Broken Soldier: A Novel (17 page)

“He ran off, but I caught up to him, and we danced for a song.” Salome sniffled. “Then he started dancing with another girl, and when the song ended, he ignored me and stayed with her.”

“Maybe it was someone he knows.”

Salome nodded. “He does. They used to be... what is word?”

“Friends?”

“More than that.”

“Ah, I know what you mean, I think.”

Salome burst into tears. “It is because I am not pretty enough. And I am too big for him. ‘Rique said that he likes small girls.”

Emily slid an arm around Salome’s shoulder and hugged her. “You are beautiful, Salome. Any man that cannot see that is not only blind, but a fool, too.”

“No other boys have ever been as nice to me as ‘Rique. As he was until today, I mean.”

“Girl, there are a hundred lousy boys for every good one. How many have you dated?”

Salome shrugged.

So probably just the one, then. “Don’t worry about Enrique. Just be yourself and--”

“I cannot ‘be myself.’ I am not pretty. Did you see how he looked at Lorena? If I looked like her, then...”

“Never. Don’t compare yourself to people with different shapes. Not everyone can look the same. Women like Lorena, they sacrifice themselves on an altar of men. Their whole lives are about how they look. You are ten times as beautiful as she is.”

It took another ten minutes of pep talks, and then a few more minutes to help Salome reapply her makeup, but Salome eventually got herself pulled together and went back out to the reception. Emily stayed a couple moments longer, steeling her nerves to go sit with Bernardo again.

When she reached the table, Rafa had returned, but Lorena was with him. Emily stopped a dozen feet away, watching them through the crowd. Lorena had a chair pulled up right beside Rafa, and was whispering into his ear. He had an easy smile, as if her being so close wasn’t bothering him at all. Something about it seemed off. She couldn’t put a finger on what or why.

Emily strode forward, determined not to let Lorena drive a wedge between her and Rafa. As soon as Lorena caught sight of her, she scooted away. Emily’s radar started going crazy. An innocent person wouldn’t disengage like that.

Emily wondered if she was being crazy, but everyone at the table acted completely normal. “Good evening,” she said, sitting on the other side of Rafa. He couldn’t be falling in love with his ex, could he?

“You okay, Em?” Rafa asked. “Where did you run off to?”

“I went to find you. Where are the drinks?”

“Oh, damn.” Rafa pushed himself to his feet. “I got distracted and didn’t make it to the bar.”

He left her and Lorena sitting at the table together. Lorena looked her over and pursed her lips, but didn’t say anything.

Emily shifted uncomfortably. Something about that woman sent a shiver down her spine. She sat in a silence that made her skin crawl. Rafa returned a few minutes later, depositing a glass of red wine in front of each of them.

“I was talking to Lorena a few minutes ago,” Rafa said, “and I think that we are all going back to Yaya’s in a little while.”

Emily tried to act more enthusiastic than she felt. “Great.”

“Bernardo will be joining us, too, I think.” Rafa grinned.

Well, it could be worse, Emily thought. He could invite Enrique and Salome back to the house, too. Then Maria could watch two relationships explode. She drained the rest of her wine glass in one long swallow. It was going to be a long evening.

R
AFA 
kept both hands clenched on the steering wheel. Sporadic headlights flashed past in the other lane, but hardly anyone else was on the road in Yaya’s neighborhood so late. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he probably shouldn’t be driving, but Emily was in even worse shape.

She had sat quietly for most of the reception, draining glass after glass of wine, and when they’d finally decided to leave, she’d been so unsteady on her feet that he’d nearly been forced to carry her.

He looked over at her. She faced away from him, staring out the passenger window with glassy eyes. Something was up, but he didn’t know whether it was something he had done or if the wedding and reception had just been too much for her.

They drove home in silence. Rafa helped her out of the Land Rover and into the house. Laughter spilled from the sitting room. Bernardo, unless he was mistaken.

“They’re already here?” Emily asked, steadying herself on the kitchen counter.

“Sounds like it. Do you want to come chat for a while?”

She shook her head. “I think I’m going up to bed. I don’t feel well.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Go pay attention to your friends.” A trace of bitterness tinged her voice.

Rafa tried to lean in and give her a kiss, but she turned her head away.

“I’m tired, Rafa.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. Something was definitely wrong, but he didn’t know what it was or how to fix it, and the wine was making his head swim even more.

“I’ll help you upstairs,” he offered.

She shrugged, but didn’t do anything to discourage him when he followed her upstairs. She continued from the second floor to the third, to his surprise. He didn’t expect her to want to go to the garret room.

“Thank you for putting up with my family,” Rafa said. “They can be overwhelming.”

Emily stopped outside her bedroom door. “Yes, they can be. Good night, Rafa.” She ducked into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Rafa stood in the hall, staring at the door. He wanted to go inside, to hold her and to make sure she was really okay, but she seemed upset and he didn’t want to make it worse. The last thing he wanted to do was crowd her when she needed her space.

He trudged back downstairs and found Bernardo and Lorena in the sitting room. An empty bottle of wine lay tipped over on the coffee table, a second bottle open beside it.

“Rafa, nice of you to join us,” Bernardo said. “You get the little woman put to bed?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rafa stood in the doorway, hands on his hips.

Bernardo laughed. “Easy,
mano
, just asking if she is feeling alright. She did not look well.”

“Too many people.”

Lorena rolled her eyes. “Too many of the wrong people, you mean. She does not like us, Rafa. It is obvious.”

Lorena had one end of the sofa, and Bernardo had the only armchair in the room. There was nowhere to sit except next to Lorena, so Rafa tried to position himself as far from her as possible.

“I don’t think it’s that. She’s not Catholic. The mass and the reception were longer and more crowded than she expected.”

“I’m sure that was it,” Lorena said. “She seemed very overwhelmed. Perhaps life in Madrid is too fast paced for her.”

Bernardo nodded. “She is too timid.”

Rafa took a deep breath. He didn’t want a fight with Bernardo and Lorena. It was bad enough that he was bickering with Emily, and now his so-called friends were trying to stir up something?

“Look, I’m sorry that you don’t like her, but I do. More than like her. So she’s not going anywhere.”

Bernardo laughed. “See, what did I tell you? He’s thoroughly American.”

“Not a Spanish bone in his body,” Lorena agreed. “You have changed, Rafael.”

“Perhaps--” he tapped his artificial leg “--the Spanish parts of me were left behind in Afghanistan.” His brain felt clearer than it had in months, the fog of alcohol dissolved by an angry clarity. “I am more comfortable with who I am now than I ever have been in my life. Emily has helped me find myself, so to hear you two bad-mouthing her is not something I take lightly.”

He pushed himself back to his feet. “You’re both drunk, so I will not hold this conversation against you in the morning. You can stay here tonight, but I am going to bed.”

Fatigue hit him as he climbed the stairs to his room. He hadn’t expected everyone to be so hostile toward Emily, and it broke his heart that she had to deal with them. He pushed his way into his bedroom. It took an effort of will to strip out of his suit before collapsing onto the bed.

It felt like everyone in Spain was judging him and Emily both. He tossed and turned, unable to sleep, but too tired to stay awake, trying to reconcile the different parts of his life, the past and the present, the American and the Spanish. Finally, after what felt like hours, he slipped into a restless sleep.

#

The old instinct to rise early wasn’t one that Rafa particularly cherished, not when he woke with a hangover. Fifteen minutes showing, shaving and dressing later, and he was headed to the kitchen.

The smell of toast greeted him as he came down the main staircase.

“Morning, son,” Rafa’s father told him from the bar in the kitchen. He had a half-eaten piece of toast and the yolky residue of fried eggs on his plate. “You still want to go run that errand?”

Leave it to the old man to be the first person awake in the house. It wasn’t surprising, though. One didn’t make it to Brigadier General by sleeping late, not since 9/11.

“Yeah, I need to.
Mamá
still asleep?”

“Of course. Yaya is in her library, reading one of the books you bought her.”

“Let me grab a bite to eat and I’ll be ready.” Rafa made himself an omelet and washed it down with a cup of coffee. “Actually, I’m going to run upstairs and check Em. Then I’ll be ready.”

“Sorry about that, by the way. The room your mother put her in. I tried to talk some sense into her, but she still thinks of you like you’re her little boy.”

Rafa shrugged. What was he supposed to do, complain to his dad about his mother being a zealot? He jogged up the stairs, pausing once to adjust his prosthesis, and went to Emily’s room. The door was still closed, and his quiet knock didn’t elicit a response. He stood for a moment with his hand on the doorknob, pondering poking his head inside to see how she was feeling, but he didn’t want to wake her if she was still asleep. It was barely past 8:00 as it was.

He left the door closed and headed back downstairs. He had jewelry shops to visit, and he wanted to get it done early.

#

The house was still quiet when Emily woke. Morning sun streamed through the gap in her room’s curtains, bringing the throbbing in her head into ferocious clarity. She reached for her cell phone on the nightstand, nearly knocking it to the floor. Her hands were as shaky as her vision, and judging by the sour ache in her stomach, the morning was likely to get worse before it got better.

The phone told her it was 8:30. She roused herself from bed and grabbed some clothes. The only shower she’d used during her stay was the one down the hall from Rafa’s room, so she trudged that direction.

The house was just as dead on the second floor, though a faint scent of burnt bread wafted up from the kitchen. Emily paused and listened, but no sounds of conversation came her way. Maybe Yaya was up early while everyone else was sleeping off their hangovers.

Emily stopped in the hall outside Rafa’s room. The door was closed, but not latched. She knocked lightly. “Rafa, you awake yet?”

She pushed the door open and poked her head inside. His suit jacket lay across his still-made bed, as if he hadn’t slept in the room at all. Emily’s eyes narrowed. Had he passed out downstairs? That didn’t sound like the Rafa she knew.

She left her clothes on the bathroom counter and padded toward the stairs. A sound caught her ear. Laughter. A woman’s laughter. She edged toward one of the closed doors. Lorena’s voice came through, low and husky, barely audible, but Emily recognized that haughty tone just the same. Lorena was talking to someone, Emily wasn’t sure who. A man’s voice. Rafa?

Emily’s stomach contracted into a tight ball of sour wine. It couldn’t be. She edged away, mind racing. He had seen her to her room and then gone to bed with his ex? What, had he thought she wouldn’t wake up so early?

Fear and panic and frustration roared through her. She stumbled to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She wanted to scream. She wanted to puke. Instead, she turned on the shower.

She turned the faucets as hot as they’d go and stood beneath the hammering water. It was obvious what he saw in Lorena. Tall, thin, beautiful. A wit so razor sharp it cut anyone that came within a dozen feet.

Emily couldn’t compete with that. She wasn’t a model and she knew it. It had been foolish of her to ever think thank a man like Rafa could love her with her imperfections. Rafa belonged on a parade ground or on the pages of a magazine, not with her.

She dried off and did her hair, unwilling to completely admit defeat. A plan formed as she ran the blow drier. She would go downstairs and talk to Rafa. See how he really felt, and if he wanted to be with Lorena, that would be fine. She’d wish him well, and go back to Colorado alone.

When she emerged from the bathroom, the second floor hallway seemed longer and darker than ever before. She made it halfway to the door where Lorena had stayed, and then she heard it.

Squeaking bedsprings.

Emily closed her eyes, forcing herself not to cry. She rushed passed the door, trying not to listen, but hearing the moaning within, anyway.

She reached the stairs, fully prepared to race to her room and start throwing clothes into her suitcase, but Maria stood on the landing, frowning. The old bat was probably happy that Rafa had finally chosen Lorena. Funny how individual rooms weren’t required when he was sleeping with the woman his mother wanted him to have.

Maria saw Emily, and her frown deepened. Emily tried to dodge around her without saying anything, but Maria held up a hand. “Do you have a moment?”

Em nearly tripped. Really? The woman wanted to talk to her now? While her son was in the sack with that floozy?

“I would speak to you,” Maria said.

Emily cocked her head. Suddenly Maria’s English was perfect? “Sure. I was just going up to my room.”

“We can talk there.” Maria followed Emily upstairs. “How long have you known my son?”

“A few months.” It felt like a lifetime, though.

“Hmm. And you are serious about him?”

What kind of trap was this? Emily nodded, afraid to say anything for fear she’d say something that she’d regret.