Page 23 of Prisoner of War
Nick sliced his hand through the air in a cutting motion. “Enough!” he roared.
Carmen shut up, but Calli could see that mentally she had not backeddown an inch.
Nick took a breath. When he spoke again it was in a soft, controlled tone. “You’re behaving as badly as Minnie, if not worse. The parties, the men...” He waved a hand at her clothes.
“Minnie, Minnie, Minnie,” Carmen spat back. She dumped the napkin on the tabletop with a muffled thud. “She isn’t the fucking orphan here, but everyone rallies around her as if she is.”
Nick heldstill. Carmen had hurt him. “You know I am here for you.”
“Is that your own guilt, Uncle? I read the papers too. I’ve been around you and my father long enough to understand that she,” she spun to point at Calli, “is the reason the rebels kicked you out of Vistaria so fast.”
Calli swallowed. This was a fact she had wrestled with herself. Getting pissed at Carmen would just make her a hypocrite.She held her teeth together tightly, riding out the humiliation of having Carmen speak it aloud.
“These American women are destroying our country,” Carmen added.
“These American women,” Nick returned, “are the reason we still have a toehold on our country at all. If you’ve only confined your reading to tabloid headlines, then your four years at Harvard were a complete waste and that’s a disappointmentto me.” He again took a controlling, calming breath. “Calli personally saved the life of one of Vistaria’s most gifted captains. If she had not, then he would not have been in Pascuallita when the Insurrectos made their move. He would not have rallied what was left of the personnel on the base and led them and held them together for another twenty-four hours.”
“So what? The base still fell.”
“Yes, but twenty-four hours later than it would have if he had not been there. Do you not understand how many lives that saved? Not soldiers’ lives, but common Vistarian lives? While the base stood, Pascuallita stood. While Pascuallita was held, the civilians had a chance to flee to the coast and escape the island.” Nick waved his hand toward Calli. “Because she saved his life, she saved the livesof thousands of others. Do not ever denigrate what Calli and Minnie have done, because they have done far more to help Vistaria than you.”
Carmen glanced at Calli and she thought she saw chagrin in her expression, hidden behind the resentment and anger.
Nick thrust his hands into his pockets again. “You’d better learn to appreciate these American women because that gifted captain I just spokeabout intended to marry the one who just beat you up in the kitchen. The one behind you will be my wife within the week.”
Shock jolted Calli. She could feel her eyes widening but could do nothing to hide her surprise. She could barely think for the high buzzing in her mind and through her nerves.
Only, Nick was still speaking and she had to throw off her personal concerns. He’d asked her tolisten to what he told Carmen and she had learned that nothing Nick did was without purpose.
“You have a brilliant mind,” he told his niece. “You could be using it to help me win back Vistaria.”
“What would you know of my brilliant mind?” Carmen’s voice was husky. The woman was close to tears. “You’ve never paid me any attention. You coaxed my father into pushing me off to college as soon asit was decent because I was cramping your style.”
“I saw your potential. Your father would have married you off to a diplomat somewhere and called his duty done.”
“How was that any different? You still got rid of me.” Carmen turned and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Nick said sharply.
“What do you care?”
Nick looked at her steadily. “You need to start taking notice of what’saround you. I meanreallylooking. For someone so smart, you’re terrible at reading people. Minnie does it far better than you.”
Calli knew he’d mentioned Minnie’s name deliberately. He was using Minnie to make Carmen see his point.
“What is that supposed to mean?” She was furious.
“I mean you were wrong about Calli. You’re wrong about Minnie. You’re also wrong about me.”
Carmen walked rightup to him. She was tall, but Nick was taller. “Oh, I might be wrong about them. I’ll concede that point because I’m not so good at reading women. I’m damn good at understanding men, Nicolás Escobedo and I’ve read you from cover to cover. I’m not wrong about you. “
She smiled, but there was no humor in her expression. “Because you’re a bastard and your mother was Irish, you’re more Vistarian thanany of us and you have Vistarian attitudes about women. You saw me as a girl-child who would grow up into a worthless woman, just as every other Vistarian man saw me.” She jerked her chin toward Calli. “So Calli and Minnie helped Vistaria. Did they do that because you let them, or despite you trying to stuff them back into their assigned boxes?”
She flounced away, her head in the air and didn’tsee the spasm of shock on Nick’s face.
Calli moved around the table to rest her hand on his arm. “She’s wrong,” she said softly.
His answer was low. “She may be right.”
