Flirting with Disaster Part 15

But just as they had turned to leave, the music suddenly stopped. Dave turned back, surprised to see all the motion in the room come to a halt. The sudden silence, after the raucous music all evening, was almost painful. Glancing around, he saw the old woman rise from her rocking chair. She turned and gave a roundhouse stare to all the people present. As if she'd spoken a command out loud, everyone set their gla.s.ses down and scurried toward the parlor, many of them dragging chairs along with them.

"What's going on?" Dave asked Manuel.

"It is ten o'clock."

"That's significant?"

"Twelve years ago, my father died at ten o'clock on El Dia de los Muertos. My mother believes that is a sign. She believes he gathers our dead relatives at that hour and returns with them to visit. We must prepare to greet them."

Oh, no. No way. Dave had no intention of greeting anyone, dead or alive, because he'd just made an appointment with Lisa he was going to keep. "Maybe we'll just go back up to our room-"

"No! You must stay! This is what everyone is waiting for!"

Dave shot a glance at Lisa. Her cheeks were still flushed, and she was looking at him in a way that said the minute they stepped back into their room clothes were coming off at the speed of light.

"It's a family thing," Dave said. "And close friends. We don't want to interrupt."

"No interruption," Manuel said. "Come. I will tell you about it."

To Dave's dismay, Manuel swept them both into the parlor and right up to the altar, where the perfumey smell of the flowers and the candles about knocked Dave over backward. Manuel pointed to one of the photographs.

"My great-uncle Sergio. He died in the Spanish-American War." He pointed to a grainy photo of a young woman. "My great-grandmother Antonia. She died of rheumatic fever at age twenty-nine. And this is my father, Benecio. He was killed in a train accident near Cuernavaca."

Manuel continued through his family tree, which had more branches than a hundred-year-old oak. Unfortunately, their host's generosity pretty much obligated them to stand there and listen until their host chose to shut up.

"One candle is lit for every relative who has died," Manuel went on. "If a candle is not lit for a person, his soul must light a finger to guide him back."

Sounds painful. By all means, keep those candles lit. Can we go now? we go now?

Lisa was standing beside Dave, and all at once he felt her palm against his shoulder. She slid it slowly downward until it rested at the small of his back, and something inside him liquefied at her touch. All this talk about dead people was going in one ear and out the other. He couldn't smell the flowers or candles anymore. He could scarcely hear Manuel's voice. He was having a tough time even making his eyes comprehend the photographs the man was so lovingly pointing out. All he knew was that Lisa was touching him, and he was overcome with the compulsion to touch her back.

"I told you about our family," Manuel said, after what seemed like an hour. "Now tell me about yours. Is there someone you wish to remember?"

"What?" Dave said.

"A relative who has died."

Dave froze, staring at Manuel. In contrast to the tumultuous noise level of only a moment ago, the room was eerily quiet. He glanced back at the altar, and for the first time he actually looked at the photographs there, at each one individually. There were dozens of them, old and new-men, women, a few children. These people had been here once. Now they were gone.

The dead.

A blurry, out-of-focus image of Carla swept through Dave's mind. Suddenly he became aware that not a single Lozano was speaking and that everyone's attention was focused squarely on him.

He shook his head. "No. No one."

"Do you have a photograph? You may put it with these on the altar-"

"No," he said sharply. "I don't have any photographs."

That was a lie. He still carried Carla's photo in his wallet. But since the moment he'd heard the news of her death he hadn't looked at it. Not once. And he wasn't about to start now.

Manuel looked confused for a moment. Then a knowing expression came over his face. "You have lost someone not long ago."

Statement, not question. Christ, he didn't need this. Not now. He didn't need Manuel's intuition kicking in, he didn't need his far-flung theories about the afterlife, and he sure didn't need that look on Lisa's face that said she was listening as raptly as everyone else. The silence. d.a.m.n it, he wished every Lozano on the premises would go back to blowing the roof off.

"No," he told Manuel. "I haven't."

"It is difficult to hide, senor. Your eyes tell everything."

Manuel continued to stare at him, waiting. Then Lisa touched his arm.

"Carla?"

Dave turned, astonished that she'd spoken Carla's name. For a moment, all he could do was stand there, staring with disbelief.

"Who is Carla?" Manuel asked.

"No one," Dave said quickly. "Thanks for the hospitality, Manuel. But it's time we went to bed."

"Americans," he said, with a sad shake of his head. "They have no understanding. Death is only a transition into the next life, where your loved ones are. Dia de los Muertos is the day they come to see us again."

The thought of that sent something dark filtering through Dave's mind, something that had eaten away at him for four long years.

No. You have to stop thinking about her. You'll go crazy if you don't. you don't.

He turned back. "Do you actually believe that? That the dead come back?"

"Why should I not?" Manuel said. "Should not people who have crossed over want to visit their loved ones left behind?"

If that was true, then Carla had been watching. She'd been watching him with Lisa, sitting with her, laughing with her, kissing her, seeing him succ.u.mb one more time to the woman he never should have touched, never should have looked at, never should have dreamed about in the dark of night for the past eleven years. The woman he'd never forgotten, even when he'd been married to Carla.

"To tell you the truth, Manuel," Dave said, "it sounds like a whole lot of silly superst.i.tion to me. But if you want to believe it, more power to you."

With that, he turned and strode away.

A few minutes later, Lisa stood in the hall outside the door of their room, her back to the wall, her eyes closed, cursing herself for opening her big mouth. The moment she'd spoken Carla's name, everything had changed. Why had she done it?

Because she could see so clearly that Dave had to be thinking about her even though he wasn't saying her name, and the silence had demanded to be filled. But if she'd had any idea that after all this time he'd still feel Carla's death so intensely, that he'd turn and hurry up the stairs, leaving her standing in that parlor as if nothing at all had happened between them, she would have kept her mouth shut.

She closed her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips. She could still taste his kiss. It had been the most incredible sensation-the fiery taste of the tequila mingling with his warm lips moving over hers in a shockingly sensual way. That he'd done it in the midst of a crowd had stunned her even more. He wanted her tonight. She was sure of it. Or, at least, he had, right up to the moment Carla had gotten in the way, coming back to haunt them like a ghost rising from the grave.

Lisa went inside the darkened room and clicked the door closed. The only illumination came from the streetlights shining through the open patio door. Dave sat on the balcony on the rattan sofa, his back to her.

She didn't know what to expect. She only knew what she wanted. With that in mind, she slipped over to the closet, opened the door, and reached into her backpack. From a zippered pocket she pulled out one of the plastic packets it held and stuffed it into her jeans pocket. Carrying condoms wherever she went was a habit she'd held over from high school, because safe was always better than sorry.

She walked across the room and leaned against the patio door frame. Swirls of the night wind of November coming down from the Sierra Madres skated across her skin, raising goose b.u.mps on her arms and ruffling her hair.

"My, you left the party quickly," she said.

"You need sleep," Dave said, not even bothering to turn around. "You should go to bed."

Lisa felt a stab of disappointment. "Nah. I'm not really sleepy after all. And it was hot at the party. I could use a little air myself."

She moved out onto the balcony, circled the sofa, and sat down beside him. When she saw what he was holding, her heart slipped a notch or two.

His wallet, open to a photograph of Carla.

Lisa hadn't seen her since high school and light was minimal on the balcony, but still there was no mistaking the face. She was a few years older in this photo, but she looked essentially the same-blond hair, green eyes, with a soft, sensitive expression. Lisa willed him to put the photograph away, but still he stared at it. She knew any questions she asked might only inflame an already combustible situation, but not asking meant he would turn away from her completely, and that was the last thing she wanted tonight.

"How long has she been gone?" Lisa asked.

"Four years."

"I read about it afterward. Icy roads. She lost control of the car on that bridge. Wasn't that what happened?"

"Yeah. That was what happened."

"Why didn't you give her photo to Manuel?"

"I don't even know those people. Carla is none of their business."

His defensiveness sent a twinge of desperation fluttering through Lisa's stomach. Tell me, Dave. Tell me why you can't Tell me, Dave. Tell me why you can't forget her. forget her.

Correction. Tell me how I can make make you forget her. you forget her.

To her relief, he flipped past Carla's picture, only to settle on one of a little girl about four or five years old. Lisa leaned over to get a better look. She was a pretty child, with warm blond hair and green eyes.

"Ashley?"

Dave nodded.

"She's beautiful," Lisa said.

"She's Carla. In every way."

Lisa imagined that Dave was remembering what a shining couple he and Carla had been, the very picture of perfection, blessed with a child who was a daily reinforcement of just that. In her youthful anger and jealousy, Lisa had convinced herself that Carla was nothing more than a spoiled little rich girl who was going to make his life miserable. But now she knew how wrong she'd been and just how traumatic Carla's death must have been for Dave.

She closed her eyes, cursing silently. How was it that after all this time the thought of the two of them together still sent waves of jealousy rolling through her?

Because you were in love with him. Maybe you still are. Maybe you always will be. Maybe you always will be.

For the past eleven years, Dave had stayed in the back of her mind, hovering in that corner reserved for hopeless dreams that refuse to go away. And she knew if she walked away from him tonight, tomorrow she'd go back to San Antonio and spend the next eleven years wondering what might have been. She tightened her jaw subtly but resolutely.

"Downstairs," she said. "Why did you kiss me?"

He shifted uncomfortably but didn't look at her. "Peer pressure?"

"Do you really expect me to believe that?"

He was silent.

"Kissing me tonight doesn't mean you loved Carla any less."

He turned to look at her. "Is that what you think? That I feel guilty about it?"

"You don't?"

"Spare me the psychobabble. If I want a.n.a.lysis, I'll hire a shrink."

"Why? So you can wallow in it from now on?"

Dave's gaze turned positively glacial. "You haven't got any idea what you're talking about."

"Then why don't you enlighten me? If you're going to kiss me like that in front of a roomful of people, I think I've got a right to know what you were thinking when you did it."

"I wasn't thinking a d.a.m.ned thing, or I never would have done it."

"Right."

"I'd had a few beers-"

"Oh, come on."

"It wasn't a big deal, Lisa."

"A peck on the lips wouldn't have been a big deal. What you did-believe me. That was a big deal."

He didn't respond. He just shut his wallet and returned it to his pocket.

"You wanted to come back upstairs," she said softly. "And you know I did, too. So what happened to change all that?"

"I told you I'd get you out of Mexico. That's as far as anything between us is going to go."

"Why? Did you suddenly decide that I don't appeal to you after all? Now, that's a reason I'll go along with, because, you know, chemistry is just one of those things."

"That has nothing to do with it."

"Did it suddenly dawn on you that after tomorrow we'll probably never see each other again, so you figure what's the point of anything happening between us tonight? If so, that's fine, too."

"Lisa-"

"But, Dave," she said, dropping her voice, "if you wanted me before and you don't now because I spoke your dead wife's name, then you've got a problem that an entire army of shrinks couldn't possibly hope to deal with."

She held her ground, giving him a defiant stare, standing behind every word she'd said. She knew she was treading on thin ice, but maybe it was just what he needed to hear. And maybe he'd hate her forever for saying it. Either way, she had nothing to lose.

"Like I said," he told her. "You don't have any idea what you're talking about."

"I think I'm closer than you want to admit."