The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

him it was fine, that she wasn’t looking for a singing torso, but he pressed the card against her hand. She tossed it away before she walked into Lucía’s house where the holidays had made no dent. No lights nor trees, not even a poinsettia plant to mark the season. Lucía herself wore a white turban and had scattered photos on the table.

‘I’m picking pictures to go with my book,’ Lucía declared. ‘I’m sure people will like that sort of thing. But they’re all jumbled, and I have boxes and boxes of them. This was from 1974. It was the dress I did not wear to the Arieles, since I didn’t bother asking for an invitation and stayed home. You know who won the Ariel that year? Katy-Fucking-Jurado.’

Amelia inspected the photo and smiled. Then she looked down at the table, grabbing a couple of other snapshots. One was a self-portrait, but the other showed young Lucía with Nahum. He was lighting her cigarette and she was smiling a perfect smile.

‘Can I ask?’ Amelia said. ‘You and this guy…?’

‘Fucked?’ Lucía said with a chuckle. ‘Who didn’t fuck him, darling? Who didn’t fuck me, for that matter? But he was married. I spun elaborate fantasies about how he was going to leave her, but those men never dump their wives. Not for little actresses who say “I love you” a bit too honestly anyway.’

‘But you would have worked with him again, on that Viking movie.’

‘That was after. Ages after! It seemed like that back then. Time just slowed to a standstill. Now, time goes so fast. I can’t keep track of anything anymore. So, yes, afterward I might have worked with him. Things were different.’

‘I don’t know if things can ever be different between some people,’ Amelia said.

Lucía laughed her full laughter. She was old, and she was strong and steady. Amelia wished she could be that steady. She wished she didn’t jitter and jump, unable to sit still for five minutes, her foot nervously thumping against the floor.

‘You have troubles with someone?’ Lucía asked.

‘It’s nothing. Probably the least of my worries.’

‘What’s the biggest worry? Mars, my dear?’

‘Mars, yes,’ Amelia said, blushing. She hated thinking that she was so easy to read, that Lucía knew her so well. But then, what else did she talk about? Nothing but Mars and she did not talk about Elías with anyone. Everything about the Red Planet, not a word about the man, all truths committed to her mind. If she’d kept a diary, perhaps it might have helped, but it would have been ridiculous tripe.

‘Mars is fine, I suppose. We all must nurse our little madnesses. Look at me here, with all these pictures,’ Lucía said, pointing at the photographs. ‘But I was pretty, wasn’t I? Look at this. Now, this was a face. Light it, frame it, let the world admire it.’

So, Amelia looked. She looked at the ravaged hands touching the precious photos and she nodded.

*

She knew the lunch invitation was a trap but not exactly which kind. Fernanda did not extend lunch invitations. It was Amelia who phoned her, tiptoed around a social activity once a year, and then Fernanda agreed with a sigh. Fernanda ended up buying her a free lunch and Amelia ended up feeling like shit, and then she wondered why the fuck she bothered pretending Fernanda was still her friend, but the truth was Fernanda had also lent her money a couple of times. Amelia didn’t like to think of people as walking ATMs, but that was what it had come to on more than one occasion.

Fernanda phoning Amelia was plain unnatural, but Amelia went along with it, went to the restaurant where they normally met.

Fernanda arrived before Amelia, which was another oddity. She didn’t waste time pretending pleasantries. As soon as Amelia sat down, she leaned forward, with an eager look on her face.

‘Amelia, are you really fucking Elías Bertoliat?’

Amelia opened the menu, sliding a finger down the many options. Fernanda took her time choosing her food and drink, after all.

‘Amelia, didn’t you hear me?’ Fernanda asked.

‘I heard you,’ Amelia said, trying to read the menu.

‘Oh, my God, are you seriously going to sit there without answering me?’ Fernanda said.

Amelia raised her eyes and stared at Fernanda. ‘Why are you asking me this? How do you—’

‘Anastasia is super-pissed off at me! She thinks I got you two back in contact and I’ve done nothing of the sort! But since I secured you the invitation for that show of hers and she didn’t hire you… OK, she has it in her head that you went and fucked the guy to spite her. And it’s my fault for telling you about her art show in the first place.’

‘Elías is engaged to Anastasia?’

‘You didn’t know that?’ Fernanda said.

For a moment she believed that Fernanda had set this whole thing in motion as part of a malicious plan. She had sent her to the gallery, she had mentioned that Amelia worked as a rent-a-friend to Elías. For what? For a lark? Coincidence? Did it matter? Maybe she thought it would be funny. You can’t imagine what she does now! No, really, look her up. It had backfired.

Most likely Fernanda hadn’t even thought about it, it had been a lack of care and tact.

‘How did she find out?’ Amelia replied.

‘She paid someone to follow him.’

‘What, with that stalker app? That would be funny.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Amelia chuckled. She reached for a piece of bread piled in a basket and tore off a chunk.

‘Why are you so happy? Do you realize what this means to me? Anastasia does business with my husband. If she’s angry at me, I’m going to lose money.’

Fernanda had reached across the table and slapped the butter knife Amelia had been attempting to wield. The clank of metal against the table made Amelia grimace.

‘I’m not responsible for your husband’s business,’ she said, and she hoped that he did bleed money, that if Fernanda had started this fucking