Chapter Nine
Both Kathy and Olivia were staring at Elise in wide-eyed shock. Kathy recovered first. “You didn’t go to bed with him?”
“No. And now I deeply regret it.”
“I know all about regrets,” Olivia said. “If I’d only said or done what my heart told me to, I would have had a lifetime of...of happiness.” She looked at Elise. “What was your excuse?”
“Guilt. Kent was working so hard. For me. At least I thought he was. But I was playing around with the gardener and...” She shrugged. “Maybe I was afraid of the intensity of what I felt for Alejandro—and I didn’t know if I actually liked him or just lusted after him.”
“Did you find out?” Olivia asked.
“I think so.” She swallowed. “No, that’s not true. The lust I could handle. Whether I did or didn’t go to bed with him, that was cut-and-dried. But liking him, maybe even...” She paused. “Maybe even loving him was what I couldn’t bear.”
She looked at them. “I knew Alejandro was right. We came from two different worlds. It’s romantic to say ‘We’ll live on love’ but it’s not very practical.”
“I know about the struggle to pay the bills,” Olivia said. “Sometimes money becomes the number one thing in life.”
“Hmph!” Kathy said. “With a father like mine and married to his clone, I’m well aware of the importance of money.”
“After the time in my closet, I began to think about what I was doing.”
“I wish I’d been that smart with Ray,” Kathy said.
“At the time I didn’t feel smart. I felt cold and calculating. I thought about the truth of divorcing Kent and running away with the beautiful Alejandro. Then what? I have no job skills so I didn’t think I could help financially. And forget the money, there were our families. My family would disown me for sure. And I can’t imagine that his family would accept me. One of us was going to have to give up his or her entire life, friends and family, places, everything! For one of us, all that we knew would be taken away. When I looked at it, I could only see it ending badly.”
Elise put her hands over her face. “I felt awful about my thoughts, but all I could see was that Alejandro and I would come to hate each other—and it would be my fault.”
“So what did you do?” Kathy asked.
“I knew I had to end it with him. Stop it before the word love was spoken.”
Elise looked away and squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to stop the tears. “I made all these decisions before we finished the herb garden. It was so cute. Very simple with its little gravel paths and the birdbath in the middle. We had such a good time doing it! He and I went to the nurseries to buy the plants. We had glorious, wonderful, divine days of laughter while riding around in Diego’s old truck. There was no AC, and the wind whipped in through the open windows. We’d arrive at a nursery sweating and happy.”
Elise took a moment to calm herself. “We enjoyed each other. That’s my highest compliment. We never ran out of things to talk about, and we slipped in and out of Spanish and English until it seemed like we had our own language.”
She looked at them. “Everything was fun. It was all so easy. I’d never had that with Kent. With him, a dynamic was set up when we were children. He was the older one, and therefore smarter, more knowledgeable, and infinitely wiser. I was the little girl who looked up at him in adoration—and kept her mouth shut.”
“But you and Alejandro were equals,” Kathy said.
“Yes. We agreed on fundamentals, things like...” She put her hands up. “I don’t know how to explain it, but we were the same.”
“I know what you mean,” Olivia said. “Kit and I were like that. Every idea one of us had, the other one liked it.”
“Exactly! We’d go into a nursery, separate, and twenty minutes later we’d meet and both of us would have a wagon full of the same plants. Diego got sick of us. One time he tried to stick his nose into what we were doing. He said we needed to plant some red flowers around the border. I told him no, that I wanted blue. Later, Alejandro said he’d told his brother the exact same thing. Diego threw up his hands and said we were both crazy.”
Elise looked away. “It was all too good. Too perfect, too wonderful. And I realized that I had to stop it.”
“While you still could,” Olivia said.
“Yes. When the garden was finished, we looked at each other and I knew he was thinking what I was. What was our next project to do together? But I’d already decided what I had to do.”
“And that was?” Kathy asked.
“To end it in a way that there would be no mistaking what I meant.” Her voice lowered. “I was horrible. I was a monster. I was...”
Olivia squeezed her hand. “Tell us.”
“I said, ‘Thank heavens that is finally done. Now I can do something worthwhile. See you around, Alejandro.’ Then I turned my back on him and walked away.”
“How long did you cry?” Olivia asked.
“Off and on for a week. I tried to give my attention to Kent. I asked him out on a date. Cooked for him. Tried to entice him into sex.”
“While you imagined being with Alejandro?” Kathy suggested.
“I wanted to do that, but in bed, Kent was so fast that I didn’t like to think that’s how Alejandro would be.”
“Is this when the red bikini and the binoculars came into play?” Olivia asked.
“Yes. I wouldn’t allow myself to be near him, but I watched him from behind the curtains. I saw his muscles play against each other, saw him spray himself with water.”
“I assumed he knew you were watching,” Olivia said.
“Oh yes. He weeded the flower beds in my line of sight twice a day. And I began swimming.” Elise gave a one-sided smile. “In a tiny bikini. Not a string really, but close to it. And to make sure I looked good, I went to the gym every morning. I’d seen Alejandro looking at my legs so I did a lot of legwork.”
“And he watched you?” Olivia asked.
“Yes. There’s a big hedge that surrounds my parents’ pool, and one day when he came around it, I was sitting on the end of the diving board. I pretended I didn’t see him. I’ve always been good in the water so I stood up, walked to the end, ran down the board, and did a perfect swan. I swam to the other side of the pool and got out. I looked to the opening in the hedge but he was gone.”
“You’re cruel.” Kathy’s smile showed her delight.
“Young lovers are cruel to each other,” Olivia said.
“Did you two spend the rest of the summer pining over each other?” Kathy asked.
“No. Our separation ended when Kent and I had a fight. It was at the last of the summer and the air was growing cool. I was feeling very sorry for myself. I was a martyr. I felt that I’d given up everything for Kent, but I hadn’t received much in return. I’d begged him to please, please go away with me for a couple of weeks. Just the two of us, but he said he was too busy to leave.”
“Too busy with his other family,” Olivia said. “Been there, done that—except I certainly never begged Alan to spend more time with me.”
“And I never asked Ray to go away with me.” Kathy shuddered at the thought. “He needs lots of action, lots of people. Go on. What happened?”
For a moment, Elise and Olivia stared at her. This wasn’t the impression that Ray had given them. He had insinuated that Kathy wanted to be near her husband every minute of every day.
“What happened?” Kathy repeated.
“I blew up,” Elise said. “Maybe it was because I knew that in a few days Alejandro was returning to Mexico. Diego didn’t need him in the winter, so Alejandro was going home.”
“You might never see him again,” Olivia said.
“That’s what was bothering me. I may have met a man I could love, but he might leave my life forever.”
“Could love?” Kathy said. “Sounds to me like you were heart and soul gone to him.”
“Maybe,” Elise said, “but nothing had changed. I thought about jumping in bed with him, but if I did that, I was afraid that later, after he left, I’d be in even more pain.”
“Some pain is bearable,” Olivia said. “And I think you could have lived with that one.”
Elise nodded. “After all that’s happened and what I know now, I deeply and truly wish I’d sat on his face.”
Kathy’s and Olivia’s laughs deepened and it cleared the air of misery. “So what did you do?” Kathy asked.
“I got angry at Kent and said that he’d spent the whole summer working and I never saw him.”
“And his reply?” Olivia asked.
“He gave me a very hard look and asked me what had happened to make me so needy.”
“Yeow! A bit too close to home,” Kathy said.
“It was. I wanted to scream at him that I’d given up the love of my life for him and he was accusing me of being ‘needy’?”
“And you were,” Olivia said.
“Deeply so, but Kent did nothing to help me. He went off to work that day in anger. And that afternoon, he sent me a text. He said he was bringing home a dozen people for dinner and I was to serve something ‘special.’”
“Punishment,” Olivia said. “Plain, old-fashioned punishment. He’s the grown-up and you’re the little girl and you’re not to make demands on him.”
“You’re right. Yet all I wanted was his arms around me...and comfort. I think that if he’d given me that, then things could have healed between us. But he did nothing.” Elise took a breath. “I went outside, sat down on my little patio, and started crying. I think I was realizing how bad my marriage really was. I don’t think I was loud, but Alejandro heard me.”
Olivia and Kathy were smiling. “The arms you needed.”
“He didn’t touch me. He sat down on the end of the chaise and listened. When he heard about the dinner, he said, ‘Will you let Diego and me fix this?’ All I could do was nod.”
“They made dinner, didn’t they?” Kathy said.
“Yes. All the men who worked for Diego were his relatives and they’d all helped his mother. They took over my kitchen like they were professional chefs.”
“What did they make?” Kathy asked.
“Chicken cordon bleu.”
“I’ve made that,” Olivia said. “Flattened chicken fillets rolled around ham and cheese.”
“I had the chicken breasts in my freezer and while Alejandro thawed them in the microwave, Diego gave a grocery order to the men. We were soon chopping and stirring and tasting.”
“What about you and Alejandro?” Olivia asked.
Elise smiled. “It was like the barren months had never happened. It turned out that he was the cook. Diego was the manager. He told the men to set the table and get out serving bowls. Alejandro and I were at the stove and I followed his directions. It was...” She closed her eyes for a moment. “It was wonderful. All of us were working together and I was part of it. I got shouted at in two languages for doing things wrong—and each time, Alejandro told them in English to back off.”
“Because we have the best curse words,” Kathy said.
“And he can use them!” Elise smiled. “Fifteen minutes before Kent and the guests were to arrive, Alejandro told me to go get dressed for dinner. I was a mess and said I didn’t have enough time. He said that even one minute was more than enough time to make myself into the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Awwwww,” Kathy and Olivia said.
“And he told me to wear red—but more of it than I usually did. Meaning—”
“Your tiny red bikini,” Olivia said. “I like your Alejandro.”
“Me too,” Kathy agreed.
“The dinner party was lovely and delicious. I was in such a good mood that I was an excellent hostess. I entertained and fed them and made sure their wineglasses stayed full.”
“I’m curious as to how Kent reacted to this,” Olivia said.
“He didn’t like it. He was barely above a sulk all evening. And whenever anyone gave me a compliment, he made a snide remark, hinting that I was usually inept. He made it clear that what I’d pulled off that evening was quite unusual for me.”
“Any guest comments?”
Elise smiled. “Oh yes. They took my side. One of the women cut Kent a couple of times. She and I clinked glasses across the table. It was a magical evening.”
“All because of Alejandro,” Kathy said.
“That summer, every laugh, every good happening, was given to me by him.”
Olivia and Kathy looked at each other, then back at Elise. “Was that the last time you saw him before he left the country?”
“Oh no,” Elise said with a grimace. “The next day I managed to make him so angry I thought he was never going to speak to me again—or me him.”
“Anybody want more wine?” Kathy asked. “We may need it because I want to hear every word of this story.”
“Fill ’er up,” Olivia said. They leaned back to listen.