“It is.”
“Then I’m going with you,” she said. “I really didn’t want to be at that luncheon anyway.”
“You’re not going with us.”
“Hah!”
“Let’s go into the dining room,” Martha said. “You’ve had dinner, Dorotéa?”
“Yes, but I’ll have some dessert. I’m getting fat anyway.”
Without really being conscious of it, Clete looked at Dorotéa’s stomach. God, my baby is in there! He saw on Martha’s face that she had seen him looking.
Dorotéa turned and walked into the dining room. She kissed Beatrice first, then Beth and Marjorie, who seemed really glad to see her, said a polite hello to Dr. Sporazzo, Beatrice’s psychiatrist, then went to Humberto and kissed him.
“What a pleasant surprise!” Humberto said.
“I’m going to Uruguay with you tomorrow,” Dorotéa announced.
“No, you’re not,” Clete said.
“What a wonderful idea!” Beatrice proclaimed. “Beth and Marjorie have never been to Montevideo, and Dorotéa can show it to them while Humberto and Cletus are doing their business.”
Clete looked at Humberto, who with a little luck would have some clever idea to stop Dorotéa’s—and now Beatrice’s—impossible idea right here and now.
“Why not, Cletus?” Humberto asked. “There’s plenty of room in the airplane.”
“Is it safe, Humberto?” Martha asked without thinking.
“Clete, please?” Beth asked. “I’d love to see Montevideo.”
“It’s settled,” Dorotéa announced. “You’re outvoted, darling.”
“I think it’s a very good idea,” Humberto said.
Humberto’s not a lunatic, Clete decided. If he thought there was any chance of trouble, he would have squashed the idea right away. What he’s probably thinking is that having three young women on the airplane will make us look even more innocent.
Only an idiot would involve his sisters and his fiancée in exfiltrating an OSS agent, right?
Doesn’t that make me an idiot?
Clete looked at Martha, who shrugged.
“OK, I give up,” he said.
“You’d better get used to that, darling,” Dorotéa said. “Your days of freedom are numbered.”
He smiled at her.
Thirty minutes later, after Dorotéa had eaten a flan covered with dulce de leche, a sweet, chocolatelike substance made by boiling milk for hours, she kissed Clete chastely on the cheek, and marched off with Beth and Marjorie down a corridor in the right wing of the sprawling house to her guest room.
Twenty minutes after that, she came through the French doors of the master bedroom, wearing a dressing gown.
“I’m surprised you didn’t go to sleep,” she greeted him, “since I now know how little you care about me.”
“Father Welner told me he’d told your father; I figured your father would tell you.”
“You should have told me, in a voice bright with joy, excitement, and enthusiasm.”