilla had been closed for an hour. Tables had been cleaned, floors swept and mopped, and the kitchen prepped for the following day. Now it was quiet. Even the music had been turned off.

  “How did it go?” Victoria asked, her feet up on a chair.

  “Good. Great. How did it go here?”

  “Busy.” She drank a glass of cranberry juice with lemon soda, while Victor poured a cup of coffee. She filled him in on the details of the evening. Victor would lock up the cash and receipts in the safe tonight and go to the bank in the morning.

  Victoria planned to sleep in tomorrow. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t seem to push herself off the stool.

  “On Monday, I’m interviewing a manager to run this restaurant while I’m away getting the other two started.”

  This caught Victoria’s attention and helped to stir her quickly dwindling energy. “I thought you wanted me to run this restaurant.”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Not everything. I want you to put more time in. Keep an eye on how things are going. But you can’t do it all. Not yet. Little by little.”

  Agreed. Nor did she want to do it all. But the way he said it gave her the impression that he didn’t think she was capable of running it on her own, and that irritated her. “I’d like to sit in on the interview.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll have to work with the person, so I’d like to have some say on if you hire her or not.”

  “Him,” he corrected.

  Victoria already knew he’d hire a man to be the manager. After all these years, his sexist attitude against women being in charge didn’t surprise her. She was more amused by his macho ideas than offended, and she enjoyed giving him little nudges every once in a while to remind him that his ideas were from another era.

  “I’ll make sure you can work with him. But I’m not going to have this man thinking he has to answer to my daughter.”

  “Why not? He should know that he does have to answer to me.”

  “Look Victoria. All I want you to do is keep your eyes open. Make sure things continue to run well. If anything doesn’t look right, call me, tell me.”

  Victoria didn’t want more responsibility, but she was either going to assume more control or she wasn’t. She didn’t appreciate being used as a spy. She sighed. “Dad, if you’re really going to go through with all this, then you need to include me more. According to you, I’m supposed to inherit a chain of restaurants one day that I know nothing about. That I’ve had no part in building.”

  “But I don’t want you to have any part in it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He rubbed his temples. It had been a long day and she didn’t want to give him a hard time, but she had to know where she stood.

  “Victoria, I’ve given my life to this restaurant. It’s been hell. I don’t get vacations. No real days off. Even when we’re closed, my mind is here. I’m constantly asking myself, ‘Have we put in all the orders for the next week? Have I set the alarm properly? Will we pass the next city inspection?’ I’ve been a slave to this business for eighteen years. Do you think I want that for you?”

  “I thought you did. If not, then why the expansion?”

  “I plan to oversee it all. Eventually hire a board to run the franchises. I want you to sit back and collect the checks.”

  Victoria smiled. “That’s nice, but not practical. I should be informed. Know about the business.”

  “Victoria.” He looked uncomfortable. “You couldn’t even grasp the college classes in business. Just… let me handle everything. Haven’t I always taken care of you?”

  She wasn’t sure what emotion she felt more prominently: anger, offense, humiliation, or what. She dropped her legs off the stool and stood.

  “Victoria,” he said.

  “It’s late. I’m leaving.”

  “You’re going to run the restaurant. But not alone. And I can’t be here much in the next few months to get you ready. Try to understand that I’m doing what I think is best.”

  “Even if that means treating me like a second-rate employee
.”

  “I treat you that way because that’s the way you act. You come and go as you please.” He raised his voice. “You show more interest in painting your toenails than you do in business. Start taking this job seriously and I’ll start treating you like a serious partner.”

  Except that wasn’t entirely true. He kept her at arm’s length and doled out her responsibilities like he was feeding baby food to a three-month-old. Not that she’d cared in the past. She didn’t want to spend more time here; he was right. She had no passion for this work and would rather paint her toenails than waste hours ordering beef. “You’re right. Hire a manager and leave me out of the whole thing. I have better things to do with my life.”

  “Victoria!” he shouted.

  She whirled and glared at him. “I hope you make your billions, Papi, but I don’t intend to be Paris Hilton, holding a dog and smiling because that’s the only thing people think I can do. I’m twenty-eight years old and you’re still treating me like I’m eighteen.”

  “What the hell do you want from me?”

  “I want you to see that I can stand on my own two feet. That I’m capable of doing more than blowing up balloons.” Her voice cracked and tears sprung to her eyes, but she couldn’t stop. “That I can choose my own men. That damn it, I have my own dreams in life, and they have nothing to do with running this restaurant.”

  His face grew red, and he eased himself off his stool.

  Her voice grew soft. “But if I’m going to spend my life here, I want to be treated like your partner, not like your incompetent daughter. Now, not in ten years.”

  He took a few steps her way, and she thought he was going to say something, but instead his gaze dismissed her as he brushed past her out of the restaurant. The door closed and he was gone.

  Victoria wanted to cry and scream. Why was it so hard for him to see her? He said he loved her, she did every damn thing he wanted her to do, and yet he didn’t really know her. All he ever did was dismiss her interests and opinions. Damn him. She wandered to the back office, picked up her purse, set the security system, walked out, and locked the door—her hand shaking at the sound of the click. She knew tonight would be the last time she ever performed those tasks. And she drew a breath, thick with both relief and anxiety about the uncertainty of what would happen next.

  Chapter Seven

  Jaqueline poured coffee for both Victor and Victoria Sunday morning. They sat on opposite sides of the table, he behind his newspaper, Victoria reading a book. Jaqueline might as well have been a servant for all the attention they paid her.

  “How did the wedding reception go?” she asked.

  “Fine,” Victoria said, glancing up from her book. “Thanks, Mami.” She began adding sugar to her coffee. “I should skip this, but I can’t drink Argentine coffee black.” She added a little milk.

  “A little sugar won’t hurt you.” Jaqueline sat beside Victoria. “That Mexican musician, Hugo, called again wanting to perform at the club. I wonder how we can fit him in.”

  Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Coming around, are you?”

  Jaqueline liked the man. She wanted to help him out. But she shrugged. “Our events calendar is so full, I don’t know how we’d work it out.”

  “Just choose one of those boring Sunday get-togethers and turn it into a Mexican Day celebration. We could invite three or four different acts. Would be fun.”

  “Maybe,” she said. She glanced at Victor who was still to say more than “morning.” “You want some toast, Viejo?”

  “No.” He put the paper down and stood. “I’ve got to go open the restaurant. I’ll see you at the club later.”

  Jaqueline knew something was wrong but wasn’t sure what. He was even more distant than he normally was. She placed a hand on his arm. “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine.” He offered her a peck that was so different from the kisses they’d once shared. She wasn’t even sure why she noticed those things lately. It had probably been years since they’d been truly affectionate with each other.

  The phone rang and Jaqueline answered it. “Hello, Eric. Yes, she’s here, but she’s going to work with her father now.”

  Victoria glanced up. “No, I’m not. Is it for me?”

  Jaqueline held her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Eric.”

  Victoria stood. “I’ll take it.” She reached for the phone. “Eric, hi. Yes, I’d love to. Where? I’ll be there in half an hour. Okay. See you.” She took another drink of her coffee, then took the cup to the sink and washed it out. “I’m going to breakfast with Eric. See you later, Mami.” She walked past Victor without saying good-bye to him or discussing if she was going to stop by the restaurant.

  Victor turned away and left.

  With a sigh, Jaqueline cleaned up the spotless kitchen table. She glanced at the white board on the refrigerator where she kept the schedule for the day. Not so long ago, it would have been packed with obligations. PTA meetings, laundry, bank runs for Victor, take Carmen to soccer practice, Victoria to art class, shop for groceries, cook, volunteer at the Argentine Club. There was never enough time to do it all. Now time seemed to stretch out in front of her in an endless emptiness.

  After neatly organizing the receipts for July expenditures—now that the month was over—into a file for the Argentine Club, she had the rest of the day open. She went to the bathroom and opened the makeup drawer. She gazed in the mirror, wondering when her smooth, creamy face had begun looking so thin and creased with wrinkles. She applied some makeup to cover what lines she could. On her tired, lifeless brown eyes, she dabbed firming cream to refresh tired lids. A little shadow, and some lipstick. Then she brushed her hair and teased it into the same bell shape she’d worn for twenty-five years.

  She gazed at the reflection, barely recognizing the woman she’d become. She wondered if Victor felt the same way when he looked at her. If he asked himself, Who is this woman that I have to come home to every night? She went into her bedroom and dressed for the day in a pair of brown slacks and an olive green blouse.

  Finally ready, she went to sit at the computer where she’d begun to visit the blogs and Web sites that kept her company during the day.

  Victoria drove to the shopping center down the street from Eric’s house. He said he’d be sitting at the outside patio of a doughnut shop, and she spotted him right away, at a round table under a blue umbrella. She was grateful for an excuse to get away from her father. Did he plan to ignore her the rest of his life? He was impossible.

  Eric noticed her before she got to the table and stood. He kissed her on the cheek, as was the Argentine custom. Then he resumed his place at the table. “I didn’t get you a coffee yet because I didn’t want it to get cold. But I bought plenty of doughnuts.”

  “That’s fine. I brought my address book. We can divide up the names and start calling.”

  “That’s what I like, a girl with a plan.”

  She realized she hadn’t said hello properly or made any kind of chitchat at all. “I’m sorry. I’m… I decided to confront my father last night about taking more control over the restaurant, because everything you said had been bothering me. And we had a big fight. I barely slept, so I’m tired.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “We could have done this another time.”

  “No,” she shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I hate to ask, but what did I say to cause a fight?”

  “Maybe it was more how I felt about doing exactly the same thing I’ve been doing since high school. Seeing you again made me remember that I once wanted my own life.”

  “Sorry,” Eric said again. He reached across the table and placed a hand over hers. “Victoria, there’s nothing wrong with staying close to your family and doing what they expect you to do. I didn’t mean to criticize.… Part of me wishes I could have done that. You make me feel guilty as hell for my choices.”

  She smiled. “I’m so glad we bring out the best in each other.”

  “So what ha
ppened with your dad exactly?”

  She told him the whole story. “I can’t go back to that restaurant,” she said. On a beautiful August morning like this, they should have been discussing the get-together with friends, enjoying their coffees and the heavenly smells coming out of the glass door every time a customer went in and out. Instead, she was unloading her irritations with her father on poor Eric.

  He sipped his coffee, not looking at all bothered by her rantings. “Then don’t,” he said.

  “What am I going to do? Even being at home is impossible.”

  He bit into his fourth or fifth doughnut and watched her as he chewed. He swallowed, and said, “I have a suggestion.”

  Victoria stared at the doughnuts, wanting one. “What?” she asked.

  He pushed the bag of doughnuts across the table in front of her. “Help me with my flip.”

  “Help you with your flip? What does that mean?” She pushed the bag back.

  “I’ve bought a house I’m going to fix up and sell while I’m in town. I’m usually my own project manager, but I hire subs to do a lot of the work. I need an interior designer. And I’ll need help with staging when I’m ready to sell. The crew I usually use is in Austin. I’m putting together a crew here in LA. You can be my designer.”

  “You’re offering me a job?”

  “Not exactly. I’m suggesting you make me one of your new clients. Start your own interior design business.”

  “I can’t start my own business.”

  “Mmm,” he said, as he took another swig of coffee. “So your dad is right. You’re too stupid to run a business. Then go back and be his errand girl for the next fifty years.”

  “Shut up,” she said.

  He grinned. “Want one of these?”

  “Of course I do, but I’m on a diet. I need to lose weight.”

  “Help me with my flip and I’ll keep you so busy you’ll lose tons of weight. What do you say? And if you want, you can move into the house with me until we’re ready to sell.”

  Now she laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”