The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [44]
He danced around again, as I poured out the wine.
“This is what I’m learning,” Gabriel said. “The problem is that people think sex is one thing. Like you have to figure it out or something. When it’s not. It can be anything. Whatever you want it to be.
“I mean, just look at the johns. They really know what they want. There was this guy—Oh, wow, that’s right”—his face opened up—“there was this guy in my elementary school. You know what he did? He would get us to come into the bathroom. He was older, like thirteen or fourteen, we were nine or so. He’d be lying there on the ground with his arms out, palms up, and he’d get us to step on the palms of his hands with our bare feet. He had his eyes closed. Then he would pay us, three pesos.”
I had handed him a glass of wine. “Isn’t that awesome?”
“Yeah, great scene.”
“That’s what I admire. That guy knew exactly what he wanted.”
He wiggled his butt a bit more, dancing. “I can’t help it,” he said. “I feel like I have a motor in my butt. Oh, but wait—” He stopped moving. “How’s the hunt going?”
“Good,” I said. “It seems we’ve got him cornered.”
“Are you serious? The great man?”
I nodded. “He’s enthralled with her. You should see the way he acts. Like he puts an apron on and cooks for us.”
“Really?” Gabriel paused. He seemed to be marveling. “Now, I’d like to see that.”
fifteen
I solde woke, heart pounding, thinking of Diego. She had to see him, it couldn’t wait. They’d met a few times since the time they’d kissed on the grassy slope of the Plaza San Martín, meetings that had been both tantalizing and frustrating. There had been people around. They’d only had a moment. Once, in a cab, on the way home from a dinner with a group of people, he’d lifted up her skirt and moved his fingers up her thigh, then licked both her nostrils. Impulsive, she’d put her hand on his crotch, too soon, it was clear. “Whoa,” he’d said, moving away.
The way to reach Diego was through e-mail. You were much more likely to get a response than if you called. It was nine in the morning, early for Buenos Aires. Isolde bypassed her regular café and went directly to the locutorio on the corner. She’d written him yesterday, frustrated. It would be different if there were something blocking them being together, like he was married or even just with someone, but that was not the case. She checked her e-mail. He hadn’t answered.
The locutorio was gradually filling up. There was a boy crouched over a computer, watching YouTube. There was a woman in a phone booth, not even talking, just fixing her makeup in the mirror there. A student with a washed-out look on her face was writing a paper. A man sitting in front of a computer was talking nonstop on his cell phone. This seemed to be his office. He had papers taped up all around his cubicle. A row of four kids, nine or ten years old, were sitting side by side playing video games. A woman entered, looking rushed. She glanced over her shoulder. Isolde watched her. Wasn’t it clear to everyone that she was having an affair? She went into a phone booth and made a quick call, all the while glancing furtively around.
Isolde read her e-mails. Friends from Austria were getting married, having babies, changing jobs. She would still receive invitations to their events, and even to the events of people from college she hadn’t seen in years. One guy, who had briefly been a boyfriend of hers, had visited Buenos Aires five months ago. “But what are you doing here?” he’d asked. “You’re not doing anything !” he’d concluded with some derision. Now she thought of them all thinking of her like that, in Buenos Aires doing nothing. Their lives were going on and what about her? But she wasn’t necessarily jealous of her friends. Except maybe for one, who had married a British lawyer and moved to Sussex, they were all living normal lives, in Austrian cities and towns. In Uruguay last year, when she’d first arrived, she’d had a glimpse of something else for herself, something different,