Evenings at the Argentine Club Read Online Free Page A

not tell her about her father’s plans. And tonight was not the time. She answered hurriedly, “Carmen, let me call you later, we’re going to start dinner.” And that actually wasn’t a lie. The women brought baskets overflowing with bread to the tables, and the aroma drifting inside from the grills indicated that the meat would follow shortly.
    “No problem. Have a great time. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”
    “Good idea. I need to talk to you, but not tonight.” She got up and purposely moved closer to the stage so the music from the band would get louder, making conversation more difficult.
    “That’s okay. I can barely hear you anyway. Hasta mañana,” Carmen said. She made a kissy sound and hung up.
    Victoria didn’t want to burden Carmen with news of their father’s plans, but she had to tell someone. Tomorrow they could talk privately.
    At about nine thirty, with the summer sun finally having set in California, they began serving the food. As in Argentina, everyone ate late. By eleven the dishes had been cleared and loaded into the heavy-duty dishwashers in the kitchen by the older women. The younger ones took to the dance floor first. Victoria searched out her parents. They used to love to dance, but in the last few years her mother disappeared into the kitchen to help wash dishes, and her father stayed on the back patio beside the grills, smoking a cigarette and socializing with Mr. Ortelli and a couple of other men.
    And she was too physically and mentally tired to dance. Hell, exhaustion was her middle name. Most days she felt like she was thirty-eight years old, not twenty-eight. She decided that instead of dancing, she’d get a cup of coffee before she made the drive home. As she filled her cup from one of the silver coffee urns in the back of the dance hall, she heard an unusual group gasp, and voices quieting as if someone had gradually turned down the volume. Only the music continued. Victoria looked over her shoulder. A tall man in a sophisticated suit, probably custom made to fit his great body, had walked in and stood just inside the entrance. He scanned the room as if he were looking for someone. Then Nelly Apolonia ran out of the large hall and into the kitchen. She came back out with Mrs. Ortelli, who called out in a high-pitched shock, “Eric!”
    Eric? Ortelli? Victoria stood by the coffee urns, staring like everyone else at the guy who had inspired so much gossip through the years. There had been stories that he’d had a big fight with his parents, or that he’d gotten a girl pregnant in another state over spring break, or even that he’d killed someone and was hiding out. Speculation ran the gambit from wild to ridiculous. Eventually, all the gossip died down until, out of respect for Lucia Ortelli, no one mentioned Eric at all. So much time had passed since Eric had left home that Victoria had started to wonder if maybe he’d been a figment of their collective imagination and he’d never existed at all. A sort of tall tale that had taken on a legendary quality over the years. Yet here he was, looking very real, and very handsome, and like he’d done extremely well for himself.
    Mrs. Ortelli ran to her son and pulled this broad-shouldered man into an embrace. Eric closed his eyes and held his mother close. He kissed the top of her head as she pulled back to look at him. Taking in the same image as the rest of the club—an amazingly put-together guy with dark, angular features and black, wavy hair that if left to grow longer would probably have curls. Different from the skinny, dimpled boy who left home.
    After a brief private moment in a sea of observers where mother and son shared who knew what with their gazes, Mrs. Ortelli turned around with a huge smile and said, “Surprise. He made it home tonight after all.”
    Was she going to try to pull off the lie that she
expected
him to show up? She’d been just as surprised as everyone else. But like her mother always said,