Havana Jazz Club Read Online Free Page A

for a long time, as all the women wanted to dance with him, and he passed from one set of arms to the next under the satisfied gaze of his wife. Later, mother and daughter sang to their guests, and everyone left the party in good spirits.
    It was only when Celia hugged her daughter good-bye that her emotions betrayed her and tears flooded her eyes.
    “But, Mami,” Billie consoled her. “I’ll be here, right here . I promise I’ll come see you every day. You’ll see. You’ll have to kick me out. You won’t even realize I don’t live with you anymore.”
    “Yes, my girl, yes. Please do that. Come and see me every day,” Celia begged, overwhelmed by an intangible unease, as if she had a premonition that this wasn’t going to go well and that a bitter future awaited her daughter.
    Her son-in-law hugged her next. She looked him in the eyes with an expression that was simultaneously a plea and a warning.
    “Treat her well. She’s still just a girl. Take good care of her.”
    “I will, Mama Celia,” he said, smiling. Kissing her sweetly, he added, “She’s mine to worry about now.”
    Nicolás and Celia watched as, amid the guests’ cheering, Orlando drove away with Billie in a car a friend had lent them. They would spend their honeymoon on the beaches of Varadero.
    Orlando told her the news that night, when they were still sweaty and panting, settled in each other’s arms after making love. Billie, with the pleasure and pain of her first time lodged at the bottom of her belly, her heart and mind inflamed, drunk in love, found herself wrenched suddenly from a sweet and placid drowsiness.
    “We’re going to Spain, chocolate chip,” he announced, kissing her tenderly.
    “When?” Billie could hardly contain her surprise.
    “Soon,” Orlando replied, caressing her young breasts. “Very soon.”
    “But . . .” she replied, confused, suddenly on the verge of tears.
    “I’ll explain everything tomorrow, my love, okay?” he said, cutting her off with a kiss. “You don’t need to worry about a thing. It’s been a big day. Let’s sleep a little now, okay?”
    He kissed her again and turned over in bed, lacing his fingers through hers and draping his arm over her stomach. Billie soon heard his breathing become measured and deep. But, despite being exhausted after such an emotional day, she couldn’t get to sleep. Her brain was a tornado of thoughts—wild, out of control, with no order or direction. She thought about her mother, how strange and suspicious she had found her daughter’s boyfriend’s insistence that they marry right away. Why hadn’t Orlando said anything? Why hadn’t he consulted her, asked her opinion? Was he afraid that she would refuse to go with him or marry him? What would she have done if she had known? She couldn’t answer that question. She loved her husband madly, but the last thing she wanted right then was to go to Spain. She didn’t want to leave her country, at least not so soon.
    She had no idea when Orlando had made the decision to leave, how long he had been planning the trip. He had never said anything to make her suspect the departure was so imminent, neither during their engagement nor when he asked her to marry him. She knew that her husband was drowning on this island, that he wanted to escape, to travel, to know the world, but she had thought it was a distant, somewhat-outlandish dream, like hers of becoming a singer—something that would never actually happen.
    She needed time to adjust to so many changes, to get used to married life and learn how to take care of herself and her husband without the protective shadow of their parents. When she had imagined married life with Orlando, she had always pictured it in Old Havana, in a house near her family, in the neighborhood she knew so well amid the streets that had seen her grow up. Maybe they could take a trip to New York someday and bring her mother with them. She didn’t even want to go to the United States