“Felicidades on the munificence of your bosom.” Rudolfo glanced down with discretion.
“You once thought them pancitos,” Valentina said.
“Because they were soft like bread rolls,” Rudolfo said.
They laughed loud enough to draw the attention of her mother and the lady chaperones, las damas sitting in a row of gilded chairs.
Rudolfo had grown into the kind of man that mothers wished their daughters would never meet—at least not until they were their husbands’ responsibility.
“I’ve often dreamt about that time in the garden, except that in my dreams you always look like you do tonight,” Rudolfo said.
That time when they were still children, Valentina had wandered away from Dalia and sneaked into the grand garden with Rudolfo. A strand of her waist-length hair caught on a branch, and Rudolfo reached out to loosen it.
They’d ducked behind a tree, where Rudolfo had considered Valentina’s girlish breasts the way her mother considered the family’s daily bread.
“They’re small,” Rudolfo said.
“Maybe they’ll grow.” Valentina looked down at her chest.
“Maybe,” he said, the way Valentina’s mother would say to the peddler, Are you sure el pan was baked today? It doesn’t look very fresh.
“Touch them,” Valentina said.
Rudolfo patted them.
“They’re not pancitos.” She took his hand. “Like this.”
“Pull up your skirt, Valentina,” Rudolfo said.
“Pull down your pants first,” Valentina said.
He cradled his penis in his palm.
“It’s kind of small,” Valentina said.
“Touch it.”
She patted it.
“Like this.”
It sprang like a snake in her hand.
“Would you like to lick it?”
“That dirty thing?” Valentina had run away, her giggles rising over the crowns of the trees.
The scalloped edges of the mantilla’s delicate lace framed Valentina’s face, a bit of it coming to a point between her brows and drawing attention to her dark eyes. She tried to hypnotize Rudolfo with her wide-eyed gaze. Maybe he would rescue her from her fate with Juan Moscoso.
“Let’s walk in the garden,” Rudolfo said.
“I’d rather go to Spain with you,” she said.
“It’s all been planned by the family, the people I am to meet, the places I must see,” Rudolfo said. “Spain, Italy, France.”
“I could go with you if we were married,” Valentina said. “To Spain, Italy, France.”
“If only you could,” Rudolfo said. “But don’t worry, we’ll get married the moment I return.”
“Why not marry me now? We needn’t wait.” Mamá would say that she would be a tonta to wait for Rudolfo, who already had a reputation among the ladies as a picaflor. And why not? He was young, from buena familia, and could charm a coquí from forgetting its nightly chant.
He laughed; Mamá clacked her fan in warning.
“You’re still so impulsive,” Rudolfo said. “Four years will go by fast.”
“For you.” How dare he laugh at her!
Rudolfo whispered in her ear, “Will you wait for me?”
But Valentina knew how their story would end. After their parting, proof of his honorable intentions would arrive on every Spanish ship that came to port. He would write in detail about what he had seen and the people he had met and how he could not wait for them to become husband and wife. Soon Rudolfo’s infrequent letters would prove that his affection had faded, until there were no more letters and she would have to accept that his destiny was in Europe, while hers was not.
“Let’s go into the garden,” Rudolfo said. “Let’s make a memory to last four years.”
He was so confident that she would agree to such madness.
Annoyed, Valentina glanced around the room; her gaze fell on Vicente for the first time.
“Who is that with Dalia?”
“Nadie,” Rudolfo said. “Some third or fourth cousin. His father is a coffee farmer.”
“A coffee farmer.” Valentina repeated it with a slight sneer in the way of townspeople when they talked about country folk. Still, the stranger was nice looking. In one French romance she had particularly liked, the handsome farmer murmured chérie, chérie as he made love to the French mademoiselle in a field of lavender. Valentina had spent many a satisfying hour lying with a handsome farmer on a bed of purple flowers.
“We’ll go over the first bridge, past the marble fountain with the bathing Greek goddesses, by the giant coconut palms,” Rudolfo said. “No one will find us there.”
How dare he continue to make such inappropriate propositions! Valentina noticed the farmer cousin looking at her. The waltz ended and Rudolfo reached for her hand to lead her into the garden. Every Spanish lady had a fan tied by a ribbon to her wrist, and Valentina flicked hers open with a loud clack.
“I must decline your kind invitation, caballero, pero merci.” Valentina peered at Rudolfo over the silver-painted parchment paper. “Bon voyage, Rudolfo, and when you’re in Paris, please say bonjour for me.”
Dalia’s third or fourth cousin wasn’t as tall as Rudolfo, but he was tall enough. Rudolfo was the better dancer, renowned for his skill at the popular European dances, el vals y la polca. When Valentina and the farmer waltzed past las damas, the mothers and grandmothers and maiden aunts, the furious flick of her mother’s fan warned her to take care.
Her partner didn’t speak for several minutes and Valentina bemoaned her bad luck—first the humiliating dances with the old man Juan Moscoso, then the disappointing ones with Rudolfo, and now this mute farmer!
“Strawberries,” the farmer said.
“What?” If only he wouldn’t mumble, if only he would speak up!
The farmer said, “Did anyone ever tell you that your eyes shine like roasted coffee beans?”
They meant only to look up at the stars from the veranda, but the scent of orchids lured them into the garden and soon they were enveloped by coconut palms. Las damas de noches opened their white petals for the moon, and the moon mistook the silver embroidery on Valentina’s dress for stars. The owl called out to its mate over the chanting of the coquís. Their hands met as they walked deeper into the garden. The rustle of Valentina’s skirt was the sound of the breeze when it skips over leaves.
Valentina held onto the lapels of his jacket when they kissed under a coconut palm. She learned that she liked kissing.
“Vicente Vega, a la orden,” he said.
“My name is Valentina, I’m almost eighteen,” she said. “How old are you?
“Twenty-one,” he said.
“Do you have a mujer?” Maybe he’d left a woman in the countryside.
“No,” he said. “Do you have a husband?”
“Un viejito wants to marry me,” Valentina said.
“An old man? That would be a crime,” he said.
“You’re not from Ponce.”
“I live in Utuado. We’re coffee farmers,” Vicente said. “We grow the best coffee in the world.”
“You do?”