When We Left Cuba(86)
“Can’t say I blame you. Wish I didn’t have to participate in the farce, either. Good-bye, Beatriz.”
“Good-bye,” I echo, watching him walk away, leaving me alone in my brother-in-law’s study, tears trickling down my face at some unknown emotion I’m unable to name.
chapter thirty
After his return home, Eduardo is conspicuously absent from the season this year, not that I blame him. His name is still on everyone’s lips; clearly, he’s missed by the female half of Palm Beach, his actions in the Bay of Pigs adding to the mystery of it all as he cuts a dashing figure for those who are too ill-informed to know better and see our plight as something to romanticize.
I enroll in university in Miami, relieved to discover my course work will indeed transfer, that I am able to pay my tuition on my own thanks to my arrangement with the CIA. It feels good to be back in the classroom again, strange, though, to discuss in an academic setting the subjects that dominate so much of my private time.
I avoid the social whirl altogether, spending my days and nights with Nick when he isn’t in Washington, preferring quiet time with my sisters to the pressures of being on display. There’s really little point in secrecy these days—I’m fairly certain the entire town knows I’m living here with Nick, has dissected the fact that Eduardo and I disappeared from Elisa’s party at the same time. Nick and I have yet to speak of Eduardo’s return, or of my conversation with him at my sister’s house. We dance around the things of which we cannot speak—our future, the tension between our countries, the pressures from outside pushing at the seams of the private world we have created here.
When the season ends, I choose not to accompany Nick back to Washington, remaining in the Palm Beach house, spring turning to summer, summer turning to fall. I am a weekend mistress, visited on holidays and congressional recesses.
In the mornings, I walk on the beach, sometimes meeting Maria in the halfway spot between our two houses before she goes to school. If our parents disapprove or think I am a bad influence on her, they’ve said nothing on the matter. Sometimes I wonder if it is love for me that keeps them from speaking out, or fear for Nick’s formidable position in society. While his influence hasn’t been able to repair my reputation, he’s made it impossible for the old guard to cut me directly.
This morning when I return from my walk, there’s a man standing on the veranda. My steps falter as I get closer, as I recognize him, something clenching in my heart. When I was a young girl, our relationship was so much easier; I looked up to him as a larger-than-life figure, wanted to please him, for him to be proud of me.
“I’m surprised you’re here,” I say, a lump in my throat.
“I wanted to see you,” my father replies, his voice rougher than I remembered.
“Why?”
It’s the first effort either one of my parents has made to see me since I left Palm Beach over two years ago.
“Because I’m worried about you. Everyone says you’re living here with Preston.”
“I am.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Because you always knew I would come to a bad end?”
“Because you always did as you pleased and cared little for what others thought of it.”
“Let me guess, you fault me for being reckless and impulsive.”
“No, on the contrary. That quality of yours has always been one of the things I love most about you. Unfortunately, society does not always see things the same way. If you were a man, such indulgences would be praised as bold, ambitious, daring. If we were still in Cuba, you could get away with such behavior as the eccentricity of a wealthy and beautiful woman who has the luxury of doing as she pleases. But we are not in Cuba. And though you are, and always will be, a Perez, that does not mean what it once did. Not here. We must do more. Work harder. We must advance ourselves, because if we do not, these people will trample us. They don’t want us here, and they won’t let us forget it. Luxuries, and eccentricities, and indulgences are no longer feasible. They are foolish and dangerous.”
“You’re worried I’m shaming the family name.”
“I’m worried about you,” he counters. “I will not be around forever. When I die, I need to know my family will be taken care of. That my wife will be able to support herself in the manner in which she has grown accustomed, that my daughters will be taken care of, that those I love will be safe.”
He turns from me, looking out to the sea.
“I couldn’t protect your brother. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“I’m not Alejandro. Nothing will happen to me.”
“You don’t think I’ve heard about the risks you’re taking? That your name isn’t just being whispered in Palm Beach circles, but in other ones, too?”
“I thought you didn’t concern yourself with politics anymore.”
“Then you thought wrong. Business is political. Politics is business. I am just very careful now about the friends I make and the alliances I enter into. I wish I could say the same for you.”
“You object to my relationship with Nick.”
“I object to your relationship with Senator Preston, but that’s not why I’m here. That’s not the relationship that will get you killed.”