“Yes. I believe I am distantly related to the family of your uncle.”
“Is that so?” Clete replied politely. “May I offer you a glass of Champagne, ladies? And there are some hors d’ ouveres….”
“That would be delightful,” the blonde said. “I so love Champagne.”
“Then let me get you some,” Clete said.
She talks funny, he thought, and then, as he unwound the wire on a bottle of Champagne, understanding came: She is trying to sound like an Argentine aristocrat by using big words. She’s trying to sound like Dorotéa or my Aunt Beatrice. Or as she thinks they talk.
It doesn’t work. She sounds like someone from the country, who had to look up condolences and felicitations in the dictionary. There’s something sad about that.
He poured Champagne into crystal glasses, wondering idly if they belonged to the hotel or whether, like the apartment, they were his.
He handed glasses to the women. “Thank you for accepting my invitation on such short notice,” he said.
Neither replied, but the redhead, Estela, asked if he wasn’t having any Champagne.
“Of course I am,” he said, and poured himself a glass.
“This is such an exquisite apartment,” the blonde, Eva, said. “It has such élan.”
Does she think people swallow that phony elegance? Christ, I speak Tex-Mex Spanish, and even I can tell the difference.
“Thank you very much, Señorita Duarte,” Clete said, and raised his glass. “To your very good health, ladies,” he said.
They tapped glasses.
“You are both from Buenos Aires, I take it?” Clete asked.
I’m not good at this trying-to-be-charming business. I feel like a character in a bad high-school play.
“I’m from Cordoba, the city of Alta Gracia. Do you know it?”
They call a city “High Grace”?
“I’m afraid not,” he said.
“It was founded by the Jesuits in 1588,” she said proudly.
“I didn’t know that,” he said. “May I inquire as to your profession, Señorita—”
What the hell is your last name?
“—Medina?”
“I am in the administration division of the Banco Roberts,” she said.
In other words, you’re a clerk.
“How interesting,” Clete said. “And you, Señorita Eva?”
“I am an actress,” she said.
You’re an actress like I’m a bullfighter. Neither one of us has the talent.
“On the stage? In the movies?”
“Right now I’m a radio actress. On Radio Belgrano,” Eva said.