The Santiago Sisters (17 page)

‘You’re disgusting.’

‘Lysander, behave!’ came Brian’s voice from the front.

‘All right, old man, don’t give yourself a coronary.’ After a moment, he asked: ‘Would you, Tess? Do a guy onscreen?’

‘No.’

‘A girl, then.’

‘Lysander—please!’ Simone’s rebuke choked out of her.

‘I’m only asking. You’ve never done it … have you,
Mummy
?’

There was a long, loaded pause. Brian continued driving and Emily scrolled down her iPhone. ‘Certainly not,’ said Simone quietly.

‘Not even in the old days? When you were getting started?’

‘You go too far, Lysander,’ warned Brian.

‘She hasn’t answered. Come on, it’s not like we keep big bad secrets in this family, is it?’ His question hung on a tantalising, torturous thread. Simone blurted:

‘I’d never do that kind of film. Never. That’s the end of the discussion.’

Lysander, satisfied by this exchange, wound down his window and sat back.

It was a relief when they reached Maximilian’s office on Broadway. Simone grabbed Tess and hauled her inside, barking at some poor receptionist that Caitlin Wood was expecting them and fiercely jabbing the elevator call button.

Upstairs, Brian and the others hovered in the waiting area. Simone produced a mirror and had Tess check her reflection five times, a spot of gloss added and a quick rearrangement of her hair, before she was ready. ‘You,’ she barked at the Chilcotts, ‘wait outside.’ Then, to Tess, she whispered: ‘Go for it.’

They stepped through the door and introductions were
made. The great Caitlin Wood sat between Maximilian on one side and two producers on the other.

‘When you’re ready, Tess.’

She took a breath and centred herself; found the opening line. The scene was a family reunion, Tess’s character vulnerable yet proud, a girl whose parents disown her after they find out she is pregnant. She stumbled through the first part, slipping on the words and then struggling to regain focus, and Caitlin remained inscrutable, her cropped hair and slash of red lipstick ever-present in Tess’s peripheral.

And then something crazy happened.

Although Tess was accustomed to the words, speaking them aloud changed them. For the first time, she was
there
; she
was
this person, it was happening.

Rage, unchecked, spilled out of her. Tess allowed her emotions to run away, knowing she should rein it in but unable to—she had come too far and the pain was too deep, too real, and there was no way of containing it. As she drilled into the climactic scene, the confrontation with her family, the moment she had waited for and wanted for years, she all at once forgot she was in a casting room. She was with Calida, raining hurt on her, hitting her, shaking her, begging her for answers but all along knowing her sister could not give them because her mouth was forever silenced.

Fury and bitterness she had kept in check broke free in a tidal wave; the hatred, the sadness, the heartache, it all came out. None of it was hard to bring up.

She would never be able to say these things in real life. It was too late for that. The people she needed to say them to were gone, their deaths sealing shut any chance of a way back, and now she was cut loose on the ocean of her future, no land in sight, no place calling her back, faintly, faintly,
in spite of how she stifled it. She would never be able to express her torment, the soreness and upset that had nowhere to go except here, now, into this audition, in front of faces she scarcely knew. These people witnessed her heart and soul, crushed as those things were, pour on to that floor with absolute release. When she finished, nobody spoke. Even Simone was mute.

Tess took a second to come back into her body, to remember where she was. She felt cleansed, controlled, fundamentally altered. As if she had expelled a demon.

She clutched the script to her chest, waiting.

Caitlin and the panel conferred.

‘Simone, could you give us a minute?’ said Maximilian, nodding to the exit.

When the door had closed behind her, Caitlin spoke.

‘That was impressive, Tess,’ she said. Her eyes were sparkling. ‘I’ve never seen anyone like you—especially not at a first audition. How old are you?’

‘Twenty.’

‘You read like an actor with their whole life behind them. It was outstanding.’

‘Thank you.’

Minutes later, Tess went out into the lobby. She leaned against the wall, exhaling a lungful of air. Her blood was hot. Her mind was alert. Her pulse was racing. The ball of anger she had held in that room warmed her stomach, her chest, her neck, her whole body.
I earned this. I’m entitled to it. It’s mine.

Too long she had buried her feelings, guilty at hating her family because they were dead and that was the greatest karma of all. But now she saw she was permitted her wrath. She should let it grow. She had a right to hit back against the
injustice of it, the heinous decision they had made, even if there was nobody to hit back against.

Calida wished me gone. My twin, my sister, my friend … She sold me.

It was with some surprise that, on reaching the elevators, hushed voices disrupted her thoughts. She had thought the Chilcotts had been relegated down on to the street. ‘We have to tell him,’ a man hissed, out of sight. Despite his low pitch, Tess recognised him immediately as Lysander. There was a scuffle, like someone escaping an embrace, before the woman replied. Tess’s stomach lurched.

‘Are you insane?’ Simone shot back. ‘This is my marriage. He’s your
father.
’

‘It has to be soon. I can’t do this any longer. All the pretending, it’s doing my bloody head in. I can’t stop thinking about you. I’m mad about you.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Another scuffle; this one combined with a moan. ‘Please …’

‘You know how I feel—’

Tess dropped the script.
Mierda
! The voices stopped just as abruptly.

Simone popped her head round the corner and turned on a mega-watt beam. ‘Darling!’ she cried. ‘What did they say? Are we celebrating?’

Her adoptive mother looked wired; her eyes were wild, as if she’d emerged from a wind tunnel. Lysander nicked his chin with his thumb and hung back. Tess caught his gaze and this time there was no cocky retort or self-satisfied sneer.

‘They gave me the part,’ she said.

‘That’s wonderful!’ Simone locked her in a hug. She smelled of Lysander’s aftershave. ‘Let’s go and find the others, shall we? This calls for champagne!’

Tess followed Lysander out. As she stepped into the sunshine, watching the back of his head, the hot tips of his ears and the flush of colour spreading down his neck, she sensed that her life wasn’t the only one about to change beyond recognition.

Argentina

T
he first few attempts, he didn’t pick up. Calida couldn’t blame him. After what she’d said to him at Cristian Ramos’s house, she didn’t deserve his time.

When finally she got through:

‘I’m going away,’ Daniel said. ‘I won’t be back until the New Year.’

‘Where?’ she asked.

His answering quiet told her it was none of her business. She no longer had his friendship. Remembering how he had let her inside that door, a glimpse behind the shield he kept so solidly in place
—I trusted you, and you ran out on me
—made her shrink with regret.

The weeks crawled by impossibly slowly … waiting for him.

Calida handed in her notice at the club.

‘You’ve brought this place up from its knees,’ said Paola, who was sad to see her go. ‘I will miss you—but I understand.’ Her contract obliged her to work a remaining two weeks. On the nights Rodrigo tangoed, she avoided him.

In a stroke of luck, Calida’s exit from El Antiguo coincided with the pizza place opening another shop across town. Calida jumped at the supervisor’s role. The money was double what
she’d previously earned and over the coming weeks she watched the funds in her bank account climb, slow but steady, to the point where she was able to skim the top off her income and save every month. Next came news that her landlord was seeking a quick sale on the Belgrano apartment: was she interested in buying? Yes, she was. Property was a sensible investment, a home in her name, and the place had potential. She could do it up, sell it on, the market was rising …

All the while, one man stayed in her mind. Calida yearned to show him all she had learned. She fantasised about spending the night with him—but, instead of the inexperienced child who had lain next to him, trapped in the wanderings of her mind, she would take him in her arms and make love to him for real.

When they saw each other again, it would be OK. It would work out. She needed Daniel at her back for where she was going. She needed his support and his love. When she met Tess Geddes again, she had to know he was on her side.

She only had to be patient.

In January, Daniel contacted her to say he was visiting Buenos Aires and could arrange to meet on his way through. He didn’t volunteer why he was in town and Calida didn’t ask—she chose to believe he was coming for her. When the day came, she dressed carefully, discarding outfit after outfit. She wanted to look nice for Daniel but she didn’t have to impress him. She wanted to resemble the girl he had trusted.

The apprehension was agony. Calida thought of all she had been through with this man, how he knew her better than anyone. He had known her as a girl, he had known her home, and he had known Teresita. No other lover would have known
her twin. How could she give herself to someone else when there was this hole at the centre of her identity? Daniel was precious but this made him priceless.

Though she knew the knock on the door was coming, still it made her jump.

She answered, and all at once Calida wasn’t twenty-one; she was thirteen, the age she’d been when she had first laid eyes on him. Daniel hadn’t changed; those blue eyes hadn’t changed. He was the same wind-tousled cowboy she had fallen for.

‘Hello.’ Such a small word, for all it meant.

Calida wanted to hug him, bury her face in the softness of his T-shirt and the hard assurance of his chest, but his body language told her no. It was too soon.

As they made their way down to the street, Daniel avoided looking straight at her. He checked his watch a couple of times. He was on edge, too.

‘Thank you for coming,’ said Calida, as they took a table in the square. A gang of kids knocked a football around on a patch of grass, and, in the distance, a band started up. A waiter came over and they ordered two
Quilmes.

‘Of course I came,’ Daniel replied. ‘You said it was important.’

‘Still, you didn’t have to.’

‘I wanted to. We’re friends.’

Calida smiled. ‘That’s a relief,’ she said.

Daniel shifted in his seat. He looked older, the crinkle of lines around his eyes testament to his life outdoors. She wondered how he had suffered as a boy, in the looming shadow of his tyrant father; the fear he’d known as he cowered from the blows, and then, as he got older, the bravery in defending his mother. How could she have left him, after he’d opened up to her like that? Selfish. Her pain and longing
had driven him away—but what about his pain? What about his longing?

‘The thing is, Calida,’ he said, ‘I have something important to say, too.’

Daniel’s voice was clipped. She could tell he was about to lay it on the line.

‘Let me go first.’ Calida put her hands on the table. ‘Please. I deserve everything you’re about to hit me with but let me say this first. I’m sorry. That won’t make up for what I did but it’s where I have to start. I was wrong. I made a mistake and I regret it every day. I didn’t mean those things I said. I was confused, and angry, and sad, all those things, but they’re not an excuse because whatever I was, I should never have taken it out on you. The truth is, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. Not here,’ she gestured, ‘I mean … You know what I mean. You saved me, over and over. I never thanked you. I’m sorry, Daniel. I really am. I’m sorry.’

Calida watched the drops of condensation on Daniel’s bottle of beer and then his strong fingers as they closed around it. He drank and then replaced it on the table, where it stained the paper cloth with a thick grey ring. The movement incited a trace of his scent. He smelled so good, of all she missed and loved.

‘It’s OK,’ he said.

She waited for more but it didn’t come. ‘No, it isn’t.’

‘I said it is, and it is.’

This time he did look at her. The electricity of his gaze made her spark, the same way Rodrigo had looked at her right before he tore the clothes from her body, but at the same time different. Tender, gentle—sad, almost.

‘You got my note about the farm?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I had no choice.’

‘I know.’ She felt ashamed at shirking her responsibilities. ‘Who took it?’

‘Americans.’ Daniel dug in his pocket. ‘Here. This is why I came.’ He passed a cheque across the table and Calida’s mouth fell open when she took in the amount. ‘This guy offered way over before anyone else got the chance to take a look, said he wanted it taken straight off. He bought the horses, the land, the lot.’

‘But …’ Calida was shocked. ‘It was falling apart. It isn’t worth this.’

‘This guy thought it was.’

‘Clearly.’ She couldn’t believe the amount. This was enough to …

‘Take it,’ she said, passing it back. ‘It’s yours.’

‘No, it’s not. It was your home. It’s your money.’

‘I can’t. You earned this. We owed you. You deserve it.’

‘I don’t need your money.’

‘I know, but—’

‘I would have sent it before but it seemed safer to deliver it in person.’

Calida nodded. ‘Daniel, I don’t know what to say.’

‘Then don’t say anything.’ The note of affection in his words compelled her to glance up. They smiled at each other. His smile was like the sun.

It made her take a leap of faith. ‘I guess I was hoping …’ A beat, before she blurted it. ‘I guess I was hoping we could share this … for us—for our lives, maybe, together. What you said in Mendoza about how you felt, that maybe you still feel the same way, because I do. I didn’t say it then, I didn’t know
what
I was saying then, but I can’t count the times I’ve wished I could go back and change every word. I can’t stop thinking
about you, Daniel,
siempre pienso en ti.
No one else compares. I don’t care what it takes—I don’t care about anything apart from being with you.
Te extraño.
I care about you so much. I’ve made a living for myself here—and with this,’ she lifted the cheque, ‘we could be happy. I know we could. I could make you happy.’

It wasn’t a perfect speech, but there it was. She’d said it. She’d laid her heart on the line, on the table between them, and Daniel sat looking at it, his face grave.

‘Well?’ she asked softly.

‘I’m married.’

The force of his announcement made her sit back, as if she’d been struck. Her mouth formed around words for every outcome except this and no sound escaped.

‘I tried to tell you. It happened last month.’

A stone hardened in her stomach. ‘To whom?’

‘A local girl.’

‘Who?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Clara. We’re on honeymoon. She’s always wanted to visit Buenos Aires.’

There was only one question. ‘Do you love her?’

He continued to stare at the table, at the heart she had put before him. She wanted to reclaim it, fold it back inside her and get up and leave, but she couldn’t.

‘
Sí,
’ he said.

‘Look at me when you say that.’

He did. Well, she’d asked for it. ‘
Sí
,’ he said. ‘I love her.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t do this, Calida.’

‘Tell me why. She’s not a mess like me, is she?’

And you told her your secrets and she didn’t run out on you.

‘She’s nothing like you.’

‘And that’s why you love her.’

‘You turned me away. It was definite, as I remember.’

She couldn’t deny it. She had no right to be angry or upset—she’d had her chance and she’d blown it. ‘Congratulations,’ she said, pushing her chair back. ‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy together. I hope you understand but I have to go.’

‘Calida—’

‘No.’ He reached for her but she shrugged him off. ‘Don’t make this worse than it is. Forget we ever met. Go back to your wife.’

She felt his eyes on her the whole time she walked, but she didn’t turn back.

A month later, Calida was in a bar on Santa Fe when a celebrity bulletin caught her eye. TESS GEDDES ATTENDS CHARITY GALA IN LA. She hadn’t seen her sister since Cristian’s house. Tess looked like a million dollars as she sparkled in front of the cameras, glittering eyes and shining teeth, her perfect face a mask of sympathy.

The reporter spoke in Spanish:
‘If you recognise the name, that’s
because gorgeous Tess Geddes is the daughter of Hollywood queen Simone. The pair visited the Brentwood Children’s Ward on Saturday, where Tess was named an honorary patron. With filming in full swing for Caitlin Wood’s new production
White Candle,
it’s a wonder that Tess can take time out for her charity work. Tess is tipped for stratospheric success here in Hollywood and we can’t wait to watch her star rise.
’

Calida held her glass in one hand and swirled the ice around
in the bottom, listening to the cubes crack and slide against each other like splits on a frozen lake.

Her sister. Her nemesis.
How I despise you.

If it hadn’t been for Tess Geddes, Daniel would still be hers. Her twin had failed in taking him that night on the farm—but she hadn’t stopped there. Oh no. By running from them, by chasing her own self-serving instincts, her insidious poison had ensured Calida would lose him another way. If Teresita hadn’t left, they would still be there, Calida would still know him, maybe he would never have met his wife.

Bitterness filled her like tar. Daniel was gone. There was nothing left to lose. Hate was stronger than pain. Revenge more productive than sadness.

Calida stood from the bar.
You can’t get away with it, bitch. I will not let you.

She grabbed her coat, paid for her drink, and vanished into the night.