The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (best romance novels of all time TXT) 📗

reached for the dish full of pomegranate seeds and offered them to Amelia. The routine of these visits was the most soothing part of Amelia’s week. She had learned to appreciate Lucía’s company, where before she had endured it.

‘People criticized me, once. For everything. Every single choice you make is micro-analysed when you’re a woman. When you’re a man, you can fuck up as many times as you want. Nobody asked Mauricio Garcés why he made shit films. But then you get old and nobody cares. Nobody knows you, anymore.’

It was difficult to recognize Lucía. Age and whatever plastic surgery she had purchased had altered her face irrevocably. But the look in her eyes was the same look Amelia had seen in the posters, in the film stills, on screen in a dark and smoky cabaret where doomed lovers met.

‘What was your best role?’ Amelia asked.

‘Nahum’s movie. The one he didn’t make.’

‘The Viking movie?’

Lucía shook her head. ‘The Mars movie. Before the script grew bloated and was butchered. I didn’t know it then, of course. I knew little. But even if the story was laughable, he could get a good angle. There’s that scene where I’m in prison. You recall it? Pure chiaroscuro. You only need to watch that moment, those five seconds. You don’t need to watch the rest of the movie. In fact, it’s better if you don’t.’

‘Why not?’ Amelia asked with a chuckle.

‘Because then you can make it up in your mind. For example, I always pretend I get out of that prison cell on my own. I just walk out.’

Lucía’s eyes brightened. If someone had shot a close-up, then she might have resembled the actress who had adorned posters and lobby cards.

‘You said Nahum wasn’t nice.’

‘Who is nice, Amelia?’ Lucía stated, as if waving away an annoying buzzard. ‘Nice is such a toothless word. Do you want to have your gravestone say, ‘Here lies Amelia. She was nice’? Come, come.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘You suppose right. When my memoir is published, I imagine people will say I was a bitch, but they were not there, were they? They didn’t have to make my choices. It’s always easy to tell someone they should have picked Option B.’

‘So, what was Option B?’

Amelia expected the actress to launch into one of her elaborate anecdotes. Her face certainly seemed disposed toward conversation. Then it was like a curtain had been drawn and the light in Lucía’s eyes dimmed a little.

‘I forget,’ Lucía said. ‘It’s been so long one forgets.’

*

‘José’s working as a professional stalker,’ Pili said, just like that, like she had found out it would be raining tomorrow.

‘You are kidding me,’ Amelia replied.

‘No. You can hire them online. They’ll stalk anyone you want.’

‘Is that legal?’

‘Nothing worth any money is legal.’

They were wedged in the back of a large restaurant, right by a noisy group of licenciados out to lunch. Pili was paying back the money she owed Amelia and taking her out to eat as a Christmas gift. For now, the Bhagavad was forgotten. They could have a regular meal, not a beggar’s banquet.

‘Well, it sounds awful.’

‘I thought I’d mention it. Just in case, you know, you’re still looking for something.’

‘I’m fine right now. In fact, I was going to say I should pay for this,’ Amelia added.

‘You got another client on Friendrr?’

I think I’m a professional mistress, Amelia thought. But despite Lucía’s assurances that she should not worry about being perceived as ‘nice’, she did not want to chance Pili’s disapproval.

‘Yeah.’

‘Fabulous. That means we can go out for New Year’s, right? I have the perfect idea. It’s—’

‘I’m going out that night.’

‘Yeah, right. You’re going to stay home and eat grapes.’

‘I’m not. Really. I have something planned.’

They parted ways outside the restaurant. On the other side of the street sat half a dozen people with signs at their feet advertising their skills: carpenter, plumber. There was even one computer programmer. Amelia pretended they were invisible, ghosts of the city. It was a possibility. The whole metropolis was haunted.

And she was good at pretending.

When she texted Elías ‘Merry Christmas’ and he did not text back, she pretended it did not bother her. The day after, she went to his apartment.

It was pristine, perfect. The lack of photos, of personality, the whiff of the showroom catalogue, enhanced the allure of the space. She could feign this belonged to her because it was not obvious it belonged to anyone.

She walked from the kitchen to the bedroom and back, finally standing before the window. The sign enticing people to fly to Mars glowed in the distance. She thought about calling Pili and drinking Elías’s booze together, but that would break the illusion that this was her home. And she would have to explain why she had the key to this place.

Amelia went into the bathroom and ran a bath. On Christmas Eve, the taps at her apartment had gone dry and her sister had cursed for thirty minutes straight, asking how they were supposed to cook. Now, Amelia sank into the warm water. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine she was floating in the darkness of space.

When she stepped out, she left no trace of herself. When Elías texted her on December 29, it was to say he was on a red-eye flight and he had everything figured out for New Year’s Eve. She slipped into the dress he’d bought her, did her makeup, and left her apartment with a few sparse words, which was all that was needed, since things were extra-dicey with her sister.

The teenagers in the courtyard were already drunk by the time she walked by them. Instead of beating a piñata, they were wrecking a television set. A few of them hooted at Amelia when they caught sight of her, but she quickened her pace and made it to the spot where a car awaited.

The rest of the night was what Elías had promised: good food, good drinks, dancing at a club that charged a ridiculous amount for