The Crystal Frontier Read Free Page B

Hey, hey, what do you know, Rosalba? Don’t be a bunch of jerks now—all I know is what you all tell me, and me, well, I’m a saint, my saint. And they sang a little again, and then they started laughing at men once more (“Ambrosio’s gone nuts: he makes the maid shave under her arms and wear perfume. Can you beat that? The poor bitch’s going to start thinking she’s someone”; “He makes out that he’s so generous because we have a joint account in New York, but I found out about the secret account in Switzerland. I got the number and everything. I seduced the lawyer. Let’s see that wiseass Nicolás pull a fast one on me”; “They all think we shouldn’t get the cash until they kick off. You’ve got to know all the bank accounts and have access to all the credit cards just in case they dump you”; “In one shot, I ripped off my first husband’s Optima card for $100,000 before he knew what hit him”; “We have to watch porno films together for that little thing to happen”; “First it’s ‘The president called me,’ then it’s ‘The president told me, confided in me, distinguished me with an embrace.’ ‘So why don’t you marry him?’ I said.”) But they didn’t have the nerve to strip the Pacuache with Michelina there. She went along politely with their laughter, toying with her pearl necklace and nodding sweetly at the jokes the women made; her position—not distant yet not right in among them—was perfect, though she was fearful it would all end in the usual group embrace, the great unbosoming of feelings, the sweat, the tears, the repentance, the desire, vibrant and suppressed, the terrible admission: there is absolutely nothing of interest in Campazas for anyone, outsider or native, city person or northerner. Lord, how they wanted to get in the Grumman and fly off to Vail right now. But why? Just to run into more dissatisfied Mexicans, horrified at the idea that all the money in the world isn’t worth shit because there’s always something more, and more, and more, something unattainable—to be the queen of England, the sultan of Brunei, be a piece like Kim Basinger or have a piece like Tom Cruise. They started giggling, imitating the movements of skiers, but they weren’t on the Colorado slopes but in the desert of northern Mexico, which suddenly exploded in the firmament at sunset and passed through the leaded windows of the Tudor-Norman mansion, illuminating the faces of the twenty women, painting them satanic red, blinding the contact-lens wearers, and forcing all of them to look at the daily spectacle of the sun disappearing amid the fire, carrying their treasures into the underworld, exhibiting them one last time on the bald mountains and rocky plains, leaving only the prickly pears as the crowns of the night, carrying everything else away: life, beauty, ambition, envy, fortune. Would the sun rise again?
    All eyes concentrated on the sunset. Except those of two people.
    Leonardo Barroso watched everything from behind a scarlet curtain.
    Michelina Laborde e Ycaza watched him until he saw her.
    Their eyes met at the exact instant when no one had any interest in seeing where the young lady from the capital was looking or finding out if Leonardo had returned. The twenty women silently watched the sunset as if, in tears, they were attending their own funerals.
    Then the northern troupe came in, banging drums and playing trumpets and guitars, and the place filled with men wearing Stetsons and short jackets. The spell was broken and all the women howled with pleasure. No one even noticed when Michelina excused herself, walked to the curtain, and, among its thick folds, found her godfather’s burning hand.
    5
    Only Lucila heard with what a desperate sound, with what a screech of burning rubber, the Lincoln convertible pulled out of the garage. But she paid no