Playing With Fuego Part 8

They'd probably fight about it later when I was gone but I knew no matter what I decided both of them would be in my corner. That was the beauty of our friendship, which had grown since Emily left for the simple reason that I spent more time with them now. In many ways, I'm closer to them now than to my own parents, and certainly more affectionate.

"Okay, give me a hug. I've got to work tomorrow."

"Are you coming for Seudah Shlis.h.i.t?"

"Not this week, but thanks anyway. I may have to stay late tomorrow to help finish at the worksite." That was possible, but the main reason was Edith had me feeling like an old maid recluse. I needed to get out of the house for something more interesting, like maybe a stroll through the shops at Merrick Park over in Coral Gables.

Seeing Mari chat last night with Pepe's friends had prompted an unusual admission in my conversation with myself, and all day I'd been turning it over in my head to study its veracity. I really have no right to grouse about how the Cuban influx had changed Miami. I only got here four years ago and it was already their city. They didn't take anything from me.

Sure, people like Mordy griped about the effects, how the Jews who settled on Miami Beach after World War II were displaced in the 1990s by the Hispanic twenty-something professionals who drove up rents by turning it into a hip Latin nightspot and forcing the renovation of older buildings. They had lots of elderly friends who had grappled with that and ended up moving up the coast or to poorer neighborhoods well off the water. Mordy also had struggled to hold the service workers union together when their ranks split over loyalties to Anglo or Cuban leaders, and Edith grew so frustrated at how the City Commission shifted its focus to the Cuban community and its backdoor deals that she gave up on her civic activism.

I need to think. In the last couple of days I'd gone from cautious consideration of getting back together with Emily to "Emily Who?" to being cautious again. It was in the middle-that "Emily Who?" part-where I'd had the most fun. I could chalk that up to the thrill of being out with someone as engaging as Mari, but that struck me as simplistic. I might have felt the same way about going out with one of the Olsen twins just to avoid swallowing my pride and taking Emily back. That had to mean my subconscious mind was made up. I'd rather roll the dice than go back to someone who treated me like dirt just because she was a sure thing.

What I really needed was a network of friends like Mari has, people I can call up whenever I feel like going out. I'm certainly not going to meet anyone if I spend virtually every night at home or with my elderly neighbors.

So where are all the cool people at nine o'clock on a Friday night? I knew one way to find out-call a cool person and ask what she was doing.

This didn't have to be a big deal. If only someone could tell my stomach that.

I took my phone and a can of club soda out to the balcony and settled into my chaise lounge, taking advantage of the only time all week I have total privacy out here. Mordy and Edith never open their balcony door after sundown on Friday because it messes up their air conditioner setting, and they can't touch it again until tomorrow night.

There was only a slim chance Mari would even answer her phone, since being busy on a Friday night is part of what makes cool people cool. I was all ready to leave a message when she picked up.

"Whaddya know? It's the cla.s.sical music geek. What's up?"

If Mari and I were going to be friends, I had to find a way not to buzz all over merely at the sound of her voice. "Just calling to say thanks again. I've been walking around all day with a huge smile on my face."

"Good for you. I guess that's better than a huge bruise on your b.u.t.t."

"No, tomorrow is bruise day. I'm a little surprised you answered. I figured you'd be on your way out to some party on South Beach."

"I'm wasted. This whole week has been crazy. We've got this investment package-the Iberican Fund, we call it-for some of our premium clients, and word got out. Now everyone wants in on it. That's what you get when your whole philosophy is to make all your clients feel like premium clients."

"Now that you mention it, I remember when I walked up on you and Carlos Moya, you were telling him something about how you couldn't take on new investors but you'd try to work him in."

She chuckled. "That was different. Carlos really is a premium client."

"Okay, then you lost me."

"What I said to Carlos was all part of the sales pitch for the fund. The idea is to make my clients want in on something because it's a hot deal and available only to special people. As soon as they hear that, they want to be special too. Except now we're in trouble because word leaked out and everybody wants a piece of it."

"But that's a good thing, right?"

"Not for this one. We're limiting this to major investors. Hold on a second. This is going to be obnoxious." A blender roared in the background for several seconds. "Frozen daiquiri. I was getting desperate."

"Totally understand. Never get between me and a mojito." I never would have guessed Mari would be home alone on a Friday night like me. I wondered what the chances were that the rest of her weekend was free. "I promise not to keep you from your planned alcohol stupor, but I was serious about what I said last night about repaying your generosity with dinner. You probably already have plans tomorrow, but if not..."

"Oh, sorry. It's Mima's eighty-fifth birthday and it would take at least a Category Three to get any of us out of that. And Pepe left a message on my phone not to make any plans for Sunday, so this weekend's kaput."

If I were the insecure type, I probably would have jumped to conclusions over how she crossed off the whole weekend in advance, like maybe she was trying to head off a stalker or something. "It doesn't have to be a big production or anything. We can just meet for a bite somewhere whenever you're feeling caught up."

Mother of Mighty Mouse! Why had I said that? I just threw the ball back into her court. Now I'd have to sit around waiting another three months for her to call again.

"If we wait for me to be caught up, it may never happen. How come you're home on a Friday night?"

"How soon we forget. I have to be on the jobsite at seven thirty in the morning."

"Hmm...yuck. That reminds me, have you heard any more about how Saraphine Delacourt is doing?"

It took me a second to remember who that was. We'd worked on three different sites since Saraphine's house in Little Haiti. "I haven't, but that's not the kind of thing I keep up with. Someone in our office does, though, so I can find out if you want to know."

"I guess I could call her myself. I have her number somewhere. We talked a couple of times over the summer about her savings plan and I was just wondering how she was."

I felt a pang of something...sadness, loss. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly, but I wished Mari were interested in me for more than friendship. I was heartened to hear someone like her-someone who had "premium clients" paying her lots of money-ask how a low-income Haitian woman was getting along. That's the kind of person I want to marry.

"That was nice of you to help her out."

"It wasn't much. I'm surprised your foundation doesn't have a program in place to help people out with their finances. Between that and the renovations, you'd really be turning lives around...not that you aren't already. It would just give people more tools to go forward."

"I think it's a great idea. Unfortunately, those decisions get made above my pay grade."

"You like your job?"

What I liked was Mari being interested enough in me to ask questions, and then actually listen to the answers. If she'd wanted to blow me off, she could have done so by now.

"I like most of it. I didn't exactly train as a construction worker but some weeks that's my favorite part of what I do. It's certainly the least stressful. Probably not what my folks had in mind when they sprang for that Ivy League education."

"We all take our own path...well, except me. I did exactly what Pepe always wanted me to do, but at least it was something I liked."

"And I bet you're good at it." If a hundred-thousand-dollar sports car and a waterfront condo on Brickell were any indication. I doubted Pepe rained down luxury on his family without insisting they work for it.

As creepy as it was, I couldn't help wondering what she was wearing as she sat at home alone on a Friday night sipping a daiquiri. My fantasy involved a long white shirt with the sleeves rolled up...nothing underneath.

She told me how she majored in finance at the University of Miami after graduating from St. Theresa in Coral Gables. It's a familiar meme-just like Gisela's, in fact-that the well-to-do Hispanics send their kids to Catholic schools, then to UM, or The U, as it's called here.

"And what do you do besides work all the time?" I asked, fishing for an even better picture of who she was. "I know you sometimes go to cla.s.sical concerts despite not being terribly interested in the music. About the only other thing I know is that you might have had a pa.s.sing interest in Jet Skis at one time in your life, but something tells me you're over it."

"I'm way over it. I'm sure my ex is out there on the water every weekend and I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to drown her if I got the chance. I doubt they'd let me off with just community service for that one."

Nice to know other people are still bitter about their exes. Perfectly normal.

"What about you, Daphne? What kind of trouble do you get in?"

Dilemma: Embellish the details of my social life so I don't sound like a bore or tell the truth? It's an irrefutable fact my enormous mortgage payment leaves me little mad money, but I don't want to trigger Mari's "walk away" speech again. Not that her advice is bad. It makes financial sense, but it still feels wrong to me, and I don't want her to think I'm stupid for not doing it.

I must have pondered too long because she jumped back in to rescue me from having to answer. "That was just a figure of speech. You don't strike me as much of a troublemaker."

"Not all that much since Emily left. We had a few lesbian friends in town, but things aren't the same when you're not a couple anymore and everyone else is."

"Tell me about it. At least your ex moved away. Every time I go to a party, I'm always on edge about running into Delores. I know if I see her I'm going to throttle her. And at the risk of sounding like a third grader, it isn't just her that puts me off. It's every single one of my so-called friends who still speak to her all smiles like she's so nice. The woman had me arrested!" Her voice had gone ice cold. "It's my own fault for getting in so deep. I've outgrown most of those women anyway. At some point, we're supposed to quit playing in the sandbox. I need a better cla.s.s of friends."

"You want friends who'd be sitting in the jail cell next to you talking about how much fun it was."

"d.a.m.n right!"

"All right, what the h.e.l.l. I could use some excitement. Call me the next time you feel like making trouble."

I could do a lot worse than getting locked up with Mari Tirado.

Chapter Ten.

Just because I never wear drawstring linen pants that flow like a long skirt doesn't mean I shouldn't. I have a bad habit of buying the same clothes over and over, and a worse habit of being the last one to surrender to a style change. The only thing set in fashion stone for me is no bright colors ever. I figure that's my subconscious talking, telling me not to call attention to myself because I never know what to wear.

Up until a few days ago when I went to the symphony, looking "just fine" was good enough. Now I find myself caught in a hopeless vortex of needing to look stylish but lacking the funds to do so-even if I had a clue what stylish meant.

The outfit I managed to cobble together from Marshall's and TJ Maxx-last year's overstocks-didn't suck terribly. Along with my beige pants, I bought a white camisole top and a navy blue overshirt that I could wear open. I got the idea from a mannequin at Neiman Marcus, where the pants alone cost three times as much as what I paid for the whole outfit at the discount stores.

I just wanted Mari to like it. I couldn't believe it when she called last night and said Pepe's plan for Sunday was a dinner cruise around the Biscayne Bay on their private yacht with some of their clients, and she wanted me to come along. My personal experience with yachts is that I see them sometimes from my balcony and wonder who all those bazillionaires are. Now I know.

After one last check to make sure my earrings matched this time, I started down to the lobby where she was supposed to pick me up "around seven o'clock." I had a feeling the window on that was up to half an hour, but I vowed to chill about it.

The elevator opened on fourteen for Ronaldo and Tandra, and their darling baby girl Isabel. It mattered not that the Garcias spoke so little English because the language around babies is universal.

"Isabel! Such a pretty girl." She was lively and bright, always riveted to my wide-eyed expressions and happy voice, and her parents beamed with pride. "You're so lucky...suerte."

I know just enough Spanish to probably misuse it. But since they spoke Portuguese, not Spanish, I probably just called their baby a mushroom. I figured I could get away with a lot as long as I stayed with my wide eyes and happy voice.

It was only twenty after when Mari rolled up into the circle outside our lobby in her snazzy car. Two firsts for today-dinner on a yacht and riding in a Porsche.

"You look great. I can't believe you were worried about what to wear," said the woman wearing what appeared to be the actual outfit I'd seen on the mannequin at Neiman Marcus. She spun out of the parking circle and down a side street to Biscayne Boulevard, where she lurched into traffic after barely slowing at the stop sign.

"I take it this dinner tonight is actually a business meeting for you and Pepe."

"Yes and no. It's one of our important clients, Juan Olivo, and this is our way of thanking him for his business. But Juan is bringing one of his friends who might be interested in investing with Padilla Financial. Pepe wanted me to come because Juan and his partner are gay, and so is their friend. We just want everyone to feel comfortable. Are you okay with that?"

A prop. I could handle that. "Of course. Who am I supposed to be? Your girlfriend? Your date? Your hired escort?" If she said partner, I was going to insist we make it legal.

"I was hoping you'd be my date, but if you'd rather just be a friend who came along, that's fine too."

Flutter.

We'd gone only a few blocks when she whipped into the parking garage at Bayside. And I mean whipped. She's exactly the sort of Miami driver responsible for my Never Take Your Hands Off the Wheel Rule.

"I should be able to handle being your date. Will I need bail money?"

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," she said, smiling in a way that obviously wasn't smiling. She parked and started to get out when I grabbed her arm, knowing I'd screwed up.

"I'm sorry, Mari. Forget I said that about the bail money. I don't want you to worry about me teasing you or blurting that out in front of people. It's forgotten. I won't bring it up again."

She nodded, and with the most earnest expression I'd seen on her yet, added, "And I'll try not to push you overboard, even though I could get away with it so easily with someone like you."

"Sounds like a deal."

"Oh, by the way...something I need to mention. I'm sure it's totally unnecessary to say this, but everything we talk about on the yacht tonight needs to stay confidential. People can be p.r.i.c.kly about their finances."

"Of course." It would be gauche to brag about the three hundred bucks I had in savings.

We walked through the Bayside Marketplace and out to the docks, where we stepped aboard a yacht, smallish compared to some of the gargantuan vessels in neighboring slips, but plenty big. On its stern was the name Mima's Dream. The deck at the back held a dining table already set for eight and tended by a young Hispanic man in a white jacket and bow tie who introduced himself as Eddie. Mari ordered drinks for us and led me up a set of steep steps past the bridge to the upper deck, where Marco Padilla-Pepe-sat with an elegant older woman and three casually dressed men with perfect haircuts. Definitely gay.

Immediately, all the men sprang to their feet and Pepe made the introductions. Juan was the president of Banco Primero, a local bank that catered to Miami's Hispanic community. I'd reached out to them for volunteer work but had gotten no further than a loan officer, who said she didn't know who handled that sort of request. Meeting Juan theoretically gave me an avenue to follow up, but it didn't feel right to take advantage of Pepe's hospitality that way.

Juan's partner was Brian, a fair-haired Anglo like me. Their friend Michael-presumably the one whose business Pepe and Mari were courting-was balding but blue-eyed, which told me he probably wasn't Hispanic either.

Then there was Pepe's wife Lucia, who might have weighed a hundred pounds with bricks in her pockets, a stunning contrast to her portly husband. Apparently, she hadn't gotten the memo about casual dress, as she had on a flowing silk jumpsuit in pale orange, something I might have worn to a formal ball...a.s.suming I ever went to such things.

I was introduced as Mari's friend Daphne, a director at one of Miami's most successful foundations. Technically true, since my t.i.tle was Director of Community Relations, but more than a little aggrandizing.

Mari clarified our relationship for the guests by wrapping an arm around my waist as she steered me to a seat. Eddie soon appeared with our daiquiri and mojito and announced dinner would be ready in forty minutes.

Eight o'clock? Hispanics usually eat much later in the evening. I figured we'd eat around ten, but then it occurred to me our hosts were being hospitable, since not all of us have digestive systems that run on Hispanic Time.

In the meantime, taking in the sunset from the upper deck of a yacht with my gorgeous, rich friends, I was so, so overstimulated. Especially with Mari's arm around my waist.

One thing I appreciate about most bilingual Cubans is how they remember to speak English in the presence of those like Brian, Michael and me. Not that I understood any of what they were saying tonight. Financial lingo might as well be Spanish to me.

"...with the lowest residual security," Pepe explained. "Yes, they're load funds but they're heavily managed. Mari herself handles much of the research on the key performance indicators."

"Including site visits last year to eleven manufacturing and distribution centers throughout Latin America," she added.

"In other words, we don't base our investment decisions on earnings statements and corporate investment brochures. We verify it on the ground, and if the benefit cost ratios are found to be in decline, we pa.s.s. Iberican looks for rapid capital appreciation, and we're committed to ongoing review of a.s.sets. Our objective is..."

I could barely hear the motors of the modern yacht as we churned slowly underneath the MacArthur Causeway Bridge into the calm waters beside the old Miami Herald building, where I had an almost overpowering urge to shout, "I can see my house from here!" Then we turned out toward South Beach, past the small man-made islands that were home to Miami's mega-rich sports and media stars.

Mari leaned in, and with her voice barely above a whisper, said, "I promise we won't talk about this much longer. You doing okay?"

"I'm fantastic. Don't worry about me. Do whatever you need to do."

Michael was gawking at the waterfront mansions as much as I was. "Which one of those is yours?" he asked Pepe.

"I can only dream. For one of those, I'd have to charge much higher commissions." He hugged his wife. "And then there would be the matter of talking Lucia into leaving the Gables. I'd stand a better chance of convincing all of you to invest with Lehman Brothers."