Evenings at the Argentine Club Page 9

  “We haven’t even been out on a proper date together and you want me to move in with you.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” He kept his smile. “But what do you mean? Do you want to go out on a date? Should I have asked you out? I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

  “I don’t. I mean, I wasn’t hinting at anything. I’m just saying that… I’m not going to move in with you.”

  He shrugged easily. “I always live in the houses I flip. Mostly because I have nowhere else to live. But also because it makes me finish faster and I start to get a feel of what the house needs.”

  “I’ve lived with my parents for twenty-eight years and you think I can move out just like that.” Victoria snapped her fingers in the air.

  “That’s the way you do it. Swift and terrible. You’ll feel like a new woman.” He grabbed the bag of doughnuts, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the trash. “Good willpower,” he said.

  “That killed me. You can’t eat those kinds of things in front of me again.”

  He nodded. “I’m all for getting healthy. But you know you look pretty damn cute the way you are, don’t you?”

  “I look fat. And I don’t want to be cute. Carmen was always the smart one. I was always the cute one. I want guys to look at me and say, ‘Man, she’s hot.’ ”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Hot?”

  “Think I can pull it off?”

  He stood and cleared his throat. “Sure.” His eyes were bright with amusement. “Absolutely. Want to go see the house?”

  Victoria figured she didn’t have anything to lose. “Why not?”

  Eric walked her though the front yard, which was littered with trash and overgrown weeds. “First thing I’m going to do as soon as we close escrow next week is get a Dumpster and start cleaning up. Then we can begin demo.”

  Victoria carefully made her way through the junk. Inside, he pointed out the changes he wanted to make, taking her room by room. “I’m going to completely gut the kitchen,” he said.

  The place smelled like cats and urine. Damn. He wondered if a family of cats might be spending their nights in the house. Victoria wrinkled her nose but didn’t comment on the smell as she examined the kitchen. “You definitely need new cabinets and flooring. And I’d put in an extra window or maybe a skylight.”

  He nodded. “Exactly. That’s where you come in. I’d like you to choose the cabinets. The flooring. Come up with the color scheme. Suggestions on lighting. Then at the end, help me stage it so it looks good enough to sell.”

  She walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, looking around at all the work that had to be done. “And if I do this, I get paid when?”

  “When we sell it.”

  “What if you don’t sell it?”

  “Of course I’ll sell it. I should make about a hundred and fifty thousand if the market doesn’t tank on me. I’ll give you five percent.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “How about fifteen?”

  He laughed. And here he thought she’d be impressed with five. “Ten.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “This seems very risky. How do you live like this? You might make way less than what you project.”

  “True. When I started, I had quite a few flips that ended up making me peanuts. But I’ve learned. I got this house at a good price. I know exactly what to put into it to turn it around at a good profit.” He walked up beside her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “What do you say? Are you in?”

  She gazed at him, then tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Her pulse skipped like crazy. “Oh God, Eric, what am I doing? I should go back and apologize to my father. He needs me now that he’s starting this major business expansion.” She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “He’s worked his whole life to pass his business on to me and my sister. Carmen doesn’t want it.”

  “And you do?”

  “No, but how can I walk away from him? And for what? To help you flip houses?—No offense.”

  “Vicki, this has nothing to do with me. I just happen to know you enjoy being creative, and you have a talent for decorating. And I need someone to be my interior designer.” He lowered his arm and stepped in front of her. “I do understand your loyalty to your father, but in the end, you have to be able to step back and ask yourself what you really want.”

  Her dark eyes gazed deeply into his. “I envy that you were able to do that, Eric. Just leave everything behind, free to travel and do what you like. But I’m not sure I can do that.”

  “Don’t envy me,” he said. Sometimes when you blindly chased your independence, you got it. And he wasn’t sure if he’d ended up losing much more than he’d gained. “Everyone thinks I’m an asshole.”

  “No,” she argued, but she wasn’t very convincing.

  He smiled. “It’s okay. I know what people have said. And I don’t blame them. I was supposed to go to college. Go to law school in LA. And I abandoned everything and embarrassed my parents. That’s what everyone sees. So of course they’re judging me harshly.” He stared into her big, understanding eyes. “And maybe they’re all right, and I was wrong. I could have been a big-time lawyer and on my way to a great career. Instead, here I am hoping the whole real-estate market doesn’t completely tank and leave me holding my… well, leave me in deep financial trouble.”

  “So why did you leave? Why take a chance?” She asked as if she really wanted to know—as if his answer mattered.

  He sighed. “The short answer is I just wanted to get the hell out of here. I wanted to see something different. I wanted to make my own way in the world. And I had a passion for restoring houses, so I went for it.” He angled his head. He’d never told this to a soul, and he hoped he wasn’t making a mistake by telling her, but it felt good to talk about his past decisions to someone who knew him. “The extended answer is that even if I’d stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to continue on to law school. My dad got into a bit of trouble financially and there was no money in my college fund by my third year at Claremont McKenna. My mom doesn’t know any of this. She thought my dad had been saving for twenty years. But he’d never made enough for law school so he invested what he had, hoping it would magically grow into thousands, and things hadn’t worked out like he’d hoped.”

  “Invested?”

  “Aggressively.”

  “That’s too bad, but you could have gotten a scholarship if—”

  “If I really wanted to be a lawyer. But I didn’t. So I used that as an excuse to quit. Pissed my dad off big-time and hurt my mom when their only son thumbed his nose at parental goals and traditions. So now… ” He shrugged and walked across the room, then sat on a window ledge. “I’m stuck doing the only thing I know how to do. To those looking at me from the outside, I became a bargain hunter and a gambler.” He watched her. “But I’m doing what I love.”

  “That’s wonderful, Eric. It really is.”

  “Don’t go back to your dad because you think you owe him something. You’ll be miserable the rest of your life. I feel guilty, and I wish I had done things differently, but I’m not sorry I followed my passion. I would have made a lousy lawyer.”

  “And I’ll make a lousy restaurant owner, I know. But it’s the easiest road.”

  “So, you’ll go back to doing something you don’t like, because you’re afraid go out on your own?”

  “I am.” Her voice was soft and sweet. “Pathetic, I know, but I’m scared to try something risky and fall flat on my face.”

  “Follow your heart and you won’t.” He smiled. “Hey, that’s what I did when I left home and when I decided to return. Something inside me said it was time. And everything has felt right ever since.”

  She smiled. “All right,” she said. She stepped in front of him and offered her hand. “Fifteen percent?”

  He never paid a designer that much money. But he pressed his palm to hers. This was the second time they shook hands. And the deals they made were getting progressively more interesting. “You got it
.” He held on to her hand.

  “My heart is beating out of control. This is such a big step for me.”

  He felt the pulse on her wrist with his thumb. Gently, he rubbed it. “What, doing a little remodel job with me?”

  “No. Moving on with my life.”

  He squeezed her hand, then released it. “And here I thought it was holding my hand that was sending you into overdrive.”

  She laughed. Nervously? “Let’s go give some of our old friends a call now. Okay?” she said.

  Eric watched her walk out the sliding glass door into the backyard. He’d spent the last seven years enjoying temporary women—not because he was a jerk, but because he never stayed in one town long enough to develop a long-term relationship. Being at home, with family, and old friends like Victoria made him think that maybe he was missing out on one of life’s great gifts—real connections to other people.

  They sat on the edge of the backyard pool, their legs dangling into an empty pit that was in need of serious cleaning and repair. The rest of the yard looked just as neglected, with weeds growing around wide patches of dirt. The wooden fence needed to be torn down, especially since many boards were already loose and half falling into the yard.

  “So what are we proposing. Dinner? Drinks? Dancing?”

  “How about all three? I’ll book one of those dinner cruises off of Newport Beach, and buy out the boat for our party.”

  “Ah, that sounds nice, but—”

  “Great. Let’s do it.”

  “You’re going to pay for that?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right.” She shrugged. “When?”

  “Next weekend?”

  “Too soon. People might have plans. How about next month? If we’re going to be working on this house, you’ll still be in town.”

  “Yep. Okay, next month it is.”

  Eric had a list of about five friends to call, Victoria about a dozen. She started with those she was still in contact with. Eduardo was first on her list, because he not only went to their high school but was a member of the Argentine Club. She called him at the auto shop and told him she and Eric wanted to get a group of friends together .

  “Sounds great, Victoria,” he said. “But you know Kelly plans all our events. And we have the kids to find sitters for. I’m not sure we’ll be able to make it.”

  “Why don’t you talk to her and call me back?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that. Talk to you soon, nena.”

  Victoria moved on to Susana, even though she wasn’t her favorite person, and regretted doing so almost immediately. Susana started in about what a disgrace it was that Eric showed up at the club after all these years and didn’t even warn his parents first. Then had the nerve to make a scene by fighting with Steve.

  “Really,” she said, “I’m surprised you’re even talking to him, much less helping him find friends.”

  She wasn’t helping him find friends. She was helping him reconnect with friends, and Susana obviously wasn’t one of them. “Our parents are close friends, Susana. How can I not talk to him?” she asked quietly, standing and moving away from Eric, even though he was on his own phone and probably wasn’t paying attention to her conversation.

  “Well, of course we have to be polite, but you don’t have to become his best buddy. Though, you and he were kind of close, weren’t you? Did you actually, you know, have a relationship?”

  Victoria rolled her eyes. “Susana, he’s going to book a dinner cruise for us all. I think it’ll be nice.”

  “Sure, now that he has money, he wants to buy us back.”

  Although Victoria had had more than one unpleasant thought about Eric through the years—and had once even agreed that he was dog shit for thinking he was better than they were and leaving—she would rather hang out with Eric a million times more than she would with Susana. Especially now that she knew that there was more to the story than what they had all believed.

  “Susana, I think he came back because he’s lonely. He missed his family. He missed us. Can’t you let the past go and help welcome him back?”

  “He was always an arrogant prick who shunned his Latino heritage. He wanted to go out there and pretend he was something he wasn’t. Let him go back, Victoria. Don’t get involved with him. Do yourself a favor.”

  “Yeah,” she said, wondering if everyone, Susana and herself included, weren’t all a little jealous of Eric. “But you might want to think of Lucia.”

  “I’ll be polite to him at the club. But I’m not going out to dinner with him.”

  And that was that. After she ended the call, she decided to change tactics and not call anyone from the Argentine Club after all. She’d call their other high school friends instead.

  An hour later, she’d gotten five yeses, and Eric had gotten two.

  “Are you sure you want to book an entire dinner cruise for so few people?”

  “It’ll be almost twenty of us with spouses and girlfriends and boyfriends. It’ll be fun,” he said, excited.

  Victoria smiled. She didn’t care what Susana thought. Eric was okay, and she was glad he’d come home.

  Chapter Eight

  Mid-week Jaqueline met with the ladies at the Argentine Club, and they completed their plans to bring in an Argentine artist to talk about his work and display his paintings. But her mind was on Victoria and Victor. They weren’t speaking to each other, and neither one would tell her why.

  Lucia passed the paperwork across the table for Jaqueline to sign. Jaqueline stared down at it, then scrawled her name and passed it along.

  “So, Jaqueline, you must be so excited about Victor’s expansion plans,” Nelly said.

  Jaqueline took the stack of mini art prints and fixed them back into the binder. The artist was good, though she didn’t know much about art. She glanced at Nelly. “Expansion?”

  “For the restaurant.”

  What was this woman talking about? Nelly was a nice person, but… well, maybe she was getting tired of the politics at the Argentine Club. All the work it required, and for what? “Oh, the restaurant,” she said, pretending she knew what Nelly was talking about. “Yes, it’s going well.”

  “Hector invested quite a bit. I guess he must really believe in Victor’s idea.”

  Invested? What, money? Jaqueline smiled. Though she wasn’t pleased that her husband was asking their friends for money. Was he crazy? Were they having money problems? “Really? He liked Victor’s idea?”

  “He won’t stop talking about it. How about you? Are you nervous about it?”

  She was nervous, all right. “A little,” she admitted.

  Lucia frowned. “What are you two talking about?”

  “Victor’s restaurant expansion,” Nelly said.

  “I didn’t know he was doing that,” Lucia said.

  Neither did Jaqueline. But she planned on finding out what was going on immediately. “I’ll have to tell you about it later. Oh, by the way, I’m proposing we have a Mexican fiesta day in celebration of our closest Latino neighbors,” she said to the rest of the group. “Here’s my proposal.” She passed out a sheet of paper that she spent all last night preparing with Victoria’s help. It included having a variety of performers, primarily Hugo’s band, and indulging in a selection of Mexican food samples. She gave them an estimate of the cost.

  She ignored all the frowns and mumbling about the unprecedented idea. “Read it over. We can discuss it next time. If it works out, we might want to consider highlighting a different Latino country every quarter.”

  Lucia made a “why not” face and then smiled. “I kind of like that idea. Just think of the variety of foods we can try and the diversity of entertainment we can enjoy.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Jaqueline said, and stood. “I’ll see you all next Sunday.”

  “Well, hold on, let’s walk out to the parking lot together. I want to tell you something,” Lucia said.

  “Sure.”

  Lucia hooked
her arm with Jaqueline’s. “Good news, loca.”

  “Qué?”

  “Eric said Victoria agreed to work with him to fix up a house.”

  “Fix up his house? I didn’t even know he had a house.”

  “Not his house. A house. He buys and sells properties. I told you, remember?”

  “Oh, yes.” Was this what Victor was so upset about? She felt very misinformed about the things going on with her family. And she was going to get to the bottom of all of it.

  “Well,” Lucia smiled. “That’s good news, no? They’re going to be spending more time together.”

  Jaqueline nodded absently. “Maybe. Victor is angry at her, so it might not be so good.”

  Lucia made a growling sound in the back of her throat. “He needs to give that girl some space. She has to be allowed to spend some time with people her own age.”

  “Lucia, you’re so transparent.” She gave her a quick hug. “I’ve got to go.”

  “If this works between them, we will have major celebrating to do. My best friend will become my in-law.”

  Jaqueline laughed. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”

  Victoria told Douglas about helping Eric with his flip. “Do you think we can keep my hours flexible? I’m not sure when he’s going to need me.”

  “Of course.” He rang up a customer’s purchase. “Here you go, Mrs. Thorpe. If it doesn’t look perfect in your living room, you bring it back, understand?”

  Mrs. Thorpe took her purchase and held it close to her body. “It’s not coming back, Douglas.” She smiled. “Good-bye. ’Bye, Victoria.”

  Victoria hurried to open the door for her. “Take care, Mrs. Thorpe.”

  “I’ve got it, I’ve got it. I’m old, not feeble.”

  Victoria held her hands up, and stepped out of her way.

  “Excuse me,” Mrs. Thorpe said, practically running into someone on the sidewalk.

  As Victoria turned back in, Douglas called her over. He held out a brochure. “I’ve been meaning to give you this. Now might be the perfect time.”

  Victoria looked at the pamphlet for a college. They were offering a special night class for store owners on designing displays. Looked interesting. “You want me to go to this?”