“You could go back to your apartment.”
“And be killed by an axe murderer? You don’t split up in a movie.”
“It’s not a fucking movie,” she said, rubbing her hands against her eyes, but Tristán was already taking the left side of the bed. She considered unbuttoning her jeans and slipping out of her t-shirt since Tristán had no problem stripping down to his underwear, then decided against it after throwing him a weary look.
He laughed. “Calm down, I’m not going to start rubbing myself against you.”
“So you claim,” she muttered.
“Fine. I’ll make a wall of pillows.”
She closed her eyes. “Sure.”
Sleep came easily, which was an oddity for her. She was nocturnal and welcomed insomnia like an ardent lover. But she felt absolutely drained, and although the ringing had subsided, the migraine remained, making the blackness of sleep a welcome escape. It was three a.m. when she woke up. The numbers on the clock by her bedside glowed a bright red.
Montserrat felt Tristán’s soft breath against the back of her neck. He was too close to her. Probably accustomed to sprawling across his king-size mattress, he was driving her toward the edge of the bed. She could feel the bulk of him curled against her.
She tried nudging him with her elbow. Instead of turning away, he moved closer to her, an arm settling against her midsection.
Montserrat sighed, and for a couple of minutes she thought to simply let him be, but she was in an uncomfortable position and wanted to turn around, and she couldn’t when he was practically draped over her.
“You’re crushing me, you idiot,” she said and tried elbowing him again, which had no discernible effect.
He simply lay there, flush next to Montserrat, one hand now curling against her stomach, as if trying to hold her in place, his breath loud against the base of her neck. She was considering kicking him when he spoke in a whisper.
“Follow me into the night,” he said.
And maybe if she hadn’t heard Tristán’s voice hundreds of times, dubbing him on more than a dozen occasions…Maybe if they had not grown up together and she hadn’t watched him playing parts on TV from the moment he said his first lines…Maybe she would not have been alarmed by those words.
But that faint voice, with a hint of mockery, did not belong to Tristán.
She sat up and slammed her palm against a button, turning on the bedside lamp. On the other side of the bed, his body turned in the opposite direction, and with a decorous pillow placed between them as a demarcation line, Tristán was fast asleep.
21
“Scrambled, right?”
“You don’t need to make breakfast.”
Montserrat stood by the refrigerator, eyeing him with suspicion. She’d stepped out of the shower and was wearing a white bathrobe that reached her shins. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, and she wore blue plastic slippers, as if she were an old lady. The shoes made a loud wap-wap sound as she walked.
Check out the boner killer outfit, that’s what he would have said any other morning. He would have said it loud and clear, but right now he was trying to be nice. Hence the eggs.
“Food is the only thing I’m good at. Maybe I should have been a cook. No, not that coffee. We can go home after I’m finished cooking and have a proper coffee there.”
Montserrat held the jar with coffee and frowned. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s instant coffee. I’ve told you a hundred times, toss it in the garbage.”
Montserrat leaned against the counter with a sigh. “I’ll pour us orange juice, unless his majesty wants it fresh squeezed.”
Tristán stirred the eggs with a spatula. He didn’t look at Montserrat as he spoke, trying to sound casual.
“Are you going to tell me what Ewers said to you last night?”
“It’s not important. I think he wanted me to be aware that he knows me, that he’s following me.”
“If he’s following you around, he could be slipping into your bathroom while you are showering for all you know. A dead sexual deviant.”
Montserrat walking around the bathroom in that outfit was not an enticing sight. But there were all types of perverts. And without the granny shoes and bath towel, who knew. He believed Montserrat at her plainest was the best Montserrat for him. He felt weird on the random days when she dolled herself up, smearing the mascara thick on her eyelashes and picking a dark lipstick.
There had been that guy, the one she’d dated before Regina, and she’d dressed up and curled her eyelashes more often because the dude was super social and took her to several parties and functions. Tristán had panicked for a bit, fearing Montserrat would marry that pompous ass. He never wanted to have to compete for Montserrat’s attention. Fortunately, that guy was gone, and Regina had also fizzled out.
Boy, was he a bad friend for thinking that. Tristán knew it and shook his head, promising himself he’d be nicer, more generous, kinder in the new year. That would be his resolution.
“Ewers was playing. He wants to scare me,” Montserrat said.
“He would have succeeded if it was me.”
Montserrat did not reply. Tristán plated the eggs. He’d found corn tortillas in the refrigerator, but he clung to his northern customs and preferred flour ones, so he warmed one for Montserrat but none for himself. They took the plates and the glasses filled with orange juice to the table.
They ate quietly. The silence strained the ears. Although Tristán had been dancing around the words, he decided to finally say it. “We’ve got to pick a side, you know?”
“Excuse me?” Montserrat asked, glancing up at him.
“Alma Montero or Clarimonde Bauer. We have to give one of them the film.”
“No,” she said firmly.
“Why not?”
“Because they both want something.”
“Everyone wants something.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You have a lot of notes about him.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was in the office while you were showering. You have Ewers’s book and a bunch of other books on magic, and all these little notes spread out over your desk.”
Montserrat winced but did not reply. Her hermetic silence was starting to get annoying. He would have understood if she had yelled and flailed at the discovery that Ewers had been in her room, but all she had done was wake him up with a tap on the shoulder and tell him what had happened. Then she’d gone back to sleep while Tristán stared at the ceiling, afraid if he set a foot on the floor a hand would reach out from under the bed and clutch his ankle.
“What did he say?”
“For god’s sake, it doesn’t matter,” she muttered, banging her fork against the table.
“You don’t always have to act tough, Momo.”
“I also don’t need to have a nervous breakdown. I’m not going to give him what he wants. He wants me scared, all right? He can’t have it.”
Montserrat picked up her fork again and poked at her eggs. Whether she liked it or not, Ewers and his spells loomed all around them, embittering the morning. By the time Tristán placed the dishes in the sink it was close to ten a.m. Tristán combed his hair with Montserrat’s brush, gargled a mouthful of Listerine, put on his sunglasses, and they went in search of Montserrat’s car.