Chapter 7
Zavier invited Dulce to come with him to the capital. She was excited to go, as she hadn’t been there since she was a kid. But on the way, they couldn’t agree about temperature controls: she liked A/C and he liked fresh air, so they rode down the highway with the windows open and the air conditioning running full blast. With the blowing air, it was hard to talk, so he played the radio. Mostly merengue, salsa, and the occasional Latin rap.
When they finally parked the car, she asked out of nowhere: “Are you married?”
He busted out laughing. “Excuse me?”
“I had to ask,” she said. “I mean it’s our second date, and I didn’t want to find myself in some kind of don’t ask don’t tell situation.”
“Not married,” he said. “Not cohabitating with anyone. No girlfriend. Haven’t been on a date in a while. Big crush on Delia Borbón. I do have a picture of her on the inside of my closet door. The one from that action movie she did back in the day where she played the journalist. That’s about all I got.”
Dulce laughed. Everybody knew that iconic pose.
The two of them stepped out of the car.
“How about you?” he asked. “No boyfriend?”
“I was seeing someone in Miami,” she said. “But that’s over. It’s part of why I left.”
She didn’t say, the other part was that he was trying to kill me.
“Okay,” he said. “Looks like we’re just two single people out here on a date.”
She hooked her hand through his arm. “Two single people.”
* * *
They went sightseeing around the capital like tourists. They held hands and ate ice cream. A woman came by selling flowers and he gave Dulce a bright bouquet. He was handsome, and so sweet. It was obvious that he really liked her. But it felt like something was missing. Not exactly sex. When he stood pressed close to her in a crowd, she could tell that he was turned on.
“When are you coming back to New York?” he asked. “Today can’t be our last time seeing each other.”
What could she tell him? New York still wasn’t safe? Her pimp was dead, but his brother might still be looking for her?
“I don’t really know,” she said. “When are you coming back to Santo Domingo?”
“If you’re not coming back to New York,” he said. “I’ll find a reason.”
On the one hand, she was excited to see him again. But at some point he’d ask her more about her past, and what would she tell him? In Miami she’d been a mistress? In New York she’d had a pimp?
“So tell me about yourself,” she said. “You’re what? Twenty-two, but already a serious journalist?”
“I was in college, and I wrote a piece that got in the NYT ‘Lives’ column. Then they sort of recruited me. You know, ‘we got all these old white guys. Let’s have this young brown guy.’ So they gave me an internship. Unpaid, of course. So I did that, plus school full time, and worked graveyard at a printing company.”
“When did you sleep?”
“On the train,” he said. “Besides, sleep is overrated.”
“No,” Dulce said. “Sleep is wonderful. It’s good for you, too.”
“I’d like to sleep with you,” he said.
Dulce raised her eyebrows.
Zavier shook his head. “That came out wrong,” he said. “I don’t mean sex. I mean sleep. There’s something about you that makes me feel . . . I don’t know. Peaceful? Connected?”
“You trying to say I’m putting you to sleep?” Dulce asked.
“Not at all,” Zavier said. “Being with you makes me feel calm inside. And I guess it shows me that maybe I need more sleep than I thought. Like how I just knocked out in the water. I coulda drowned, but I don’t know. I just trusted you. My body was like . . . ahhh . . . I’m safe . . .”
“You make me sound like somebody’s grandma,” Dulce said. “Putting them down for a nap or something.”
“No, Dulce,” he said, leaning toward her. “You’re not like anybody’s grandma. More like somebody to come home to.”
He was holding her hand now, leaning toward her. His eyes were locked on hers, like he was trying to see into her.
Dulce felt suddenly sick to her stomach. He didn’t know her. Did he think she was some sweet little hick from the boonies in the Dominican Republic? This girlfriend thing couldn’t work. Maybe it was safe to go back to New York. But even then, she might run into one of the many men she’d fucked. For money. Or even one of the boys she’d fucked in high school. Just because they asked and she was that desperate for somebody to notice her. She couldn’t play house with him in Santo Domingo, when they had no real future. She was stuck here at her aunt’s house. Maybe they could have some fun, but this “come home to” shit was not even on the table.
She couldn’t let him in, because one day it’d come crashing down. The light he had for her in those eyes would go out. And that would fucking crush her.
She gave him a sudden smile. “I need a drink,” she said. She ordered one, downed it, and ordered another.
He suggested that they go to a discoteca and dance. She was just about to say yes when her phone rang. Dulce glanced at it quickly and then paused.
It was the businessman from Miami. She had put his name in her phone. Phillip Gerard.
“Excuse me,” she said to Zavier. “I should take this.”
She stood on the sidewalk in the front of the restaurant. There was a band playing merengue half a block down. She put her finger in her ear and asked the businessman to speak up.
“I’m here in Santo Domingo,” he said. “Did you get my text?”
Dulce looked at her phone. He had texted a picture of his suite. Probably a five-star hotel. Dulce felt a mixture of emotions. She didn’t know shit about how to be a girlfriend. But she definitely knew how to come when a powerful man called.
“Sounds good,” she said. “But I’m with my cousin.”
“I’ll come get you,” he said. “Tell him I’m your uncle on the Cuban side.”
She couldn’t have said whether it was the five-star hotel, or the entitled way he directed her, or the fact that he was just a wealthy man. But the next thing she knew, she was telling Zavier that her Cuban uncle had called. And her aunt wasn’t doing so well. She needed some urgent medical treatments, and her uncle was going to come pick her up.
Zavier’s eyes were concerned. He took her hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
“She’ll be okay,” Dulce said. “But I ougtta be there.”
“You’ll miss the interview with Ibeyi later tonight?” he asked.
“Damn,” she said, recalling the Cuban singing duo that would have been her first celebrity interview.
“Family comes first,” he said.
“Right,” Dulce said. “Family.”
And then, without even realizing it was coming, Dulce started to cry.
Zavier came around the table and put an arm around her. Which only made her cry harder.
The more he was kind and concerned, the worse she felt. Like he was showing her every bit of his sweetness she could never have.
And then Dulce was waving goodbye to Zavier, as she walked toward the businessman’s Mercedes.
And Zavier just waved back, a frown line of concern between his eyes.
Before they had even taken off in the car, the businessman’s hand was on her thigh.
She was wiping her eyes.
“Nice touch with the tears,” he said. “Way to sell it.”
She resisted the urge to look back at Zavier.
“Let him go,” she told herself. “That was never really going to happen.”
She took a deep breath and inhaled the new car smell. New luxury car. She looked at the leather and wood upholstery, she touched the luscious fabric of his suit. She felt the purr of the engine beneath and all around her. She had made the right choice. The only real choice for a girl like her.