Scorching to the Touch, page 22
Fritz swallows hard, and I realize he interpreted that the wrong way. “I’m not saying no, necessarily—” A long breath leaves him, then he smiles.
“Of course,” he says. “Whatever you’d like.”
“Maybe at my place—”
“I’d ask to take you home, but I kind of have a full house right now.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Bren, Sofia, and Addy are all staying with me. Lola and Karl are babysitting tonight.”
“Dad’s on set this weekend, so my place is fine.”
After nodding once, Fritz offers me his elbow and I lace my arm through it so he can lead us to our table.
I wish I could say I’m fully present in this moment, but my thoughts are a million miles away—considering my next career moves—if any. I vaguely hear a master of ceremonies give a brief introduction before Ximena comes to the stage and takes the microphone.
Huh. The reason I didn’t recognize her is that she’s not usually the face of the company. One of her brothers tends to be the spokesperson for the Reyes family. I guess it makes sense though, since Fritz told me the launch is her project. With renewed interest in tonight’s festivities, I listen to her more carefully.
“When I was fourteen, my father asked me what I wanted for my birthday,” Ximena starts. “My mother was heartbroken that I didn’t want a quinceañera, but Papi understood. We were walking along the rows of agaves on our tierra when I told him I wanted a reserve batch of luxury tequila to be aged twenty years. My father didn’t bat an eye.
“All he said was ‘anything you want,’ and almost immediately he got to work on the reserve batch that only I could say what to do with.
“Since my great grandfather took the helm of the company, Velvet Fire has remained accessible to all Mexicans. It is a tequila by the people and for the people. Our mission isn’t changing. The original Velvet Fire will continue to be the staple of our brand, but even at fourteen, I understood the potential of what we could achieve with a reserve batch. Velvet Fire is for the daytime—to be enjoyed after a long day’s work. Our reserve batch is for Yoalli, the Nahua word for night. When the lights dim, and lovers’ eyes sparkle across a table.”
Ximena stops talking to move to the side of the stage. They release a deep blue satin curtain spanning the width of the room from the ceiling. When it falls, a single image covers the wall.
An image of Fritz and me.
Everyone in the room gasps followed by a moment that feels like five minutes of silence but was likely only a few seconds.
We’re in the yacht, me lounging in a deep blue bikini; him bending over me, the drink between us as I grab it from him.
The next three things strike me in the following order; one, they photoshopped the background to a full-moon ocean and changed the lighting to emulate night. Two, they carefully photoshopped Fritz’s erection out of the frame.
And three, they didn’t photoshop the two dimples on my thigh, or the cute love handle spilling over the string bikini. As the tears sting the backs of my eyes, I search for Ximena. She is clapping, looking at me with a wide smile. Everyone has stood up and started clapping without me realizing it.
Ximena nods at me, understanding, and I blow her a kiss then mouth ‘thank you.’
In my entire career, I have not once seen an image of myself not photoshopped heavily. In the past, they’ve gone as far slimming my hips or thighs until we started including restrictions in my editorial contracts. If I achieved one thing in my career, let it be this: that I made women of bigger sizes see themselves as beautiful and desired.
Yeah. I think I can retire from acting now.
48
FRITZ
Amid the sea of applause, it’s Joanna I find staring at me with a crooked smile. A smile so smug, it tells me she has her story.
And how could she not?
When the marketing for this campaign goes public tomorrow, there will not be a corner of this earth that will be private for Erica and me.
I text Everett,
Me: Triple security. Get a team on Erica at all times.
Everett: When?
Me: Yesterday
Music starts and several people head to the dance floor. I do my best to ignore Joanna’s scrutiny of my every move.
I stand and offer Erica my hand. “Will you dance with me?”
When she looks up at me, her nose is reddened like she might cry.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Is it your ankle? Does it still hurt?”
“No. It’s not that. My ankle is fine.” She stands and takes my hand, leading me to the dance floor.
“Why are you about to cry?” I ask as I hold her in my arms. It’s upbeat cumbia playing, and we’re slow dancing, but nothing really matters apart from us two.
“Why do you think I was going to cry?”
“Whenever you’re about to cry, your nose turns red even before your eyes show signs of crying,” I say.
“Huh.”
“So? Why were you about to cry?”
Erica shakes her head, squints her eyes, then peers up at me through her lashes. “The image, it . . . moved me.”
I squeeze my hand around her waist. “That day was special to me too,” I say.
“No, that’s not . . . I mean, yes, it was special, but I’ve never seen an image of myself from a professional shoot, not photoshopped within an inch of its life.”
“What are you talking about? They photoshopped it. The nighttime for one, and my, uh, swim trunks.”
A small giggle escapes her. “I mean me. They didn’t photoshop the lonja over the string bikini, or my cellulite on my thigh.”
I feel my face tighten. “You’re upset about it? To be honest, I didn’t notice those things.”
“No,” she hurries to say. “I’m happy about it. Ximena did a wonderful thing. Body positivity movements are taking hold all over the world, but not much has reached Mexico yet.”
“So you’re a pioneer then?”
“Well, I think that would be Ximena.”
“She hand-picked you, you know?” I say.
It’s Erica’s turn to raise her brows. “After the shoot, I called her, demanding to know how you got on the project. They had told me it would be a model—not an actress. Ximena blatantly said she’s had a crush on you for ever, and you were her first choice to promote her reserve batch.
Erica looks past me, searching for Ximena, I’m sure. “I had no idea,” she says.
“I didn’t either, until after the shoot. Anyway, I’m glad she did right by you, and that you like the images.”
“I don’t like them, Fritz. I love them.”
49
FRITZ
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
After Everett drops us off at Erica’s and heads back to my place, we’re left alone in her dark home.
“Yesenia has the night off,” she says to explain the absence of her house staff. “We’re completely alone.”
I smile darkly at her.
“Don’t get any ideas. We have to talk.”
I laugh. “How about a drink, then?” I propose. “What would you like?”
“Red wine. There should be a few bottles in the kitchen.”
I bend to kiss her forehead where she’s sitting. “I’ll go open one up. Why don’t you get out of those uncomfortable shoes in the meantime?”
She smiles at me, and that smile . . . it puts me at ease a bit.
Though it could be politeness and nothing beyond that, it could also mean she’s willing to try. An honest to god real try at a relationship.
Once I locate the wine glasses and pour two, I head back to the living room where Erica is sitting, biting her bottom lip.
“Here you go, baby,” I say, handing her the glass.
She takes it and takes a sip. “Thank you.”
“First of all, I want to make sure we’re both sober for this conversation.” I pause, swirling my wine glass. “I had one of the tequila samples when I first got to the party, and nothing since apart from this wine.”
Erica’s head falls to the side while she studies me. “Same. I’m sober. I promise.”
“Good.”
She tips her chin. “Where to start?”
“Anywhere you want. I promise anything you ask, you’ll get nothing but the truth from me.”
“Two months is a long time,” she says, resting her glass on the coffee table in front of us.
I set my drink down too, so I can grab her hands in mine. “It is,” I agree.
“Have you . . .” she clears her throat. “Have you tried with anyone else since we last spoke?”
I shake my head. “I haven’t tried with anyone else. I promise.”
“I wouldn’t have minded, you know? If you wanted to see if you could overcome your . . . um, you know—”
“My ED?”
“Yeah. Once we both had the truth, I figured you’d want to see if that makes a difference for you.”
“I promise you, Eri. You’re the only woman I ever want to be with again.”
She frowns, the wrinkle between her brows making a presence. “I’m not sure how I feel about that. I was kind of hoping you’d been with someone else since.”
“What? Why?” I ask, horrified. No. This can’t be no. She can’t say no.
“You’ll resent me. If we try to make a go of this, a real try . . . you’ll resent me.”
I brush a loose strand of hair behind her ear so I can caress her cheekbone. “You think I care about your body count and how it stacks up to mine?”
“Don’t you?”
I shake my head. “No. What I’ve done to you—what I’ve done to us . . . pushing you away is a big part of that. If I hadn’t pushed you away, our lives would be so different now.”
“You wouldn’t be a musician,” she says.
“Probably not. Maybe I’d be captain of that fishing boat by now.”
She smiles as she thinks out loud. “I would have still wanted to act. You’d follow me around Mexico while I traveled with a theater company. You would have proposed. Since we’d be broke, you would have talked with Dad, and he would have given you mom’s engagement ring to propose with.”
“We’d be married?” I ask, wanting to join in her fantasy, if only for a moment.
“Yeah. We’d be married. I’d get my big break in that telenovela, and immediately after, we’d start trying to have a baby.”
“I would have been a stay-at-home dad so you could act. And me and the kids . . . we’d travel wherever you’d be shooting.”
“Kids?” she asks. “Multiple kids?”
“At least two,” I say.
“And you would do that?”
“What, my love?”
“You’d be a stay-at-home dad?”
“I would have. I so would have.”
Erica chews on her bottom lip for a thoughtful moment. “But then, none of the rest of it would have happened.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“There would have been a butterfly effect on everything. You would never have returned to Germany, or gone to college there. So you’d never meet Bren or the other guys from the band. Industrial November wouldn’t exist, so they never would have toured. Without the tours, Bren never meets Sofia, and Addy never exists.”
“Maybe. Or maybe something else would have brought Bren to Kansas City and Sofia’s bar. Maybe he’d be a dentist and traveling there for a conference.”
Erica snort-laughs. “Can you imagine Bren as a dentist?” I join in her laughter for a moment. “It’s nice to think about, though. Of how things could have been.”
“You shouldn’t torture yourself like that,” I say.
“That alternate life doesn’t haunt me, Fritz. I fully believe if we are meant to be, we will be.”
I swallow hard. “So you’ve decided then?” I close my eyes, doing my best to slow down my pounding heart rate.
“When your accident happened, and I thought you might die . . . I wasn’t ready to face a world without you. When I waited in that waiting room for endless hours, I found myself thinking if only you’d be okay, I’d forgive everything. If only you were okay, we could find a way forward that wouldn’t be so painful.”
“We can, mi reina. I swear to you we can.”
“But that was desperation talking, Fritz. I was bargaining. Bargaining for your life with any gods or demons who would listen. You were okay, and when I knew that, nothing had changed. I knew you’d wake up and continue to hate me as much as you always had.”
Getting off the sofa, I part Erica’s legs so I can kneel in front of her. I take her hands from her lap in mine. “Mi reina. When I woke up, I didn’t wake up hating you. When I woke up, I wondered why you hadn’t been by to see me. I wondered for a moment if maybe you didn’t know, but there was enough coverage to reassure me you likely knew. I didn’t wake up hating you. I woke up believing you had finally moved on.”
She caresses my knuckles like she did two months ago when I came to see her after the pomegranate orchard. She traces the raised edges of healed skin and tissue. “Why did you leave before I could see you?” I ask.
She looks from my hands to my face. “I thought you’d be in pain. Needing to recover. I didn’t think I could do anything except cause you more pain, and I didn’t want to do that. Not while you were recovering.”
“I think I understand.”
“Almost losing you . . . it made me realize I don’t want to. I want to say yes, Fritz. I want to make a go of things, but so many things are holding me back, even still.”
“Well, let’s talk about them, mi reina. I want to know what those things are. With everything we’ve been through, I’m sure we can overcome anything.”
“Just because we could, doesn’t necessarily mean we should.”
“But shouldn’t we at least try?” I beg her with my eyes. “Please, let me at least try.”
She shifts in her seat, not pulling her hands from mine. “I’m afraid you’ll resent me.”
“For what?”
“For your celibacy outside of us. That you never got to experience anyone but me since that first time.”
I bend to kiss her hand, shaking my head in her lap before sitting back up on my heels. “No. I would never resent you for that, Eri. I’ve been in therapy for a long time to address the issue, and I’ve known, for just as long a time, that the hangups were entirely because of me. No one else. My inability to walk away from you. My inability to get us closer. My guilt for hurting you ever since that first time. I’d never blame you for a problem of my own making.”
She nods. “There’s more . . . I’m afraid you’ll resent me for ending the pregnancy.”
My eyes well with tears to match her own when I look at her. “I would never resent you for that, mi amor. We were kids. If anything, I resent myself for not being there for you, for what I’m sure must have been one of the worst days of your life.”
Erica nods. “It was. It was the worst day of my life.”
“I swear I never have, and never could resent you for that. I’d never resent you for taking ownership of your own health and needs, especially at that age. We were just kids.”
Her hand goes to the side of my face so she can cup one cheek in her palm. “Do you mean that?”
“I swear, I meant every word.”
She nods, and I get to my feet once again so I can sit next to her. “Wouldn’t you want to change out of your gown?” I ask. “Be more comfortable?”
Erica shakes her head. “I’m afraid of not getting everything out that I need to get out.”
“Okay. What else is holding you back?”
“We don’t know each other. Not really. I’m not even sure we want the same things anymore.”
“I don’t want anything, Erica. I want nothing anymore. Only you. If you’re with me, that’s all that matters. I’ll want what you want—”
“See, that’s what worries me. I don’t want you to resent me—”
“Erica, I won’t. I want you. Only you. That’s my entire list of wants. Te lo juro, mi vida.”
“Okay, then I’ll tell you what I want, and let’s see if you’re so sure you want the same things, because I highly doubt it.”
I smile encouragingly at her. “Try me.”
“I want kids. Soon. I want a big house. Lots of animals. I want to retire from acting and from the public eye. Maybe do stage acting occasionally. I want a domestic life. I’m done with the jet-setting and globe-trotting. I’ve seen the world, and I’ve had my fill of it. I want a smaller world. One limited to my family and friends. And those friends include Alejandro Salazar and Roger Kemp.”
“I was wondering if you’d bring that up.”
“What?” she asks.
“Roger. You did this, didn’t you?”
Erica nods, but remains silent.
“You made me. You made Industrial November.”
She nods again, her mouth falling into a small ‘o.’ “I did.”
“Why?”
“I wanted you to have what you wanted. You wanted to punish me, and I wanted you to have it.”
“Pero, why, mi vida? Why would you make me hurt you like that?”
“I’ve been punishing myself through you, Fritz. I couldn’t believe that I deserved happiness. Not after what I said to you that first night, and everything I’ve done to you since.”
I gasp, realization hitting. “I was your self-punishment tool? I was your human flogger?”
“Yes,” she breathes out. “A double-edged sword that hurt you as much as it hurt me.”
I pause to think. Wanting to understand her. To understand every hand she’s played ever since that first summer.
After a long pause, she asks “Do you hate me for it?”
“No,” I say without hesitation. “I understand why you did all of it. I hurt you in an unimaginable way. I can’t blame you for your revenge.”
“And the rest of it? The retirement? The domestic life? The many kids?”
