Page 21 of Just for the Holidays
“You’re really gonna get it now, Gabriela Montez!” he yelled as he brushed snow off the back of his head, grateful the fight distracted Perla from what he’d just said. As soon as he stood up, snow hit him from all directions; he gave up trying to throw his own and covered his face with his hands. “Et tu, Perla?” he joked and heard both women cackle with laughter.
“You’ve been defeated,” Perla boasted as she made her way to him. She looked so happy, her face open. Beaming. It was a wonder how he’d fooled himself as long as he had when it came to his feelings for her. She filled him up. Seeing her smile always nourished something in him no one else ever could. There was this constant yawning void in him that even his loving family couldn’t fill. It gnawed at him constantly, but her presence had always eased it. He’d felt the difference when he’d met her in college. And since he’d given her up it had just grown bigger. Fame, fortune...none of it could make it better. But today, seeing this Perla, whom he thought was lost to him forever, laughing with glee as she tossed snow up in the air, made his cup run over. Fulfilled and overflowing.
“I’ve been betrayed by my comrade,” he said dramatically as he pulled on her snow-crusted glove and brought her in for an embrace. “I’m wounded,” he whispered as he pressed his lips to her cold cheek.
“I can kiss it better,” she told him, turning her face to him. Gael’s whole body pulsed with something very close to happiness.
“Ew, get a room, you two. Come on, Mami’s waiting!” Gabi yelled at them as she headed up the path to the house, but they ignored her, completely caught up in each other.
“Poor baby.” Perla’s voice was raspy as she brushed kisses on the spot on his neck where the snowball had landed. The skin there tingled from the icy flakes, and probably from feeling her hands on him. He wanted to say she had already made it better. He almost told her that he could see in color for the first time in years. That he could feel the chill on his face and the snow beneath his feet more vividly than he had almost anything else in these past six years. But he didn’t say any of it. He wouldn’t make declarations to this woman whom he would later betray. He would not make promises that he knew he’d never be able to keep.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come make the desserts with us?” Perla asked as she put the lid on the bin of ingredients Veronica had lined up for them.
“Nah, my brother is the pro at the sweet stuff. I’m going to work on the playlist and get the living room set up for dancing while the pernil’s in the oven. It’ll just be us, but some of our neighbors may come by after dinner.”
Gabi gave Perla one of those assessing looks she remembered from when they lived together in a college dorm. “Seems like you guys have figured out a way to make things work,” she said, and if Perla didn’t know her as well as she did, she wouldn’t have heard the underlying question there.Are you two really going to be able to keep it casual?
Perla had no clue, and it seemed Gael wasn’t faring any better. She’d practically swooned when he’d called herbabe.
“Gael said he still makes the flans for the neighbors,” she told Gabi in an attempt to deviate the conversation from feelings. “I can’t believe he still does that.”
Gabi furrowed her brow as if she wasn’t certain what Perla was talking about, then realization washed over her face.
“He told you he only gives them to the neighbors?” Gabi asked, obviously surprised.
“I asked him if he still did a bunch to give away and he said ‘kind of,’ but not like he used to.” It was hard to read what exactly was going on in Gabi’s face, but it was somewhere between disbelief and affection.
“My brother’s a piece of work.” Gabi shook her head as she chomped on a grape. “Mami, come hear this,” she yelled and a moment later Veronica walked into the kitchen.
“Que fue, mija?” the older woman asked. She had a duster in her hands, which almost made Perla laugh since the entire house was spotless. Never mind Gael also had a whole staff taking care of the cleaning. But Perla knew from experience that there was clean and then there was Caribbean people clean.
“Gael told Perla that he still ‘kind of’ gave desserts to the people in the neighborhood.” Okay, Gael had obviously been lying.
Veronica clicked her tongue and looked at Perla with a sad smile. “My son works so hard on hiding the kind of man he really is.”
“He doesn’t do the flans for neighbors?”
Abuela, who had also drifted into the room, didn’t give Veronica a chance to respond. “He stopped making them when his schedule got too busy, but he started a charity that provides Thanksgiving and Nochebuena meals for thousands of families. He started it just in Connecticut, but last year he expanded it and they do it in Puerto Rico, too. That boy is too humble. He won’t let us tell anyone it’s him.”
“But why wouldn’t he tell me that?” Perla asked, hurt that he didn’t trust her enough to share what he’d done.
Veronica shook her head as she walked over to Perla, her brows furrowed. “Gael’s been closed off for a long time.”
“Mami,” Gabi warned as if trying to stave off whatever her mother would do next, but Veronica waved her off.
“Dejame, Gabriela. I’m just letting Perlita know the truth. He was never the same after your relationship ended, mija.” Veronica held Perla’s hand in hers. “I’m glad you’re back in each other’s lives. Gaelito looks happier already.”
“I don’t know if it’s just me causing that. He’s so happy that you’re recovered.”
Veronica shook her head, a small, knowing smile on her lips. “He’s very happy about that, but it’s not what put a smile on his face at breakfast this morning.”
Perla wanted to hide away from the hope she saw in Veronica’s eyes. Not only because they were lying to everyone, but also because Perla wished more than anything that what was happening between them was real. She would pay dearly for what she started with Gael, just like she had the first time. But she would be damned if she was going to stop. She was willing to live with the fallout, whatever that was.
Twelve
“Perla, did you hear me?”
“Oh, sorry. What did you need?” She’d been distracted since she came back from the house. Some of the warmth and playfulness from the morning was replaced by aloofness.
