Chapter Text
As a twenty-three year old virgin in 1922, Jane Gloriana Villanueva is not as out of place as her counterpart in 2014. This Jane, of course, knows of unmarried women who are not virgins—her mother, Xiomara, being one of them—but they are far less common than those who wait until marriage. And if her abuela, Alba, has anything to say about it, Jane will never leave their ranks.
“But Abuela!!” Jane protests, “It’s not like Michael and I are going to get up to any mischief at the movies.”
“Ay! That is just what young people get up to in those places!” says Alba in Spanish. “Even if you don’t do the deed, there are plenty of other things you can do in that dark room.”
“Like what?”
“Necking. Petting.” Alba wags a stern finger. “And you may think that that is not as sinful as having carnal relations, but it is one step on the road to it!”
“Abuela! We aren’t going to do any necking or petting,” Jane reasons. “You know Michael—he’s always the perfect gentleman.”
“Sí, when he’s courting you here in our home. But who knows what he gets up to outside of these walls, eh?”
“Ma, reason with her!” Jane pleads.
Xiomara exits her bedroom, dressed to the nines in a sparkly red straight-silhouetted dress with fringe dangling off the knee-length hem. She’s putting in shimmering earrings that match her paste necklace. Jane knows instantly that anything her mother says will only cause her grandmother to dig her heels in further.
“It’s just the movies, Ma,” Xiomara says. “There are worse places she could go.”
“Sí, como un speakeasy.” Alba crosses herself, muttering a prayer. In her opinion, alcohol is only acceptable in the form of the communion wine, whose manufacture has, by the grace of God, been approved by the government even in this time of Prohibition.
“I was thinking more along the lines of a church dance,” Xo says with a wry smile.
Jane stifles a laugh, hiding her grin behind a hand. Although she and her mother don’t always see eye to eye, the experience of attending a dance in a local dance hall with other Catholics is a universally miserable experience. Venezuelans, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans alike crowd into the halls, looking for a way to forget their troubles and find a decent match while they’re at it. It gets hot and sweaty within minutes of beginning and one can hardly hear one’s dance partner over the roar of varying degrees of Spanish and American accents. Jane would just as soon stay at home and read. Xiomara would just as soon go to a dance without the religious connections.
Alba doesn’t appreciate the joke. She begins arguing again in earnest.
“You like Michael,” wheedles Jane. “He’s a good man from a good family with a steady job. He’s even started attending mass more regularly since we began courting!”
“Sí, pero…”
“And he’s a cop,” Xo says. “If we get in trouble with the law, he can get us out.”
“Xiomara!”
“Ma!”
“What? I’m just thinking pragmatically!” Xiomara, finished with her preparations for going out, runs her hands down the side of her dress. “How do I look?”
“You look great,” Jane says.
“I don’t see why you took that job singing at the hotel,” Alba grumbles. “You were getting a good enough wage from waiting tables, where you could wear clothes that covered all of your skin.”
“Thanks.” Xo gives her daughter and then her mother a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back late. Don’t wait up!”
On her way out the door, Xiomara runs into Michael, whose hand is poised to knock. In his other hand he has a half a dozen roses.
“Sorry, Ms. Villanueva,” he apologizes. “Say, you look like a million bucks!”
She gives him a pleased smile and continues on her way. Even though the front door is already open and Jane and Alba can see him, Michael still knocks. This makes Jane laugh, and she pulls him into their small apartment.
“These are for you,” he says, offering the flowers with a flourish.
“Oh, Michael!” Jane melts. “These are beautiful!”
She goes to the sink and fills up a vase while Michael attempts to have a pleasant conversation with Alba. Alba is having none of it. Michael shoots Jane a bewildered look, as he and Alba usually get along famously. Jane rolls her eyes.
“She thinks that if we go to the movies we’ll commit some kind of sin,” she explains.
“Which sin?” Michael frowns teasingly. “Gluttony? Sloth?”
“Lust.”
Michael gives an affected gasp. “No! Mrs. Villanueva, surely you don’t think so poorly of me?”
“I’m just trying to think of what’s best for my granddaughter!” Alba waves a hand.
“What if we invited you along?”
Jane’s heart swells. She hasn’t gone steady with a lot of men, but the ones she has gone steady with would have never suggested taking her grandmother with them. They would have shrugged at Alba’s fears and taken Jane out anyway.
The offer catches Alba off guard. She peers into Michael’s face to see if he’s being serious. His frank blue eyes hold no hint of facetiousness. Her resolution wavers.
“Pero…” she begins. “But I have nothing to wear.” She plucks at her faded dress, worn in the elbows and along the seams. “This is not suitable for the movies.”
“Applesauce! You look good enough to eat,” Michael says. Alba’s cheeks flush. “It isn’t the opera or the ballet, just the cinema. It’s the everyman’s entertainment. No one will care what you’re wearing. Right, Jane?”
“Right.” She’s never been allowed to go to the movies with a man before, but she’s gone plenty of times with Lina for Saturday matinees. “And it’s dark, Abuela. No one will be looking at your clothes.”
“I can’t read English very well,” Alba says.
“I’ll read the dialogue cards for you,” Jane promises.
For a brief minute, it seems like Alba is seriously considering the offer. But at last, she shakes her head.
“No, this is entertainment for young people,” she says. “You two go and stay out of trouble.”
“Are you sure?”
“Really, Abuela?”
“Sí, sí, go ahead.” She settles down into her usual chair, accepting a kiss from Jane. “I will pray that the Lord will keep you out of temptation.”
Michael opens the door with a grin. “Shall we?”
Even though Alba can’t see them, Jane doesn’t slip her arm into Michael’s until they’ve gone down the stairs, out of the building, and rounded the corner of the block.
+++++
At the Marbella, some forty-five minute walk away from the cinema where Jane and Michael are heading, going out is the last thing on Petra Andel’s mind.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” Her fiancé, Rafael, pokes his head into her office.
She’s seated at her desk, scowling at some figures that won’t add up. A couple of seconds pass before Rafael’s question registers and Petra looks down at her body. Cream-colored slacks, crisp white shirt, cream-colored suit jacket, long black tie…
“I am dressed,” she say, not allowing the irritation she feels creep into her tone. Then she realizes the weight behind Rafael’s words and glances at the clock in a panic. “Is it already five? Damn! Your father isn’t already here, is he?”
“No, but we’re supposed to meet him and Luisa for dinner in half an hour.”
Rafael looks as though he’s stopped in to check on her in the middle of his own evening ministrations. A white bowtie dangles around his neck, his tan cheeks have been freshly shaved. Petra takes a moment to admire just how handsome he is. She’d say that it was the luckiest day of her life when she met him, but she knows that it had little to do with luck and a lot to do with string pulling on her part.
“I’ll go change immediately.”
She stands up from her desk, gives Rafael a swift kiss, and goes up to her personal rooms. In the earlier days of their courtship, Rafael would have followed her up and watched her change. She might have even put on a little show for him and they both would have been waylaid from their preparations. But in this their second year of being engaged, things are less than fresh in that department. As Petra sheds her daywear, she cycles through strategies to rekindle Rafael’s interest. A quick glance at her semi-immodest engagement ring does nothing to dispel the sudden wave of anxiety. Rafael has been engaged two times before. The ring means little more than nothing. And even when they do get married—Petra is determined that a wedding will happen—that is no guarantee of security either. As anyone with Victorian ideals could tell you with disgust in their tone, divorce is becoming more and more common in this modern age. Petra hates the idea of divorce as well, but for different reasons.
The stylish, modern suit is replaced with a mercurial silver dress that is cut quite low in the back. She’s just touching up her makeup when Rafael knocks on her door.
“Ready?”
“Ready.” She slips her arm through his. He remains stiff. That won’t do at all. “You look very dashing tonight.”
“Thank you.” His eyes graze over her. “Is that a new dress?”
“It is, actually.” She’s surprised that he’s noticed. She doesn’t hold out hope that he will compliment how she looks in it, and so her hope is not crushed when he moves the conversation along.
“Don’t swear while we’re at dinner,” he says.
“All right.”
“Don’t mention that I’ve been letting you handle some accounts.”
“Those are some of the most successful accounts now.”
“I know,” Rafael says grudgingly. “But you know my father. He’s got very old fashioned ideas of what women should and should not do.”
“If he asks about my leisure pursuits—” doubtful, as Mr. Solano hardly ever asks Petra questions “—I’ll tell him that I’ve taken up watercolor.”
Rafael snorts, the image of his fiancée serenely putting a brush to canvas apparently causing him great amusement. That’s a thought, Petra thinks. Perhaps she doesn’t need to be ravishing to keep his attention. Perhaps being amusing will be enough until she figures something else out.
(A pregnancy out of wedlock may seem like a surefire way to lock him down, but her mother has cautioned her against this tactic. Someone as rich as Rafael would surely be able to pay her off and then get rid of her. And that’s assuming she is able to get pregnant in the first place. Her mother had had a devil of a time getting pregnant with her, and before something actually stuck, Rafael would have moved on to another woman.)
“Anything else?” she asks coolly.
“Don’t ask Luisa about her practice.”
The fact that Emilio Solano’s only daughter had become a doctor and was completely uninterested in making an advantageous marriage is a bit of a sore spot for him. It’s even more sore because of how Luisa managed to pull it off. Petra tries not to smile as she recalls how Luisa first told her the story.
“I couldn’t flat out ask him for the money to go to medical school, you know? He’s been on my case to get married for years now and anything that doesn’t have to do with that is dismissed out of hand. So I asked for a huge bag of clams for a trip to Europe to see the sights and meet eligible European bachelors.” Luisa’s expression was two parts sly and one part proud when she’d told this to Petra. “So the old man writes me a check and I immediately cash it and take it to the New York Medical College.”
“Duly noted,” Petra says. “And if your father asks about a wedding date?”
“We haven’t decided on one,” Rafael says tersely.
Petra doesn’t press the issue. They arrive in the hotel’s restaurant and are immediately swept to their private table by the maître d’. Neither Emilio nor Luisa has arrived yet, so Rafael orders a soda water and Petra allows herself the luxury of going over those frustrating numbers again. It’s harder without her fountain pen in hand, and she closes her eyes in an effort to remember precisely which accounts she’d been working on.
“Rafael!” Emilio booms. A lesser woman than Petra would have jumped, but Petra is on her feet, all smiles and charm. “And pretty Miss Petra, good to see you’re sticking around.”
Petra supplies the correct phrase for such a statement and they all sit down. No one dares ask where Luisa is. A waiter comes over—Petra notices the shininess of the fabric around his knees and makes a note to bring it up with the manager—and takes their order. Emilio orders for five people.
“Is Luisa bringing someone with her?” Rafael hopes it’s a male suitor, someone who will take the heat off of him and Petra.
“Unlikely,” Emilio scoffs. “No, no, my new squeeze, Rose is coming. I told you. I sent you a telegram saying, ‘I’m bringing my Rose to dinner.’”
As his mood totters dangerously on the edge of sullenness, Petra gracefully intervenes.
“That’s right, isn’t it, Raf?” She smiles brightly at him. “We got the telegram early this morning. You said you were looking forward to meeting her. You must have forgotten with all of the other work you’ve done today.”
Rafael has, of course, done no such work. He spent the morning out on the river and spent the afternoon on the golf links. In fact, Petra hasn’t seen much of him at all this past week. That is, she supposes, another reason why he keeps her around. She’s willing to do the work around the hotel that he doesn’t want to do. He’s given her express permission to forge his signature on minor memos and checks.
“Is that so?” Emilio casts a scrutinizing gaze over his only son. “And here I was, ready to tell you that—”
And at this inopportune moment, Luisa appears, closely followed by a redheaded woman so curvaceous that Petra felt sure every Victorian-minded New Yorker would burst in the doors and scream at her for being the embodiment of sin. This was Rose? Petra knows she shouldn’t be surprised—only exceptionally beautiful women can get away with being shameless gold diggers. She should know, after all. But all of the other women Emilio has brought around have been beautiful, not this level of stunning. Petra feels herself losing ground the closer to the table Rose gets.
Rafael flicks his gaze up and down and up and down over Rose’s figure while his father lumbers out of his chair to give Rose a kiss. Petra isn’t even jealous. How can she be? She and this woman aren’t even of the same species. She greets Luisa with a brief kiss on the cheek instead. Luisa’s breath smells like bathtub gin and lipstick, and Petra discreetly slides Luisa a mint from the middle of the table while her father is still occupied. Luisa pops it into her mouth with a quick thanks.
The dinner goes much more smoothly than the dozen other dinners Petra has attended with her fiancé’s father. Even though Luisa is the tiniest bit zozzled, the conversation stays cool and impersonal. Emilio talks about how the other hotels in the Marquis Group are doing, and Rafael pretends to be interested. Petra notices with some interest that Luisa refuses to make eye contact with Rose, despite Rose’s persistent efforts to draw her into a conversation.
They get to the dessert before Emilio upsets the balance.
“As I was going to tell you before my darling Rose came,” Emilio kisses his sweetheart’s knuckles and Luisa chokes on some rum pudding sans the rum, “Rafael, I think I ought to move back here and run things.”
“What?” Rafael isn’t pretending to be amiable anymore. “What do you mean? You said the Marbella is mine! Our profits have been up forty percent.”
“Be that as it may, I’m concerned that the profits will not stay up.” Emilio’s brow is furrowed. “You’re not known for your fortitude, Rafael.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you don’t even have the wherewithal to settle down with a perfectly nice, attractive dame! How can you be expected to hold onto the hotel when you can’t even hold onto a woman?”
The color in Rafael’s cheeks has heightened and Petra knows that if someone doesn’t intervene, things are about to get very, very unpleasant.
“Oh, Mr. Solano,” she says with a light, tinkling laugh. “Don’t get all riled up on my account! I’m quite happy with things as they are.”
“Yes, I imagine you are. But that still doesn’t preclude the fact that I want to see my son settled down and giving me grandchildren.”
Rafael’s brow has furrowed to match his father’s. His jaw is clenching, the little muscle back by his ears growing and shrinking.
“Didn’t he tell you?” Petra continues in her society voice. “Old Raf’s going to be settled quite soon indeed.”
“Is that so?” Emilio says acerbically.
“Yes, we have a date and everything.”
She feels Rafael’s leg flex underneath the table, but other than that he shows no signs of being surprised. Emilio doesn’t ask her to continue, just stares at the couple expectantly.
“The date we’ve settled on is June fifteenth.”
“Of 1922?” Emilio grunts.
That tinkling laugh again. “Yes, of 1922.”
“That’s fairly soon. Why haven’t I seen an announcement yet?”
“They’re still at the printers,” Petra explains. “And we knew you were coming to visit, so we decided to tell you in person. We wouldn’t dream of getting the date printed in the society pages until we had your blessing.”
This has done the trick. The storm cloud that had hovered over their tucked away table is instantly dissipated. Emilio claps his son on the back, offers him a cigar.
Petra allows herself to relax just a hair.
Another day survived. She can do this.