“Well, at least leaving Chirbampo is easier than leaving my husband.”

My words startle Nick. He’s standing over me protectively, a wine glass in one hand, deflecting the steady stream of well-wishers who crash into us like surf, saying goodbye during the fiesta that transforms Don Fidel’s house into a wonderland of guttering candles and fragrant shadowy foliage and echoing mariachi-band music. Beneath his newly-shaven head, Nick’s angular face pools with tension. In the candlelight he has animal eyes.

“That was a joke,” I sigh, looking up at him apologetically.

“How are you holding up?” he asks.

I’m perched on one of the ancient wooden chairs that flank the massive dining table, knees pulled up to my chin, one bare foot covering the other. In front of me is a formal dinner, the kind with too much silverware for the place settings and a couple different kinds of glasses — water glass, wineglass, and a shotglass for tequila and mezcal. I’ve barely touched the same food that everyone else is devouring. Some kind of calimari appetizer, a plantain-wrapped grilled hanger steak, chocolate-drizzled flan. Delicious when I think about it, but my appetite went somewhere far away and isn’t back yet.

His scrutiny becomes too much to bear. I glance down at my toenails, where the cotton candy polish is chipping. “I’m doing okay.”

“We’ll leave just as soon as — ”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Don Fidel returns in jovial grandeur, a stooped figure shuffling around in a smoking jacket and cravat. I still see him as Yoda, if Yoda was Mexican and liver-spotted and spoke thickly-accented English. “Isidora, I want you to meet Senor and Senora Roberts.”

Mr. and Mrs. Roberts. The introduction makes me blush, even though I’ve already heard it a dozen times tonight. I fan at my bangs, brushing them across the right side of my face, and force a smile.

Isidora is the mayor’s new secretary. From my sitting perspective she’s mostly a jutting shelf of cleavage. She has to tilt a little to see me over her boobs, which are almost exploding the buttons off her sweater. A look flashes across her face, the pitying look that busty girls give a flattie like me. Meanwhile I’m giving her a look of my own, the omigod you’re wearing sheer hose over hairy legs look. Very hairy legs. She could braid that stuff, I swear.

I extend a hand toward her limply, not bothering to brace for air-kisses. I’m finally getting used to the complicated politics of Mexican greetings. She’s appearing on the mayor’s behalf, since he left for Mexico City yesterday, and doesn’t have the same social status that he does. Consequently she only shakes my hand, a more formal and respectful gesture than besos on each cheek.

A torrent of conversation breaks out in Spanish, too fast for me to comprehend. Then Nick is saying “I’ll be right back…” and following Don Fidel and Isidora into a hallway leading deeper into the centuries-old casa.

For a while I’m left alone in the dining room, watching the candles gutter and drown in their wax. Uniformed maids flit through the murk, bussing the table and circulating with bottles of wine and sangria and tequila. The mariachi band playing out in the courtyard takes a break, then starts playing again. Occasionally a dinner guest passes by, nodding kindly. They don’t speak English, and in this condition I don’t speak Spanish.

The chair next to me screeches on the tile. I glance over and discover Maria making herself comfortable. “Buenas noches” — good night — she greets me, lighting up and exhaling a gust of cigarette smoke. She’s almost unrecognizable without her trademark outfit of a man’s dress shirt and dangerously short miniskirt. Now she wears a pullover sweatshirt and jeans, just like half the other muchachitas in Chirbampo.

“Buenas noches,” I reply. It takes me a while to translate my question into Spanish — what are you doing here? Her presence could be taken as an insult to the mayor, since Isidora was invited and she definitely wasn’t.

Maria shrugs nonchalantly. Her lips pucker into an exaggerated air-kiss and an almost-perfect smoke ring appears, drifting for a moment, then quickly dissolving. “I need a…” she starts to say in halting English. “Transporte? To Mazatlan? I have sister there.”

“Like, a ride?” I blink tiredly at her. “Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Si! A ride to Mazatlan. With you and your husband. Is okay?”

“No. Not okay.” The words are a steely jolt from the darkness behind us. Nick returns to his station at my seatback, sloshing wine around in his glass, staring ice daggers at Maria.

“Que tal?” — what’s up? — she says breezily, but not looking at him.

An awkward silence envelops the table. The tension between them is so thick I feel like can’t breathe this air, it’s congealing in my lungs, I –

“Vete ya!” — get outta here — he mutters, just like shooing a dog.

“Nick!” I gasp.

He pointedly ignores me, staying focused on the teenager and her smoke rings. Maria lingers defiantly, even yawning once, and for a moment I’m afraid — terrified, even — of what will happen if she keeps provoking Nick like this. But she doesn’t let it come to conflict. Her chair squeaks back from the table and she slinks off, trailing a ghostly wisp of cigarette smoke behind her.

As if feeling the weight of my gaze on her back, Maria pauses in the hallway and glances over her shoulder. We make eye contact, a strange sparking thing, and her face briefly turns poignant — then becomes utterly expressionless again. She raises a palm in goodbye and disappears into the lush shadows of the courtyard.

I feel a pang somewhere between the bumps on my chest. “Why, Nick? All she wanted was a ride to Mazatlan.”

His voice is a dismissive snarl. “I don’t trust her, that’s why. And neither should you.”

No words come out when I try to say something in reproach. All I can do is ball my hands into tiny ineffectual fists.

Nick collapses into the chair next to me — the chair where Maria was sitting — and sighs heavily. “Look, I know you think I’m being cruel, and I’m too tired to explain myself, and I don’t want to fight about this. So can we just drop it? Please?”

My illness and exhaustion and resentment are welling into sudden hot tears. “But…you…” My thoughts won’t settle.

Gently, he reaches into my lap and uncurls my fists. “Hey. Nooshin. Shhhhh,” he whispers, taking my hand. Teardrops leak into our twined fingers. Then I respond to his tug, rising to my bare feet and slipping into my sandals, and follow him to the guest bedroom where we’re spending our last night in Chirbampo.