After the Hurricane(60)

“It is very pretty,” Elena says, when they reach the rocks and look back. It is desolate and beautiful. Without anyone on the beach, if Elena keeps her eyes on the shoreline, she can pretend they are back in time, before the Spanish entered the New World, that the island is unblemished and whole. Elena can almost see them walking back in time, imagining them centuries ago. Would they be the natives or the conquistadors? What do you do when you are probably a mix of both? She takes a picture of the empty perfect beach before she can think about it. The image is so beautiful she wants to keep it, although she’s not sure what for. She just knows she wants to document things, like any good historian would, even if it’s just for her.

“Can I tell you something?” Fernando asks her, and she nods. “I don’t have anyone to meet in Aguadilla.” Elena looks at him, not understanding. “I just said that because I thought maybe you would be freaked out if I offered you a ride out of the blue, so I said I had somewhere to be because I thought that might make it more likely that you would say yes.”

“Please don’t murder me,” she says, pretending it is a joke when it is very much not. This would be a wonderful place to murder her, and throw her body into the sea. There are no witnesses, he would absolutely get away with it.

“Okay,” he says, calmly. “Since you said please.” He smiles at her, and Elena releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her hand is on the Mace in her purse, though.

“Why did you want to give me a ride, then?” she asks. He sighs, deeply.

“Your house. It was my family’s, a few generations ago.” A feeling like falling, like when you are in a dream and start falling, envelops Elena whole. The house. It comes back to the house. Of fucking course it does. “I realized it after I talked to your father a few times at the bar. And then, when I saw it after Maria, well. He’s not keeping it up. I was hoping, um, to buy it, actually. I brought it up to him once but he didn’t want to talk about it. But you’re here now, and I thought maybe you might be willing to, well, consider it.”

Her body jerks, and the air stops in her throat.

“You want to buy the house,” Elena says, flatly. She is proud of that flatness. She worked hard for it.

“I didn’t, really, until I saw the way it’s been, well, treated. It was a beautiful place when my great-grandparents owned it, and I want it to be beautiful again. They had to sell it to pay for my father to go to college in the U.S.”

“I see.” Elena’s heart is beating fast in her chest. She had hoped, she had thought . . . well, it doesn’t much matter now. Don’t get in the car with a strange man, it’s good advice. Too bad she didn’t take it. What is it about her that makes it clear to the world she is a damaged animal? Someone there to be hit? “Well. I’ll certainly think about it. I guess we really have to find my father now, right?” Fernando looks horribly guilty. Good.

“I didn’t mean . . . I do want to find him. And I was happy to give you a ride, I’m not trying to, like—”

“Curry favor with the new potential owner?” Elena spits out, bitter. “I guess it’s not me you want to murder.”

“What?”

“Well, I’m only the owner if my father is dead, right?” Fernando stares at her, stricken. But really, the thought must have occurred to him. And if it hasn’t, Elena’s not so sure he should be teaching anyone anything.

“Elena, I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

“I guess that explains why you’ve been so nice to me. Offering me memories of my father, driving me here. Buttering me up.”

“That isn’t . . .” But it is. They both know it is.

“We should get on the road,” she says, walking away from him, back to the car. She had been so comfortable with him, so fast. She liked him, even felt attraction toward him. And he was using her. Well, why not? He owes her nothing. He is a stranger. His little story about Maria and her father, a manipulation. His warm understanding? The same. And what does she care? She doesn’t know him. She’s using him, too, she needs a ride, he wants a house.

By the time she reaches the car, the sea wind had dried the angry tears in her eyes, and she is ready to move on, on to Rincón, where she can leave Fernando and his greed, and a feeling of betrayal that is so strangely disproportionate to how well she knows him, far behind.

“Elena, please.” He sounds out of breath, and when she turns to him, she sees sand splattered up the sides of his legs, evidence that he has run after her. “Can’t I just explain? I really do want to help you, I thought—”

“I said I would think about it. Can we go to Rincón now?” she asks, her voice short and biting. He nods once, and silently gets into the car. Elena keeps her gaze out the window, refusing to look at him as they roll out of Isabela. As they leave the ghost town, Elena catches movement in the corner of her eye, and watches a wizened woman with a face like a snapping turtle divvy out handfuls of dry cat food to an eager colony of felines. So there is someone here after all, someone to feed the cats. The thought warms Elena, and she turns to share it with Fernando, then thinks again. Why would he care? He doesn’t care about her. She is a means to an end. How stupid she was, telling him things about herself, Daniel, her father, her life, when he just wants to get something from her. How weak she is, always turning to the wrong people over and over again, no matter how they treat her. Her own history repeating itself, into infinity.