Anna and Her Dog – Part 3 – by Mark Cepillo (zorro7usa @ yahoo . com)
She greeted me the next day wearing a short burgundy dress that showed her slim legs to advantage, a white shirt with gold cuff links, and the hoop earrings, which I complimented.
“Yes, they’re from a supposed ‘secret admirer’.”
She smiled her enigmatic smile—did she suspect?
“Whose numbers, I’m sure, are legion.”
“Oh Rogelio, you sound like a character from a Jane Austen novel.” But I could tell she liked it.
While she prepared cocktails in the kitchen of her charming, understated apartment, I examined her bookshelves. Along with the expected psychology texts and Latin American novels I spied a volume which immediately led me to reformulate my plan—it was “Story of O,” by Pauline Reage. Clearly there was more to Anna Natalia Chamorro than I had dared to imagine.
She returned with the cocktails (designed, I’m sure, to cloud my judgement), and the little dog, who regarded me balefully, its beady little eyes barely visible through a tangle of white hair.
“Say hello to Fidel,” she said, indicating the little cur, who sniffed my pants leg and took it upon himself to growl ominously, as if he could intimidate anything larger than a hamster.
Without further ado Anna seated herself at the chess board, again taking the white pieces.
“I have a suggestion,” I said. “To make the game even more interesting, I propose we play for secret stakes.”
She looked at me inquiringly.
“Each of us will write a wish on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. When the game is over, the winner will receive his or her wish.”
Now she eyed me with amusement, but, as I had calculated, her self-confidence led her to agree. She took a while to write down her stakes, we each sealed our envelope, and it was time for the game to begin….although truth to tell, it had been underway for some time already.
This time around her attention was focused, and her attack as subtle as it was ferocious. Forty five minutes and three cuba libres later I was still parrying her moves, and while we were playing on relatively even terms, something strange and unexpected began to occur. I found myself consumed with the desire to learn what she had written in her note, that note which she had so carefully composed. My instincts told me that the only way to gain a decisive insight into Anna’s carefully guarded soul was to read that note, and it seemed there was only one way to guarantee that. Thus I decided that, my competive nature be hanged, I would lose, but so cleverly that she would not suspect my complicity in her victory.
Her reaction upon winning the game was a study in contrasts—at first an unmistakeable exultation in her eyes, quickly replaced by every sign of confusion and nervousness. She stood up suddenly, startling Fidel, and drained her cocktail glass. Then she pushed her envelope toward me, her hand shaking, saying:
“Please read this, but I have to wait in the other room. If I have misjudged you, please leave and never mention it to me again, or to anyone else. All will go on as before. Otherwise…”
But she could not continue. She practically ran from the room, followed by Fidel, and slammed the door behind her. Her note read as follows:
- To Be Continued - I know I know that was a mean place to leave you hanging like that.
