SeventeenShe had barely closed the car door

when the alleged future father of her children informed her that he had bought tickets for a concert at the National Auditorium. But how could she tell her boyfriend to stick the VIP tickets he purchased specially to please her up his ass? How could she explain to him that having lunch at Ultramar bored her to death? And how much she loathed having to parade herself around the tables so that Ricardo could comfortably kiss the ass of the entire Ruiz Estrada family, all squeezed into their riding boots, as if they didn’t have time to change before lunch like normal people and not rub it in everyone’s faces that they played polo on Sundays. Or the owner of the Coloso store chain and the Celtel cellphones, his entire family blond, with slicked back hair, whose little grandchild ran rampant among the waiters carrying hot dishes, pursued by a maid dressed like a nurse. She had no interest in attending any more dinners with supposedly intellectual people, like the one she’d have to endure when they reached Coyoacán, with guests who tried to impress each other by dropping illustrious first names without any last names. She never had any idea who they were talking about, and she was not going to make herself look like a fool by asking.

Cecilia was a graphic designer, and her husband Álvaro was a photographer, the scion of a distinguished ex-secretary, ex-minister, ex-chancellor, ex-thief, a latent dinosaur of the PRI. They lived in a colonial stone house with an enormous garden. Inside it: life-sized papier mache skulls and Judases, antique dolls in midget rocking chairs, altars to the virgin of Guadalupe made of soda tops, and incomprehensible abstract paintings. Ricardo fluttered like a moth around a lightbulb, excited by the arrival of a certain Paola. Paola this, Paola that.

“She is the President of the Board of Trustees for the Advancement of Children’s Creativity. She is doing an incredible job. You’re going to love her.”

Ricardo’s friends made her feel inadequate. Both the hostess and Marlene, the other female guest, stared at her so brazenly that she wondered if her pantyhose had a run, if she had snot peeking out her nose, or beans stuck between her teeth. They were casually dressed in jeans and boots, while she was wearing a black cocktail dress, trying too hard to fit in where she didn’t belong. Meanwhile, their husbands were overly solicitous towards her and her legs. For a while she amused herself pretending to be engrossed in conversation with the children of the hosts, who were summoned to greet the guests in their flannel pajamas smelling of sour milk. Once the children left, Juan Carlos, Marlene’s husband, remembered she existed and made conversation, asking her what she studied, where she went to school, and what year she was in, as if she were a little girl. Lucía took refuge in the generous glass of red wine that Álvaro, the host, poured her.

As they dined vol au vents with mole, salmon with dill, and potatoes soufflé, the conversation revolved around how different Mexico was in comparison to the civilized world.

“The Mexican mentality drives me up a wall,” said Ricardo. “Everyone wants to rip you off. Things are always done halfway, never delivered on time. If they could, the painters would steal the walls, I swear. Clients complain that construction takes forever in Mexico, but they have no idea what we have to deal with. Some people are hardworking and honest, but everybody always has an excuse: the bus didn’t come, my mom got sick, the paint ran out, the tape got stuck. No one ever says, ‘I made a mistake,’ ‘It was my fault,’ ‘I got lost,’ ‘I forgot,’ ‘I got plastered.’ Sometimes I arrive at the site about an hour late to give them a chance to wake up and clean up their eye gunk, and there they are drinking soda, reading comic books, happy as clams.”

“What gets on my nerves is their subservience,” added Juan Carlos. “Take the waiters: They’re so polite and obsequious, but deep down, they really hate you. That’s the raza. Either they’re sentimental and submissive to the point of being cloying, or they despise you so much that they are ready to mince you into a taco.”

“It’s social hatred,” concluded Marlene.

“Besides, they are incapable of doing things well,” continued Ricardo. “You arrive in Mexico and from the plane it already smells like shit, it’s a total disaster. They try to organize something that’s supposedly first-world, but there’s always a bureaucrat with initiative who disorders the order, doing things without any logic.”

“When something works” chimed in Marlene, “it’s probably because there’s someone with a foreign background behind the scenes. Really, we are the people who propel this country forward because we come from a different culture. We are not whining losers.”

“Democracy works in countries like Switzerland, where people have good judgment, but here, they vote for whoever gives them a tamale sandwich,” said Ricardo.

Lucía kept her face buried in her wine glass. She had been privy to many similar conversations, but this one was making her feel queasy.

Paola arrived after dessert, well past midnight when no one expected her. The hosts, who had sent their kids to bed several hours earlier, smiled resignedly, as if they were used to her eccentricities. They offered to reheat her dinner, but she declined, asking only for a small slice of flan. A blonde with an upturned nose who couldn’t have been older than thirty, she was wrapped in a silk shawl the color of bougainvillea that she claimed she had bought in Kuala Lumpur. She sat at the head of the table and took over the conversation with a story about the Norwegian designer who decorated her hacienda in the Yucatán with the most exquisite taste and ended up falling in love with a Mayan.

“That woman to me represents the corporeality of femininity,” said Paola.

What the fuck is that? Lucía wondered.

“But a Mayan!” continued Paola. “Of course, she lacks the context we have here; she doesn’t understand social classes. And now she is pregnant with the Mayan. Oh my god! Well,” she insisted, wanting to engage Lucía, “what do we care, but still...”

Lucía, who had three glasses of wine on her, replied:

“We don’t care? Everyone cares. Or would you do the same? Wouldn’t you care to fall in love with an Indian?”

It was the second time she had opened her mouth that night. The first was to say that everything was delicious.

“It all depends,” said Paola.

“On what?” said Lucía.

“On who that person is.”

“So, if it were a blond, blue-eyed Mayan, you might fall in love with him.”

“Oh, please, don’t tell me you would.”

“Why not? If you like him, why not?” said Lucía.

She ignored the daggers Ricardo was shooting her with his eyes.

“If that is the case, be my guest,” said Paola.

“That’s what happened to your decorator. And do you know why she liked the Mayan? Because she saw him as more than just a freaking servant.”

“Are you speaking from experience, Lucía, or are you just playing devil’s advocate?” asked Álvaro.

“I don’t speak from experience, but I don’t think it’s impossible... “

“Enough. Let’s change the subject, okay?” interrupted Ricardo.

The table fell silent. The hostess went into the kitchen and Lucía took the opportunity to ask for the restroom, acting as if the discussion hadn’t ruffled her, although she was seething with anger. She held on to the chair’s arm since the living room wobbled as she got up. She had seen Paola in a society photo, wearing the same shawl in a different color like a fancy beggar, standing beside her thief of a husband, the owner of one of the most inefficient banks in Mexico.

Lucía left the restroom and ran into Paola’s unstoppable voice giving a speech. She lingered in the hallway, listening.

“It’s astonishing!” said Paola. “The disparity between the lowest level of poverty and the highest is immeasurable. However, it could be reduced if people moved ahead step by step, instead of wanting to reach the top all at once. People lose hope because they want to become millionaires overnight. They compare themselves to those who have everything, and they fail to see that, little by little, with some credit, if they save, they can make some money. They are not realistic.”

Everybody agreed with such pearls of wisdom. Paola continued:

“I recently hosted a group of British charity ladies, very fine people. They wanted to see the city and asked me to take them both to the poorest and the richest areas. What an idea! So, first, I took them in a van to the depths of Chalco—you know, mud, shacks, garbage, and so on. From there I took them straight to Bosques de las Lomas. They couldn’t believe it. Some of them burst into tears. They had never seen anything like it in their lives.”

As soon as Lucía came back to the dining room, Paola decided that the hosts needed rest, and she put an end to the evening. Ricardo and Lucía left after her. A van was waiting for her, probably armored, with tinted windows and three bodyguards. She sat in the front seat. So that she doesn’t get kidnapped, so people mistake her for the driver’s bitch. Fucking hypocrite, Lucía thought.

“Do you know who that was?” Ricardo asked once they were in the car. “Paola Del Paso de Lavalle! The wife of Alonso...”

“I know perfectly well who she is, so what?”

“She is a charming woman. You were very rude to her.”

“If she weren’t married to that big shit, she would be an idiot just like any other. Besides, why do you have to kiss her ass? Do you think she is going to hire you?”

“You are a terrible drunk.”

“I’m not drunk. Have you ever been to any of the twenty-eight thousand banks her husband owns? I felt like telling her, ‘Tell Alonso that I sent my driver to his bank the other day and he was in line for almost two hours.’ And what about how she went to Chalco and to Bosques de las Lomas and the gringas started bawling. No shit! Ask Paola where she lives. Certainly not in Chalco.”

“Since when did you become a Marxist from las Lomas?”

“I am not a Marxist from las Lomas, but if I had her millions, I’d be ashamed to flaunt it. I am sick of spending my weekends with these insufferable people, Ricardo. I couldn’t care less about who their parents are, and what other assholes they know and what houses they own. They think they’re the shit but take them out of Mexico and no one knows who they are.”

“Maybe it’s you who doesn’t fit the bill, chiquita. Your head wouldn’t fall off if you read a book once in your life. You are bored because you have no idea what they’re discussing. Nothing interests you. You don’t like books; you criticize the music I love. I thought you were more sophisticated, but you are ensconced in your own ignorance. Besides, these assholes are my friends, Lucía. If you don’t like who they are, you don’t like who I am.”

“First, I am more worldly and much less ignorant than you think. And second, well, no, I don’t like who you are. Always brownnosing the ultra-rich. You make me sick.”

“Think about what you are saying. I’m not marrying someone like this.”

“Then don’t marry me.”