Teresa leaned in the window. She looked older than she was: they could easily have been sixteen-year-old friends on a night out. ‘Give us a ride?’
‘Jump right in.’
She slid on to the back seat. Calida hesitated, before cutting her losses and joining her. The girls sat as far apart as possible, Calida staring resolutely out of the window at nothing, hating every perilous moment but unwilling to allow her sister to go alone. The man driving was middle-aged, with thinning hair. He wore a beige shirt and slacks. Teresa couldn’t see his face, only his darting eyes in the rear-view mirror.
‘Where you headed?’ he asked as the car pulled away.
‘Las Estrellas,’ Teresa answered.
The man sneered. ‘You old enough?’
‘We’re eighteen.’
His eyebrow lifted. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Something the matter with your amiga?’
‘She’s shy.’
‘You’re the chatty one,’ he said. ‘I like that.’
Teresa took her eyes from the man’s. Her heart was beating like crazy. The way the man ogled her, like a bear in need of a meal. She could say or do anything and he would still want her. She could ask for anything and he would say yes.
Minutes later, their ride pulled up outside the club. Calida got out and slammed the door. The entrance was heaving. A crowd swigged from beer bottles, blowing smoke into the air. The deep, heady thrum of music leaked out to the street.
A guy on the door stepped forward. ‘ID,’ he demanded.
Teresa lifted her chin. ‘I don’t have mine. I’m eighteen.’
‘Sure you are. ID, or you’re not coming in.’
Teresa batted her lashes. ‘Come on, give me a break …’
The man looked over her head to the next in line. Scowling, Teresa stepped to the side. Just as she was working out a Plan B she saw Daniel Cabrera emerge from the club, his arm round an attractive blonde. Behind her, Calida stiffened, appalled at the notion he had a girlfriend. Teresa stalked over without a backward glance.
‘Hi,’ she said.
Daniel was shocked. ‘What are you doing here?’ Then: ‘Calida? Is that you?’
Teresa sensed rather than saw her sister approach. She stood her ground. ‘We came separately,’ she said.
‘Does Julia know?’
‘She doesn’t need to know.’
‘Hey, Dani, what’s going on?’ The blonde came over.
‘Nothing,’ Daniel said, stepping away from her.
‘Who are they?’
‘Girls I work with.’
‘Shit, what are they, like twelve?’
‘Too young to be out, that’s for sure.’
Teresa glared. ‘I’m still here, you know. I can hear just fine.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t be here,’ Daniel said. His voice softened somewhat when he addressed Calida. ‘I’m surprised you did this, Calida,’ he said. ‘You should have known better. Why did you bring your sister with you?’
Teresa wanted to scream. Why do they have to treat me like a baby?
All Calida did was to grimly lift her shoulders—and then, to everyone’s embarrassment but most of all her twin’s, a sob broke out of its carefully assembled cage. Calida sniffed and wiped her eyes, trying to contain it so nobody would notice.
Daniel extricated himself from the blonde and pulled her into a hug. Teresa heard her sobs honking against his sweater. Daniel held the back of Calida’s neck tenderly, and the blonde became agitated. ‘Are we going or not?’ she said irritably.
Calida drew away. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I just … I’m sorry.’ Her face was blotchy with tears and humiliation and the wound of an exploded dream.
Daniel led his girlfriend away and began speaking to her intently. The girlfriend sighed, rolled her eyes, then turned on her heel and went back inside.
‘Come on,’ he told the sisters, ‘we’re going home.’
‘We don’t have any money,’ said Calida. She sounded utterly dejected.
‘It’s a good job I do, then, isn’t it?’
On the ride back to the farm, they barely spoke. Calida was curled against the window. Teresa wondered if she was asleep, and leaned into the front so that her mouth was inches from Daniel’s shoulder and she could smell the smoky scent coming off him. ‘You won’t tell Mama, will you?’ she whispered.
Daniel waited a moment before responding. When he did, he reached into the back and touched Calida’s knee. Perhaps he thought she was the one who’d asked it.
‘I won’t tell,’ he said.
‘Money,’ said Simone Geddes’ manager, as they took a car from the airstrip and began the long drive through northern Patagonia, ‘plain and simple. Once we show these people the kind of cash we’re carrying, it’s a free pass straight to your kid.’
Simone opened her diamond-encrusted compact and reapplied SOS lip cream. Travel made her horribly dehydrated, and the trip from London had been exhausting; first the city-hop to Amsterdam, then the fourteen hours to Buenos Aires, then the final leg to this deadbeat part of the world that looked as if it had never seen a car on four wheels, let alone a Range Rover Lumma CLR with built-in sound system and a sun roof that allowed Simone’s headscarf to whip prettily in the breeze.
‘Well,’ she turned to Michelle, ‘I trust you know what you’re doing.’
‘Naturally. I’ve had my contacts working round the clock on this for over a year, Simone. I don’t make mistakes.’
‘I’m aware of that.’ Simone lit one of her super-slim menthols—she was trying to give up, but these hardly counted. ‘That’s why you’re my manager.’
Michelle Horner delivered a tight smile, the equivalent of a raucous laugh from an ordinary person, and consulted her papers. She passed a file to Simone.
‘Six daughters, the right age, and a nice spread of light and dark.’
‘I’d like one with dark hair.’
‘I meant skin tone.’ Michelle tapped a sharp red fingernail on the photo, which showed half a dozen grinning tweens holding hands on a farm. They looked poor, but happy. ‘We’ve got everything from mocha to cappuccino.’
