The Argentina Rhodochrosite (15 page)

29

A distant sound pulled Ainsley back
to the surface of consciousness. She realized that the sound had been occurring for some time.

She flipped the blankets from over her face. The sound was coming from her phone. A few more seconds, then the message finally sank in.

Her phone was ringing.

She sent a groggy hand towards her nightstand, which scrambled around the surface until it found the device. Then she peeled open an eye and looked at the display. The number was unfamiliar to her. It must be Nadia.

“Hello?”

A man’s voice said, “It’s Sebastian.”

Ainsley was instantly awake. “Ah. The asshole who abandoned me in Villa 27 this morning.”

“I had to go. Ovidio was calling me, crazy like a goat, out of his mind. I couldn’t find you in the crowd.”

“So Ovidio is more important to you than my safety is.”

“Of course. He and I are like brothers. I just met you yesterday. I’m sorry, but that is the truth.”

She had to admit that at least Sebastian was being honest. She propped herself up against the headboard and twirled a piece of her hair.

“So how is he?”

Sebastian sighed. “This is the first minute I have had to myself all day. Only because the baby fell asleep.”

“He’s that bad?”

“Inconsolable. The whining, the crying, the shouting. I’m not a violent man, and I want to slap him.”

Ainsley stifled a laugh. It wasn’t hard to imagine Ovidio needing a lot of attention after his disaster of a political launch.

His voice grew serious. “So did you make it out okay?”

“Yes.”

The heavy silence during the pause between them. “No problems at all?”

“Nothing I couldn’t figure out for myself. Look, don’t worry about me. I’m good. Go take care of your infant.”

“I want to get together tonight.”

“That won’t be possible.”

“Why? What are you doing?” He sounded offended.

“Going out.”

“With who?”

“That’s not your business.” She was enjoying the flirtation, the push-and-pull. It’d been a long time since any man had wanted to win her affections.

Sebastian sighed. “I will not stop bothering you until you see me again.”

“I’m sure you will. You’re an Argentine man.”

“
Sin vergüenza
,” he said.

“Of course.”

“So I will call you later, after you change your mind about tonight. Which will happen, I have no doubt.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a woman.”

“Goodbye, Sebastian.”

“See you in a few hours—”

Ainsley hit disconnect. She glanced at the time. It was only six pm. She’d slept a little more than two hours. More was needed.

She slid down into the sheets and pulled the pillow over her head. She was nesting, trying to find her happy place. It was a mission that felt even more difficult than her current one.

What felt like an instant later, a distant sound pulled her back into consciousness. She flipped the pillow off her head.

It was her phone again.

She glanced at the clock again. Only twenty minutes had elapsed. Goddamn Sebastian. He really was a pest. She’d made it clear that she was trying to sleep, and here he was purposely trying to interrupt her.

She picked up without looking at the display. “I am going to rip your
huevos
off for waking me up. I told you I was sleeping.”

A man’s voice said, “It’s Gabriel.”

Oh Christ. Nadia’s assistant. She closed her eyes in embarrassment.

“Gabriel. Please forget that comment.”

His reply was serious. “My girlfriend likes my
huevos
, so I would appreciate it if you let them be.”

“Let’s start over. Hello?”

He played along. “Ainsley, it’s Gabriel. Nadia said you need an experienced tango dancer to go out with you tonight.”

“I do. Did she find one?”

“No, but I did.”

“Who?”

“My mother.”

A smile hit Ainsley’s face. She almost dropped her phone. “Is she anything like you?”

“Nothing at all. She’s attractive, informed, and responsible.”

“Then I’d be enchanted to go.”

“So would she. Her best friend is laid up with a bad back for the next few months, so she’s dying for company anyways.”

“Let her know I can’t dance.”

“Neither can she.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Neither does she, but trust me, she can’t dance.” Gabriel suddenly shouted. “Ah, ah, ah,
mama
, sorry!” To Ainsley: “She’s standing right here and didn’t like that comment. Oh, she has one question for you.”

“Go ahead.”

Ainsley could hear a woman’s voice speaking. “She wants to know if you have the right shoes for tango.”

Ainsley thought about her closet. The only shoes she owned here were a pair of workmanlike boots and the cheap heels she’d bought last night.

“Not really. We might need to go shopping.”

“That’s what I thought. Okay, this means we need to move fast. It’s six-thirty right now. We’ll meet you at eight o’clock at the Galeria Pacifico.”

“Okay,” Ainsley groaned.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m never going to sleep.”

“You can sleep when you’re old,” said Gabriel. “Right now you’re on assignment for us. Eight o’clock. We’ll buy you an espresso.”

Ainsley ended the connection and tossed the phone towards the end of the bed. She didn’t want to imagine what she looked like right now. But she could fix that, given an hour with running water and her makeup case.

What she couldn’t fix so quickly was her exhaustion. She rubbed her eyes and yawned once, like a wildcat waking from a nap. Then she rose from the bed and staggered towards the bathroom.

She could sleep when she was old.

30

Ainsley turned the shoes around in
her hands, admiring the craftsmanship.

She was in the shoe section of a department store at the Galleria Pacifico, the same deluxe shopping mall at the end of Calle Florida that she’d visited the previous night.

This time, she had company. Gabriel stood on one side, dressed in a black suit.

On the other side was his mother, Valentina. A stout but glamorous woman with a short mane of reddish-brown hair, she had embraced Ainsley like a longlost daughter. Her suffocating perfume announced her presence for meters in every direction.

Now she was giving Ainsley a crash course in tangowear. She snatched the shoes from Ainsley’s hands. “See, they’re leather on the bottom,” said the woman. “It’s better. This brand in particular is divine. Nothing else will do.”

Ainsley glanced at the price. It cost sixteen hundred pesos. That was four hundred U.S. dollars. “I don’t know,” Ainsley said. “I mean, this is only for one night.”

“Just buy them,” ordered Valentina. “You will never regret buying expensive shoes. You will only regret
not
buying expensive shoes.”

The woman had a point. Ainsley went over to the cash register and dutifully plunked down a small stack of hundred-peso notes.

She returned with her box inside a plastic shopping bag. “Now we eat before tango,” said the woman. “Always we eat before tango.”

“I’m famished,” said Ainsley. It’d been almost eight hours since she’d visited the
comedor
back in Villa 27.

“Good. Tonight we enjoy pasta,” announced Valentina.

“Why is it always pasta, mama?” said Gabriel.

“Because I need good pasta to dance. When your mama goes to the
milonga
,
che
, she doesn’t stop.” She slashed a heel in the air behind her calf, a flourish that Ainsley recognized as being very tango.

Gabriel laughed, presumably at his mother using the word
che
. The trio left the shopping mall, Valentina leading out front. Ainsley watched her make comments to passing strangers.

“How do you live with that?” said Ainsley.

“I’m quiet like a mouse,” he replied. “So she doesn’t see me.”

Ainsley understood why he was such an effective assistant. He’d grown up under the wing of a loud woman. Working for Nadia was probably easier than staying at home. At least he was getting paid.

Valentina led them to a local Italian restaurant, where Ainsley discovered that it felt almost exactly the same as local Italian restaurants did back in the United States.

There, over a dish of
linguini con funghi
, she listened to Gabriel’s mother discuss the tango. It’d been born in the brothels of the dock district, danced initially only by men. Slowly the dance spread through the city, through the
compadres
(friends),
compraditos
(show offs
)
,
guapos
(handsome men),
obreros
and
obreras
(laborers
)
, and
conventillo
(squalid city homes) dwellers. It became a worldwide name once the French, those famous arbiters of taste, accepted it in the 1920s. Only then did the elite of Argentina finally accept their own homegrown dance.

Ever since then, tango’s fortunes had been swinging up and down, depending on the government’s attitude. Sometimes it was demonized as a subversive activity, other times it was used to draw tourists. Currently, Valentina explained, it was stylish again.

“Why?” said Ainsley.

“Because nobody has money,” said Gabriel. “Tango is a cheap activity. You don’t have to import it.”

“But I never gave up on it,” said his mother. “I have always been faithful. Thirty years ago, nobody was dancing tango except me and a few hundred horny old men. You wait long enough in this life and you eventually gain credibility.”

Gabriel turned to her. “Mama, do you know this
milonga
we are going tonight? Malevos?”

“Do I know Malevos?” she said, offended. “I know it like I know my jewelry drawer. I haven’t been there in twenty years, but it used to be my favorite. It was very traditional then. They used the
codigos
.”

“What are those?” said Ainsley.

“The rules of a
milonga
,” she said. “There are many, many rules. Even the smallest movements carry importance. For example, a single nod of the head from a woman, and the man will approach for a dance.”

“The
cabaceo
,” said Gabriel.

“So I need to be careful about eye contact?” said Ainsley.

Valentina nodded vigorously. “If a man gives you a
cabaceo
, you must wait at your table for him to come over and collect you. Sometimes we misinterpret and steal another woman’s
cabaceo
. But always by accident.” She winked, which led Ainsley to believe that wasn’t true at all.

“That’s when things get ugly,” said Gabriel. Then he meowed. His mother slapped his shoulder.

Valentina glanced at Ainsley’s long legs. “I can already tell you that the
milongueros
will be looking at you.”

“Why me?”

“Because your long legs are made for the tango. They will want to see if you can dance.”

“Plus they already know the regular women,” said Gabriel. “Like mama.”

“Oh, I’m sure nobody remembers me there,” Valentina said. “It’s been twenty years. But they will know me by the time the sun rises tomorrow.” She lifted her glass of wine for a toast. “To the sunrise.”

The three of them clinked glasses. Ainsley realized that, if she stayed in Argentina, she wouldn’t sleep when she was old either.