Evenings at the Argentine Club (26 page)

“Oh, thank you.” But she didn’t know what to say. It seemed strange to go to dinner to her mother’s friend’s house. And what
if Eric didn’t want to go? She couldn’t decide for him. “I’m not sure what Eric wants to do on Friday.”

“Why don’t you two talk it over and let me know?”

“Mrs. Ortelli, did Eric say anything about… us being a couple?”

“No, no, no. I know you’re not. Are you?”

She glanced at Eric and was happy to see him playing cards with Eduardo, off to the side. They were laughing and joking. Eric
would win them all back one at a time. They’d all see the same amazing man she did. And for those who didn’t, it was their
loss. “We’re just friends, Mrs. Ortelli. I need to have a friendly chat with him. Excuse me, I’m sorry.”

Victoria hated to interrupt, but Lucia was driving her crazy.

“Hey guys. Having fun?”

“Hey Victoria,” Eduardo said. “Killing time until lunch.”

“Is it time to eat yet?” Eric asked. “We’re starved.”

“Ah, almost.” She spoke to Eduardo. “Can I pull Eric away for just a second?”

Eduardo shrugged. “Sure.”

She motioned for Eric to stand.

Moving off to the side with Victoria, Eric smiled. “Pulling me away for a kiss?”

“Shh, no I want to talk about your mom,” Victoria whispered.

He angled his head closer to hers. “My mom?”

“Eric, you have to talk to her. She’s fishing for information about our relationship. Inviting us over for dinner. Telling
me I’m like her daughter…” She sent him a pleading look. “I don’t know what to say.”

Eric laughed. “Tell her the truth.”

“You tell her, and tell her not to broadcast it to the entire club.” Especially when there wasn’t much to broadcast. They’d
agreed to date. Nothing more. And if something more did develop then it should stay between the two of them.

“She likes you. She probably will want to shout it to the whole town.”

“First of all, she’d like any woman she believed could keep you around for a while.”

“True.”

“And secondly, Eric, we decided to go on a few dates, not get married. Please, tell her it’s no big deal.”

He nodded. “She’s going to make a big deal about it, but I’ll try to keep her calm.”

“Thank you. I need some wine. See you at our lunch table.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

Eric returned to sit with Eduardo and sighed.

Eduardo picked up his cards again. “Game over? Or you want to keep playing?”

“Mmm,” Eric murmured, thinking about Victoria and his mother and what to say. “I think we’re done.”

Eduardo stood. “You and Victoria… hooking up?”

Eric watched Eduardo for judgment, condemnation, acceptance. “I like her a lot. But I may just be passing through. I don’t
want to be a jerk, not with her.”

Eduardo nodded. “Maybe you stick around.” He looked around the club. “We’re a strange group, but we’re family. You know, Eric?”

“I know. But I gotta go where the work is.”

“Right.” He tapped Eric’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “I saw you at the high school reunion with Victoria on the dance
floor.” He put his index finger under his eye in an Argentine gesture that meant
watch out.
“I’m sure Susana and a couple of others saw it, too.”

“There aren’t any secrets in this place. I’d forgotten.” Maybe that was why his mother was giving Victoria the third degree.
Gossip had probably already made the rounds and the stories had most likely been exaggerated or changed five times. He’d better
talk to his mother and fill her in. He got up and went to find her.

With lunch over and done with, Jaqueline helped clean up, then went in search of Victoria and Eric to see when they wanted
to go home. Lucia said she and Antonio could take her home, but she wanted to spend what few minutes she could with her daughter.
After all, she could have driven herself. The whole point of leaving her car behind was to drive with Victoria.

She didn’t see Victoria right away but found Eric off in the corner, playing with her camera. They had stopped on the way
to the club and she helped him buy rolls of film. Curious, she sat with him.

“Figuring it out?”

He glanced at her and smiled. “Sort of. It’s complicated, but I like the idea of controlling the process rather than having
a camera decide everything for me.”

“Let me see,” she held out her hand, and he passed her the camera. “I started out with simple cameras and slowly learned the
features that make a good one. I’m sure there are better ones today, but this was the top of the line when I bought it. Victor
took me shopping and ordered me to choose the best.”

“Great guy,” Eric said. He leaned back, and crossed his ankles carelessly.

Jaqueline raised an eyebrow. Was Lucia’s boy tossing in his opinion on her separation from Victor? “My point is that I worked
my way up to this camera. It might be too much for you to start with.”

“I’ve had cameras before. But they’re the point-and-shoot digitals that focus and do all the work for me.”

“But you’d probably get better prints from those specifically because there are fewer variables to control.”

“What variables do I need to control?”

She sighed, wondering why she was so reluctant to teach him the basics of using her camera properly. Maybe because she preferred
to box it up and not think about it anymore. Holding the camera up for him to see, she said, “The shutter controls how long
the film is exposed to light. This is important because what you’re doing with a camera is recording the light patterns of
real images on a layer of light-sensitive material—the film. So this is your first variable, controlling shutter speed.”

Eric leaned closer, resting his forearms on the table, to see what she was doing.

“Basically, you want to balance film speed, aperture size, and shutter speed.”

“Okay.”

“With film speed, you want to choose the correct ISO rating. Like I explained at the store you want to choose lower ISO for
places with more light, like outdoors. Higher ISO for dark places.”

“Got it.”

“Now the lens. That’s the key to a perfect picture. And you’ll have to play with it until you get the right focal length.”
She adjusted the lens. “What should we focus on?”

Eric grinned. “Her.” He pointed to Victoria, who was listening to Nelly.

Jaqueline aimed the camera at Victoria. She changed the lenses and turned them until she found the angle and focus she wanted.
The weight of the camera felt great in her hands. She remembered all the times she’d photographed the girls as babies and
kids. She had sometimes followed them around for hours trying to get the right shot. “Getting the perfect picture is sometimes
a matter of patience,” she said. “Waiting. Watching.”

Across the room, Victoria nodded and listened to Nelly. She looked bored. She crossed her arms, she shifted on her feet. Jaqueline
noticed again how thin she’d gotten. She looked good, but she didn’t look like
her
Victoria anymore. The sadness in her heart intensified. Then something changed in Victoria’s expression and she lowered her
arms and laughed at something Nelly said. Her chin lifted and her face lit up. Jaqueline immediately clicked and took the
picture. “If you’re lucky, you catch the image you’ve been waiting for.”

Eric nodded. “I’ll have to practice.”

Jaqueline smiled at Eric and handed back the camera. He’d made her remember the joy of catching the perfect image. He was
so young that he didn’t see it yet, but life was nothing but a series of perfect moments, perfect images caught in memory
for that instant and then they were gone. She had boxes of pictures. But all they were now were moments of the past that were
gone, no matter how beautiful the shots or how many hours she worked to get them just right.

She gazed at the camera. Loving it, missing it, and at the same time knowing that she wasn’t the same person who used to strive
to capture the perfect image. She didn’t believe in holding on to moments anymore. Because you just couldn’t. It was all an
illusion. Time moved on.

Eric stared at Victoria through the camera’s viewfinder. Jaqueline wondered what he wanted to capture. What aspect of her
daughter did he hope to pick up and hold on to? He lowered the camera but continued to stare at her with a serious, faraway
expression.

“Keep practicing,” Jaqueline said. “You’ll know the perfect shot when you see it.”

“Thanks,” he said, almost sleepily smiling at Jaqueline. “I’ll take good care of her.”

Jaqueline couldn’t help thinking that he was referring to more than the camera. Her heart skipped a beat. Young men were so
full of promises. “I don’t think cameras are females.”

“They are in Spanish.
La camara
, right?”

“You’re right.” And though it pained her, she added, “And if you really promise to take good care of it—it’s very precious
to me—you can keep it.”

“I promise,” Eric said, and reached across to hold and gently squeeze her hand.

M
onday morning, Victoria found a furniture rental company that worked with real-estate investors on a week-by-week basis. She
walked through their gallery looking for just the right items. Since this wasn’t going to be her home, she wouldn’t decorate
it the way she would her own personal space. But she didn’t want it to lack the warm energy that would make a potential buyer
fall in love with the house.

So she chose basic pieces to make the rooms look pulled together, and she planned to bring items from her home and borrow
some from hers and Eric’s parents to display. She chose just enough for the house to look lived in and appealing. Lucia gave
her an adorable picture of Eric when he was five. She framed it and set it on the coffee table in the living room. Once she’d
selected everything from furniture to kitchen dishes, she scheduled the items to be delivered. She made it out of there in
time to attend her classes. The rest of the week was spent the same. Organizing the furniture that arrived on Wednesday and
studying. Transforming the remodeled house into something that resembled a home. She barely had time to talk to her mother.

Eric reminded her Friday night that Jaqueline and Lucia were leaving the following morning for their cruise and they had agreed
to drive them to Long Beach.

“Oh hell,” Victoria said, as she arranged a small group of vases on a corner coffee table.

He reached for her arm and pulled her onto the couch. “This place looks amazing. I can’t believe what you did in one week.”

“I’m exhausted.”

He pulled her closer so her body rested against his. And he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll make some dinner,
then you can go to bed early.”

Eric felt so warm and strong, and she wanted to close her eyes and fall asleep right there next to him. But she was hungry.
“Okay,” she said.

He slipped off the couch. “Don’t move.” He hurried to her room, and when he came back he had the book she’d been reading at
night. “Here you go. Lay back, relax, and take your mind off everything for a while.”

Victoria took the book, touched by his thoughtfulness. She held his fingers and pulled him forward. He bent down, filling
her nostrils with his sexy masculine scent, and their lips met in a sweet kiss that made her want so much more of him. She
wanted to spend hours getting to know more of the man he’d become. “You’re a great kisser,” she said.

He grinned. “This weekend I plan to take you out on our first date and show you just how good a kisser I can be.”

“Mmm,” she said. “I can’t wait.”

As he slowly stood, he watched her. “Stay there a sec.” And he disappeared down the hall again. This time he came back with
her mother’s camera. She groaned internally. He’d been photographing her all week as she worked putting the house together.
He changed the lens and focused on her, then snapped shot after shot of her sitting on the couch.

“That’s enough,” she said.

“No, wait. Stay there. Relax.”

She laughed and reclined on the couch, resting her head on her hand. “What are you going to do with all these pictures?”

After he took about another dozen pictures, he lowered the camera. “Keep ’em.”

“All of them?”

“The best. That way I can take you with me wherever I go.”

Hearing him mention leaving sent her heart plunging down to her stomach.

“I want to remember this house, and our time together here.”

“Oh.” She pulled herself up and gazed down at her hands, then placed the book on the coffee table. “When will you be leaving?”

He placed the camera on the coffee table beside her book, and crouched down to look her in the eyes. “Victoria.”

She lifted her gaze and met his.

He reached across and placed the palm of his hand on her face. His fingers caressed her skin, and wove into her hair. “What
are you thinking?”

She shrugged. “Nothing.” She eased away from his touch. “I’m hungry. I’ll help you make dinner.”

“No,” he stood. “I’ll do it.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but he turned away and a few moments later she heard him
working in the kitchen.