Houston, We Have a Problema Page 9

  “I thought you liked that stuff,” Toby said. “Didn’t you say he caused drama, but it keeps you from being bored? Plus, I thought you liked how he’s all impulsive and into his art and doesn’t care about money and all that material stuff.”

  Jessica snorted. “I do. I did, I mean. But that was before I realized that it’s been too long since I’ve been on an actual date with someone who wants to get to know me and not just my body. This new guy, Jonathan, took me on a normal date. And he doesn’t play games. He called me two days after we met. And then asked me out on a second date at the end of the first one. Why can’t Guillermo be impulsive and artistic, but still call me up and take me out for coffee, like a normal boyfriend? Now I’m wondering what else I’ve been missing by dating flaky artists.” She looked at the drag queen onstage, then remembered to tell Toby the part he’d be most interested in. “And anyway, Madame Hortensia predicted I was going to meet Jonathan.”

  “Ooh. She did? Cards or palm?” asked Toby, leaning forward to catch every detail. He was an occasional client of the fortune-teller himself.

  “Cards,” said Jessica. “She said I’d meet a handsome, rich man and I could either go with him or else choose to stay with Guillermo.”

  “But why can’t you do them both?” said Toby. “Did she say? Because I know Guillermo doesn’t have a dime to his name, but that man is fine. Girl, if he wasn’t my mother’s cousin’s son . . .”

  “Then nothing would happen, because — hello — he’s straight,” said Jessica. For some reason, the thought of Guillermo dating Toby, although ridiculous, made her a little jealous. Then, for the tenth time since Wednesday night, she felt guilty for having gone on the date. Then, for the hundredth time, she reminded herself that Guillermo hadn’t called in nearly a week, so she shouldn’t worry about cheating on their nonrelationship.

  Toby, obviously noting the tangled emotions playing across her face, said, “Jessi, if you want Guillermo to act right, you have to play hard to get. Quit going over to his house whenever he calls you. Quit being home when he shows up. Leave your phone off once in a while. Make him chase you. Latinos are into that stuff.”

  Jessica shook her head. A year ago, she might have eaten up his advice. “No. I’m tired of that Rules mess. Why does it have to be that way? Why can’t he just be honest and admit he wants to be with me? If he does.” She stared into the water bottle she was swirling. That was a sobering thought. Did he really want to be with her? Sometimes she thought he did. Then again, maybe she didn’t want to find out Guillermo’s honest answer to that question after all.

  Toby sighed. “Girl, who knows? If I could figure out men and their ways, I’d be on TV.”

  Another man on the stage sang another sad song. Jessica heaved a sigh of her own. Why couldn’t love ever be easy?

  Through the floor, up the legs of her stool, and into the bottoms of her feet, she felt the familiar bass line of her favorite club song, Sir Beat-a-Lot’s “Come Again,” pounding in the other room. She reminded herself that she’d paid cover to be here, and she wasn’t going to waste it worrying about Guillermo. She could always do that later, when she was home alone.

  “Come on. We’re here to dance,” she said, and led her friend back to the floor.

  13

  Friday morning, at work, Jessica’s cell rang. It was Sabrina.

  Jessica rolled her eyes but quickly answered before any of the guys noticed the ringing. “Hello?”

  “Hey. Did Jonathan call you on Monday? He said he was going to. What’d he want?”

  “Sabrina, I can’t talk right now. Let me call you later.”

  She ignored Jessica’s dismissal. “Did he ask you out? What’d you tell him?”

  “Who said he called?” Jessica wasn’t about to tell her business to Sabrina — that woman was nosy enough as it was. Suddenly, though, Jessica changed tactics, realizing this was her chance to question her sister about Jonathan. “Sabrina, how well do you know this guy? He’s not secretly an ax murderer or anything, is he?”

  “What? Girl, no! He’s super nice. David’s been friends with him for a long time. You know, now that I think about it . . .” Jessica heard her sister go into matchmaker mode. “I should’ve set you up with Jonathan a long time ago. Except I thought he was already seeing somebody. So he asked you out and you told him yes? Where are y’all going to go?”

  Jessica spoke aloud to the air. “Yes, Mr. Cochran. I’ll get that to you right away.” Across the room, Olga looked up from her solitaire game in confusion. “I’ve got to go, Sabrina. I’ll call you later.”

  “Jessica! Babosa —”

  Jessica hung up, then switched her cell to vibrate just as her work phone rang.

  “Jessica Luna.”

  “Jessica. Hi. It’s Jonathan. Do you have a minute?”

  She looked around the room. Olga and Rochelle seemed busy, but she leaned as close to her phone as she could to keep them from overhearing. “Yes,” she said. “How’s it going?”

  “It’s going good,” he said. “I wanted to tell you, I had a great time Wednesday.”

  She smiled. “I had fun, too.”

  “Good. So . . . I was wondering if you have any time to hang out this weekend. I know it’s late notice, but I was thinking, if you wanted to see that movie with me . . .”

  Jessica repressed a giggle. Once again, she felt a rush of excitement at being pursued by someone like Jonathan. So far he hadn’t turned out to be an annoying corporate clone. And, she told herself, he had good taste in women.

  And he knew how to treat a woman, obviously. Unlike Guillermo. Again, Jessica felt a flash of annoyance at the difference in the two men’s behavior. Jonathan barely knew her, but he wanted to get to know her. Guillermo had known her for half a year already, and he wasn’t even making an effort. Well, she thought, at least Guillermo made something easy for her — the decision to tell Jonathan yes.

  “I’d love to go to the movies,” she told Jonathan. “Do you still want to see Labor Union of Love?”

  “Yes. Unless you want to see something else.”

  “No, let’s see that one. I love Amber Chavez,” Jessica said. They made plans for a late afternoon show the next day and said good-bye.

  Jessica got up and went down the hall.

  In the ladies’ room, she examined her reflection in the mirror. She’d done this a hundred times before, of course. But this time she was trying to see what Jonathan saw when he looked at her.

  Toby always joked about her curves, and she always joked right back, saying she was hot enough to get any construction worker she wanted. Her curves had certainly gotten Guillermo’s attention. But what about Jonathan? Would a guy like that appreciate a woman like her? she had to wonder. She reasoned that he was interested in her looks enough to pursue her this far, but what if she was just more round than what he’d been able to see in the coffee shop or in her sister’s orange Tuscan kitchen?

  And then she turned and looked over her shoulder at the rear view. What would he think when he saw — really saw — her? She tried to remember if he’d seen her from this angle yet. The first time, she’d been standing by Sabrina’s kitchen island, so no. . . . At Argentine, they’d mostly been sitting down. . . . What about when she’d walked out to the patio? she suddenly remembered. How had she looked? She wiggled her ample hips at her reflection, trying to simulate walking, and watched to see if anything jiggled.

  “Girl, what in the world are you doing?” Rochelle stood in the doorway of the restroom, watching Jessica with great interest.

  Jessica spun to face her. “Nothing. Just . . . nothing.”

  Rochelle chuckled and said, “You look fine. And your phone’s been ringing off the hook.”

  Back at her desk, Jessica picked up a message from Marisol and immediately called her back.

  “So how’d it go? Tell me everything, quick,” Marisol said right off the bat.

  “It went good. But I can’t talk about it here,” said Jessica.
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br />   “Darn. Okay, well, that’s not the only reason I called.” Marisol sounded rushed, as she always did at work. “Remember how I told you we were trying to get a grant to do the web site?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, we got it. And I told Esmeralda that you were perfect for the job, since you used to be an ALMA student and all. But she says you still have to go through the formal bid process with the board. So, how fast can you come up with a presentation?”

  “Oh, my God. I don’t know. How much time do I have?”

  “Well, Web D Lux is presenting next week,” said Marisol.

  “What? Web D Lux sucks!” Jessica wrinkled her nose in distaste. “They use templates!”

  “I know. They’re coming in Wednesday, though.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there Wednesday evening, then,” Jessica said resolutely. She would just have to work on her demo all weekend, she told herself. When she wasn’t out with Jonathan, that was.

  “All right,” said Marisol. “I’ll tell Esmeralda. I gotta go, chica. It’s crazy busy over here.”

  “Okay. Marisol — thank you so much.”

  “Of course. What are best friends for?”

  Xavier was too busy to meet for their usual Friday lunch, so Jessica had planned to eat at her desk and surf the web. But now she decided to go eat on the patio and make notes for her ALMA presentation instead. It helped that she knew ALMA so well. She and Marisol had attended art classes there when they were kids. And she’d done volunteer graphic work for them before.

  As she took the elevator downstairs to the deli, Jessica realized that this was another one of Madame Hortensia’s predictions coming true.

  14

  Jessica had gone home Friday and worked on the ALMA site, then woken up Saturday morning and worked on it some more. Then it was break time, so she decided to get some lunch and do a little shopping.

  At the mall, while she searched through sale racks for a top that might look cute on a date to the movies, Jessica’s cell rang. She hung up all the clothes hangers she’d been carrying and dug the phone out of her purse.

  It was Guillermo calling. Jessica was so surprised, she dropped her phone. By the time she picked it up, it’d stopped ringing. She watched the screen hesitantly, wondering if the voice-mail icon would pop up.

  After several moments, it did. She immediately listened to the message.

  “Chiquitita. Hi. You said I don’t call you enough, so I’m calling you now. Where are you? Having a good time, I hope. Okay, well . . . I hope you aren’t still mad about what happened. I don’t care about that woman, chiquitita. I thought you knew that I was kidding and I only care about you. Well, okay . . . call me back. I still needed you to look at the rest of the paintings. I’ll cook for you again. If you’re hungry.”

  Jessica hung up and felt a wave of guilt wash over her. Guillermo had called to apologize and profess his feelings for her, and here she was shopping for an outfit to wear with another man.

  No, she told herself then. Don’t go down that road. He hadn’t even actually apologized, she realized. Really, he hadn’t even sounded as if he felt that bad about what he’d done. How many times, she reminded herself, had they been through stuff like this? How many times had he said insensitive things, or neglected to call her, and then played it off with a few sweet words? And she’d let him get away with it. And now, she forced herself to realize, he was calling her because he needed her help, and not even for a real date.

  “Not this time,” she told her phone, before dropping it back into her bag. “Too little, too late.”

  Later, back at her apartment, she tried on all the new tops again before deciding on the best one. She’d decided to wear jeans, since it would be cool in the theater. She checked her reflection in the mirror. Yes, her butt was big, she told herself, but there was no use trying to hide that fact. Jonathan would either like it or lump it, she decided.

  It was obvious, when he showed up at her front door, that he liked it.

  “You look great,” he said, looking her up and down, but not in a lecherous way.

  “Thanks,” she said. “You do, too.” And he did. He didn’t wear his jeans tight, like Guillermo, but he still looked good in them. His T-shirt and tennis shoes, she noticed, looked as though they each cost more than her entire outfit.

  “I like your place,” he said.

  “Do you?” she said, wondering if he was being polite. She liked her apartment but couldn’t imagine him feeling comfortable in a dump like this if he owned a town house in midtown. “I would give you a tour, but this is pretty much all there is to see.” She indicated the living room/office and the kitchen with a sweep of her hand. The doorways leading to the bed and bath were visible from where they stood.

  “It’s awesome,” he said, smiling. “We need to head out if we’re going to make the five o’clock show.”

  She followed him down the stairs and out to the street, where he’d parked his Audi. He held the door for her, and she climbed into the leather interior. After making sure she was comfortable, he drove them to the theater.

  Jessica’s phone rang again. She glanced down and, seeing Guillermo’s name, frowned and turned it off.

  “Did you need to take that call?” Jonathan asked, all solicitous smiles from the driver’s seat. “Go ahead. I don’t mind.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” said Jessica, smiling back. “It was no one.”

  It was too bad, Jessica thought, that after such a good beginning to their evening, the movie had been terrible. As they emerged from the theater, she decided that Amber Chavez had totally sold out.

  “That Amber Chavez — she’s really beautiful,” said Jonathan. “You kind of resemble her, actually. I bet people tell you that all the time.”

  Jessica said, “No, you’re the first.” It was funny — she wished people told her that all the time. But they didn’t, because no matter how many highlights she got, Jessica really looked nothing like the actress. Did Jonathan just think all Latinas looked the same?

  She was wondering how worked up she should let herself get over that when he asked, “So what’d you think of the movie?”

  “I don’t know. . . .” She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, since he seemed to have liked it. And since he’d paid for the tickets. But at the same time, what was the point of going to a movie with someone if you weren’t going to share your opinions of it afterward? “I’m just getting tired of these movies where a bunch of minority people need a white guy to save the world for them,” she started up. “Like Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves. Or Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, or that blond guy in Lambada: The Forbidden Dance. Why is it that only white guys can be heroes? No offense. . . .”

  “None taken.” He seemed genuinely interested in her opinion, so she went on.

  “Plus, Troy Grodin wasn’t a convincing hero anyway. He couldn’t even read his lines, much less start a union and save all those people from the INS. Plus, he and Amber Chavez had no chemistry at all.”

  Jonathan laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. Plus, there’s no way he could have driven a Mustang over a river like that. I know — I’ve tried.”

  Jessica laughed, not even knowing whether or not to believe him.

  “All right. So that one was no good,” he said. “I’ll have to take you to a better movie, to make it up to you.” By then, they were in the parking lot. “In the meantime, what do you say we grab something to eat?”

  He’d said the magic words. She was starving.

  “Anywhere you want to go,” he said.

  It was refreshing, Jessica thought, to be with a man who was so considerate and accommodating. “How about Moonlight Diner?” she suggested.

  “Good choice,” he said.

  At the diner, they took a corner booth. At Jonathan’s urging, Jessica ordered a strawberry milk shake along with her burger and fries.

  “I’ll probably gain five pounds by tomorrow,” she said ruefully.

  He pretended t
o look her over, then said, “You have a long way to go before you need to worry about that.”

  Jessica demurred modestly but was secretly pleased and relieved to find that he didn’t think she was too fat. Not that she thought of herself as fat — she didn’t. It was just good to know that her self-confidence held up in a multicultural setting.

  While they ate, Jessica and Jonathan chatted about other movies they’d hated and movies they’d liked. He was into action and she was into romance, but they both agreed on comedy and indie films. They traded funny stories about their work. Jonathan’s was about a demanding client, Jessica’s about her demanding bosses. Then the talk turned to music.

  “Seriously — I’d really like to take you to a show next Friday, if you’re free,” he said. “Do you like Junior Ruiz?”

  Jessica had only just heard of Junior Ruiz, the reggaeton DJ, and was surprised by Jonathan’s in-depth knowledge of the latest trends. She agreed to go to the show with him, and Jonathan was flatteringly pleased.

  “We can go to dinner first,” he suggested. “Do you like sushi?”

  “I love it,” Jessica said.

  “Have you been to Ahi?”

  Again, Jonathan impressed her. Ahi was the trendiest sushi bar in midtown, and it required reservations at least a week in advance. “I haven’t been yet,” she admitted. “To be honest, I’d be scared to go and have the valets laugh at my car.”

  Jonathan laughed himself. “It’s not one of those kinds of places. You’ll see — it’s fun.”

  As usual, he paid the check while she was still fumbling with her wallet, waving away her offer to go halves. As they walked out to the car, Jessica felt dizzy. Whether it was from the sugar rush or the fact that she’d just accepted date number three with a Halronburco vice president, she wasn’t sure.