The Spanish Daughter(44)

A few months after that, my father had gotten drunk and mentioned his Spanish wife for the first time. He said it was her birthday and he was drinking in her honor. He said her name was Maribel and she could dance flamenco like a goddess. He also said she had gorgeous hair, all the way to her waist, and skin as soft as the petal of a flower, but she had a rotten temper and held grudges for years. She was like a matchstick, he’d said, quickly incensed.

“What a foul mouth she had,” he told me after finishing a bottle of wine, “but she sure knew how to love a man.”

To say I was uncomfortable to hear my father speak like that about a woman was an understatement. The fact that it wasn’t my mother made it even worse. I stood up and left him alone in his study with his bottles and his memories.

I’d always suspected that my mother’s attempts to be the perfect wife had to do with that fiery woman my father could never forget.

I looked at my reflection one last time before joining the guests downstairs. Hopefully, my father had invited Juan. I hadn’t seen him since the incident with Silvia and I was hoping for an opportunity to apologize for my rudeness. If he liked the way I looked tonight, I might be able to earn his forgiveness more easily.

There were about a hundred guests scattered throughout the foyer and the inside patio of the house. My father took my hand at the bottom of the stairs. He looked jubilant. I hadn’t seen that proud look in his eyes before and having his attention was intoxicating.

“Ma chère, there’s someone I want you to meet,” Papá said into my ear as I waved to Silvia at a distance and searched for Juan among the faces. “Laurent, je présente ma fille, Angélique.”

“Enchanté,” the man said.

Good thing I was holding on to my father’s forearm. In front of me stood a monument of a man and a true aristocrat. He kissed my hand, making my stomach float.

“Laurent has just arrived from France. He’s a novelist.”

A novelist? How sophisticated!

“I’ve never met an author before,” I said in my botched French. I didn’t speak it as fluently as I should have, considering my father was French. But it was his fault because he spoke in Spanish most of the time. “What is your novel about?”

“Oh, many things,” he said, “love, lust, starvation, war.”

I’d always had a gift with people. I knew exactly how to engage them in conversation. All I had to do was ask them about themselves. It hadn’t failed once. I used my gift with Laurent.

It only took a few questions before the Frenchman told me all about himself. He was an artist, he explained, and the medium was irrelevant as long as he could express himself. He was a big fan of an innovative (fancy word!) new painter named Henri émile Beno?t Matisse. According to Laurent, there were exciting artistic movements emerging all over Europe.

I’d always wanted to go to Europe, particularly to my father’s homeland, but I doubted I would ever go. Not unless I married a native. Where had my father gone anyway? I spotted him sitting in his favorite chair, his throne, with a glass of jerez, surrounded by friends. But he was staring at me. Excluding his botched attempt to marry me to Don Fernando del Río and form some kind of medieval alliance with that arrogant rancher, my father had never been interested in my social life. He certainly hadn’t introduced me to a man before, nor had he looked so pleased with me or attentive to my every move.

And now he was smiling at me. The evening couldn’t be more perfect.

Someone greeted him. Someone wearing an old brown jacket.

Juan.

Self-consciously, I shifted in my seat. Laurent and I shared the same settee as we waited for dinner to be served. He’d been discussing modern art for at least twenty minutes and I could barely get a word in. Not that I would even know what to say, I’d only studied until the sixth grade and then concentrated on my harp studies with a private tutor.

My father turned his attention to an elegant couple who approached him. Juan looked as out of place as a polar bear in the middle of the desert. He stood by himself, nestling a glass of champagne between his hands. I averted my gaze before he could see me. What had I been thinking when I considered it a good idea to apologize to him at my party? To even be seen around him by all my friends? Juan was badly underdressed—his outfit would belong in a government office better than a dinner party such as this one—and he didn’t seem to fit in with anyone here. People kept bumping into him and excusing themselves. For a moment, I felt sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t have the money to afford newer clothes. It was odd how years ago he’d been so popular among the kids in the area, but tonight nobody gave him the time of day.

I ought to approach him and introduce him to some of my friends. He never let me stand by myself when we were children. Too bad Alberto had entered the seminary; otherwise, he could’ve kept Juan company right now.

A cold hand touched mine. I unglued my eyes from Juan.

“Angélique, are you listening?” Laurent glanced casually at Juan. “Do you want to go talk to him?”

“Oh, no.” My father would’ve disowned me if I’d chosen to converse with the poor neighbor rather than his refined compatriot.

The quartet of violinists stopped playing and my father made a toast in my honor. For the first time in the evening, Juan looked directly at me. My ears burned.