“My dear Beatriz, I assure you that is far from the case, but taking the world too seriously doesn’t make it a better place.”
With a flourish, Bécquer handed Beatriz back her phone. “And now, if you’ll excuse us. I must introduce Carla to Richard. Judging by his last e-mail, he’s very much interested in her novel.”
Beatriz glanced at me, her pale blue eyes cold and dismissive. I was glad for the mask that hid my features for I was certain my dislike of her was written on my face. I could read the hate on hers, as plainly as if I had sensed it in her mind. Which I hadn’t. For, unlike my experience with the woman Sheryl, I couldn’t read her mind. Federico hadn’t either. Why? I wondered. Why was Beatriz different?
“I agree he’s interested,” Beatriz was saying to Bécquer. “It’s with the subject of his interest I disagree.”
“Really, Beatriz. Who is the cynic now?”
“What is her problem?” I asked Bécquer as he led me through the crowd.
She’s jealous of you, Bécquer said, although he didn’t really, because at the same time he was talking with one of his guests, shaking a young man’s hand, bowing to a pretty woman with an ample bosom barely concealed by her low-cut dress, then moving past them, he complimented a tall gentleman on his attire, and kissed the gloved hand of his lady. So, really, he couldn’t be talking to me. Yet his voice was in my head explaining Beatriz was upset with him because she had noticed he liked me.
You like me? The question formed in my mind before I could stop it. Embarrassed, I turned my head away to hide my blushing.
Bécquer laughed but didn’t answer for just then we had reached the back of the room where a man in his thirties was leaning against the wall, a glass in his hand.
“Richard,” Bécquer said.
The man fixed his kohl-enhanced stare on Bécquer. “Bécquer, at last,” he said, his husky voice creating an intimacy that excluded everybody else. But Bécquer, his arm still on mine, nodded to him briefly and introduced me.
Limping slightly, Mr. Malick detached himself from the wall and bowed to me. “Enchanté,” he said.
“The pleasure is mine.”
“Getting into character, are we?” Bécquer asked him.
The man smiled, drinking Bécquer in with his stare. “Not everybody can pull Dorian Gray without make-up.”
“I meant the limp,” Bécquer said.
“Of course.” Mr. Malick turned to me. “Lord Byron,” he explained pointing at his flowing robes that consisted on the loose shirt and pants the Greek nationalists wore in the nineteenth century. “He had a congenital limp, the good lord. Mine is only temporary.”
Bécquer frowned. “You mean it’s real?”
“Quite so.”
“You should have told me. I would have gone to see you during the week. You didn’t have to stress yourself by coming here.”
“Nonsense.” Richard waved his hand to encompass the room. “I couldn’t possibly miss your party.”
“Let’s get you a seat.”
As Bécquer spoke, a couple sharing the sofa further along the wall got up.
A coincidence perhaps. Perhaps not, I thought as I remembered Federico’s conviction that Bécquer manipulated minds.
I do not. Again Bécquer’s voice was in my head as clear as if he had spoken aloud.
I glowered at him. Stop it.
Bécquer raised an eyebrow. Why? It’s quicker and precludes misunderstandings. Besides I like being in your mind.
I mean it.
He shrugged and continued his conversation with Richard, a conversation he had managed to maintain even while we were engaged in our silent one.
When we reached the sofa and, after he had helped Richard to sit and asked me what I wanted to drink, Bécquer excused himself and disappeared into the crowd.
“Charming, isn’t he?” Richard said, the longing so strong in his mind that it flooded mine. “You’re lucky he’s your agent.”
“Indeed,” I said, somehow insulted at the implication that it would be Bécquer’s charisma and not the strength of my writing what would get me a contract.
I felt confusion in his mind, then embarrassment. “I didn’t mean it that way,” he rushed to apologize. “I respect Bécquer’s judgment tremendously. If he has signed you, you must be seriously talented.”
I laughed. His overuse of qualifiers reminded me of Madison, who couldn’t leave a noun alone or use one adverb when she could use two.
“Seriously.” I smiled. “I’m guessing, by your words, that, contrary to Bécquer’s belief, you’ve not read my manuscript.”
His fingers tapping nervously on his glass betrayed his embarrassment. “I may have given him that impression in my last e-mail. I promise I will read it as soon as I get home.”
“Any time in the next four months would be all right,” I teased him, to put him at ease, for I could sense how much he would hate Bécquer to catch his lie. “Querying is a long process. I’ve learned to be patient.”
“A week only. And that is a promise.”
“A week?” Bécquer repeated joining us.
“For my contract,” I joked.
Bécquer passed me the glass of Riesling I had requested and raised his. “I’ll drink to that,” he said.
And we all drank.
Another of Bécquer’s authors stopped by soon afterward, eager to share with Mr. Malick an idea she had just had for a horror story. She seemed surprised because she hated the genre, she explained, and all her novels so far had been realistic fiction. Bécquer encouraged her and used her presence to excuse himself and take me with him.
“You gave her the ‘idea,’” I told Bécquer once we were far enough for them not to hear.
“And why would I do that?” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “To be with you?”
“Certainly not. I — ”
“Actually I did,” he said setting his glass — still full, I noticed — on the tray of one of the waiters passing by. “I wanted you to meet other people, and didn’t want to leave him alone. Is that a crime?”
I didn’t argue.
Over the following hour or so, I met many of Bécquer’s authors, and several editors who requested my manuscript. Bécquer came and went freely. But whether he was there or not, the conversations flew with ease, driven by a common love of books and writing, and my enhanced ability to sense people’s emotions.
It was a strange feeling being able to do so. Disturbing, yet exhilarating, for knowing how people felt, I soon realized, gave me power over them. I found it increasingly difficult, as the evening wore on, not to use it to my advantage.
Apparently, Beatriz had been successful in asking Sheryl to perform, because she had been playing for some time now. Her choices, classical piano pieces, Chopin and Beethoven mainly, blended with the discussions, never too loud to cover the voices, yet audible enough to fill awkward silences.
After each piece, all conversation ceased as a round of applause recognized her efforts, and provided an excuse, if needed, for the guests to part and regroup. I had just taken advantage of one of those breaks to take my leave from my last partner — a mystery writer I had always admired, but who, in person, had turned out to be most boring — when I spotted Bécquer.
He was helping a young woman to one of the sofas. His gesture, paternalistic and condescending as it was, was also annoyingly touching.
Bécquer looked up and his eyes met mine over the tiara the woman wore with the easy grace of a young queen. Embarrassed at being caught watching, I stumbled back and hit somebody.
A firm hand steadied me.