FICTION 
Dina was in Paris - her first time -  -  -
                                Photo by Weebly.com                                    

Speak to Me of Love
by  Linda Zamora Lucero

The famous cherry trees were in glorious bloom all across the City of Light. Dina, thirty-eight, was in Paris—her first time—with her partner, Marc, and this morning her agent had texted the astonishing news that she’d been cast as the lead in a play by the hotter-than-hot Lupe Castellanos. Rehearsals would start the week after she returned to San Francisco. Strolling with Marc toward the Louvre in her turquoise halter jumpsuit and silver sandals, Dina was practically floating with joy. “Let’s celebrate at La Moulin Rouge tonight!” she said, “I’m dying to see a real cabaret.”

“La Moulin Rouge?” Marc said, squeezing her hand. “That’s for tourists, sweetie.” This assessment, while not unexpected, made Dina’s blood rise, for nothing is worse than reason in the face of unaccountable desire. “Besides, I was looking forward to trying the lobster navarin tonight.” Nearing the Louvre, they joined a crowd at the crosswalk. Dina turned to Marc in his UCLA t-shirt and cargo shorts that screamed American Tourist. Chalk it up to love that she hadn’t let this bother her until now.

“The same restaurant?” she said.

“I thought you liked it.” Marc sounded hurt.

Dina braced herself for an argument. You realize, Marc, we are tourists? And I truly want to see a French cabaret. In France. But before she opened her mouth, her gaze was drawn by a tall, broad-shouldered figure emerging from a taxi pulled up at the curb. His face was hidden under a gray Borsalino, yet something about the showy manner in which the man said, “Ça va!” while thrusting a fistful of euros through the window made her stomach lurch.
​
Dina removed her sunglasses, her skin prickling with alarm, “Pablo?”

Turning, the man widened his eyes with apparent disbelief. “Dina?” He began howling. The signal turned green, people surged forth like spawning salmon.

“Qué haces en Paris?” Pablo wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. Despite the balmy weather, he was wearing a gray suit and tie, his polished shoes reflecting sunlight.

A sinking feeling overcame Dina. After breaking up with Pablo eighteen months ago, she had made a concerted effort to prevent sadness from taking up residence in her heart. With the help of a hypnotist, she had swapped her Marlboros for Pilates, and had her unruly Chicana tresses cut and styled into a bob with bangs. With sunglasses and AOC lipstick she liked to think that she resembled a brown Liza Minnelli, in Liza’s Broadway-era, pre-Hollywood, pre-rehab days. She had avoided gatherings where she might run into Pablo.

Smiling, Pablo extended his hand to Marc. “Soy Pablo.”

“Marc,” Marc said, who looked like a college kid beside Pablo, although at forty-three, he was only a couple of years younger.
​
“Aquí—Paris—of all places,” Pablo said. “This calls for a drink!” 
1
Dina stared at Pablo, stunned into silence. The signal turned red. Traffic whizzed by.

“It is a coincidence,” Marc said, brushing a shock of brown hair from his hazel eyes. He smiled, “How about a drink, hon?”

Was Marc succumbing to Pablo’s uncanny charm? Was he curious about her ex-partner? Or was he just annoying today? She decided on annoying.

“Dina?” Marc said.

Curious herself about why Pablo was in Paris, against her better judgment, she said, “All right, but just one—we’re going to the Louvre.”


 
They found a sidewalk table at a bistro, Pablo sitting opposite Dina and Marc. After the waiter took the order, Dina said to Pablo, “So. You’re in Paris.” She didn’t trust him for a second. When they broke up, Pablo had called, texted and emailed her constantly. He’d collared their friends, vowed that he’d win her back – he’d find a regular job, quit drinking and—whatever it took, sinceramente. After zero response from Dina, Pablo finally told her best friend Susie that he got it. “No one will ever love Dina like I do, but I accept it is over y para siempre . . . I wish her only good.” The texts and voicemails ceased, leaving an echoing emptiness. For weeks afterward Dina burst into tears at unexpected times, despite the fact that this was what she had wanted – unshackled from Pablo, she was free to make a new life.

So how was it that Pablo was sitting across from her in a Paris café, taking a drag off his cigarette, releasing a lovely curl of diaphanous vapor laden with carcinogens?

“I won una rifa, mujer!” Pablo’s brown eyes bounced from Dina to Marc and back. “It was Paris or $10,000 U.S.! I picked Paris, claro. Ten days, all expenses paid! Air Francia, Hotel Georges V! Primera clase, all the way.”

Dina raised a dubious eyebrow, although with Pablo anything was possible. She reached for Pablo’s Gitanes, avoiding Marc’s surprised look.

Pablo lit Dina’s cigarette with a match and shook it out, “Everybody is awesome. Whoever says the French are assholes are the real assholes. The concierge, the sommelier, los cocineros – ¡son simpáticos, todos!”
​
Pablo wore his Borsalino with flair and his shoes shined a toda madre, but he likely had holes in his chonies. In their three years together, she could count the times Pablo had had the wherewithal to gas up his battered Toyota. Not that Pablo wouldn’t be right at home in a five-star hotel. When he had money, he spent it as if he were King Midas, and when he didn’t – he was still fucking Midas, ¡cabrones! He once gifted her long-stemmed strawberries in January which she couldn’t eat because she had guessed their cost. He accused her of attaching a price tag to everything, and maybe he’d been right. She’d grown up in a working-class family that appreciated the value of a dollar, but Pablo, raised in a Panamanian shantytown, had stolen food to survive. Strawberries in winter proved he was Somebody. 
2
Dina’s eyes watered and her tongue tasted like burnt peanuts. She stubbed out the cigarette.

“Not a vacation per se,” Marc was saying, “I have work meetings, but it’s flexible so I have free time with Dina.”

“The timing worked,” Dina added. “I just finished ‘Tita’ at OSF.”

“The critics called you brilliant,” Pablo said, radiating enthusiasm.

“Decent reviews,” she said evenly. Had he followed her to Paris? It was preposterous, even for Pablo.

“She was superb,” Marc said, caressing her hand.

Dina slowly withdrew her hand, wary of the jealousy Pablo was capable of, but the men seemed comfortable chatting about food, weather, the exchange rate. She relaxed and admired the towers of Notre Dame. Despite their earlier disagreement, life with Marc was smooth sailing. No running out of gas on the freeway, no women texting him after midnight.

 “I picked Paris to visit the Magic Museum, but I think it has disappeared on me,” Pablo laughed and threw his hands in the air. “Poof!”

“Still obsessed with Robert-Houdin?” Dina asked. They had once shared a mutual love of magic.

“A genius!” Pablo said.

“You mean Harry Houdini, the escape artist,” Marc corrected.

Pablo shook his head. “Not quite.” He leaned forward, addressing Marc. “Houdini, the American, stole the Frenchman Robert-Houdin’s name—homage the magicians call it. I call it robbery. The Magic Museum has many artifacts, but when I went to the address all I found was a café making Greek gyros. Not French, but with a beer? Delicioso.”

“Dina wants to go to La Moulin Rouge,” Marc said, apropos of nothing. “But I can’t see wasting one of our last nights in Paris at a tourist trap.”

Dina resisted saying, You prefer to eat at the overpriced, clichéd Le Cochon.

“I can get you complimentary tickets from the concierge at my hotel,” Pablo offered.

“Seriously?” Dina blurted out without thinking.

Just as Marc started to say something, Pablo signaled the waiter for oysters. “Sé que no puedes beber con el estómago vacío.” This last to Dina.

Dina’s felt her cheeks redden with anger. “Actually,” she said evenly, “We don’t have any free nights left, but thanks for the offer.”

Marc said, “Tell me more about Houdini.”

“We should get going.” Dina nudged Marc, but he was oblivious. 

“Robert-Houdin,” Pablo said, pronouncing it Rooberr-Whodan, “Was born in Blois in 1805 into a family of clockmakers . . .”

Having heard the story countless times, Dina pondered how exactly coincidence worked. 
3
Back at the hotel that afternoon, Dina downed a couple of Advils and fell into bed next to Marc, shutting her eyes in a futile effort to keep the room from spinning.

“I wanted to see the Mona Lisa,” she moaned.

“Pablo’s alright, despite what your friends say,” Marc said. “I figured he was going to knife me or something.”

“Probably couldn’t get the switchblade past TSA.” She tried focusing on the florid pink wallpaper then closed her eyes. “No, you were being just a little superior. Why did you insist on picking up the check?”
​
“Didn’t you say he was always broke? I didn’t want to embarrass him.”

“He invited us, Marc,” Dina sighed.

Marc turned on his side to face her, his voice gentle. “What’s bothering you? And why are you smoking again?”

What was bothering her? Pablo’s unexpected appearance? The foolishness of two bottles of wine before lunch? How Marc and Pablo had bro-bonded? All of it, she decided. Pablo had charisma, there was no denying. They’d met at a party almost five years ago where he’d handed her a flyer for a fundraiser he was producing for a Mission gallery. “Flaco Jimenez– un maestro,” he said, launching into the history of how the accordion made its way to Texas. She found his passion irresistible. Plus his black curly hair. The mole at the side of his mouth like the dot of an exclamation point. Later, the tangerine taste of his dark skin.

Pablo had always worked hard. He did whatever it took to get musicians on stage and people in seats or dancing on the dance floor; had, in fact, produced incredible events. A few nearly broke even. Soon they argued about his unwillingness to get a regular job, her refusal to support his work, his lack of common sense, her sharp tongue.

One day, through some random connection—Pablo agreed to bring an acclaimed Argentine tango ensemble to San Francisco for a two-weekend run. It was an ambitious undertaking—and his budget projections proved renting a larger venue would bring larger rewards.

“Maybe they’re the rage in Buenos Aires, but I’ve never heard of them!” Dina said.

“You have to believe, mujer,” he said. All that was needed was Dina’s credit card to secure the venue. She knew she should have refused. 
4
Exactly one-hundred-ninety-three people came to opening night in a 1,676-seat theater, nearly every person comped and huddled together in the sixth and seventh rows orchestra as if on a melting ice floe, Dina with a hard knot in her stomach that eased after the first few notes because it was the most thrilling music she had ever heard. The last piece, “Adiós Nonino,” a tender tribute to Piazzolla’s father, left her sobbing, devastated both by its poignancy and the knowledge that she and Pablo were done.

The next day, music critic Alister Balboni called the production “one of the top-ten musical events in decades—shoot yourself if you miss it.” Even so, five sold-out houses could not avert a financial disaster. It wasn’t the artist fees, venue, airfare, taxis, instruments, sound, lighting, publicist, advertising, printing, security, or even the eleven hotel rooms and per diems for exactly fifteen days—these were budgeted. Per usual, it was the other costs that broke them: Pablo, el gran mero-mero producer, hosting the musicians at restaurants after the shows, the party swelling with local hangers-on lured by free food and vino. It was the roses for the musicians on opening and closing nights, the chocolates. When Dina questioned expenses, Pablo countered, “Imagine what it takes to make music like that!”

When Dina demanded that Pablo move out, he apologized for having carried on with another actress, under the impression that Dina had discovered the affair, was breaking up with him because of it, would admire his honesty, and forgive him.

It took major effort not to smack his face. “Get out,” she said bitterly.

Her best friend dragged Dina to salsa dancing classes – because six months had passed and she needed to get out—where she met Marc with his lopsided grin and eccentric sense of rhythm. Marc read books instead of gleaning factoids from Twitter. On weekends, he hiked outdoors instead of watching fútbol on TV. Marc was a tech engineer, drove a Prius of recent vintage, owned a condo with a view. He’d once been married but without progeny, which made Dina selfishly sad. She ached for small humans with dirty faces in her life. Marc was cuter and younger than Pablo. She liked that. Marc was an exceptional lover. She especially liked that.

Marc called Dina “my free-spirited Latina. Or is it Latinx?” He was determined to get things right.

“Free-spirited?” she said. “I worry the sun won’t come up in the morning!”

“Now you have me to take care of you,” he said.

Dina was offended. “I’m a member of Actor’s Equity. I have health insurance and I pay my rent on time.”

“I just mean I’ll always have your back,” Marc said, embracing her.

God, what was her problem? Marc was just what she needed: down-to-earth, debt-free, and girlfriend-approved. Marc was the antidote to Pablo, who fogged up her mind by his mere presence. 
5
The next morning, Dina made sure she and Marc were among the first into the Salle des Etats where above the bobbing heads, she managed to glimpse the Mona Lisa.

“Done!” Marc said, grinning. “Now let’s go find the café.”

Dina laughed, but recalled her father’s advice to look for the truth in every joke.

Afterwards, they exited to the Cour Napoléon, where the overcast sky was sweet with the promise of rain. Marc was in Warriors regalia, Dina in a green-gold raincoat, a blue scarf and brown boots. She was in great spirits until she spotted Pablo near the Pei pyramid, leaning on a furled red umbrella, searching the throngs as if waiting for someone.

“Is that Pablo?” Marc asked.

“He’s ridiculous!” Dina said abruptly, striding towards Pablo.

“Slow down,” Marc said, scurrying after her.

“Bonjour!” Pablo shouted, making his way towards them. “I figured I would find you here. I have the tickets!”
They must have looked perplexed, because he added “La Moulin Rouge! For tonight! The concierge found us excelente seats!”


 
La Moulin Rouge was bursting with tourists, and formidable was the only word for it. Leggy showgirls, with gorgeous smiles and bare breasts, strutted in towering heels and g-strings, flaunting feathered headdresses and costumes stitched with a dizzying array of rhinestones, bangles and sequins. A beret-wearing woman sang “Parlez-moi d’amour,” in a voice tinged with nostalgie. Dina sighed, imagining Montparnasse in the 40s, filled with artists and creativity. She adored every over-the-top routine, every hilarious pratfall, the tuxedoed orchestra and glittery sets. At the grand finale, dozens of high kicking can-can dancers in billowy skirts, turned and flung their rumps into the air and shrieked. Dina was the first on her feet for the standing ovation.

“Thank you!” Dina said to Pablo as they said goodnight in the crowded street outside the theater. She rubbed her cheeks. “My face still aches from happiness.”

“Let’s all get together back home,” Pablo said, kissing Dina on both cheeks and shaking Marc’s hand. “Vamos a un restaurante francés.”

In your dreams, Dina thought.
​
“Have a good trip,” Marc said. 
6
When the phone rang the next morning, Dina supposed it was the front desk calling about the water because it was out, but it was Pablo.

“What?” Dina demanded.

“Estoy llamando a Marco,” he said, defensively. “I want to run a business idea by him.”

“He just left for a meeting. I’ll tell him you called.”

“Pues, have a cafecito with me, ma cherie,” Pablo said in a faux French accent.

“Pablo.”

“Marco is a good man. I’m happy for you.”

“You sound sincere,” Dina said, half accusingly. She glanced at her watch. “I do need coffee.”

Knowing that Pablo liked her to dress up, she showed up at Le Petit Pont sans makeup, in sneakers, faded jeans, a yellow tank top. Pablo wore the Borsalino, a linen suit and a shoulder bag. They chatted about global warming, the upcoming U.S. elections, her friend Susie’s new beau.

“Qué es “un beau”?”

“Could be anything.” Dina peeled the layers of her croissant and chewed them slowly, considering the converging paths that had led them here. It was gratifying, knowing they were forging a friendship of sorts. After coffee, they wandered the alleys of the Latin Quarter aimlessly window shopping, when Pablo noticed the small ornate sign of gold and crimson announcing La Musée de la Magie.

“¿Ves? As soon as I give up, it throws itself in my path,” Pablo said.

“C’est la vie,” Dina agreed. “Look, there’s a magic show at 1pm.”

Pablo purchased entries at the box office, and they descended the rickety staircase. The rooms were crowded with students, the exhibits filled with memorabilia of magic and prestidigitation from the time of the Egyptians to the present—Robert-Houdin, Houdini and dozens of magicians, illusionists, conjurers and palmists Dina had never heard of, invariably designated as “Le Incroyable” or “Le Formidable” or “Le Etonnant.” Pablo knew them all.

At 12:45, a bell chimed and they made their way to an intimate horseshoe-shaped theater.

“Full house,” she said, but Pablo, reading the program, didn’t hear her over the chattering students.

When the lights went down, Marceau le Magnifique, a mustachioed fop in top hat and tuxedo, appeared in a follow-spot. He put a finger to his lips until the audience went silent. Dina could hear herself breathing. Marceau le Magnifique pulled up his cuffs to reveal pale wrists, flashed his hands to the audience—absolument vides!—and proceeded to extract a gold coin from behind the ear of a girl with pigtails in the front row, lifting the shiny disc for all to see.
​
“Ooooooh,” the girl cried out. The audience roared, and Dina was transported back to a theater presentation in third grade, where a donkey-eared creature and a beautiful fairy sprinkled her with silvery stardust. Dina had just about peed in her chair. It had been dollar store glitter, she had figured out years afterwards, the donkey and the fairy, costumed actors in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the forest, painted cardboard. 
7
Dina had become an actress in order to return to that forest, but she was wiser now. She knew about pulleys and trap doors, smoke and mirrors, knew Marceau Le Magnifique was nothing more nor less than an ordinary man who likely adored his children, cheated on his partner, told fart jokes.

A live canary was chirping on Marceau’s forefinger, and with the wave of his wand the bird was encased in a floating glass bulb. Dina’s heart caught in her throat. The bulb hovered and rose higher, making a series of loops above the dumbfounded audience, the bird’s chirping muted inside the glass, yellow feathers unruffled. No strings. She could barely draw breath. How? she thought. And next, Don’t tell me, please let it stay magic.

“I want to bring him to San Pancho,” Pablo whispered, ruining the moment. His words made her nauseous, invoking memories of irate managers, bill collectors, sleepless nights.

With what money? she almost said, but the canary in glass had vanished in a corkscrew of red smoke, and Marceau Le Magnifique was taking bows.

“¡Ese pajarito!” Pablo said, shaking his head in awe. “Where did it go?”

They surfaced into the bright day. She checked her cell, it was still early. She was famished. They bought a baguette from a boulangerie, avocados, olives, pâté and a bottle of champagne from La Negresse delicatessen. Pablo wouldn’t let her pay for any of it, and there was wonder in that! At Luxembourg Gardens they rented chairs and toasted with crystal flutes Pablo had borrowed from the hotel and had been carrying in his bag, wrapped in napkins. This was suspect, she knew, and muy Pablo, but the sun was out, her stomach was growling, and a feast beckoned. She kicked off her Nikes. The smell of cut grass tickled her nose as she ate. Watching a little girl lob bread to the fish in the fountain, a familiar longing stabbed at Dina’s heart. No sadness, she commanded, taking deep breaths, no regrets. It worked. In the blue sky was a cow, a Buddha, a saxophone, all dissolving. She stole a sidelong glance at Pablo, leaning back in his chair, hat in his lap, arms cradling his head, staring unblinking into the universe.

The champagne in Dina’s glass fizzed and burst like fireworks until the clanging of a church bell broke the languid afternoon.

Pablo poured the last of the champagne. “Crazy. I didn’t even know Paris existed when I was a kid. I couldn’t have imagined it.” He smiled. “Y aquí soy, Dina. Suerte.”

“Suerte,” Dina said, raising her glass. “I should go. We have dinner reservations at Le Cochin.”

Pablo chuckled. “Te acompañaré al hotel.” They ambled the Quai de Conti, turning right at the pedestrian-only Pont des Arts, silver ribbons visible between wooden planks. They stopped mid-point on the bridge and Dina took photos of life on the water. Green crested ducks, a swan, a bevy of British schoolgirls in a Bateau Ivre singing, “Row, row, row, your boat . . .” countered by, “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily.”
​
8
The most delightfully existential lyrics ever, Dina thought. She waved but the girls were too caught up in harmonizing to notice a woman old enough to be their mother. As she turned back, Pablo took her in his arms, and without thinking she melted into him, her body filling with champagne effervescence, her head as light as a balloon, her heart quickening against his chest, the familiar warmth of his tongue, the tangerine scent of his skin.

The strident engine of a passing motorboat broke the spell. Returning to her senses, Dina reared back and pushed Pablo away.

“Why did you follow me here?” she demanded.

“Dina, no . . .”

“¡Mentiras!” Her lips felt ripe and swollen, badly used. “This isn’t fun anymore,” she said.
Pablo took her hands and kissed her fingertips. “Cierre los ojos.” Something inside Dina began to stir despite her effort to shut it down. It was about the stuff of romantic novels, passionate poetry and over-the-top musicals, not meant for real life. A vision of dear, adorable Marc on his way to the hotel to meet her flashed in her head.

“Cut it out!” Dina pulled her hands from his, hot tears stinging her eyes. She fled across the bridge to where an arcade of cherry trees waited, showering pink confetti in the breeze. The afternoon sunlight made everything golden and perfectly enchanting, like a stage set. Dina turned to see Pablo on the bridge looking at her, the Borsalino in hand lending him a rakish, poetic look.
​
A charged energy emanated from him as if he were an actor waiting for the next line - her next line. Her body tingled with desire and panic. A tiny part of her wanted to run back to him. The tiny part of her that was still foolish. The cell phone in her hand buzzed. Marc’s name flashed on the screen. Life, like theater, one crisis after another. Tiny yellow birds darted overhead like gilded fairies luring her back onto the stage. The hazy light blinded her. 
9
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Linda Zamora Lucero is writing a collection of short stories set in San Francisco’s Mission District. She recently won first prize in the DeMarinis Short Story Contest, “Speak to Me of Love,” (to be published in Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, August 2021). Among her published stories are: “When It Rains” (Yellow Medicine Review, 2020, Pushcart nominee; “Mexican Hat,” Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century (Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, 2020); “Balmy Alley Forever,” (Santa Clara Review 2016, reprinted in Yellow Medicine Review, 2016); and “Take the Money and Run—1968” (Bilingual Review, 2015). Linda has a BA in Spanish from SFSU. She is the Executive/Artistic Director of Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, an outdoor performing arts series. 
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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.​
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