Evenings at the Argentine Club (11 page)

J
aqueline poured coffee for both Victor and Victoria Sunday morning. They sat on opposite sides of the table, he behind his
newspaper, Victoria reading a book. Jaqueline might as well have been a servant for all the attention they paid her.

“How did the wedding reception go?” she asked.

“Fine,” Victoria said, glancing up from her book. “Thanks, Mami.” She began adding sugar to her coffee. “I should skip this,
but I can’t drink Argentine coffee black.” She added a little milk.

“A little sugar won’t hurt you.” Jaqueline sat beside Victoria. “That Mexican musician, Hugo, called again wanting to perform
at the club. I wonder how we can fit him in.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow. “Coming around, are you?”

Jaqueline liked the man. She wanted to help him out. But she shrugged. “Our events calendar is so full, I don’t know how we’d
work it out.”

“Just choose one of those boring Sunday get-togethers and turn it into a Mexican Day celebration. We could invite three or
four different acts. Would be fun.”

“Maybe,” she said. She glanced at Victor who was still to say more than “morning.” “You want some toast, Viejo?”

“No.” He put the paper down and stood. “I’ve got to go open the restaurant. I’ll see you at the club later.”

Jaqueline knew something was wrong but wasn’t sure what. He was even more distant than he normally was. She placed a hand
on his arm. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine.” He offered her a peck that was so different from the kisses they’d once shared. She wasn’t even sure why she noticed
those things lately. It had probably been years since they’d been truly affectionate with each other.

The phone rang and Jaqueline answered it. “Hello, Eric. Yes, she’s here, but she’s going to work with her father now.”

Victoria glanced up. “No, I’m not. Is it for me?”

Jaqueline held her hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s Eric.”

Victoria stood. “I’ll take it.” She reached for the phone. “Eric, hi. Yes, I’d love to. Where? I’ll be there in half an hour.
Okay. See you.” She took another drink of her coffee, then took the cup to the sink and washed it out. “I’m going to breakfast
with Eric. See you later, Mami.” She walked past Victor without saying good-bye to him or discussing if she was going to stop
by the restaurant.

Victor turned away and left.

With a sigh, Jaqueline cleaned up the spotless kitchen table. She glanced at the white board on the refrigerator where she
kept the schedule for the day. Not so long ago, it would have been packed with obligations. PTA meetings, laundry, bank runs
for Victor, take Carmen to soccer practice, Victoria to art class, shop for groceries, cook, volunteer at the Argentine Club.
There was never enough time to do it all. Now time seemed to stretch out in front of her in an endless emptiness.

After neatly organizing the receipts for July expenditures—now that the month was over—into a file for the Argentine Club,
she had the rest of the day open. She went to the bathroom and opened the makeup drawer. She gazed in the mirror, wondering
when her smooth, creamy face had begun looking so thin and creased with wrinkles. She applied some makeup to cover what lines
she could. On her tired, lifeless brown eyes, she dabbed firming cream to refresh tired lids. A little shadow, and some lipstick.
Then she brushed her hair and teased it into the same bell shape she’d worn for twenty-five years.

She gazed at the reflection, barely recognizing the woman she’d become. She wondered if Victor felt the same way when he looked
at her. If he asked himself,
Who is this woman that I have to come home to every night?
She went into her bedroom and dressed for the day in a pair of brown slacks and an olive green blouse.

Finally ready, she went to sit at the computer where she’d begun to visit the blogs and Web sites that kept her company during
the day.

Victoria drove to the shopping center down the street from Eric’s house. He said he’d be sitting at the outside patio of a
doughnut shop, and she spotted him right away, at a round table under a blue umbrella. She was grateful for an excuse to get
away from her father. Did he plan to ignore her the rest of his life? He was impossible.

Eric noticed her before she got to the table and stood. He kissed her on the cheek, as was the Argentine custom. Then he resumed
his place at the table. “I didn’t get you a coffee yet because I didn’t want it to get cold. But I bought plenty of doughnuts.”

“That’s fine. I brought my address book. We can divide up the names and start calling.”

“That’s what I like, a girl with a plan.”

She realized she hadn’t said hello properly or made any kind of chitchat at all. “I’m sorry. I’m… I decided to confront my
father last night about taking more control over the restaurant, because everything you said had been bothering me. And we
had a big fight. I barely slept, so I’m tired.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We could have done this another time.”

“No,” she shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I hate to ask, but what did I say to cause a fight?”

“Maybe it was more how I felt about doing exactly the same thing I’ve been doing since high school. Seeing you again made
me remember that I once wanted my own life.”

“Sorry,” Eric said again. He reached across the table and placed a hand over hers. “Victoria, there’s nothing wrong with staying
close to your family and doing what they expect you to do. I didn’t mean to criticize.… Part of me wishes
I
could have done that. You make me feel guilty as hell for my choices.”

She smiled. “I’m so glad we bring out the best in each other.”

“So what happened with your dad exactly?”

She told him the whole story. “I can’t go back to that restaurant,” she said. On a beautiful August morning like this, they
should have been discussing the get-together with friends, enjoying their coffees and the heavenly smells coming out of the
glass door every time a customer went in and out. Instead, she was unloading her irritations with her father on poor Eric.

He sipped his coffee, not looking at all bothered by her rantings. “Then don’t,” he said.

“What am I going to do? Even being at home is impossible.”

He bit into his fourth or fifth doughnut and watched her as he chewed. He swallowed, and said, “I have a suggestion.”

Victoria stared at the doughnuts, wanting one. “What?” she asked.

He pushed the bag of doughnuts across the table in front of her. “Help me with my flip.”

“Help you with your flip? What does that mean?” She pushed the bag back.

“I’ve bought a house I’m going to fix up and sell while I’m in town. I’m usually my own project manager, but I hire subs to
do a lot of the work. I need an interior designer. And I’ll need help with staging when I’m ready to sell. The crew I usually
use is in Austin. I’m putting together a crew here in LA. You can be my designer.”

“You’re offering me a job?”

“Not exactly. I’m suggesting you make me one of your new clients. Start your own interior design business.”

“I can’t start my own business.”

“Mmm,” he said, as he took another swig of coffee. “So your dad is right. You’re too stupid to run a business. Then go back
and be his errand girl for the next fifty years.”

“Shut up,” she said.

He grinned. “Want one of these?”

“Of course I do, but I’m on a diet. I need to lose weight.”

“Help me with my flip and I’ll keep you so busy you’ll lose tons of weight. What do you say? And if you want, you can move
into the house with me until we’re ready to sell.”

Now she laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“We haven’t even been out on a proper date together and you want me to move in with you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He kept his smile. “But what do
you
mean? Do you want to go out on a date? Should I have asked you out? I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

“I don’t. I mean, I wasn’t hinting at anything. I’m just saying that… I’m not going to move in with you.”

He shrugged easily. “I always live in the houses I flip. Mostly because I have nowhere else to live. But also because it makes
me finish faster and I start to get a feel of what the house needs.”

“I’ve lived with my parents for twenty-eight years and you think I can move out just like that.” Victoria snapped her fingers
in the air.

“That’s the way you do it. Swift and terrible. You’ll feel like a new woman.” He grabbed the bag of doughnuts, crumpled it
up, and tossed it in the trash. “Good willpower,” he said.

“That killed me. You can’t eat those kinds of things in front of me again.”

He nodded. “I’m all for getting healthy. But you know you look pretty damn cute the way you are, don’t you?”

“I look fat. And I don’t want to be cute. Carmen was always the smart one. I was always the cute one. I want guys to look
at me and say, ‘Man, she’s hot.’ ”

He raised an eyebrow. “Hot?”

“Think I can pull it off?”

He stood and cleared his throat. “Sure.” His eyes were bright with amusement. “Absolutely. Want to go see the house?”

Victoria figured she didn’t have anything to lose. “Why not?”

Eric walked her though the front yard, which was littered with trash and overgrown weeds. “First thing I’m going to do as
soon as we close escrow next week is get a Dumpster and start cleaning up. Then we can begin demo.”

Victoria carefully made her way through the junk. Inside, he pointed out the changes he wanted to make, taking her room by
room. “I’m going to completely gut the kitchen,” he said.

The place smelled like cats and urine. Damn. He wondered if a family of cats might be spending their nights in the house.
Victoria wrinkled her nose but didn’t comment on the smell as she examined the kitchen. “You definitely need new cabinets
and flooring. And I’d put in an extra window or maybe a skylight.”

He nodded. “Exactly. That’s where you come in. I’d like you to choose the cabinets. The flooring. Come up with the color scheme.
Suggestions on lighting. Then at the end, help me stage it so it looks good enough to sell.”

She walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, looking around at all the work that had to be done. “And if I do this,
I get paid when?”

“When we sell it.”

“What if you don’t sell it?”

“Of course I’ll sell it. I should make about a hundred and fifty thousand if the market doesn’t tank on me. I’ll give you
five percent.”

She raised an eyebrow. “How about fifteen?”

He laughed. And here he thought she’d be impressed with five. “Ten.”

She narrowed her eyes. “This seems very risky. How do you live like this? You might make way less than what you project.”

“True. When I started, I had quite a few flips that ended up making me peanuts. But I’ve learned. I got this house at a good
price. I know exactly what to put into it to turn it around at a good profit.” He walked up beside her, and placed a hand
on her shoulder. “What do you say? Are you in?”

She gazed at him, then tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Her pulse skipped like crazy. “Oh God, Eric, what am I doing?
I should go back and apologize to my father. He needs me now that he’s starting this major business expansion.” She raised
her head and looked him in the eye. “He’s worked his whole life to pass his business on to me and my sister. Carmen doesn’t
want it.”

“And you do?”

“No, but how can I walk away from him? And for what? To help you flip houses?—No offense.”

“Vicki, this has nothing to do with me. I just happen to know you enjoy being creative, and you have a talent for decorating.
And I need someone to be my interior designer.” He lowered his arm and stepped in front of her. “I do understand your loyalty
to your father, but in the end, you have to be able to step back and ask yourself what you really want.”

Her dark eyes gazed deeply into his. “I envy that you were able to do that, Eric. Just leave everything behind, free to travel
and do what you like. But I’m not sure I can do that.”

“Don’t envy me,” he said. Sometimes when you blindly chased your independence, you got it. And he wasn’t sure if he’d ended
up losing much more than he’d gained. “Everyone thinks I’m an asshole.”

“No,” she argued, but she wasn’t very convincing.

He smiled. “It’s okay. I know what people have said. And I don’t blame them. I was supposed to go to college. Go to law school
in LA. And I abandoned everything and embarrassed my parents. That’s what everyone sees. So of course they’re judging me harshly.”
He stared into her big, understanding eyes. “And maybe they’re all right, and I was wrong. I could have been a big-time lawyer
and on my way to a great career. Instead, here I am hoping the whole real-estate market doesn’t completely tank and leave
me holding my… well, leave me in deep financial trouble.”

“So why did you leave? Why take a chance?” She asked as if she really wanted to know—as if his answer mattered.

He sighed. “The short answer is I just wanted to get the hell out of here. I wanted to see something different. I wanted to
make my own way in the world. And I had a passion for restoring houses, so I went for it.” He angled his head. He’d never
told this to a soul, and he hoped he wasn’t making a mistake by telling her, but it felt good to talk about his past decisions
to someone who knew him. “The extended answer is that even if I’d stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to continue on to law
school. My dad got into a bit of trouble financially and there was no money in my college fund by my third year at Claremont
McKenna. My mom doesn’t know any of this. She thought my dad had been saving for twenty years. But he’d never made enough
for law school so he invested what he had, hoping it would magically grow into thousands, and things hadn’t worked out like
he’d hoped.”

“Invested?”

“Aggressively.”

“That’s too bad, but you could have gotten a scholarship if—”

“If I really wanted to be a lawyer. But I didn’t. So I used that as an excuse to quit. Pissed my dad off big-time and hurt
my mom when their only son thumbed his nose at parental goals and traditions. So now… ” He shrugged and walked across the
room, then sat on a window ledge. “I’m stuck doing the only thing I know how to do. To those looking at me from the outside,
I became a bargain hunter and a gambler.” He watched her. “But I’m doing what I love.”