Page 13 of The Lion in the Library

“We are dancing,” I said carefully, lifting my head. “Grown-up friends sometimes dance.”

“Can Leo be our friend who comes to the beach?” Pedro asked. This had clearly been a topic of some deliberation.

“We’re going to the beach on Sunday,” I told Leo, slightly helplessly.

“I know,” he said. “Your children invited me.”

“We did,” Luz confirmed. “Because we decided.” She examined Leo with great seriousness. “You can be Mami’s friend who we like. If you want.”

“I very much want,” Leo said solemnly.

Luz nodded, apparently satisfied with this formal arrangement. Then she grabbed Pedro’s hand. “Come on, we’re going to do the fast dance now.” And they were gone, careening toward the musicians with joyful abandon.

Leo and I stood in the settling quiet of their wake. Around us the music had shifted to something brighter, but neither of us moved.

“I apologize for my children,” I said. “They have no sense of... subtlety.”

“I don’t want subtlety from them,” he said. “I want exactly what they gave me just now.” He looked toward where Luz was attempting to teach Pedro something that bore no resemblance to any known dance form. “Permission.”

My heart made that undignified movement again. Harder this time.

“Leo.” My voice came out softer than I intended.

“Estrella.” Same.

He lifted my hand to his lips—a gesture that should have been theatrical, should have felt like something from one of my own telenovelas. Instead it felt like a promise. Not grand, not excessive. Just true.

“One more dance?” he asked against my fingers.

The music swelled. The lights glittered in the old jacaranda trees. My children were somewhere behind me, laughing.

“One more dance,” I agreed. And when his arms came around me again and we found our rhythm on that unlikely dance floor, I thought, this is what happy feels like. I had nearly forgotten.

SUN AND SAND

LEO

Ihad played in the World Cup twice. I had scored a winning goal in the final minute of a Champions League semi-final in front of eighty thousand people. I had held my composure under circumstances that had made grown men cry on international television.

I was nervous about a beach trip with two children.

I showed up fifteen minutes early, which I recognized as a mistake approximately three seconds after knocking, when the door opened to reveal not Estrella but a man I did not know in a very expensive suit, holding a bouquet of flowers and radiating the specific energy of someone who charged twenty percent.

The agent. Miguel Vega. The one who had helpfully provided my agent with Estrella’s address in exchange for, presumably, the ability to say he knew Leo Ramirez.

We shook hands. He looked at me the way a man looks at something he’s not sure whether to acquire or insure. Behind him I could see Pedro in a swimsuit, brandishing a plastic shovel, and Luz wearing Estrella’s expression on a smaller face, evaluating me with calm professional interest.

“I’ve heard you’re writing a book,” Miguel said.

“When I find the time.”

He gave me a look that communicated, with great efficiency, that he knew I had not found the time, knew why I had not found the time, and had complicated feelings about being part of the reason why. Then he kissed Estrella’s cheek, issued what I gathered was a meaningful glance in my direction, and left.

Estrella watched him go with the expression of a woman who has been managed by agents for twenty years and has developed a robust immune response.

“He gave you my address,” she said.

“He did.”