“Good boy.” Tara took a step sideways. Another one, and she’d see the book at the back of Alejandro’s waistband and know he’d been playing a joke on her.
Elise had seen Tara do some nasty things to people who laughed at her. She whipped out her hand, pulled the book out of Alejandro’s waistband, and held it behind her own back.
Sure enough, Tara looked behind him, admiring the view. There was just lots of skin, no book. She stepped away. “I need to go.” She ran her hand down Alejandro’s arm. “You, cutie, come see me. Maˇnana.”
“Si, si. Maˇnana. Tres.” Alejandro looked like he was trying hard to understand her.
“No, no. Dos. Two. Come tomorrow at two p.m.” She rolled her eyes at Elise, and whispered, “Beautiful but dumb.” She gave one last look at Alejandro, then left.
Elise stood beside him in silence until Tara was out of sight. “I’m so sorry.” She handed him back his book.
“That’s all right,” Alejandro said. “It’s the most fun I’ve had for months.”
“By the way, that’s one of my favorites.” She nodded at the novel. “I feel like I owe you. Would you like a glass of lemonade?”
“Yes, but no. My brother would kill me. I bet that right now he’s glaring at the back of me.”
Elise looked around him and there was Diego staring at his brother’s back with fire in his eyes. “He is,” she whispered, then stepped to the side. Loudly, she said, “Would you show me? I have no idea what that looks like. It’s around the other side of the house.”
As soon as they were out of Diego’s sight, she held out her hand. “I’m Elise.”
“And I’m Alejandro.”
They shook hands. His was big and work calloused and very warm.
He broke the hold. “I really should get back to work.” He took a step away.
“Why are you here? You don’t seem like a...” Elise realized she was putting her foot in her mouth. “I mean... Your English. It’s so good, but I mean...”
“It’s all right. I understand. At home in Mexico, I teach Spanish to English people. I need to speak the language well.”
“And you know about plants, right?”
“I do. I studied botany. My brother thinks it’s a useless subject to know.”
“My family feels that too! My degree is in Fine Arts. Try to get a job in that!” They smiled at each other.
“I don’t mean to be an elitist, but if you have a degree and a job, why are you here?” She raised her hand to indicate the garden. “Doing this?”
“I must reveal my secret. I got into trouble at home and my big brother rescued me. Got me out of the country and gave me a job.”
“Oh. Trouble as in drugs?”
“I wish. Then I’d be rich. Maybe dead, but rich.”
Elise laughed.
“I’m sure you have other things to do than listen to a gardener’s life story.”
“No, I can’t say that I do. My husband wants me to cook some exotic dishes for his clients. But all of them just want beef. And lots of it. So no, I don’t really have anything else to do. What kind of flowers are those?”
“Peonies. Paeonia california. And those over there are Paeonia corsica.”
“Wow. I’m impressed. And based on my little garden here, I think your degree is quite useful.”
“Thank you. I was hoping you’d like it.”
His eyes really were extraordinary. “I should have studied domestic management.”
“And I wish I’d learned how to get a wheelbarrow loaded with a hundred-and-fifty-pound dogwood up a hill. First time I tried it, the thing fell out twice.”
“And you picked it up and put it back in?”
“You can bet Diego wasn’t going to help me. He—”
“Alejandro!” It was Diego—and his tone was a command.
“My brother wants me to get back to work. I have to go.”
She frantically searched for something to say that would ensure that they’d talk again. “If I take Spanish lessons, will you help me?”
He was walking backward. “Yes. Most of my clients were women. Bored wives of rich men. Like your friend Tara. They were the problem.”
“Oh, I see. And she’s not my friend.” Her head came up. “I guess I’m like them.” She couldn’t keep the deflation out of her voice.
“You are far away from being like any of them.” The way he said it was so nice that she smiled.
“Alejandro!” Diego bellowed.
“I’m in trouble now. To maˇnana.”
Smiling, she watched him walk away until he was out of sight.
Chapter Eight
Elise had been taking Spanish lessons for a month but she’d not seen Alejandro. Diego and his other men had been there as usual. They mowed and trimmed and pulled weeds with quick efficiency, then left in a couple of old trucks.
She didn’t dare ask Diego where his brother was. She didn’t want him to think she wanted something more than someone to talk to. Which she assured herself that she didn’t.
One Sunday at the joint family dinner, her mother said it was time for Elise to start taking responsibility in the community. She kept her groan to herself. To her mother that meant joining committees and trying to show interest in whatever the other members—all of them over sixty—had to say.
She hadn’t told anyone she was taking Spanish classes three mornings a week. She was sure her mother would complain that it wasn’t French.
Her teacher was a Mexican woman in her fifties, very nice, and she was constantly feeding Elise. “You are too thin!” Elise ate everything she was served but she didn’t put on weight. But then she never sat still long enough to let calories settle.
One day her teacher’s three young grandchildren were there. Elise took one look at them and forgot about the teacher. She spent two hours with the kids and they delighted in telling her that every word she said in Spanish was totally wrong. Elise learned more from them than from any formal lesson.
After that, her teacher made sure the children were always there. Elise made a great babysitter. She and the children cooked Mexican dishes, played Mexican games, and spoke only in Spanish. By the end of the month she wasn’t fluent in the language, but she was on her way.
It was when her teacher said her father was ill and she had to return to Mexico that Elise again began to feel the loneliness of her life. Kent was always gone, girlfriends all seemed to have busy lives, and her mother was pushing her into joining the dreaded committees.
Elise began to have dreams—both real and made-up—of a man on a horse who rescued her from—from everything. One morning she woke up startled. In her dream, it had been Alejandro on the horse.
She finally got up the courage to ask Diego where his brother was. She was told he was on “another job.” His tone was unmistakable. Alejandro was off-limits to her, a married woman.
That Sunday, Elise was standing by the door waiting for Kent to finish a call so they could walk to her parents’ house for the weekly dinner. Or, as she called it, the What’s Wrong with Elise? dinner.
“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Kent said when he joined her.
“My mother wants me to join her committee about cleaning up the parks.”
“Sounds like a worthy cause.”
“It would be if we did some actual cleaning. But I’m to help some other women decide how to deal with the people who have been assigned by the court to do community service. Like any of us know how to do that.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Kent was looking at his watch.
“Need to be somewhere?”
“Don’t start on me! For once, let’s have a nice meal without you starting a fight. Maybe it would be good for you to join a committee or two. Do something instead of sitting around here all day and complaining.”
The unfa
irness of his accusations took her breath away. “I spend my life doing things for you.”
“And I spend mine doing things for you, so we’re even. Are you ready to go? Let’s get this over with. I have to—”
“Go back to the office,” Elise shot at him.
“You’re hopeless. You have everything any woman could want but you’re still not happy.” He walked out the door, leaving her behind.
Elise leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. He was right. She had everything in life but she was miserable. Her only happiness was when she was at Spanish class. The children, the home life, the laughter. Even the sadness of someone ill. It was life. And it made her happy.
She stood up straight, put her shoulders back, and went to the dinner. It was always a formal affair. Her mother had the Sunday dinners catered and served. She believed in what she called “polite conversation.” That meant that everyone was to agree with her. Disagreement of any sort was not allowed.
Usually, Elise made an effort to participate in whatever the others were talking about, but this time she was silent. She kept asking herself what she really and truly wanted to do. If she could wave a magic wand, what would she change?
She looked around the table at both sets of parents and her husband. Everything, she thought. I’d change it all.
“Elise!” her mother said sharply. “Would you be so kind as to join the adults in conversing?”
Elise looked across the table at her. “I was thinking about herbs and horses.”
Her father gave a chuckle. “Horses don’t eat herbs.”
“I think I should take riding lessons and I need an herb garden. Mrs. Beckett said she could tell that I’d used dried basil. She said she could taste the difference.” Pretentious little woman, Elise thought. She’d seen the jar on the counter and wanted them to think she was above such crass things. Elise was pleased that everyone was looking at her in surprise.
“Beckett Steel?” her father asked.
“Yes, that’s them. I thought I’d have the gardeners dig a hole or two in the back, just past the oak tree, so I could plant a few things.”
“A ‘hole’?” her mother said.
“Just so it’s deep enough for a pot or two. I don’t need much.”
Her mother shook her head. “Really, Elise, sometimes I think you were raised by the staff.”
I saw them more, she thought, but didn’t say.
“Tomorrow I’ll call Leonardo and he can design something for you,” her mother said.
Elise suppressed a grimace. She couldn’t stand the little man. He teased and flirted with the women until they were in giggles, so they hired him. She looked at Kent in wide-eyed innocence. “Isn’t he really expensive? I thought maybe I could sketch something, then have our gardeners do it.” Her father paid the gardeners but a professional designer would send the bill to Kent.
“I really don’t think—” her mother began.
“I think that’s a great idea,” Kent said, then looked at his father-in-law with pleading eyes.
We are children living in a dictatorship, Elise thought. We still have to ask our parents’ permission for everything we do.
“Yes,” her father said to his daughter. “That’s an excellent idea. Use some of that expensive education I paid for.”
“Edgar! Really,” her mother said. “Elise can’t possibly—”
Kent, who never contradicted his mother-in-law, spoke up. “I believe she can. Sweetheart, you go ahead and make your little garden. It’ll give you something to do all day.”
“And riding lessons?” Elise pressed.
“I see no reason for you to—” her mother began.
Kent’s mother, by far the quieter of the two women, said, “I took riding lessons until I went to college. I think it would be a lovely thing for you to do.”
She might be the quiet one, but she knew how to get her way. Elise smiled at her in gratitude. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Kent left right after the meal and Elise lost no time in getting started. She spent hours on the internet researching herb gardens.
By Monday morning, when Diego and his men arrived, she had a drawing she liked.
She met him as he was getting out of his truck and held out her sketch. It was a big circle, with an X of walkways, a birdbath in the middle.
“I need an herb garden,” she told him. “But I don’t know what to plant in it. My mother wants it to be beautiful and elegant and smell good.” That was a lie but she felt it was for a good cause. That she hadn’t considered where it might lead wasn’t something she wanted to think about.
Diego looked into her eyes so hard that she felt the blood rushing up her neck.
He seemed to reconcile himself that there was nothing he could do to stop this. He took out his cell and made a call. She knew enough Spanish to understand that he was warning his brother that if he so much as touched the little gringa, Alejandro would be sent back to Mexico. And further, Diego would marry him off to the girl who lived next door to their mother.
Elise had to turn away when she heard Alejandro’s cry for mercy.
Diego clicked off and told Elise that his brother would help her choose the plants she needed.
When Alejandro got there, for a moment they just stared at each other—and she knew he’d thought about her too.
“So how’s Tara?” she asked.
Alejandro’s face didn’t change. “Doing well. We’re getting married next week.”
Elise laughed. Tara had called and been quite angry because “that idiot gardener of yours” didn’t show up. “Sorry to take you away from your other job.”
“Diego had me putting in a hedge of Pyracantha—all those thorns—around some garbage cans. And he had me drive to New Jersey to pick up some bromeliads that they sell four miles from here. It was like he wanted me to stay away. I can’t think why.”
His innuendo made Elise frown. “I’m not really... I mean...”
“We’re to be friends.”
“Yes,” she said. “Amigos. How about if we speak Spanish while we do this?”
“All right. Except that if my brother gets too bossy I may have to speak to him in English curse words. They’re quite the best.”
“Are they?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then I’d be honored if you used my language.”
“Now where’s your plan and where do you want this garden put in?”
* * *
“You don’t have to do this,” Alejandro said.
They were digging the big circle for the garden they had marked out with string and stakes. Beside them in the shade, a garden hose nearby, were over a hundred plants they’d chosen. In the two weeks that they’d been together, their talk had gradually taken on a flirty intimacy. “It’s just my big brother showing me that he’s the boss.”
Elise jammed the shovel into the ground, and tossed the big clod into the wheelbarrow. “I’m enjoying this.”
He looked skeptical.
“Okay, so maybe not actually happy at having to dig a giant circle, but it gets me outside.” The sun was bright and she really hoped she didn’t sweat off her sunscreen. She knew she should change into pants and a long-sleeved shirt, but being near Alejandro made shorts and a tank top feel, well, right. And what was a little sunburn? She wouldn’t have to pay for the sun damage for another thirty years. Besides, Alejandro was, as always, bare from the waist up.
She looked across the widening space they were digging. Diego had declared that the whole herb bed had to be dug by hand—and he couldn’t spare any men. He’d meant to keep his little brother so busy that he wouldn’t have time to socialize with their employer’s wife. He hadn’t counted on Elise volunteering to help Alejandro dig.
“Tell me about your home,” she said.
“I
did. There was a problem with—”
“I know that part,” she said quickly. “Randy older woman, beautiful young teacher. She couldn’t control herself. The end.”
Alejandro smiled as he dug deep. “Beautiful, huh?”
“So far, it seems to have caused you more problems than it’s helped.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he mumbled.
“Then tell me. Give me something to think about besides bashing your brother over the head with this shovel. Has he always been so stubborn?”
“Since he was born. He and our father used to have arguments that rocked the roof.”
Elise sighed. “I’d like to have the courage to stand up to my father.” She wiped sweat off her forehead and picked up her bottle of water. “Is that why Diego’s here in the US?”
Alejandro leaned on the shovel to watch in admiration as she drank half the bottle of water. When she finished, he went back to shoveling. “My father broke his leg.”
She could tell that he was about to start a story. “Tell me as much as possible in Spanish and please help me with the translation.”
He gave her a smile of such pleasure that Elise almost lost her balance.
They went back to digging while Alejandro started telling of his life in Mexico. When he was a child, his father broke his leg and couldn’t get to his bookkeeping job at a trucking firm. His parents were worried about how they were going to support the family. In frustration, his mother said that the only thing she knew how to do was cook.
“Is she any good?”
He rolled his eyes. “The best. Everyone said so. She pushed out a window in the kitchen and put up a sign that she was selling burritos. Everyone came running. A year later, Dad and Diego built a cover and set out four tables. The next year they rented a building with a covered terrace, and...” He shrugged.
“And you had a five-star restaurant.”
“A New York Times critic did stop by and he wrote a rather nice article.” He had to help Elise to understand all the words in that sentence.
“Wow! A New York Times restaurant review. Did you work there? Can you cook?”
“A bit. It was Diego and my brother Ricardo who got the most out of the place.” The way he was smiling made her want to know more.