That night we all went out to eat at an amazing Mexican restaurant Angela knew. Evidently she had told her parents that Mexican food was among the great cuisines of the world, and since they’d never tried it before they wanted to see if she was right.
“This is Oaxaca style, from the central south of Mexico,” Angela explained to her parents. “There are regional dishes and styles within Mexico, but this is my favorite.”
As a group, we seriously over-ordered, intending to share. I ordered the mole verde with chicken, and it was as good as I’d ever had. I tried some of the baby goat tacos that Mr Castro had ordered, but goat is just a bit too… flavorful for me. He seemed to enjoy them, though, so I guess that’s O.K.
We all passed food around, sampling a bit of this and a bit of that from each others’ plates, and as far as I could tell, everybody enjoyed the meal quite a bit.
It was a good thing dinner lasted for quite a while, since Mr Castro and I both enjoyed samples from the restaurant’s menu of top-shelf Mezcals. Neither one of us had any knowledge about the liquor, but we both gave it an honest try and enjoyed it maybe a little too much. I’d always thought of Mezcal as tequila with worms in it, so the complex, smoky flavors surprised me quite a bit. The restaurant’s version of a sommelier walked us through the origins of the spirit, switching fluidly from English to Spanish as he did so. We each ordered a flight, and I actually bought a couple of bottles of each of our favorites to take home.
Angela drove home, since she’d only had the one margarita and I was feeling a bit buzzed. In fact, Mr Castro and I wound up sharing the back row seats and continuing our conversation about Colombian rums, and their national drink, called aguardiente. He promised me he’d ship me some of his favorites when they got back home, and I told him I was looking forward to it.
“In the here and now, though,” I told him, “We should have ourselves a bit of a bourbon tasting,” so that’s what we did when we got back home.
I was dragging the next morning in my workout with Jody, but as he’d pointed out, when you’re tired and not feeling up to it is when you need to rise up to the task, so I didn’t grumble or complain, as much as my head hurt. After Jody and I were done, I did my now-usual two hours of weights in a ploy to beat myself into submission and work all the alcohol and metabolites out of my system. Richie came over to chat at one point, but I told him that I had no time to go for coffee- I had to get to the office right after my workout.
“I was up late last night drinking with my father-in-law,” I said, “and I’ve got an important meeting this afternoon.”
“So what are you doing here?” he asked.
“I need my workout to clear my head,” I explained.
“Yeah, I guess I can understand that. Wouldn’t want to go to any meetings where I had to plan the assassination of foreign leaders in a rough mood. It might set the wrong tone,” he said with a smile.
“See? You do understand,” I laughed.
At lunch time I called Emmy to ask how things were going at home.
“Angela took her family out to Universal Studios this morning,” she said. “It is nice and peaceful here.”
“You aren’t working in the studio?”
“No, there is another band using the recording studio today, so we have a day off,” Emmy replied. “I am using my time to work on some songs on my own. It is nice and relaxing,” she said, and I could hear it in her voice.
“Will they be home for dinner?”
“I do not know. I will text Angela and ask,” Emmy said. “How is your day going?”
“Good so far,” I said. “I was a bit unmotivated this morning in the gym, but after I got moving it was fine.”
“I am glad,” Emmy said. “It surprised me to see that you had gotten up early for your workout. I thought that after last night you would want to sleep in.”
“Believe me, I did, but I’d told Jody I’d be there, so there was no backing out.”
“I admire your commitment,” she said.
My meeting went well, and we picked up a management contract for nearly eleven hundred units owned by a family trust. I’d made it clear that there were likely to be quite a few costs incurred bringing some of the properties up to our standards, but the client was pleased to know that we never cut corners on maintenance.
“You’ve built quite a reputation for owner and tenant retention,” one of the two middle-aged men said as we all shook hands. “We’ve talked to a number of your owners and they’ve all had nothing but positive things to say about your management.”
“That’s good to hear,” I said. “That means we’re doing something right.”
After they left I finished up what I had to for the day, then left work. Hey, I was the boss- I could leave any time I wanted, right?
“Hey, babe,” I said as I leaned down to kiss Emmy. She put aside her guitar and wrapped her arms around my neck, preventing me from moving away.
“I had hoped that you would come home early,” she said, giving me another kiss. “Angela and the Castros are going to be home after dinner. This means that I have you all to myself for at least four hours.”
“Yes?” I asked. “And what is you want me for all to yourself for four hours?”
“I have some ideas,” she answered, a mischievous smile on her face. “Oddly, none of them involve any clothes…”
“I think I might like some of these ideas,” I said. “In fact, time is running out. We should get going on these plans of yours immediately.”
Emmy’s sparkling laughter filled the room as she stood up and took my hand. “The first step,” she said, pulling me towards the bedroom, “Is to get you out of those clothes.”
It turned out that Emmy’s plans involved bathing me, then giving me a wonderful full-body rub until I was reduced to Jello and couldn’t move a muscle. When Emmy’s ministrations rendered me no more than a lumpy spot on the bed, she laid down on top of me, both of us face down. The feel of her warm skin against mine was heavenly, and the reassuring weight of her slender body only augmented the feeling.
Being touched, stroked, caressed and then used as a pillow felt like a wordless expression of love and affection. Words could not have possibly made the feelings any more profound or tender, so our silence was all that needed to be said.
We dozed off to sleep like that, basking in each other’s body heat. We were sound asleep when Angela came into the bedroom and found us, naked and vaguely slippery, Emmy on top of me like a blanket.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“What did I miss?” she asked softly, gently running her hand up and down the back of Emmy’s thigh.
“A happy beginning, a happy middle, and a happy ending,” Emmy murmured, waking up slowly.
Angela laughed at that and leaned down and kissed Emmy, then me. “Maybe later, after everybody goes to bed, you can show me,” she said.
“I thought you didn’t want to make love while your parents were here?” I asked, relishing waking up to Emmy’s weight on top of me.
“I’m changing my mind,” Angela said, chewing on her lower lip. “I’m coming to realize that I was being too hasty.”
I felt Emmy stretching in a leisurely fashion, then climbing off of me. I immediately missed the warmth and weight of her body on top of mine, but there was nothing to do but get up.
“Is your family home?” Emmy asked.
“We didn’t have dinner at the park. Mamá wanted to cook tonight.”
“We have not eaten dinner, either. We will take a quick shower and join you out in the kitchen,” Emmy said.
“Wait- a shower… without me?” Angela asked, making her pouty face.
“It would be lovely if you would join us,” Emmy said with a smile. “I will let you explain your wet hair to your father and mother.”
Her shoulders drooping, she said, “I’ll tell Mamá that you two will want dinner.”
I caught her as she turned to go and wrapped her up in my arms. “We missed you this afternoon,” I said, giving her a kiss. “We’ll help you make up for lost time tonight.”
Angela’s hopeful smile was irresistible, so I gave her another kiss. “We’ll be out in fifteen minutes.”
At dinner Cecilia couldn’t stop talking about what they’d seen at Universal Studios. They’d gone on the classic studio tour and actually seen Brad Pitt by one of the sound stages, which was the highlight of the day. Mrs Castro admitted that Brad was as handsome in real life as he is in the movies, but still not as good-looking as her husband.
Of course, Cecilia rolled her eyes at that, embarrassed by her parents, as are all teenagers the world over. All in all, it was a nice evening and the Castros were rapidly feeling more like family and less like guests with every passing moment.
Somehow, and I’m not even sure how it had happened, but Mrs Castro’s tacit claimed ownership of the kitchen was a big part of that. She’d somehow managed, just by insisting that she cook for all of us, to make it seem as if she was the host and we were in her house, rather than the other way around. It was a kind of domestic magic, I guess- a subtle, tricky magic, but very effective. She had staked her claim as the matriarch of the family, and now that family included Emmy and me.
After dinner, Mr Castro and I put on jackets and went for a walk around the neighborhood. He’d suggested it, and I figured he wanted to talk away from his wife and daughters, so I readily agreed.
Most of those tiny, winding roads in the Hollywood Hills are narrow and have no sidewalks, but traffic is sparse and you can hear cars coming for quite a ways, so it’s never really a problem. We walked side by side for a while, neither saying anything. I was waiting for him to to figure out how to say whatever it was, and there was no need to rush things.
Eventually, Mr Castro said, “Mi Angelita says that Emmy has an incurable disease.”
This wasn’t what I expected, so in my surprise I just said, “Um, she said that?”
“She says that Emmy will not live very long. Ten more years, maybe fifteen. Is this true?”
“Uh, yeah, it’s true,” I said, still off my footing.
“This is a terrible thing,” he said, not looking at me. “Angela seems to be very much in love with Emmy, and to know that you don’t have long together, that is… a tragedy.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed. “Knowing that Emmy won’t be able to see her children grow up…” I said, trailing off.
“I am very sorry to hear this. Mi Angelita…” he said, searching for words. “She is heartbroken, simply thinking about the future. She loves both you and Emmy, and wants to imagine a life with both of you, but it hurts her to know that eventually it will be just the two of you.”
“I feel the same,” I said, my voice a bit thick.
“But it will be the two of you, right? You want Angela as a companion for life?” he asked, looking at me.
“I do, and I think that Emmy wants this for both of us, too. She knows she only has a short while ahead of her, and she wants to make sure that we’ll have each other after she’s gone,” I said.
“This is a terrible thing,” Mr Castro said, shaking his head. “I have never seen Angela so happy, but when she spoke of this, I could see that it eats at her heart.”
“Mine, too,” I admitted.
He sighed, and then patted my shoulder in sympathy. “Knowing this, the relationship you three have makes more sense,” he said. “Before, I had imagined that Angela was your… mistress, and Emmy knew and accepted it. This is not rare where I come from, so that’s where my understanding lay. But seeing the three of you together, I have seen that it is not like that at all. Angela loves you, yes, but she also loves Emmy, and Emmy seems to love her as well.”
“It is unusual,” I agreed.
After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “How did you- how did this relationship form?”
I told him about Antonio’s arrest, and said that we were Angela’s only friends in the building. We offered her a place to stay until she got her feet back under herself, I explained.
“One night she came to Emmy and me and said that she… she wanted to be a part of- well, she had fallen for us, and wanted to be a part of our lives.”
“She came to you?” Mr Castro asked.
“Yeah, she did. She said that she had seen the love we have for each other, and she asked if we could find a space for her in our hearts. At first I was, um, doubtful, but Emmy wanted to let Angela into our lives, so we did. As time has gone on, she’s become an important part of our lives together, and I’m thankful that she made that first move.”
Mr Castro was quiet for a while, thinking about what I’d said. “You did not chase after her?”
“No, neither Emmy nor I did. We were just being supportive friends. We both liked her, of course, and I always thought Angela was beautiful and had a sexy accent, but I wasn’t in the market for another lover, if you know what I mean.”
“I think I do,” Mr Castro said. After a few more minutes of silence, he said, “My wife, Marisa, she is the center of my world. I have had offers, many offers, from women over the years, but I have never felt any desire for other women. How could any compare? A man in my position in Colombia is almost expected to have a mistress. Our culture is very machista and this is very common. As I said, many wives know and accept the situation. For some, I imagine, it may be a relief to have the man direct his attentions to another woman. But this is a thing I could never do.” He fell silent, and I made some sort of noise to indicate that I was listening, but was going to let him talk.
“When Angela told us that she was living with two lesbianas, I did not know what to think. I like to consider myself to be an educated, open-minded man, but to have my daughter living with them… I was concerned. Please, I do not mean to make offense,” he said, patting my shoulder again. “And then, when she told us that she was in love with the two of you, it was my fears come true. Still, I tried to be supportive, and not rush to judgement. I never cared for Antonio, but I was not sure that this is what I wanted for my daughter, either.”
“But as I said, I have never seen her so happy,” he continued after a moment. “She is like she was when she was a child, so full of life and… enthusiams. I can see that she loves both you and Emmy- a blind man could see it. And it is just as easy to see that you both love her, too. You are providing her with a life that a man could only wish for his daughter, and she is… thriving. As I am coming to know you and Emmy, my concerns have come to seem… meaningless.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “I guess we’re doing something right.”
“You are,” he said. “More than I could have believed before we came for this visit.”
I had nothing to say to that, so we walked in silence for a bit. “Emmy knows she doesn’t have long,” I said. “Maybe ten, fifteen years, if we’re lucky. She made me promise that when she passes, Angela and I get married officially.”
“She said that?” Mr Castro asked, surprised.
“She did, and I told her that of course I would. The only reason we haven’t married her officially is that we legally can’t. We’ve talked about common-law marriage and I’ve had my lawyer look into it, but there’s just no way to make it legal the way the laws are written right now. In the meantime, all we can do is tell ourselves that none of that really matters if we know we’re married.”
“Are you? Married to Angela?”
“As far as I’m concerned, absolutely. In my mind I think of Emmy and Angela as my wives, and that’s what I call them,” I said. “To me, Angela is just as much my wife as Emmy is, the law be damned.”
Mr Castro didn’t say anything to that, so we kept walking in thoughtful silence. As we neared the house, he said, “I think I understand things much better now. Thank you for this talk.”
“Thank you for talking, too,” I said. “It’s important for Emmy and me that you and Angela’s mother understand and support Angela in this. She loves you two, and was worried sick that you wouldn’t approve of the choices that she’s made.”
“Ultimately, it is her life, and all that we can do is hope that our daughters have lives as good as ours, right? You and Emmy are giving Angela every thing she could wish for- a comfortable home, freedom to be herself, and a loving partner- or in this case, two loving partners,” he said wryly.
While we waited for the motor court gate to open after I keyed in the code, he turned to face me squarely. “All that I ask,” he said, his voice serious, “Is that you continue to love her as you do now. Be the… wife to her that she needs, and treat her like the precious flower that she is.”
“I can promise you that,” I said. “That’s an easy promise to make.”