Among the Ducklings (15 page)

##

Stacy was
in a good mood.
 
She was by the pool,
lying down in a yellow bikini. Yellow was her favorite color.
Bright and impossible to ignore.
She was counting down the
hours until she would go to the Center to talk to Isabel.
 
She looked stunning and she knew it. She
ignored all the rich men salivating over her. She had waited and planned well
for this trip. She was not going to make any mistakes. She was going to get the
man she loved. No matter what, she was going to get Phil. She had passed the
morning looking at scripts dealing with miscarriages and wondered what was the
best way to show the pain of miscarriage on her face when she met Phil.
 
She was sure that by now, Myra must have told
Phil the story that Stacy had asked Myra not to tell. To make the story
believable when she saw Phil, she had to get the acting right.
 
Good thing she was a great actress.

##

Isabel was
grateful to Rebecca, who helped prepare the dinner. She could tell that Rebecca
wasn't enjoying it. Since Rebecca didn't complain, however, Isabel didn't say
anything.
 
She needed Rebecca's help for
the dinner. Rebecca was a much better cook than she was. In the morning,
Rebecca had asked her what kind of dish Isabel wanted to prepare.

“Some kind
of pasta,” Isabel had replied.

“Are you
kidding me? Don't you want people to know about our culture, about Cuban food?”
Rebecca had asked.

“I guess
you're right,” Isabel had said.
 
“But
what if he doesn't like Cuban food?”

“Well that
would be a problem, wouldn't it?
 
Because
that's what we eat most days,” Rebecca had replied.

“I wouldn't
see it that way,” Isabel had said, realizing that she needed to learn more
about Phil.

“What about
meat?” he's not a vegetarian, is he?” Rebecca had asked.

“I don't
think so,” Isabel was looking silly. She also felt that Rebecca was trying to
reinforce the fact that she didn't know much about Phil.”

“Let's cook
chicken.
 
Everyone loves chicken,”
Rebecca had decided. “But if he is a vegetarian, you have a problem.”

Isabel had
not replied to the slight, but simply had said, "Chicken would be good.”

Isabel and
Rebecca spent the whole afternoon, preparing the dishes. Real or imagined,
Isabel had the sense that each question that Rebecca asked had a double
meaning.

She was trying to show Isabel how wrong Isabel was about Phil.
As a result, she only tried to ask questions that Isabel didn't have any
answers for.

Rebecca
would ask, “I would like to prepare for appetizers, some plantains topped with
ground beef. Does he eat beef?”

“That
sounds good,” Isabel would reply, wishing that she was a better cook than
Rebecca.

“What about
pechuga
de
pollo
a la
plancha
for dinner, with
moros
and
yuca
?
Do you know if he will like it?”
 
The
entree dish Rebecca was suggesting was simply grilled chicken breast with
onions, with rice and beans and a root vegetable.

“That's
fine,” Isabel would answer.

“The flan
that we are making for dessert has milk. Do you know if he eats dairy?”

“That's
fine.
 
Why don't we just cook and not
worry about what Phil likes?” an exasperated Isabel finally said, regretting
that they didn't prepare pasta instead.

When Isabel
was in high school, she used to joke with friends whose parents were
Italian-Americans and used to say that Italians were not innovative when it
came to food.

“How so?”
the friends would ask.

“Well, you take
dough and make a hole in it and you call it macaroni. If you remove the hole
and make it thinner, then you call it spaghetti, if you make it smaller you
call it linguine or fettuccine, if it's very thin, then you call it vermicelli.
You stuff it to call it ravioli, you flatten it into large layers and you call
it lasagna,” Isabel would say laughing.
 
Now Isabel wished they had settled for Italian food. She had never met
someone who didn't like Italian food.  

##

Lucy
was first to arrive.
 
She was half an
hour early and Isabel was grateful. Lucy watched the food on the stove and set
the table as Isabel finished preparing herself. Although it was an exhausting
day, Isabel was happy. First, it was the therapy session where she made her
first step without the wheelchair with the help of a walker and some leg
braces. Now she was going to see Phil. She wore a long blue dress she had
purchased for the occasion, with pearl hearings and a necklace that used to
belong to her mother. She was anxious and couldn't wait to see Phil.

When
the bell rang, Isabel was sitting on the end of the sofa in the living room,
with the walker beside her.
 
Rebecca had
not come out of her bedroom yet.

Lucy opened
the door and said with a smile, “You must be Phil and Jeremy. I'm Lucy, the
best friend and chaperone who invited herself for dinner.”

Phil and
Jeremy smiled back and introduced themselves. Jeremy was holding a bottle of
red wine with a red bow on top of it and Phil had a bouquet of blue and yellow
flowers.
 
Lucy didn't know what they
were.
 
She wasn't into flowers.

“Come in,
Lucy said,” as she guided them to the living room.

When Phil saw Isabel, he
smiled. She returned his smile.

“You look
beautiful, Isabel,” Phil said. He bent and kissed Isabel on the cheek, sending
electricity running through Isabel's body.
 
She wanted him to hold her, kiss her.
 
Her body wanted him.
 
Jeremy
introduced himself to Isabel and said, “Phil wanted to get you flowers and I
advised him to get red wine instead.
 
So
we settled on both wine and flowers.”

“The
flowers look lovely,” Isabel said. “You didn't have to.”

Lucy took
the flowers and the wine from their hands and Isabel invited them to sit on the
couch facing her.

“What a
nice house, you have,” Phil said.

“I agree,”
Jeremy said.

“Thanks.”
 
Isabel then offered them some wine.
 
She was worried about Rebecca. It was past
6:30, and she was still in her room. “I hope you like Cuban food. Our pasta
machine broke.”

 
Jeremy and Phil laughed and Phil said, “Jeremy
and I, we eat everything. You don't grow up in Miami, not knowing Cuban food.”

Good
, Isabel thought. At least one obstacle cleared for the evening.

Phil,
Jeremy and Lucy, who returned from the kitchen with wine, traded stories about
their time growing up, and in college.

“Did you
know that people used to say that Phil should have been a comedian?” Jeremy
asked. “We used to play practical jokes on each other. We still do.”

“Really?”
Isabel said.

“We were
just kids,” Phil interjected.

“Come on
Phil.
 
What about last year at the ice
cream shop?” Jeremy said. Phil shook his head sideways and Isabel said, “Tell
me, what happened last year?” seeming very interested.

“On one of
my visits, I told him that I felt like having some ice cream and we decided to
go to the ice cream shop. When we got there, Phil, who insisted on paying, was
in line up front ordering ice cream.
 
He
asked me what flavor I wanted, I told him that I changed my mind and that I
wanted a shake instead.
 
He turned
around, grabbed my two arms and shook me.
 
We both started laughing and the cashier and the customers thought we
were crazy.”

All of them
laughed at the story. Then, Isabel said, “
it's
7:00,
maybe we should go to the dining room.

Lucy helped
Isabel get up and grab the walker near her.” Phil was amazed at the progress
she had been making.
 
Here he was,
struggling to walk on a broken ankle, and here she was so strong and determined
not to let the accident disrupt her life.

“I didn't
know that you started using a walker,” Phil said to Isabel.

“Yes, I've
made a lot of progress since the accident,” Isabel replied.
 
The walker was silver with four wheels, and a
basket in front of it. “The goal is to be able to get rid of this completely,”
Isabel added.

##

When they
reached the dining room, Isabel sat at the end of the dining room table, with
Phil and Jeremy on her left.

“Lucy, can
you go see what's taking Rebecca so long?” Isabel asked. A few minutes later,
Lucy returned with Rebecca.
 
Rebecca was
wearing the same clothes that she had on when both were cooking.

“I’m sorry,
I didn't see the time pass,” Rebecca said to Isabel.
 
Isabel knew that Rebecca was lying and
wondered whether Rebecca was going to ruin her evening with Phil.

As
dinner progressed, Lucy and Rebecca asked Phil many questions about
himself.
 
Rebecca learned that Phil was
not a vegetarian and that he liked all kinds of meat and that his favorite meat
was pork. Lucy learned about Phil's upbringing, his job, and that he was engaged
once and had never been married.
 
At that
point, Rebecca slammed her fork and knife on the table, prompting everyone to
look at her.

“I'm not
going to be part of this charade,” Rebecca said, fuming.

“Excuse
me?” an angry Isabel responded.

Rebecca ignored her and continued, “Here you
are, having dinner with your boyfriend, while your fiancé is away, and you
wanted me to be a good little girl and put up with that?”

As Isabel
tried to interject, Rebecca ignored Isabel and, looking at Phil, continued,
“Your boyfriend here knows that you are engaged, and showed up here today
saying all the right things.
 
Yes, he
likes all kinds of food. Yes, he eats dairy. That doesn't make him a
saint.
 
In fact, he should be ashamed of himself
for doing this. Since he's OK with you cheating on Richard, I bet you that he
is the type who goes after married women.”

“Are you
finished?” an infuriated Isabel asked Rebecca.

When
Rebecca didn't respond, Isabel said, “I want you to apologize to our guests for
being so rude to them.”

“Watch me,”
Rebecca said, as she got up and walked away from the dining room.
 
A few minutes later, everyone heard the front
door slam.

Chapter
Eleven

At the
Center that afternoon, Stacy was standing by the empty bench, looking at the
water.
 
The ducklings were back, making
Stacy wonder if the lake really had alligators.
 
Suddenly, she heard a male voice say, “Are you the lady who was looking
for Ms. Romero yesterday?”

Stacy
turned. It was the same landscaper she talked to yesterday. He was carrying a
black bag that Stacy assumed contained weeds that he must have pulled from the
ground. The landscaper was short and skinny. His black skin was
very
wrinkled and he appeared to Stacy to be in his
seventies. Whatever happened to Social Security? Stacy asked herself, looking
at the man drenched in his own sweat.

“Ms.
Romero?” Stacy repeated.

“Yes.
 
Doctor Gomez's nice, Ms. Isabel.”

“Oh yes,
did she come today?” Stacy asked.

“Yes. She
was here earlier but she already left.”

“I can't
believe I keep missing her. It has been years since I last saw her when we were
in high school together,” Stacy lied. Then reading the name tag on the
landscaper's blue shirt, Stacy then asked, “By the way, Mr. Perez, Do you know
how Isabel was injured?”

“She was in
a car crash. Mr. Seifert was driving,” the old man replied.

“Mr.
 
Seifert?”

“Yes, her
fiancé.”

“She is
engaged?”

“Yes. You
don't know him?”

“No.
 
I haven't seen Isabel in years.
 
What's his first name?
 
I've got to get a gift for him too.”

“Mr.
Richard,” the old landscaper replied. “He comes in here once in a while with
her.”