Merlot Is a Terrible Alibi
“Tell me.”
“I want you to take them off.”
Alondra did. Paloma’s body was familiar only in pieces now. There was silver at her temples. A narrow scar near her hip. A softness at her stomach that had not been there before. Alondra put her palm there.
“What happened?” she asked, touching the scar.
“Appendix. Three years ago.”
“And you did not tell me.”
“I did not tell you anything.”
“No.”
Paloma put her hand over Alondra’s. “I am telling you now.”
Alondra kissed her. They moved toward the bed without deciding who led. Paloma sat first, then lay back and drew Alondra beside her.
“Can I touch you?” Alondra asked.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Paloma took Alondra’s hand and put it against her breast. “Here.”
Alondra held her there. Paloma’s eyes closed. Alondra kissed her mouth, then her throat, then the place beneath her ear where she had always gone when Paloma was trying not to ask for something.
“More?” Alondra said.
“Yes.”
Paloma’s jeans came off. Then Alondra’s. Their knees knocked together under the sheet. Alondra laughed once, and Paloma did too.
“We have made a fire exit feel romantic,” Alondra said.
“That is your talent.”
“No. Mine is chord changes.”
“Fine. You have made chord changes feel romantic.”
“That is worse.”
“It is true.”
Paloma kissed her quiet. Then she moved down the bed and stopped between Alondra’s knees.
“Can I kiss you here?”
Alondra looked at her. “Yes.”
Paloma kissed the inside of her thigh first. Then she put her mouth against her. Alondra’s hand found the sheet. Paloma looked up.
“Tell me.”
“Do not be polite.”
Paloma’s mouth curved once. “I am trying very hard to be respectful.”
“You can be both.”
Paloma returned to her. Her mouth found the place Alondra needed. Alondra opened beneath her touch. When Paloma asked if she wanted a finger, Alondra said yes. When she asked about another, Alondra said yes again.
Paloma moved slowly, listening with her hands and mouth. There was nothing hurried in her. No attempt to turn desire into proof.
Alondra’s legs began to shake.
“Paloma,” she said.
“I am here.”
The words undid her more than the touch had. Alondra came with Paloma’s name in her mouth, her body pulling tight around the pleasure until she had nothing left to do but let it happen.
Paloma stayed close until Alondra could look at her again.
“Your turn,” Alondra said.
Paloma lay beside her. “You do not have to.”
“I know.”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.”
Alondra kissed her down the center of her body. She asked before each new touch. Paloma answered each time, sometimes with words, sometimes by taking Alondra’s wrist and showing her where to stay.
“Slower,” Paloma said.
Alondra slowed.
“Like that?”
“Yes.”
Alondra used her hand, then her mouth. Paloma’s fingers held the sheet near her hip. Alondra remembered Paloma at thirty-five, all restraint until she was not. This Paloma had learned restraint too well. Alondra wanted to give her permission to stop holding herself apart.
“Stay with me,” Alondra said.
Paloma opened her eyes.
“I am here,” she said.
Alondra kept her hand where Paloma wanted it. Paloma’s body tightened around her fingers. She came with a low cry, pressing her face into the pillow, then reached for Alondra as if she had made a decision.
They lay under the sheet afterward, facing each other.
Rain touched the roof in small, steady taps.
Paloma moved a strand of hair from Alondra’s cheek. “Was that comfort?”
“It was sex,” Alondra said. “Good sex.”
Paloma gave a brief laugh.
“And it was comfort,” Alondra added. “That is not a bad thing.”
“But it cannot be the whole answer.”
“No.”
Paloma looked at the ceiling. “My fear is that I will ask you to choose and you will choose me, then hate me for what you gave up.”
“My fear is that you will tell me to leave before I have decided whether I want to.”
“I will not.”
“You cannot just say it.”
“I know.” Paloma turned back to her. “I have to answer calls. Ask questions. Tell you when I am in trouble. Let people help me before the trouble becomes a disaster.”
“And I have to tell you when I am angry instead of writing a song that makes you sound like a villain.”
“Was I a villain?”
“Sometimes.”
“That is fair.”
Alondra rested her hand on Paloma’s ribs. “I do not know what comes after this benefit. I might take work somewhere else. I might not. I am still frightened of the blank part.”
“Then we do not fill it tonight.”
“No.”
“I will not ask you to stay here to prove anything.”
“And you do not get to send me away to prove you are selfless.”
Paloma closed her eyes for a moment. “That is fair too.”
“A real attempt is probably boring.”
“Calendars,” Paloma said.
“Calls answered.”
“Questions before decisions.”
“Help before collapse.”
Paloma nodded. “That sounds terrible.”
“It sounds adult.”
“Worse.”
Alondra laughed, then kissed her once.
“This is not forgiveness,” she said.
“I know.”
“It is not a future.”
“I know.”
“It is tonight.”
Paloma held her hand beneath the sheet. “Tonight is enough for tonight.”
Alondra stayed where she was.
Alondra stayed where she was.
At six, her phone began to vibrate on the floor beside the bed.
Paloma woke first. She reached for it, then stopped before touching it.
“Do you want that?” she asked.
“It has my name on it. That is usually a clue.”
“It is a Mexico City number.”
Alondra picked it up. “Hello?”
The woman on the other end introduced herself as Inés Ortiz from La Casa de las Cuerdas, a music collective run by women who made records for women no major label had bothered to hear properly.
“We caught the rehearsal stream,” Inés said. “Your guitarist friend posted it.”
“Mateo is not my guitarist friend. He is a public safety hazard with a phone.”
Inés laughed. “The song about the room with no doors. Was that yours?”
“It was.”
“We have a residency in January. Six weeks. Studio access, an apartment, a stipend. We would like to offer it to you.”
Alondra sat up.
“We do not need an answer now,” Inés said. “Read the details. Call me by tomorrow.”
“I will.”
When the call ended, Paloma said, “Take it.”
The words landed before Alondra had lowered the phone.
“Do not.”
Paloma pushed herself upright beneath the sheet. “Do not what?”
“Make my choice before I have one.”
“I am not making it. I am telling you it is a good offer.”
“Last night, we said questions before decisions.”
“I heard you.”
“Then use the rule.”
Paloma looked toward the window. Rain had stopped. The vineyard outside lay gray and rinsed clean.
“You were offered six weeks with people who understand your work,” Paloma said. “You should take it.”
“That is a conclusion.”
“It is an obvious one.”
“To you.”
Paloma’s mouth tightened. “I want you to have it.”
“Do you want me to have it, or do you want to prove you are the kind of person who sends me away generously?”
Paloma turned back to her.
“That is cruel,” she said.
“It is familiar.”
The phone sat in Alondra’s hand. Its screen had gone dark.
“I did not say you should leave me,” Paloma said.
“You did not have to. You said take it before you asked what I wanted.”
“I thought that was what you wanted.”
“You thought seven years ago too.”
Paloma looked down.
Alondra regretted the cut as soon as she made it. Regret did not make it false.
“If I turn it down because of you,” Paloma said, “I will hate that.”
“I have not turned it down.”
“If you build your life around this place—”
“I did not say I would.”
“I know.”
“No,” Alondra said. “You know how to get ahead of me. That is not knowing me.”
Paloma got out of bed and stood by the chair where Alondra’s jeans lay. Her back was bare. The scar near her hip caught the thin morning light.
“Sit with me,” Alondra said.
Paloma looked over her shoulder.
“It is an ask,” Alondra said. “Not an order.”
After a moment, Paloma came back to the bed.
Alondra set the phone on the nightstand between them.
“Say the thing you are trying not to say.”
Paloma gave a short laugh that held no humor. “You make that sound easy.”
“It is not. Say it anyway.”
Paloma drew her knees up beneath the sheet. “I am afraid I am a trap.”
There it was.
“I am afraid this vineyard will take everything from me,” Paloma continued. “Then I will want everything from you because I am lonely and tired and too proud to admit either one. I am afraid you will give it to me. I am afraid I will become the reason your life gets smaller.”
Alondra let the words rest.