Merlot Is a Terrible Alibi
Alondra looked at it. “You are giving me seven years of your bad decisions in a plastic box.”
“Mostly six cassettes.”
“There is a joke in there somewhere.”
“I could not find it.”
Alondra set the guitar on its stand.
Paloma placed the recorder on the table, careful not to push it toward her. “Do not listen if you do not want to. You do not owe me that.”
“Then why bring it?”
“Because I asked you to live with a lie. I will not ask you to decide anything with pieces missing.” Paloma looked at the recorder. “Hear them, do not hear them, throw them in a river. But decide knowing what I did and why.”
“Why is not forgiveness.”
“I know.”
Alondra studied her. “Do you?”
“Not enough to solve it.”
The answer was plain. It did not ask to be admired.
“What are you asking for, then?”
“Nothing today.”
“That is not true.”
Paloma took a slow breath. “I am asking if, after you have had time, you might let me earn a different place in your life.”
Alondra leaned against the table. “Do you want a future with me, Paloma? Or do you want relief?”
Paloma looked up.
“A future,” she said. “Not one where you shrink your work until it fits inside this vineyard. Not one where I work myself sick and call it devotion.” Her hands stayed at her sides. “I want your late flights. Your songs that take too long. The places you need to go. I want us to make plans together and change them together when life gets difficult.”
Alondra did not move.
“I want a life that makes room for your work and my needs,” Paloma continued. “I need to learn how to say I am afraid before fear becomes a decision I make for someone else. I need to ask for help before every problem turns into an emergency. I do not know how to do that well yet.”
“Seven years ago, you would have said this and then locked the door.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now I leave it open.” Paloma’s mouth tightened. “I want you, damn it. I want your whole difficult, traveling, song-filled life. I want mine to have room for me too.”
The past did not change because Paloma had named it correctly. The ring had still arrived in Austin. The calls had still gone unanswered. But there had been a wall where an explanation should have been, and now there was a door.
Not enough.
Not nothing.
“That is a future in theory,” Alondra said.
“It is a plan I am prepared to make specific.”
“Later.”
“Yes.”
Alondra looked at the recorder. “I may listen.”
“You may.”
“If I do, it will not be because I need proof that you suffered enough.”
“I would not ask that of you.”
“Good.”
Paloma stood a few feet away. She had not stepped closer. Alondra noticed that too.
“If you kiss me now,” Alondra said, “it cannot mean we are fixed.”
“It does not.”
“It cannot mean I have forgiven you.”
“I know.”
“It cannot be a way to avoid the rest of this.”
“No.”
Alondra set one hand on the table beside the recorder. “Can you kiss me without making it an apology?”
Paloma’s face changed then. Not into ease. Into care.
“Yes,” she said. “Can I?”
Alondra met her eyes. “Yes.”
Paloma came close enough that Alondra had time to stop her. That mattered.
Then Paloma’s mouth met hers, firm and patient for one beat. Alondra took the front of Paloma’s shirt and drew her nearer. The kiss opened at once. It deepened. Paloma held Alondra’s face while Alondra tipped into her, tasting coffee and rainwater and the familiar shape of her.
Seven years had not taught Alondra how to want less. They had taught her exactly what absence cost.
Paloma drew back.
“Still yes?” she asked.
“Still yes.”
Alondra pulled her in again. This time Paloma kissed into her mouth with hunger, and Alondra answered it. The recorder knocked once against the table when Paloma set it aside. Alondra’s hand found Paloma’s waist. For a few seconds, there was only this: the hard line of Paloma’s body, the certainty of being wanted, the fact that neither of them had run.
Three hard knocks struck the door.
Berta called from the hall. “If you two are kissing, continue later. The monitor cases arrived at the wrong door, and I refuse to negotiate with delivery men before coffee.”
Paloma laughed first. It escaped her like surprise.
Alondra laughed with her.
“After rehearsal,” Alondra said.
Paloma looked at her. “After rehearsal. No disappearing.”
“No decisions made for me.”
“Never again.”
They opened the door together.
They opened the door together.
Rehearsal ran late.
A monitor failed, then worked after Mateo changed a cable and Berta threatened it with retirement. Alondra played each song twice. The barrel hall gave back sound in its own rough way. Some notes rose clean. Others stayed low among the barrels. By the final run, the room held.
Berta stood near the loading door with her clipboard.
“That will do,” she said. “Nobody improve anything after midnight.”
“It is only ten,” Alondra said.
“Then you have two hours to make bad decisions responsibly.”
Paloma looked at her.
Berta looked away first. “I am going home. Be here at eight. Wear shoes that can survive spilled wine and human hope.”
When the others had gone, Alondra latched her guitar case and carried it to the storage corner. Paloma waited by the metal stairs that led above the cellar.
“My apartment is upstairs,” Paloma said.
“I remember.”
Paloma’s face tightened.
“I remember the stairs,” Alondra added. “Not the invitation.”
“I am inviting you now.”
Alondra put one hand on the rail. “To talk.”
“To talk,” Paloma said. “And only whatever else you want.”
The apartment had changed. The old brown chair remained by the window, but the rug was gone. There were fewer books. A table stood beneath the kitchen light, crowded with invoices and a bowl of limes. Paloma had put fresh sheets on the bed. Alondra knew because the door stood open and there was nowhere for either of them to hide from that fact.
Paloma shut the apartment door.
Before she could speak, Alondra set down her jacket.
“Before anything,” she said.
Paloma waited.
“If either of us starts using sex because talking gets difficult, I leave.”
Paloma’s eyes stayed on hers.
“Not to punish you,” Alondra said. “I leave because I have spent enough years trying to understand what happened after someone stopped telling me the truth.”
“You are right.”
“I know I am.”
A small sound left Paloma. It might have been a laugh.
Alondra continued. “This can be sex. It can be no sex. It can be one night that means nothing beyond one night. But if there is a question, we ask it. If there is a no, it ends. If you get scared, you say scared. You do not turn it into a plan for my life.”
Paloma stood very still.
“I can do that,” she said.
“Can you?”
“Yes.” Paloma looked down once, then back. “If I need something, I ask. If you need something, you say it. I do not decide what your answer will be before you give it.”
“That is the arrangement.”
“It is.”
Paloma took one step closer. “Can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
Paloma kissed her slowly at first. Not careful in the old guarded sense. Careful because Alondra had given her something to protect.
Alondra put a hand at Paloma’s neck and felt the quick beat there. Paloma kissed her again, deeper now. Alondra opened for her. The familiar taste of her made something in Alondra loosen and hurt at once.
Paloma drew back.
“Still yes?”
“Still yes.”
“Can I take off your shirt?”
“Yes.”
Paloma lifted it over Alondra’s head. Her hands paused at the clasp of Alondra’s bra.
“This too?”
“Yes.”
The bra fell onto the chair. Paloma looked at her body with an attention that did not feel like ownership. Seven years ago, that look would have made Alondra feel known. Tonight it made her feel seen again, which was harder.
Paloma touched the small scar below Alondra’s collarbone.
“From the fall in Denver?” she asked.
“Portland.”
“I knew it was rainy.”
“It was a loading dock, not a weather event.”
Paloma laughed, then bent and kissed the scar. Her mouth moved lower. She took one nipple between her lips, and Alondra’s hand closed around the back of the chair.
“Paloma.”
She lifted her head at once. “Too much?”
“No. Do not stop.”
Paloma returned to her, one hand at Alondra’s waist. Her mouth worked with patient attention until Alondra leaned back against the wall and said her name again, this time as an answer.
Alondra reached for Paloma’s shirt.
“Can I?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Paloma raised her arms. Alondra pulled the shirt away, then paused at the button of Paloma’s jeans.