Chapter Text
Aleida pauses with her hand on the dressing room doorknob, then gives it a light twist. The door opens with a gentle, satisfying creak. It’s a small room, connected to an even smaller sitting room, but it’s the perfect size for a bride without an entourage.
She’s glad she advocated to hold the wedding ceremony at this particular Catholic church, instead of its larger sister venue all the way across town - the church Victor’s parents had pushed for, the one where they’re active in the congregation - and grateful that Victor had backed her up. It’s not just that the more modest venue is a manageable distance from JSC and home. She feels more at ease here, in these narrow hallways and low-ceilinged spaces.
Aleida drops her makeup bag on the vanity table and makes a beeline for the cabinet in the corner. She opens it swiftly, hangs up the garment bag-encased dress she’s been toting in her left arm, and then unzips the bag and slips it off. The cabinet’s a little short, and a taller bride’s dress would be skimming the floor, but not hers.
She reaches out and traces her fingers over the folds of the gown, and then closes her eyes - just like Papá had asked her to, only a few hours after he’d arrived in Houston. She’d been sitting on the bed in Papá’s newly furnished room - Aleida can’t bear wasting time normally, but she’d spent hours testing out mattresses to find him the most comfortable one within her budget - watching him unpack. Papá had pulled out a faded linen bag and with twinkling eyes, insisted that she cover hers for a grand surprise.
When he allowed her to open her eyes, she’d gasped at the sight of Mamá’s old wedding dress draped over the new bedspread. Aleida remembers how much care her mother had taken to preserve the simple cotton gown with delicate embroidery - every year, on her and Papá’s anniversary, she’d lovingly replace the cedar sachets she hung alongside the dress to ward off insects.
It turns out that before her death, knowing the dress wouldn’t hold up to her husband and daughter’s intense cross-border trek, Mamá had given it to a close friend for safekeeping. Unlike jewelry, its value was largely just sentimental, so her friend had never been forced to sell or otherwise part with the dress to make ends meet. And when Aleida had gotten engaged, Papá had retrieved the gown to bring it with him to Houston. “It’s your special day, mija,” he told her, squeezing her hand. “You should wear the dress you want to wear. But your mother thought that if you got married one day, you might want to alter it for your wedding.”
Alrida had needed a highly skilled tailor for the task - which in her mind, necessitated not just hemming and fitting the garment to her body, but reworking it into a dress that would fit her personal style - all while remaining modest enough to cover the areas she needed to be covered. The recommendation for this tailor had come from Emma Jorgens - who Aleida’s learned by now is a bit of a romantic, and who’s one of very few people at work she’s tolerated speaking with about her upcoming wedding. The woman Emma had suggested had, in Aleida’s opinion, done an excellent job redesigning the dress to match her vision. She’d also been sensitive to Aleida’s personal insecurities, allowing her to cover her shoulders with a thin shapewear top during fittings, and adding extra security features to the shoulders of the dress to make sure it would stay in place.
As Aleida lets go of the dress and closes the cabinet door, her cell phone rings. She pulls it out of the pocket of her dressing gown and smiles.
Victor must be calling from the hotel suite he stayed at for just one night with his family, a couple of blocks from the reception venue where the Diaz’s have been helping deal with vendors and logistics. She’s certain his parents bristled at the location they chose - a restaurant with a lovely private dining room and dance floor, but one that’s nestled in the working-class, Mexican-majority neighborhood adjacent to the church - even if she didn’t hear their complaints directly. Magnolia Park is a far cry from the upper-middle class suburb where they live now (they’re in Spring, not the Woodlands, Victor grumbles whenever she brings this up). But at least there’s no shortage of good Mexican food, and she knows Victor’s brother would have dragged them all out to a fantastic hole-in-the-wall establishment for dinner last night.
“Hello…this is Aleida,” she answers in a slow, teasing voice. “Gotta say, I’m a little busy today.”
“Hi,” Victor says, a single word suffused with warmth. He sounds bright, well-rested, and unequivocally happy. They’re both happy, of course - but she’s almost jealous of the way his joyous moments are always so, well, uncomplicated.
“Hi,” she echoes, as she moves back over to the vanity table. “Hmm, I can tell you slept well. What’s going on? Anything new?”
“What’s going on is my family’s being useless, like always,” Victor laughs over the phone line. “Luis keeps dropping tasks to deal with toddler shenanigans. My dad might be more helpful dealing with the reception vendors if he could just quit rehashing the World Cup every five minutes. And my mom apparently just realized her baby’s not a baby anymore - she’s sobbing in a corner for the third-”
He stops talking abruptly, as Aleida freezes in place - hands buried in her makeup kit, phone sandwiched between her ear and the shoulder of her dressing gown.
“…Okay, there is something new,” Victor says ruefully, after a long pause. “I just found out you’re about to marry the world’s biggest idiot.”
“No. It’s okay,” Aleida says flatly.
“No, it’s not,” Victor replies remorsefully. “Can’t believe I said - I mean, I know how hard it must be today, not having-”
“I’m fine, Vic,” she cuts in, frustrated, because the guilt in his voice is only making Mamá’s absence worse.
“I know you are,” he says, softly. “Look, I’m so close to the church, why don’t I come over there early? Keep you company while you get ready?”
“No,” Aleida responds, firmly. “That’s bad luck, and I don’t need that. You know I’ve had more than enough bad luck in my life.”
“Okay, uh - how about your dad, is he there yet?”
“Not yet - he’s still at home. And I’ll let him come in after I put my dress on, which isn’t for a while. I don’t want him to see-”
“Okay,” Victor says again, sounding both resigned and a little lost. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m fine,” she repeats.
“I’ll see you really soon, okay? Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Aleida hangs up the phone and sighs. It’s not as if she hadn’t thought about it, missing her, wishing she were here - how many times had Papá said it, even just in the last week? Ojalá estuviera aquí para verte. But somehow, today - until Victor had slipped and mentioned his mother’s emotions - she had managed to keep that particular pain at bay.
“You know what’s funny?” she muses as she pulls out the tinted moisturizer - light enough, when she’d tested it, that it wouldn’t cover her birthmarks. She sits down in front of the mirror and begins carefully blending it into her skin with her fingers, the way Mamá used to apply her foundation on the rare occasions she dressed up. “I don’t really know whether you would have been happy today.”
It was nearly six years after Mamá died, the first time she did this - slipped from thinking about her to talking to her, like she was in the room. Before Papá got deported back to Mexico, she did hear Mamá’s voice in her head, sometimes - always consoling, never chastising, even when Aleida started fires and lied and hid things from her father and mentor. Hearing her voice was so painful, then, that she’d ignore Mamá’s loving words, push them away, pretend she couldn’t hear them. But sometime over the first half of 1975, those early months when Aleida was still struggling with the loneliness and distance, something shifted - and Mamá’s voice went from being jarring to comforting. At some point, Aleida began responding to it - at least when she was alone - and they’d occasionally even have whole conversations before Mamá’s voice inevitably faded from her mind, with as little warning as when it had arrived.
These days, Mamá’s voice usually comes to her in mundane moments - a few reassuring words when Aleida’s stuck in mildly frustrating stop-and-go traffic on her way to JSC, or a gentle reminder to eat lunch after she’s spent several hours holed up in her office trying to fix a pesky engine design flaw. But now, sometimes, when something meaningful is happening in her life, Aleida summons Mamá’s voice and initiates the conversation herself. It feels stilted and artificial and maybe a little delusional, sometimes - but it still feels better than not including Mamá, not getting to speak with her about the things that really matter to Aleida.
“I mean, all your friends used to dream about their daughters’ weddings - about them finding the perfect guy someday who would take care of them for life. But you weren’t like that. You used to talk about your dreams for me, and later I’d hear about them from Papá. But you dreamed about my career, never marriage.”
Aleida, Mamá’s voice says inside her head, warmly. Estoy muy feliz.
Aleida laughs a little as she reaches for her eyeshadow. “Sí, Mamá, pero…not as happy as you would have been the day I got my job offer at NASA.”
Probablemente no, Mamá’s voice concedes. Pero Víctor es bueno para ti. No se deja intimidar por tu inteligencia. Eres brillante, mija, pero también eres impulsiva. Él es tranquilo, con los pies en la tierra. Una buena pareja.
“Margo thinks so, too. I mean, she doesn’t say it, but.” Aleida inspects her eyelids - good. She pulls out the eyeliner and mascara. “We are a good couple, aren’t we? I mean, we are now. Who knows whether Victor and I will still be good ten years from now. But you and Papá - you were great at marriage, ten years in.”
She swallows. She usually avoids the heaviest conversation topics with Mamá. But it feels ridiculous to walk down the aisle without acknowledging and honoring the bond that made her believe in marriage in the first place.
“It’s fucked up that you didn’t get to have more than ten years together. You know he still wears his wedding ring? He says he wants to be buried with it.”
“See, for me,” she continues, “I’ve liked boys since - well, a lot earlier than you would have wanted. But until I met Vic, I didn’t really believe I’d get married. I mean, loving someone like you and Papá loved each other? That doesn’t just happen. The whole, in sickness and in health shit. When I think of that, I think of you two.”
Aleida closes her eyes. “I can just see you two in my head, you know? The night before my eighth birthday. I couldn’t sleep, so I got out of bed and saw you standing with Papá next to the kitchen table.”
Recuerdo esa noche. Mamá’s voice sounds softer now, more gentle. El médico me había dicho ese mismo día que los tratamientos ya no funcionaban.
Aleida opens her eyes - tries to ignore the stinging sensation in them as she swipes the liner across her right lash line. “You didn’t tell me the treatments stopped working until a week later - didn’t want to ruin my birthday, but I knew. No pude oír… I couldn’t hear what you and Papá were saying, but I could just tell - from the way you were holding each other. He had his arms wrapped around your waist and your hands were cupping his face, and you both had tears in your eyes.”
Tu papá quería que el médico siguiera intentando salvarme la vida. Pero no tenía sentido seguir con los tratamientos. Yo quería descansar y estar cómoda y disfrutar cada minuto del tiempo que me quedaba contigo. Con mi Aleida.
“I know,” Aleida whispers, swiping the liner over her left lash line now, more roughly. “You wanted to spend time with me, and you also - wanted Papá to stop focusing on you, when you knew you weren’t going to get better. You wanted him to focus on getting everything in order for us to leave Mexico. For me. Por mi futuro.”
Y tu papá hizo eso por mí. Y él y tú lo consiguieron todo, más allá de mis sueños más grandes.
“Yo no sé,” Aleida says hoarsely, now coating her right eyelashes with mascara. “I mean, it’s amazing, Mamá - mi vida ahora. Papá always says you would be so proud. And I know you would be. But to me, even though I have so many things now that I never thought were possible…it’s like - there’s always something missing. A void. Like I can never be completely whole. Not since you died.”
She can feel the tears starting up in her eyes. She stares up at the ceiling and tries to will them away; takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“I mean, maybe I’m coming close to that today. It was rough for a while, obviously, but I have my dream job now, right? The job you dreamed I could have, someday. I have Papá again, finally. I have Victor. We want to have a kid, too, Mamá. Maybe in a couple of years. Can you believe that? Papá will be such a great abuelo. I know it.”
Mamá doesn’t respond in Aleida’s head - even though Aleida knows that her mother would gently guide the discussion to Aleida’s own feelings about prospective motherhood, would provide support and wisdom, the words she’d say aren’t coming to her brain. She sighs, takes another deep breath, and begins working on her left lashes.
“But it’s not the same without you,” Aleida adds, because even though she can’t hear Mamá’s voice anymore, she feels a strange, uncharacteristic urgency to get her words out. “I mean - some things are similar. A lot of things, actually. I realized this the other day - their best qualities, the ones that make my life better, they’re the same ones you had. Papá, he…obviously, he loves and supports me unconditionally. The way you did. I put him through the wringer, all these years, but there’s nothing I could do that would ever change his love for me.”
She sets the mascara down and stares into the mirror, blinking rapidly.
“And Vic, he’s - just like you said. Tranquilo, con los pies en la tierra. Kind of familiar, right? You were calm and patient and measured about everything, most of the time. Sometimes I forget that it was a little annoying, you know? How functional you were. There were times I wanted you to be emotional and irrational like me, so I’d…I guess, so I’d feel like less of a mess. Pero la verdad es …” She exhales. “You kept me settled. You helped me function in life, too, and not just…go around screaming and crying and kicking my feet…even when I was angry, or frustrated. And now, Vic - he does that for me, too. He anticipates a lot about me, too, the way you did - how I feel, how I’m going to react to things, the little things I need to feel better.”
She looks down at the vanity table counter in time to see two tears splash down onto it - two tiny puddles of water, streaked with black.
“But there’s so much that I miss about you - that’s missing from the dinner table when we all sit down together, you know? Papa doesn’t get all the things that I care about and worry about, not in the way you would. And that’s partly my fault - I don’t want to cause him more annoyance or hurt, after everything he’s been through. So I hide things from him, especially things that are painful and uncomfortable. So there are parts of me that he’ll never fully understand.”
She looks back up at the mirror. If she wasn’t feeling that heavy pit in her stomach, she’d be inclined to laugh at the ridiculousness of it - the spectacle of her standing in a church room in her dressing gown, two ugly trails of mascara running down her cheeks.
“And Vic, I can be open with him - most of the time - but he doesn’t, like, connect with my work the way you would have, you know? I don’t mean… es muy inteligente, Mamá, he actually understands the technical parts of my job better than most people. I never have to spend a lot of time explaining it. And he’s proud of me, and supports me - honestly, more than I expected he would. He doesn’t ever complain or ask me to work less, at least not yet. But when it comes to the future of space exploration and my commitment to it, he finds it interesting, but he’s not, like… apasionado, not the way you were. Remember when you told me I might go to the moon someday? Well, if I ever get the chance, Vic would be thrilled for me - I know he would. But then the next day, he’d just move on to figuring out the logistics of me being away from home for a while, you know? Because it’s my dream, not his. But I can just imagine your face, the light in your eyes, how it would last for weeks - if I got the chance to tell you I was going to the moon. You never went to college, you didn’t get a chance to learn the science, but in dreaming that I would…it was your dream, too.”
Her face is a complete mess now, and it seems impossible to control the flow of tears. She sinks into the chair in front of the mirror, puts her face in her hands, and takes a few more slow, intentional breaths to steady herself.
And then -
“I got here a little early,” a distinctly familiar, Alabama-accented voice sounds from the doorway. “Thought you might use the help.”
Aleida whips around, hands still bracing her tear- and mascara-streaked face.
Margo’s wearing a silk wrap dress, with more intricate detail but a similar fit and length to what she was wearing when Aleida had worked late into the night on the Apollo-Soyuz docking mechanism, with her and Sergei Nikulov. At the sight, Aleida feels a sudden, odd sensation. It’s almost like a small ray of sunlight - warming her cheeks, spreading slowly out to her fingers and toes, making her extremities tingle a little. It’s akin to how she feels, sometimes, when she’s working a complicated engineering problem and she’s solved a part of it; because there’s still weight, heaviness, a gaping hole, but there’s a piece of the puzzle that’s clicking into place.
“You, uh - might have been better off springing for the waterproof kind,” Margo observes diplomatically, and Aleida looks up at the ceiling and laughs - a real laugh that takes her by surprise, echoing across the small room.
“Seriously.” She reaches for a makeup removal wipe and begins dabbing at her eyes. “That kind was fucking expensive. Now if I’d known I was gonna cry like this, well…”
She looks back at Margo, who reaches into her purse and pulls out a smaller, quilted bag.
“Fortunately, Emma recently re-stocked my makeup kit, and for some reason - she got one set more than I usually buy. This will definitely get you through the day. There’s a range of shades in here, so hopefully - there’ll be some in here that’ll work with your skin tone.”
As she watches Margo stride briskly into the room, pulling out makeup tubes and brushes as she goes, Aleida just shakes her head and smiles.
*
“All set, I think,” Aleida proclaims, turning her made-up face to Margo for confirmation.
Margo nods approvingly. “Looks good.”
“Okay. Dress next,” Aleida says, bouncing over to the cabinet in the corner and opening it.
“I’ll - give you some privacy,” Margo says, awkwardly. “There’s a small couch in the adjoining room. I can just wait there and place a work call or two. ‘Til you’re finished putting on the dress.”
It’s the right thing to do, the professional thing to do - Margo’s her boss, after all. But Mamá would have stayed to watch her daughter step into this reinvented version of her own wedding dress. And Aleida would have let her - even if it meant revealing the ugly scars on her left shoulder, even if Mamá hadn’t seen them, before now. She wouldn’t show Papá, she’ll never show Papá - not now, not after he already had to endure so much loss and pain and worry. But she doesn’t think she would have hidden her scars from Mamá, not for long. And she loves Victor - she feels beyond lucky that she found him, that today’s happening at all - but she wishes there was one other person she could really trust, to see all the sides of her, or most of them, besides him.
“Can you stay?” she asks.
Margo pauses with her hand on the door, surprised.
“I think I’ll need some help getting into it, and - I’m wearing a whole lot of shapewear under this dressing gown, so you’re not going to see anything scandalous when I take it off.”
“Well, all right. In that case.”
Aleida hands the dress to Margo, who holds it open, steady, while keeping her eyes respectfully trained on the floor. Aleida takes a breath, slips off her dressing gown, and steps inside the dress.
She pulls it up over her body, and chances a glance at Margo. Margo’s still looking down at the hem of the dress.
Carefully, Aleida slips her left arm inside the dress, then reaches in with her right hand to search for the first loop she needs to attach to the straps of her undergarments, to secure the dress in place on her left shoulder, to make sure the scars stay hidden - from the guests, from Papá. She finds it, pulls it through the straps, and buttons it into place. On to the next loop. She had insisted that the tailor sew many of these into the dress, especially on this side. The process is taking longer than she thought.
“Let me help you with that,” Margo says suddenly, and she’s coming around Aleida’s left side to investigate. And then she freezes, with her hand lightly grazing Aleida’s arm.
Aleida’s not sure what to do, even though she had expected this would happen - had willingly taken on the risk, maybe even asked for this, wanted this. Margo’s still frozen in place, staring at the skin Aleida hasn’t finished covering up. She thinks about explaining it away, but Margo isn’t stupid, she can recognize the marks of a shotgun - could probably estimate the velocity and force of impact, just by looking at them.
“Long story,” she says, instead, assuming a matter-of-fact tone. “Just need to finish securing the shoulder in place - like this,” she adds, demonstrating. “So the dress doesn’t slip and show my scars. Here’s another one - okay, done. Wait, no, there’s one more…”
“I’ll do it,” Margo says, quickly, with a hint of panic in her voice, and she reaches for the final loop, but her hand slips. “Shit. I’m sorry-”
“It’s okay. I got it,” Aleida assures her in an uncharacteristically calm voice, taking over for her, buttoning the last loop. She takes a quick look in the mirror to check her work. “Shall we do the other side?”
“Actually,” Margo says, suddenly. “I think I will go sit down on the couch in the next room for a few minutes, after all. I’m not leaving,” she adds, hastily. “But I didn’t eat much this morning, so I’m going to have a quick snack.” She gestures toward her purse. “I don’t want to get anything on your dress.”
“Okay,” Aleida says quietly, turning back to the mirror for the less important task of securing the right shoulder of her dress in place, and trying not to think about how this was probably an awful mistake - asking Margo to stay for this part.
Five minutes later, Margo comes back into the room. Aleida hadn’t heard a sound from the adjoining room, but Margo’s eyes look suspiciously red behind her glasses, and she’s chewing a Tootsie Roll furiously.
Margo doesn’t say anything for the next ten minutes as she assists Aleida with her hair, except for mm-hmm, every time Aleida directs her where to place a bobby pin. “We can talk about it, if you want,” Aleida says, eventually.
Margo drops several pins. “Well, then,” she says, after picking them up from the floor, her voice coming out tense and strained. “How old were you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Eighteen,” Margo repeats, her eyes blinking rapidly. “What - who -”
Aleida can tell Margo is as close to a meltdown as she ever gets - a bit of a role reversal, for the two of them - so it’s best to stay succinct. “Restaurant owner with a shotgun, on Bryant Street. Hated that I’d go behind his restaurant and scavenge for food-”
“In the dumpster ?” Margo says, her voice rising several notes.
“Well, yeah. That’s where they put the leftover table scraps.”
Margo looks incredulous. She’s pacing up and down the room now, one hand on her hip, the other one clenching and unclenching the stack of bobby pins, so hard she’s probably leaving imprints on her palm. “But it’s not as if you didn’t have - Christ, you knew me - you could have - surely you didn’t believe I wouldn’t have -”
“Margo, I know. And I almost did, once. Reach out to you.”
“You almost,” Margo echoes, shaking her head. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I was a dumb teenager, okay?” Aleida blurts out. “I thought it would be better to eat food out of a garbage can than beg you for help again. It was stupid.”
It’s a far, far gentler explanation than she ever thought she’d give to Margo - not that she really expected that she’d have this conversation. But the truth is, she doesn’t blame Margo, at least not anymore. And she’s floored, if she’s being honest, that Margo cares this much. That Margo Madison might have even just spent five minutes crying into a couch cushion so Aleida wouldn’t hear, wracked with guilt that she could have had a role to play in her protégé’s physical trauma.
“Aleida,” Margo says, quietly, and her eyes look very bright.
“It’s not your fault,” Aleida tells her, and the conviction in her own voice almost takes her by surprise. “I told you that before, right? After your first dinner at my house. That I’m not still sitting here, thinking you did the wrong thing.”
“You did,” Margo acknowledges. “Doesn’t help me sleep any better at night, though.”
But she comes around to the back of Aleida’s chair, and begins surveying her hair again.
“I think you need one more pin,” she says. “Here.”
As she pins up the last section of curls, Aleida meets her eyes in the mirror, and smiles a little.
Margo isn’t really the type to tell her, you look beautiful , but she isn’t looking for that today, anyway.
“You know,” Aleida says, thoughtfully.
“Hmm?” Margo responds. She’s still looking back at Aleida in the mirror.
“I mean. I’m not gonna say some dumb shit like, I’m glad it happened to me. I’m not, obviously. I was ashamed of the scars for a long while. Still hate how they look, honestly, and I don’t wear sleeveless tops or any of that shit outside of the bedroom. Not without a layer on top, no matter how much Victor hypes me up, tells me I look gorgeous, and all that crap. He’s the only other person who’s seen them, and I didn’t even show them to him on purpose, the first time. I’ll never let Papá see them, obviously. I did tell Bill.”
“Strausser?”
“Yeah, it’s actually how we got past the Peanut thing. I had something shameful on him. Gave him something shameful on me. Sounds stupid, but it made sense at the time. And he did stay at NASA.”
“He did,” Margo agrees, and thank God - she’s laughing now, a genuine laugh.
“So yeah, I still hate the scars, but…when I see them, now, sometimes I think about the good things ahead of me, you know? That I get to marry the person I love, get to have a child someday, raise them in a loving family like I had - but also give them everything I didn’t get to have, at that point in my life. A home, food, safety from violence, all of it.”
Margo holds her fingers out in front of her face - checking to make sure they’re completely clean, Aleida thinks - and then she reaches out to touch the fabric of Aleida’s dress, on her left shoulder, right over the hidden scars.
“I wondered, you know,” she admits, pulling her hand back. “What the appeal was, for you. Marriage, kids. Because you’re like me when it comes to the work, never content with stopping just because it’s five o’clock, not when there’s a problem still left to solve. And I never really - felt that calling, felt like it was worth the tension that would cause, for me. But I think I understand where you’re coming from more, now. And I don’t mean - it’s your life, I don’t have to understand it.”
“I mean, you’re not wrong,” Aleida says. “I don’t know if today would be happening - well, it wouldn’t, if you hadn’t helped. With a lot of things.”
“I don’t know about that,” Margo says. She brushes the dress with her fingers again, involuntarily this time, Aleida thinks. She has a faraway look in her eyes.
“But it also wouldn’t have happened, I think - if I hadn’t gotten to see what a loving family was like, with my parents. The way they cared for each other, for me, you know, even when they had barely any resources.”
“Yes,” Margo says, pensively. “That’s - yes. That makes sense.”
Aleida sighs. “I wish Mamá could be here right now. Not just to see me get married, but - to tell me all the things I need to know. Make sure I don’t screw it all up with Victor someday.”
“Well. I definitely can’t help you with that,” Margo says, and they both laugh.
“That’s for sure. But I’m - I’m really glad you’re here, Margo.”
*
“I still can’t believe your brother and cousins tossed you in the air like that,” Bill laughs. “I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty terrified this wedding party was gonna turn into a funeral.”
“We call it el muertito, the dead man.” Victor grins and shovels his last forkful of tres leches cake into his mouth. “Metaphorical death of your bachelor life, technically, but you’re not wrong. I tried to get out of it, but obviously I failed miserably. Took two shots of tequila, told Aleida I loved her, and told my best-looking single cousin that if he tried to make a move on her after I was gone, I’d come back as a ghost and haunt him for life.”
“I mean, it was a pretty close call, man,” Bill replies, shaking his head. “I had to do the hora at my wedding with my ex, and that was scary too, but this groom-tossing business was on another level.”
“I remember that,” Margo says dryly, setting down the margarita she’s been gingerly sipping since last call at the bar.
“You went to Bill’s wedding?” Aleida chimes in, incredulously. She shakes her head against Victor’s shoulder, too, as he chuckles and bumps his ring finger against the new gold band on hers. “No way. I thought Bill and all the MOCR guys were still assholes to you back then.”
“Oh, we were,” Bill clarifies. “Hank Poppen dared me to invite her. Sorry, Margo. I didn’t think you’d actually show up, but it really was nice to have you there. A nice memory until that marriage imploded, anyway.”
“Well,” Margo says in a mildly amused tone, tapping her fingers on the margarita glass, “I did use the occasion, and specifically Gene’s indulgence in the open bar, to bend his ear on possible FIDO openings.”
“‘Course you did,” Bill replies with begrudging admiration, and they all laugh.
“Anyway, I should get going.” Bill stands up from the table, and leans over to bump elbows with Aleida. “Congratulations on the wedding, kid.”
“Thanks, Bill,” Aleida says genuinely, feeling a little rush of emotion as she watches him head toward the exit.
Papá, who’s just returned from the restroom, shakes Bill’s hand vigorously at the door. As Bill departs and Papá comes back inside the dining room, Aleida realizes with a jolt that it’s just the four of them left at the reception venue, now - something she’s honestly been looking forward to for the last several hours.
“Go time,” Victor whispers to her, like he’s reading her mind, and she giggles - definitely had a bit too much tequila tonight - and nods at Papá.
On her signal, Papá clears his throat at once. “One last dance for the married couple!”
“Papá,” Aleida replies, trying and failing to keep the straight face she’d rehearsed, as Victor snickers in her ear. “We already sent the band home!”
“Wait - Aleida, we have a piano here!” Papá declares brightly. “Pero …I cannot play, and all our guests have left. Except…”
“Very convenient,” Margo sighs, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes at the same time. “I did have my suspicions after seeing a perfectly fine-looking piano sit unused in the corner the whole night.”
“We knew you wouldn’t play in front of everyone, Margo,” Aleida tells her. “And we would never ask you to. But it’s just us.”
“I’m just - not sure I have something in my repertoire that would work,” Margo says, hesitantly. “For this kind of occasion.”
“You can play anything,” Aleida assures her. “Neither of us is that great at dancing - we’ll just sway together for a bit, that’s all.”
“I thought,” Victor chimes in gently, “since you do jazz improv, Margo - maybe you could riff on something romantic from the Billie Holiday catalog? Unforgettable? Or…The Very Thought of You?”
“Huh, that’s not bad. The Very Thought of You - I could work with that,” Margo says slowly. Aleida feels a sudden surge of warmth, warmer than when she downed that last tequila shot. “You know…that song was originally recorded in England. Ray Noble. He released a record in the United States later, with an American record company. Victor Records, actually,” she adds with a smile.
“Well, that’s fitting,” Aleida says with a grin. She gets to her feet and tugs on Victor’s hand to pull him up with her. “Did you know that?”
“Not at all,” Victor laughs, squeezing her hand as they watch Margo walk over to the piano and begin warming up. “Just a happy coincidence.”
When Margo begins playing in earnest, they fall into a comfortable silence - swaying slowly on the empty dance floor together, hands clasped, with her other hand on Victor’s shoulder and his on her waist.
Aleida glances over at the piano. Papa’s standing a couple of feet away from the instrument, intently watching Margo’s hands as they flit deftly over the keys - this was an excuse they’d concocted for him to see her play, after all. Margo looks pensive - no, something softer. Reflective. She wonders what Margo’s reflecting on.
Victor enjoys these old-timey songs - he’d played this one for her once, the song Margo’s doing some instrumental variation of on the piano. As he presses his forehead to hers, Aleida tries to recall the lyrics. The mere idea of you, the longing here for you.
Longing for romantic connection - or any sort of human connection at all. She wonders if that’s something Margo has ever really done. She hadn’t talked much, today, to anyone except Aleida. She’d waved off a few friendly offers to dance earlier - from Bill, Papá, a kind-looking uncle of Victor’s - but she’d done it with a smile. She had come early, and she’d stayed - longer than all the other guests, longer than Victor’s family even - to be with them. And somehow, even though Papá had fretted a bit that she would take off before they carried out their little last dance plan, Aleida had never really doubted it…that Margo would stay.
Your eyes in stars above…it’s just the thought of you, Victor sings softly in her ear, in a half-sentimental, half-joking tone. I think that’s why you two work, Bill had told her once, the day after Victor had joined them that one time for beers and Jeopardy at Bill’s place. Aleida’s too hardened to be much of a romantic, but Victor’s self-aware and self-deprecating enough in his cheesiness to pull her in. She laughs now, and leans in so Victor can kiss her.
“Vic,” she whispers as she pulls back.
“Yeah,” he replies, smiling down at her. She’s not sure she’s ever seen him look this tired, or this happy.
“You know how we’ve been having Margo over for dinner - once a month, I think, since Papá moved in.”
“Sure.”
“How would you feel about inviting her more often? Like once a week? If she wants to.”
“Hmm,” he says quietly, but Aleida knows from the lightness in his tone that he doesn’t really need any time to consider it. “I think I feel good about that.”
Aleida lets go of his hand, and hooks her free hand around his neck as he uses his to pull her in a little closer by the waist. “Me too.”
She catches Margo’s eye over Victor’s shoulder. Margo raises her eyebrows a little - corners of her mouth turning up a fraction, before she shifts her attention back to the keys - and Aleida can’t help but smile, too.