Well, joke’s on me – two years of tolerating Semi-Literate César all because of his superstar athlete status at school and guess who gets dumped two hours after spattering his Spiderman sheets with the remnants of her hymen?
Think that first disastrous sexual escapade put Celia off sex, men or erotic adventurism? No le importó un carajo. In fact, seventeen-year-old Celia decided it was time to take her loins out on the town. She was determined to make up for that one disappointing notch in her belt. If Milagros is going to be the Virgin Mary of the family, then I’ll be its Mary Magdalene – before Magdalene gave up hooking. Maybe Abuela was right after all to think that thirteen-pound, tooth-endowed Baby Celia might have been the Anti-Christ.
Aunt Celia got a kick out of homing in on her targets at parties, ensnaring them with a come-hither stare and a shimmy of her legendary tits, then bedding them by the end of the night. It was shameless sexual adventurism, all about collecting experiences like she could stick them in a stamp book. That’s not to say she wasn’t aware of the risks of her libertine adolescent sexuality. She even shared one of the tricks she used to stop herself getting pregnant, the Prophylactic Pineapple.
All you have to do, according to Catalina del Valle, is eat three whole pineapples in one go if you get into trouble. Being the proactive young woman I am, I figure if I have half a pineapple a day, I’ll keep up a steady enough level of whatever pineapple magic keeps the bambinos away. Sounds like basic biology to me. And Milagros always says I’m no good at science – pfft.
Remembering Aunt Celia’s account of her pineapple bingeing (which eventually led to chronic diarrhoea) and her many scandalous conquests, my nerves were quelled, the drive went by quicker than expected, and before I knew it I was at San Fernando Hill, the hub of the Lit Festival. When I found my way to the right room, the other attendees were pretty much what I expected: artsy locals who eyed me in a way that said we see those labels stuck to your forehead, a few old folk grasping at their last possible opportunity to realize their literary dreams, and then a handful of wanderers like me. I call us wanderers because we all had the slightly confused, wholly insecure look of an illiterate who’s just wandered into a room full of highbrow writer types with high-strung attitudes to match.
An hour later, surprisingly satisfied with the lecture despite not quite grasping everything the British agent said because of her sharp nasal accent, so different from the lilting, sing-song Trini intonation I was used to, I stood skimming the parking lot for the Datsun. How is it that there are things as wondrous as stem cell cloning and artificial intelligence, but no one has figured out whatever cerebral hiccup is responsible for you invariably forgetting where the hell you’ve parked your car?
I shaded my eyes with my hand, sweat patches blooming on my mercilessly heat-absorbent black T-shirt, and slowly scanned the rows of second-hand Japanese cars. No Datsun. Still no Datsun. Then, as my gaze fell straight ahead of me: no Datsun. But Román.
He was leaning against a black jeep wearing a grey T-shirt and blue jeans, looking at me from behind dark sunglasses. For a couple seconds I was too stunned by the sight of him to move. Suddenly the sun felt hotter. I was more aware of everything. The sound of my own breath, the moisture on my upper lip, the sweat slowly slipping down the hollow of my lower back, the smell of brakes and hot concrete. I was having the same reaction as I would in the guy-walking-towards-you-on-a-dark-street scenario, but if the guy was, say, Brad Pitt (circa 2001).
The moment stretched itself out as endlessly as silly putty, Román looking at me silently with an unreadable expression, not a bead of sweat or an armpit stain on him to dilute his James Dean cool, until I got my shit together and made my way over, channelling Celia in a bid to keep any hint of blushing, hip-sashaying damsel at bay.
I came to stand in front of him. ‘What are you doing here?’
Amused, he tilted his head slightly at my question, a cat smiling at an interrogative mouse. ‘Someone in the family leaves Port of Spain, I have to make sure they’re not up to some kind of mischief, like popping into the San Fernando police station, for instance.’
Why did I want to smile back so badly? I tried holding my breath, anything to stop his pheromones working their chemical magic.
‘As you can see, I didn’t go to any police station, so you can trot on back to your boss now.’ Aunt Celia would’ve been proud of how convincingly bitchy I sounded. ‘Or maybe you should be scurrying off to check up on someone else in my family. How do you know they’re not all at police stations right now?’
Román wasn’t fazed. He started counting out my family members on his fingers. ‘Your father’s at the dentist having a root canal. Zulema’s at the beach with her colleague from the Colour Me Beautiful spa.’ He went on to say what each and every person was doing that day, rounding it off with: ‘And Alejandra told her father she’s going to a movie with a friend, but really she’s with Mikey Stollmeyer, who she’s been seeing after school for the last five days instead of going to her friend Rebecca’s house to study.’
He flashed his palms at me and shrugged: that’s my job, what can ya do?
I was horrified. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed.
‘Fine,’ I said, playing nonchalant. ‘Then you must’ve known I was at a lecture and not going to the police.’
‘I did know. A lecture with Lizzie Atherton, an agent at W&W.’
I swallowed, every heartbeat a horse’s hoof to my ribcage.
He pushed his sunglasses up onto his head. His pupils shrank in the bright light and I saw that his eyes were a mossy hazel. Of course. Couldn’t just be standard dirt-brown like more than fifty per cent of the global population.
‘I came here to have a word with you,’ he said.
‘About?’
‘You’re interesting to me.’ That unnervingly cool, even tone. ‘And I know I’m interesting to you.’
He took a step away from the car, lessening the space between us. We were close enough that if we were in a Harlequin romance, I’d say he smelled of sandalwood and leather. (He didn’t.)
I scoffed, shifting my weight and adjusting the strap on my laptop bag. But under his stare I was frost melting into wet, glistening dew.
‘Obviously perception isn’t one of your stronger skills,’ I bluffed. ‘Nothing about you is interesting to me.’
But he only laughed, a laugh that was unexpectedly genuine, warm. It took me off guard. Something about him – the laugh, his easy languidness – made me feel like a teenager flirting with a harmless bad-boy crush. Like I was still in control.
He took another step forward. We were much too close. The tension between us suddenly swelled into something so palpable it felt almost natural, like our respective roles of blackmail-enforcer and blackmailee had slipped off us to land in crumpled heaps on the concrete, leaving us in a bare state of unsheathed mutual attraction. I didn’t flinch when he reached a hand out to push my hair away from my face with the knuckle of his index finger. I even found myself fighting the urge to lean into it. The knuckle slowly grazed my jaw until it stopped beneath the centre of my chin and tilted my face upward. Keeping my chin lifted, Román pressed his thumb against my bottom lip, almost imperceptibly pulling my lips apart.