Part Five: The Terrace
I let them settle for ten minutes before I came out.
I had thought about what to wear in the way I thought about most things — practically, but not without attention. The deep blue dress was one I had bought in Milan two years earlier, on a trip that Rodrigo had believed was a visit to a college friend. It had been, in fact, a two-day series of meetings with the partner firm we were in the process of acquiring. I had tried the dress on in a shop near the hotel on the evening of the second day, as a private celebration, and had worn it exactly once since.
Today seemed like the right occasion.
I heard them before I saw them — the sound of thirty-two people trying to maintain a social register while confronted with surroundings that complicated the story they had told themselves about this afternoon. Conversations that had started confident had grown more careful. Doña Teresa’s voice was still carrying, but differently than usual.
I walked out onto the terrace.
The table was long and set precisely — white linen, crystal, the good china, flowers from the garden. The chefs were visible beyond the outdoor kitchen, working with the focused calm of people who cooked at this level regularly. The lake was doing its afternoon thing in the background, entirely indifferent to the occasion.
Thirty-two faces turned toward me.
I walked to the head of the table.
“Welcome,” I said. “I’m glad you came.”
Rodrigo was standing near the far end. He looked the way he always looked at the beginning of a situation he was unsure of — composed on the surface, with a quality of attention underneath that he was trying not to show.
“Mariana,” he said, producing the social smile. “Who lent you this place?”
“No one,” I said.
“Surely — ”
“I own it, Rodrigo. I’ve owned it for four years.”
The social smile stayed in place but became slightly disconnected from the rest of his face, the way smiles did when the thing producing them had stopped functioning.
“Stop this,” Doña Teresa said. She didn’t say it cruelly — she said it with something closer to genuine confusion, which I found more interesting. “You could never afford this on your own.”
At that moment, my assistant Valentina appeared at my elbow. She was twenty-nine and had worked with me for three years and had a quality of professional precision that I admired enormously. She did not enjoy drama but she understood its utility.
“Ms. Varela, the transfer documents are ready for your signature. The Cortés Group board also requested a call before Monday’s announcement.”
She said it the way she said everything — clearly, without theater, because it was simply the next item.
Rodrigo looked at her. Then at me.
“What board?”
I set the folder on the table.
“Yours,” I said.
