Red: A Love Story Page 9

  “When you’re passing by them, lower your head and pretend to search for something in your purse.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  They requested the check, brought by an employee nicknamed “Jorge Express” who frequently waited on them. A thin man from Northeastern Brazil, he had curly hair and skin the color of mocha coffee. He lived by himself and loved talking with Marco about literature. Marco recommended and gave him books from time to time, and now the waiter was dying to discuss his latest finding, Tower Struck by Lighting, by Spanish author Fernando Arrabal.

  The last thing Marisa wanted was for Jorge to begin a literary discussion. Express, my ass. She had to endure the usual rigmarole. Isn’t it a fascinating book, Marco? Yes, it is, Jorge. See, Marco, even if I don’t understand a thing about chess, I’m following the story and want Tarsis to defeat Amary, as he’s such a weirdo with all those people talking inside his head. Yeah, Jorge, chess is merely an artifice for structuring the plot in a logical manner while the backstories of both protagonists unfold in a blast of color and paradox…

  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

  After the fates of Tarsis and Amary were dissected to exhaustion, Marco paid the check and stood up. Then he stroked Marisa’s hand in a tranquilizing manner.

  “Relax, my love. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

  Marco brushed his lips on hers and headed for the stairs, leaving Marisa dazed. She kept the warmth of his touch, which pulsed inside her chest like a sun. It sparkled and throbbed and exploded.

  My love.

  Marco had never called her that way. Several thoughts bumped into one another in Marisa’s brain. Belvedere and Jane, wait ten minutes. What Marco had just said. Lower head, fumble with purse. Her mind spinning, her body tingling. And what she had wanted to say back to him.

  Love of my life.

  When Marisa realized, it was almost time to meet him outside. She waited a few more minutes and risked a peek at the bar: Belvedere and Jane had started dinner, and he shoved a forkful of stroganoff into her mouth. Marisa descended to the ground floor and tiptoed forward. Belvedere had his back to her. Jane managed to steal a glimpse at Marisa’s face and frowned, a spark of familiarity surfacing in her eyes.

  Marisa flustered, furiously fumbling with her purse. Things became more interesting when she approached their table and saw from the corner of her eye the silhouette of a man in black pants and a white shirt… Jorge! Here he came, attached to a tray overflowing with beer tulips.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, his face solemn.

  Marisa nodded with no intention of stopping… and stopped: Jorge parked right in front of her with the barrier of glasses. Marisa assumed a contortionist pose to talk to him and simultaneously prevent Jane and Belvedere from seeing her face. She stood in an ambiguous position, neither frontal nor lateral or posterior, like the statue of some exotic divinity.

  “I saw Marco leaving earlier, and… I hope you two didn’t have an argument because of me,” Jorge went on, mortified, the tray tilting slightly to the right. “I noticed you were nervous and I should have quit talking. I’m so sorry!”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said in a low and incisive voice.

  Keep quiet, you chatterbox.

  With one stretching eye Marisa could see Jane with an intrigued expression as the director prepared another mouthful for her. The secretary told him something. He glanced at Marisa and shook his head. Jane shrugged and opened her mouth to receive the food. On her face, though, a question mark lingered. Oh-oh.

  “Are you sure?” insisted the immovable waiter, and now the tray tilted left.

  “What?”

  “Is everything really okay between the two of you?”

  “Sure, Jorge, he left ahead to… get the bike,” she improvised.

  “Oh, thank God. And sorry again for my intrusion. It’s just that it’s such an interesting book. Have you read it?”

  “No, I haven’t, Jorge…”

  Marisa fixed one hypnotized eye on the tray that oscillated like a ship on the waves of an increasingly turbulent sea… Oops… oooops.

  “If I may suggest, read the book. It’s riveting. Me, I can’t wait to end my shift here and go home to finish reading it. I’m crazy in anticipation with—”

  CLINK, CLInk, CLink, Clink, clink, clink, clink! He was going crazy, all right. Here, his animation became such that while gesticulating he caused a blast of glasses—the glass tower struck by the lighting of his enthusiasm. To the impassible checkered floor they all tumbled, the only survivor being the tray. Marisa jumped back. The floor before her was covered in shiny shards, golden puddles of beer, and personal effects falling in single file from her gaping purse. She and Jorge crouched to collect a cell phone, lipstick, an organizer, a ballerina key holder, a creased receipt, a folding toothbrush, a leather wallet… and two bright yellow condoms that jovially sprung out of it.

  Now Marisa just wished she could disappear into the nearest manhole. Patrons at neighboring tables, including Belvedere and Jane, watched with great interest the condoms afloat like buoys on the wet floor. Marisa hurried to shove the dripping items into her purse and zipped it up with exasperation. Jorge helped Marisa get to her feet amid profuse apologies—he bowing a thousand times, she dying to get the hell out of there. In the midst of commotion and haste and demented gestures, the wig got displaced. That was the last straw, or rather the last drop of beer. Grasping the wig, Marisa gave an Olympic jump over the broken glass and ran away.

  She chewed her heart up to the newsstand on the corner. Marco serenely read a gardening magazine with tips for growing Vanda coerulea orchids. He returned the copy to the pile, concerned with Marisa’s distress. She told her version of the facts while fixing the wig with a nervous tick.

  “I survived, but now I’ll probably need a Prozac. Maybe two.” She caught her breath. “What about you, how did it go?”

  It was easier than expected. A waiter carrying a platter of stroganoff showed up and covered his back as he passed by Belvedere’s table. That was it. No glass cascades or special effects. It was a shame she had to go through such a stressful situation. Relieved, Marisa urged they leave straight away. Marco didn’t move. Then he smiled—mouth twitching upward in a reflex while his eyes ignited like a pair of flames. Marisa knew that smile. He wasn’t happy at all.

  “What’s the matter, Marco?”

  “Wait for me here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to protest. Marisa saw him retracing his steps and couldn’t believe when Marco reentered Ambrosia. Her gaze, on alert, hooked to the entrance as if to pull out the door and peer inside. The possibilities stretched out on the horizon: a conspiracy with Jorge to sneak laxative into the director’s beverage (anything was possible with Marco), an altercation between Marco and Belvedere, a full-blown fight, Marco fired… And there was nothing she could do now. Actually, there was one thing she could do: destroy her manicure and bite her nails to death.

  Marisa began meticulously with the right index.

  12. Duet Story

  When Marco finally returned from the bar, Marisa had already ravaged three nails to perfection and was preparing to attack the fourth. She dropped her hand and aimed a microscope-like eye at him, investigating the white clothes with no rips or blood stains (check), the hands, arms, neck and face unscathed (check), the hair impeccable as usual (check). Marisa cheered up, then frowned. Marco not only showed up in one piece but barely hid his satisfaction.

  “Why did you go back there?” she asked, anxiously fiddling with one jagged nail with the tip of her thumb. (She needed a file badly or she would go crazy.)

  “I couldn’t forget my good manners, could I? I had to say hello to Belvedere. I even took a picture of him and Jane for the school blog.”

  “Marco Aurélio! You�
�re crazy!” Marisa kept feeling the jagged edges. (Where could she find an open drugstore to get a nail file?)

  “Not me. I don’t intend to post anything on the blog, but that should teach Belvedere to stay away from our bar.”

  Upon seeing Marco, the director choked on a piece of steak and turned redder than the tomato flower decorating his plate. Jane, as white as the plate itself, stood up and started punching his back. At that point the piano player, now performing Frank Sinatra’s classic My Way, sang the lines about biting off more than one could chew…

  Marco cracked up, and Marisa couldn’t help but laugh too (nothing like some comic relief in a disaster film… and speaking of disaster, where again could she find a drugstore to buy a file?). They walked around the corner to get the Ducati, and she proposed going to Marco’s apartment. He refused. They would head for another bar he knew in the vicinity.

  Marisa slowed down to a halt.

  “I’m not sure, Marco. If Belvedere happens to pop in…” (A nail file! Pleaaaase!)

  “If I know the guy, he´ll rush back home with his tail under his legs. Besides, the place is safe. It’s located in a dead alley and, trust me, our friend would never set his delicate foot there.”

  “Really?” (Do you think Marco would have… Ah! She must have a file in her purse… hmm… wet.)

  “Wanna bet?”

  The bar Extreme Tigress presented itself with modesty: a few tables around a pillar and, in the back, a counter flooded with black light. Although the white walls were naked, the owner had taken care of adorning the tables with plastic flowers. A jukebox starred the evening wrapped in the soft luminescence of a dream, playing old hits by tacky Brazilian idols. Exuberant women with big feet, boobs and hair fluttered around.

  It was a transvestite bar.

  Marco and Marisa indulged in the luxury of choosing one of the four tables aligned on the sidewalk. To the sound of Sidney Magal’s If I Catch You with Another Man I’ll Kill You, a waitress in a skintight yellow uniform slinked to their table to take the orders. Two vodkas and tonic with lots of ice and one order of fries. Oh, of course, and a nail file, please.

  The two of them amused themselves imagining what Breno Belvedere would do now that his affair had been unveiled. Maybe, Marisa speculated, the director would try to save face by pretending he was with the secretary to talk about work.

  If I catch you with another man, I’ll kill you

  And send you some flowers before fleeing

  Marco got extreme. Inspired by the lyrics of the song, he concocted a Nélson Rodrigues sort of tragedy in which the shrew found out about her husband’s infidelity while having a drink with a girlfriend at the piano bar. In shock, she squeezed the ketchup hard over her fries, and a red stream crowned the pale mound that looked like a heap of bones. The shrew envisioned the corpse.

  With a vengeance, she sent her sons off to their grandmother’s (they didn’t know a thing about Nélson Rodrigues anyway) and proceeded to plot her husband’s death in a paradox of calculation and culinary passion, by adding ground glass to the bastard’s tropeiro beans. The director agonized slowly. His innards bled as much as his wife’s heart. The shrew called him a cheater, then hugged him and begged him not to leave her—until in a paroxysm she spat on his face and yelled that he made her sick to her stomach.

  They say I’m wrong

  But whoever says it has never loved

  Marisa also gave her contribution to the drama: after dispatching Belvedere to the Otherworld with her macabre delicacy, the shrew posed as an inconsolable widow and, for the deceased’s funeral, purchased the most expensive carnation wreath in store. Then she eloped with the gardener, an ardent young man with whom she had been having an affair, as the director was no longer able to please her (he couldn’t get it up).

  The widow and her lover traveled to the Caribbean to enjoy an illicit honeymoon. Once there, however, the young man met the waitress from a local spa, a fake blonde with oblique eyes and hard flesh that bewitched him with her slink. So for dinner the shrew spiced up Creole-style shrimps with an extra measure of ground glass. She then tried to decide which flowers would be appropriate for a gardener’s funeral.

  When Marisa and Marco saw the waitress place plastic daisies on the neighboring table, they exchanged a smiley look.

  “Very nice. Still, our story has a discrepancy,” said Marisa, nibbling on a potato stick.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “The lyrics refer to a man catching his wife with another guy.”

  “Poetic license.”

  “No, sir. Things need to be accurate. Your turn.”

  He emptied his glass and thought for a moment.

  “Okay. The shrew, disillusioned with men, those useless cheating bastards, decides to have a sex change surgery and later winds up in a torrid affair with the spa waitress. Then, one day, she catches the girl in bed with another man, prepares a special dish for her, etc.”

  “I don’t like this take.”

  “Hmmm. Yeah, it’s a bit contrived…” Marco glanced at a ghastly drunkard that stumbled into the bar. “I’ll tell you what. In a dark and stormy night, Belvedere’s ghost appears to the shrew. She blacks out and her heart gives in. Few people attend the funeral because at this point she’s already earned the reputation of Black Widow. Belvedere’s ghost, for old times’ sake, leaves a bunch of purple carnations at her grave. Then he escapes to the afterlife realm—”

  “Good move, Marco.”

  “—where he has an affair with the spirit of the waitress murdered in the previous version.”

  “You’ve spoiled it all over again.”

  Marco stared at her gravely.

  “I think you’re jealous of the waitress, Mari.”

  “Which one? The girl who had a ground glass overdose or the girl who served us this second-rate vodka here?”

  Marisa looked at the waitress with bleached hair and red nails, who now talked to the bartender. Her breasts seemed about to perform a somersault right out of her low collar.

  “Does it make any difference?” asked Marco, following her gaze.

  “Hmmm… nah. Either girl would merit a seal of approval by Nélson Rodrigues.”

  Meanwhile, the urban fauna was circulating in the area. Here, on this side of the street, a couple of students hurried to the movie theater and a lady of the night winked at a lonely wanderer. There, on the other sidewalk, a noisy group of play actors headed for an Italian restaurant. Further away, a platinum-blonde transvestite tried to entice clients with her Marilyn Monroe contours in skimpy clothes.

  A man of strong build, the sort of guy who lived at the gym, passed by her in a tank top that emphasized his phenomenal biceps, triceps and pectorals. The transvestite approached him with curvaceous words, but her baritone revealed her true anatomy (a woman imprisoned in a man’s body, with an inconvenient five-inch appendix).

  Outraged, the man rebuffed her. The transvestite retaliated with her fake Prada purse and an outburst of insults. She called him a closeted sissy. The man gave her a slug in the face and stormed off in a huff. Astounded by the action of those phenomenal biceps, triceps and pectorals, the Marilyn Monroe from the tropics wobbled, floated and landed her tender fanny on the harshness of the pavement.

  The forceful union of silicone and asphalt wasn’t amicable: the diva stood up with her dignity not only outraged but quite sore. She cursed, put her wig back in place and composed herself on the curb. Soon a black sedan stopped, with a well-groomed gentleman behind the wheel. The two of them talked briefly and the transvestite climbed in the car.

  Marco and Marisa exchanged looks as the sedan disappeared on the avenue. That was sooo Nélson Rodrigues. They made a toast to the writer and asked for the check. When Marco presented his credit card, the waitress apologized for the malfunctioning wireless device and asked him to pay at the cashier. He
went inside to settle the check while Marisa waited at the table.

  Across the street, a blue neon sign flickered already in the after-hours mood. The bar was virtually deserted and the jukebox began playing a slow track (Stop Taking the Pill). The chords mingled with a couple of beeps from Marco’s cell phone. Marisa stared at the phone on the table. Who would be contacting him that late? She picked it up and saw the notification of an incoming email. Without a second thought, she touched the screen. Marisa turned livid when she read the name of the sender.

  13. There Won’t Be Roses

  Blue and black the neon flickered across the street. Tremulous blue, then black with the ghostly outline of the letters composing the establishment’s name. From time to time, a letter would faint amid the blue flash. Kiss Club… Kiss Club… K ss Club… Kiss Club… K ss Cl b… With the cell phone clutched in her hand, Marisa stared at the neon sign, immobile like a waxen statue. She heard Marco saying goodbye to the waitress and quickly returned the phone to the table. Within instants, Marco sauntered out of the bar with carefree Sunday demeanor: arms swinging to confident strides, a smirk on his lips—the alpha male in leisure mode, as Marisa noted sourly.

  “Shall we go then?” He grabbed the cell phone, noticing her insistent gaze. “Everything okay? You look pale.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” She shrugged and stood up. Her brain was spinning and spinning and spinning.

  Marco put his arm around her shoulders and they went for a promenade in a nearby square, where a flower market was open until late. All of a sudden he halted, turning to Marisa. He ran one hand on her hair and contemplated Marisa in silence as he sensed her turmoil. His eyes were serious under the thick cape of eyelashes, and when they narrowed like that they acquired an almond shape, a crease on the corner of each eye while another, deeper, appeared between the brows—a small gash on the serenity of the forehead. His jaw first clenched, then his mouth half-opened. Marisa stilled her breath and waited. The words never came.