When you’ve been excommunicated from TV by Evaristo Junco you don’t get fruit baskets for Christmas anymore.
Tristán was munching his fourth cookie when his pager went off. He unclipped the device and glanced down at it. For a moment he thought to ask Abel if he could use his phone, but that might be a bit much, because the message was from Yolanda. Yolanda had insisted he’d taken a CD of hers, and although Tristán didn’t have it, she wasn’t letting it go.
Yolanda kept adding imaginary charges to Tristán’s tab. Suddenly he owed her for this and that thing. And okay, fine, Tristán understood the impetus behind that, because they had been planning on going on vacation together. Now that they had split, that meant the vacation was down the toilet.
All he wished for was a bit of peace and quiet, and he suspected Yolanda would be in a foul mood. The breakup had been more tempestuous than amicable. Yet, as much as he didn’t want to speak to Yolanda, he felt tempted. It might keep his mind off Karina. He was going to take out her picture that night and look at it. He simply must.
God. Maybe he shouldn’t have a phone. He definitely shouldn’t have a romantic relationship for the next three decades. He fucked them up with an expertise that was astonishing.
“I need to take off, sorry,” Tristán said, clipping the pager back in place.
“No problem. Perhaps you’d like to come to supper and bring your editor friend?” Abel asked.
“You mean it?”
“Of course. I seldom have a chance to talk to interesting young people these days. How about Saturday? Around four.”
“Sure,” Tristán said, whip-quick. He felt like a child who has gorged on sweets, dizzy with joy.
They shook hands. Tristán hurried down the stairs.
* * *
—
Two days later he decided to stop by Montserrat’s workplace rather than phone her, because the telephone was not connected yet, and because when Montserrat was in one of her double-down-and-work phases she simply yanked the telephone cord out of the wall and pretended the world did not exist.
He lounged in the reception area of Antares, flipping through a magazine, until Montserrat deigned to step out. She gave him a narrow-eyed look, pulling at the cuffs of her jacket like she did when she suspected trouble was afoot.
“I’m not here to borrow money,” Tristán said, raising his hands dramatically in the air. “I have good news. Let’s go for a coffee.”
“No. It’ll take you two damn hours to eat a salad.”
“So? When’s the last time you ate?”
Montserrat didn’t reply, but he knew she was surviving on a salt cracker and two peanuts. She’d always pushed herself. When they were kids, she could outrun all the other children in the neighborhood despite her bad foot. He supposed she was still trying to outrun everyone. Tristán was aware sound editing was a boys’ game. Montserrat was tough. She had to be. Nevertheless, he worried when he saw her straining that hard, driving herself to exhaustion.
“I saw your car parked out front. Let’s go to the Tortas Locas.”
“You’re not getting inside my car with that fucking cigarette.”
Tristán sighed. He’d been about to light it. He carefully stuffed the cigarette back in its pack. “Momo, I can open the window if it bothers you. Or do you want to go around the corner to that fonda? Forget that: let’s hit a proper restaurant. Crepes at the Wings. That’s better. Crepes suzette. It’s too late for tortas.”
“Tristán—”
“Bet you fifty thousand pesos that you don’t even have milk at your apartment.”
“What?”
He was attuned to Montserrat’s phases, like memorizing an almanac and knowing if it was a gibbous or waxing moon without having to glance at the sky. He could tell it had been a long week for her, and personal matters tended to elude Montserrat during the long weeks. With her headphones on, she could notice any pop or crackle, but she wouldn’t know if it was Tuesday or Friday. Because it didn’t matter: what mattered was the sound.
“Let’s drive to the supermarket.”
“For God’s sake,” Montserrat muttered, but Tristán knew he was entirely correct about the state of her refrigerator. Even though Montserrat complained that he was immature, he didn’t walk around wearing the same shirt three days in a row. Sure, her t-shirt looked clean enough this time around, but the jeans she was wearing were not fashionably ripped. It looked more like Montserrat had stepped into the first thing she’d found that morning, and that included jeans with holes.
At least her car was immaculate. Montserrat might forget to purchase necessities, but she did not forget to pay the viene-viene who watched and washed the cars in front of her job. That car was guarded as if it was kept at Fort Knox.
They headed to the nearest supermarket. Tristán thought he might as well shop for himself, too, and Montserrat kept sighing as he checked the label of each item that went into the cart. He needed to know what he put in his body, attuned as he was to the dangers of extra calories and perilous sugars. There was also a paranoid voice in his head that said actors shouldn’t be caught at the checkout counter with four bags of Sabritas as their dinner.
“What’s the good news, then?” she asked while he was considering a box of crackers.
“I aced an audition, although it’s still too early to say anything definitive about a paycheck. It might be people being polite rather than liking my performance. But forget that, the thing I wanted to talk to you about was Abel Urueta.”
“What about him?”
“He lives in my building.”
Montserrat stopped pushing the shopping cart and turned to him in surprise. “Urueta? The director Urueta?”
“Sure,” Tristán said. He reached into the cart and looked at the label of a pack of instant noodles that Montserrat had dumped there. “How do you eat this?”
“With a fork,” she said dryly.
“No, I mean how the fuck do you eat this? Shit, Montserrat, stop at the deli, get a slice of ham and a bit of cheese and make yourself a real lunch. No wonder your gums bleed. You probably have the nutritional deficiencies of a seventeenth-century sailor. Urueta invited you and me for dinner. We should get a bottle of wine for that.”
She shook her head and stared up at him. Even with her combat boots, Montserrat barely grazed Tristán’s shoulder. She mostly looked like a tiny, ferocious elf. A very shocked one at this moment, with her mouth open, awe and confusion overwhelming her.
“You’re serious?”
“Of course I am. You don’t eat right. I’ve told you a million times before, and then you complain that the dentist—”
“I mean about Urueta. You met him and he wants to have dinner?”
“Saturday.”
“When did you meet him? How?”
“A couple of days ago.”
She opened her mouth, closed it, opened again.
“I can’t go Saturday.”
“Why not? Don’t tell me you’ll be working. It’s insane how busy you’ve been lately. All of July and half of August you were cooped up in front of the monitors.”