The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [75]
She still went to cocktail parties in the evenings. Of course, she could get any kind of beauty treatment done now for free. If anything, her look was now even sleeker, with the constant touch-ups. She received offers for dates, went on dates. She still handed out her card at cocktail parties, though less frequently.
A t first, I only knew that Isolde called me less. I called her myself, to find out if everything was all right. When I did see her, she seemed different. I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad, but I did notice that I felt more relaxed around her. She was less bubbly. You didn’t feel you had to muster the same energy.
Then it happened. One day at the beauty parlor, I noticed a new woman working. I saw the back of her head, shiny black shoulder-length hair. She turned. I saw only a sliver of her face, but I recognized her movement. Then she stood up and walked away. The walk. It was dizzying—it could only be Isolde.
But I held back my impulse to call out her name. Something was obviously going on. She was here in disguise, didn’t want to be discovered. I followed Vera into the little back room.
“There’s a new girl?” I asked.
“Yeah, an Austrian,” Vera said. “At first, she didn’t speak at all. She was very cold. But she learned quickly. She has a certain touch, and a stylish look, which Juana likes.” Vera smiled. “Now she’s changing, loosening up a little bit.”
The black hair actually looked great on Isolde, giving her a different air of sophistication.
When I came out of the waxing room, black-haired Isolde was coming right toward me, leading a woman to the pedicure area. We made eye contact. There was no way to avoid it. She started.
“Hey,” I said, softly.
She put her finger to her lips. I nodded. I was getting a pedicure with Vera. It was near the end of the day. When I finished and stood up to pay, Isolde walked by me again. “Wait for me in the café at the end of the block,” she whispered.
I did as she’d said. About twenty minutes later, she came in. This had been her nightmare, being discovered. But now that it had happened, she was matter-of-fact. She sat down and took her wig off. Her blond hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail, then looped up at the base of her neck. She pulled off the ponytail holder and shook it out. Watching her, I admired her practicality.
“So,” she said, “what are you doing all the way out here?”
I told her about the first day I’d come to look at the Riachuelo and how I’d met Vera.
“Now I come back to see her,” I said.
“Yeah, she’s nice,” Isolde answered. “She tells good stories.”
She seemed a bit tired. Her nails were freshly done. She looked up at me and smiled. Suddenly, the voice was back, melodious, the accent. “There’s an opening at Benzacar tonight, a new artist, should be interesting. Would you like to join me?”
“Sure, why not?” I said, both impressed and thrown, not least by the trace of irony in her eyes.
She glanced at what I was wearing. “If you come home with me now, you can borrow some clothes.”
I looked down at what I was wearing, an outfit that up to then had seemed perfectly fine to me. “Okay,” I agreed.
twenty-six
Night fell rapidly. Leonarda and I were prowling around. I flashed my teeth at her in the dark.
“I think it’s time to tell you,” I said.
“Tell me what?”
“What I’m doing here.”
“What do you mean, what you’re doing here?”
“Well, I actually work in intelligence,” I said.
“Ha-ha. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. And that’s coming from someone stupid.”
“Think about it. Why else would I be here?” I countered.
This seemed to hit home. Her weak spot, the national inferiority complex. Why would anyone come to Argentina?
Cars were