The Girl From Lima

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," said the priest of San Agustin del Cañada Real church, concluding his final blessing.

"Amen," murmured Dr Gregorio Aquino in concert with two-hundred other churchgoers, crossing themselves as they did so.

Afterwards, the teacher kept his seat while he waited for the church to empty out a little. He'd been ambushed once too often by students' overbearing parents, not all of whom had embraced the curious San Toribian custom of dressing their offspring in their school uniforms to attend Sunday mass.

While he waited, Gregorio glanced towards the front row of pews, where a small group of regular penitents was gathering near the church's confessional. More than once in recent months, he'd toyed with the idea of joining them. However, of the many and varied emotions he'd felt about his autumnal encounter with Xiomara Qinallata, guilt wasn't one of them.

Once he'd made his escape, squeezing past a bottleneck of chattering women crowding the priest, he played things safe and jogged to the end of the block. Pausing to catch his breath, he turned right. Going left would've gotten him home quicker, but he had a stop to make before he sat down to six hours of soccer.

Sauntering along in the late March heat, he soon came to a convenience store with 'Vivanco's' spelled out in large bright red letters above the entrance. Upon entry, a buzzer sounded. On cue, the clerk spun round to face him. She was a plump teenage girl with light brown skin and wavy black hair, dressed in an outsized red polo shirt embroidered with the shop's name.

"Good morning, Dr Aquino", said the girl, smiling, "The usual?"

He nodded, "How long before you finally call me Gregorio, Miss Vivanco?"

"Until you start calling me Lucia," she replied, reaching down a carton of Marlboros, "Or after graduation."

"I'm a patient man," said the teacher, placing $10 on the countertop.

"Guess you'd have to be," muttered Lucia, just loud enough for Gregorio to hear. He took it as a veiled reference to her foster-sister, Xiomara.

"No mass today?"

"Not likely," the clerk snorted, "Mom's taking me after work."

"Can't your sister cover one of these morning shifts?"

"Mom says Xiomy can't work by herself anymore," she said, offering him his change.

Waiving the $1.95, Gregorio suppressed a sigh.

"Give your parents and Xiomara my best," said Gregorio, heading for the door.

"Can't you tell Xiomy yourself?" asked the seventeen-year-old, cocking a threaded eyebrow.

The Honduran held in a loud scoff as he stepped outside. Truth be told, he would like nothing more than to personally give Lucia's foster-sister his regards. Alas, before he could do so, he first needed to figure out how to get Peruvian to maintain eye contact with him for more than a millisecond.

Since Christmas, Gregorio had been making periodic weekend visits to branches of Vivanco's -- Lucia's Mexican parents owned a chain of six stores around San Toribio -- on the off-chance he might catch Xiomara behind the counter. Three months later, still no cigar. Just plenty of cigarettes.

Early on, he'd put her newfound reticence down to buyer's remorse. To be honest, he wasn't sure if his apparent need to speak to her wasn't just a side effect of his reactivated libido crying out for an encore. Five months and a brief, heady fling with Xiomara's physics teacher later, Gregorio was almost certain he wasn't just horny.

Chain-smoking his way home, he stubbed out his fifth cigarette out on his mailbox and headed inside. Retiring to the couch with a six-pack, he was four beers and two soccer games deep when his cellphone rang. Gregorio nearly sprayed the device with pale lager when he saw who was calling.

He let it go to voicemail, just to rule out the strong possibility he was being butt-dialled. Sure enough, his Polache ringtone started up again instantaneously. Glancing back up at the TV in time to see his hometown team concede a 93

rd

-minute equalizer, he sighed and thumbed the answer button.

"I presume you got the right Aquino?" said Gregorio coolly.

"That's one way to say hi," replied his estranged wife Sachiko.

"I know a hundred more," he quipped, switching to Portuguese for the Brazilian's benefit.

"It was never that many," she laughed.

"So, how can I help Mrs. Aquino today?" he asked.

"Funny you should call me that," replied Sachiko, "We need to talk."

"What's his name and when did you meet him?"

"What makes you think-"

"Two anniversaries spent two-thousand miles apart without incident," he interjected, "Has he bought you a ring or what?"

Sachiko laughed out loud, "God no! He -- Adão - is just a bit, uh, awkward about the whole moving in with another man's wife thing."

"No issues with sharing a bed, I hope?"

His wife sniggered: "I know how it sounds, but I've got a good feeling about this one."

"How good?"

"Good enough that I don't expect him to give up $200,000-a-year to go play schoolteacher in the middle of nowhere."

Gregorio winced.

"So, any plans for spring break?" asked Sachiko.

"No such thing down here," replied Gregorio slyly.

To the ongoing disgruntlement of students and teachers alike, the board of the San Toribio Unified School District had barred schools from closing for more than a couple of days at Easter. It was their way of counterbalancing what they considered the scandalously long summer vacation. As a man whose life had come to revolve around work, Gregorio didn't mind so much.

"So your school's website tells me," said Sachiko curtly, "Got a hot date with an Easter bunny?"

"Nothing I can't cancel."

"Great. So get your ass on a plane and come have dinner with me."

"Divorce papers on standby, huh?"

"Jesus Christ, Gregorio!" spluttered the Brazilian, "I like the guy but screw doing that dance."

"Then I'll see you Saturday," said Gregorio, hanging up there and then to spare himself any depressingly polite goodbyes.

Cracking open another beer, he let the next game play on in the background while he browsed flight options. His phone narrowly avoided a beer shower for a second time when he saw how much this jaunt would cost. It wasn't like he missed New York City. Indeed, most Easters, he and Sachiko would have absconded to somewhere in the Caribbean by now.

All the same, an excursion anywhere sounded preferable to spending four days sulking about being ghosted by a teenager. Dipping into the savings he'd unwittingly amassed by not taking a proper vacation in two years -- his annual summer pilgrimage home to Honduras didn't count -- he bought his tickets.

After another four schooldays of Xiomara fastidiously avoiding eye contact with him, at crack of dawn on Good Friday, he was on the road to Phoenix in his Ram pickup truck. He landed at JFK that evening and was met outside the airport by a turbaned chauffeur holding an iPad bearing his name. Gregorio availed himself of the limousine's minibar as the good Mr. Jethani ferried him into Manhattan.

Following a stop-off at his four-star hotel - his budget didn't quite extend to a fifth star - he parted ways with the limo at a Tribeca bar. It was regular haunt for United Nations staffers, and Gregorio unwittingly gate-crashed a former colleague's retirement party. Over the course of the night, he drank the Guatemalan ambassador under the table and rebuffed the advances of no less than two cultural attachés.

Roused much earlier than he would've like by an alarm the morning after, Gregorio hauled himself out of bed and around the block to a Puerto Rican diner where he nursed his hangover with mallorcas and coffee. Proximity to this particular eatery had been decisive in his choice of hotel, such was the impression it'd left on him. Indeed, he and Sachiko had vacationed on Puerto Rico twice purely to try the cuisine in situ.

He was halfway through his third coffee when his estranged wife texted him their dinner reservation: a Kazakh restaurant on the far side of Queens. With nothing better to fill his time with (any off-duty ex-workmates were probably still asleep), Gregorio decided to walk. Still feeling a tad delicate, he went at a leisurely pace.

Once across the Queensboro Bridge, he took a detour to see if the school where he'd done part of his teacher training still existed. To his mild surprise, The Lady Gardner Academy - an institution most renowned for its affordability - was still where it had stood for eighty-odd years. Also still there was the wiry old gate guard, Mr. Tafesse.

Giving Gregorio an exuberant welcome, the wizened old Ethiopian ushered him through the wrought iron gate, insisting he take a wander around the so-called "grounds". It was a charitable description for what amounted to a manicured lawn and some well-kept hedgerows, but it was a nice change of scenery from the endless concrete outside.

Alas, any real sense of tranquility was repeatedly compromised by intermittent shouting from somewhere across campus. His curiosity piqued, Gregorio followed his ears to the school's athletics field where he found a girls' soccer game underway. On a whim, he took a seat at the top of some nearby bleachers.

"Excuse me, sir. Do you have ID?" asked someone he hadn't seen coming with a heavy Indian accent.

Gregorio turned his head cautiously, only to find a teenage girl with a fair brown complexion and straight shoulder-length black hair staring at him. She was dressed in the full Lady Gardner Academy uniform: green-and-white plaid skirt, white button-down shirt, red necktie, and emerald-green blazer. On this occasion, the blazer was topped off with a fluorescent yellow gilet.

Realizing he probably wasn't in immediate danger of being forcibly removed, Gregorio made a show of checking his jacket and slacks' pockets before flashing an awkward smile.

"Did Mr. Tafesse neglect give me something?"

The girl's eyes narrowing slightly as she seemed to study him for a moment. Then, her pink lips slowly arched in a smile: "Dr Aquino?"

Gregorio almost winced at her pronunciation of his surname "Ackwinno". He could only surmise she was one of the kids to have had the dubious honor of sitting through one of his practice classes once upon a time.

"Close enough, Miss...?"

"Concessao. Serafina Concessao," she said almost joyfully, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Just in the neighborhood. Mr. Tafesse wouldn't take no for answer," he replied, "Are you in charge here?"

"If you want to call it that," said Serafina, glancing around at the near-deserted bleachers surrounding the field.

"Nothing you'd rather be doing on a Saturday?" asked Gregorio.

"Anything beats studying for bloody finals."

A sudden resumption of shouting down on the field prompted Serafina to abruptly turn and run down the bleacher steps. At the bottom, she turned to give him a cursory wave. Shrugging off his disappointment at the loss of conversation, Gregorio watched the second half in its entirety. Seeing Serafina still preoccupied with marshalling duties, he quietly took his leave.

Slipping past Mr. Tafesse's kiosk unseen, he spent his hike through Queens mulling over why he and Sachiko weren't divorced yet. He could appreciate she might be trying to spare him the wrath of his pious aunts, but those women had been frosty with him since they realized only his parents would be getting a cut of his salary.

Passing the last landmark that he recognized west of Montauk, Gregorio admitted defeat and let the magic of GPS guide him to the appropriate side street. Once there, he had no trouble identifying the eatery. The restauranteurs of 'Abishaly's' had daubed the façade from top to bottom in a rich sky-blue, with its name in cursive yellow letters just above the entrance.

The interior was as subdued as the exterior was flamboyant. The spartan décor owed more to Soviet functionalism than steppe yurts. On the upside, the lack of felt drapes spared him asking the authentically costumed waiter where Sachiko was. Stepping inside, he could see her at the very back of the restaurant, her cropped bright orange hair shining like a beacon amid the whitewashed walls.

Her facial features were as Japanese as her name implied, a constant cause of confusion for customs officers whose concept of Brazilianness amounted to bucktoothed soccer stars and bikinied samba dancers. Her choice of top, a black pinstriped blouse with an upturned collar and broad rolled cuffs, put Gregorio in mind of when they'd first met.

He had been a junior interpreter, shepherding so-called dignitaries around UN junkets. She had been an eighteen-year-old girl, making some money after school by pouring champagne for said dignitaries. Born one generation earlier, she would've been the heiress to a sugar plantation.

As things were, she'd eloped here at sixteen with an eccentric but well-connected millionaire. Her benefactor had set her up with permanent residency, a Staten Island apartment, and two years tuition at a ritzy private school. Then he'd swan-dived off the Whitestone Bridge.

"You couldn't find a Turkmen place in New York?" said Gregorio in Portuguese as he sat down opposite her, "What kind of fixer are you?"

"The kind who doesn't have time to go interstate for lunch. You know the way to Jersey."

"That's no reason to go there," he said, removing his jacket.

Sachiko smirked, waving to someone behind him. Soon, the costumed waiter appeared, bearing two bowls of a white yogurt-like substance.

"Is this chal?" asked Gregorio, his voice betraying a flicker of excitement as he studied the bowl's contents.

"What kind of fixer am I again?" replied a grinning Sachiko.

Instead of answering, Gregorio simply smiled. In six years of marriage, he'd never quite figured out the precise nature of his wife's work. Given that he worked a job where nearly every word spoken was classified by the laws of some country or other, it tended to make evening conversations about workdays one-sided.

Lifting the bowl to his mouth, Gregorio drank deep. The taste of the fermented camel's milk was transportive, throwing him back to their honeymoon in Turkmenistan. He'd had to use work connections to get them into the country, and their eventual deportation hadn't sullied the memory. Having their first time together in a sleeping bag meters away from the Gates of Hell had been an opportunity not to be missed.

"I don't suppose there's a melon platter on the way?" asked Gregorio, having drained his bowl.

"You really will have to go to Jersey for that," said Sachiko, taking her chal a little slower.

"Fair enough. Now, remind me why I'm not here to sign divorce papers?"

Catching his wife mid-sip, she managed to avoid making a mess.

"Honest to God, I don't want to give up our tax break," she said matter-of-factly.

"I don't get a tax break."

"That's your fault for moving to Nevada."

"Arizona."

"Same difference."

"Maybe you'd know the difference if you ever visited."

"I've already got a boyfriend."

"Then act like it."

Narrowing her eyes, Sachiko fixed her husband with an icy glare while she reached into the leather handbag on the chair beside her and brandished a sheet of paper: "Here's why I wanted to have dinner."

"Let me see that," said Gregorio, snatching the piece of paper out of her hand.

Printed in both Spanish and Portuguese, it read: 'In signing this document, Gregorio Aquino Cortez does henceforth forfeit in perpetuity any claims to the person and/or belongings of Sachiko Fukagawa Takeyama for the duration of her cohabitation with Adão Bernardo Cordeiro Dias.'

Gregorio read the text over twice in both languages, just to make sure he had it straight. Then, he calmly placed the 'document' down on the table.

"Why are you asking me to sign a lease?" he asked pointedly.

Sachiko sighed, "I told you on the phone. Adão's a bit awkward about moving in with another man's wife."

"But he agreed to this nonsense?" said Gregorio, brandishing the sheet of paper.

His wife shrugged, "I didn't actually think he'd go for it."

"Sounds like some guy."

"Take a look for yourself," said Sachiko, nodding at something behind him.

Gregorio looked over his shoulder accordingly. Through the restaurant's front window, he saw a 6'2" black man standing out on the sidewalk. He wore a maroon overcoat over his broad shoulders, with thin black dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail. His beardless square chin buried in the folds of a sky-blue soccer scarf.

"A little something from home?" asked Gregorio, looking back round.

"Angola, actually."

"So, when you said dinner, did you just mean chal?"

"Oh, no. He's just, um, early."

Gregorio nodded slowly. It wouldn't have been out-of-character for Sachiko to set this up so she could show off her African beefcake. His suspicions were allayed when the costumed waiter made another appearance, this time bearing two platters of mutton dumplings.

The Honduran's mind raced as he glanced back and forth between Adão and the heap of food now sitting in front of Sachiko. He wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of dining with his wife's latest squeeze, but years of experience had taught him just how long it would take the woman to get through the dumplings.

"If you'd rather take off, don't leave him freezing out there on my account," said Gregorio eventually.

Before the Brazilian's disbelieving eyes, he retrieved a pen from his jacket (a habit that'd come with his change of profession) and scribbled a version of his signature on the lease. He wanted to say something along the lines of 'enjoy the tax credit' as he handed it back, but throwing shade for petty crimes felt hypocritical, given what'd been growing inside a certain Peruvian since October.

"Well, happy Easter, I guess," said Sachiko, placing a $100 bill beside her platter as she got up and sauntered past him. Gregorio resisted the urge to watch her slinky hips exit the establishment.

The Honduran did his best to assure the costumed waiter there was nothing wrong with the dumplings when he came by to enquire about Sachiko's departure. Then, in need of something to distract him from contemplating what he'd just put his name to, the Honduran pulled out his cellphone.

Between bites of dumpling, Gregorio went through the rigmarole of doublechecking his departure time from JFK tomorrow. Eventually, the Sonorair app informed him it was 4pm. That left him with twenty-two hours to kill. His thumb was en route to the standby button when a logo at the bottom of the screen caught his eye.

In green on an orange background, it depicted an open window with the top of a ladder propped against its sill. It was for the hook-up app Holler, something he'd downloaded the day he'd arrived in San Toribio, after Sachiko made it clear she wouldn't be wearing a chastity belt in his absence.

Why it was still installed on his phone escaped him. As Xiomara well knew, he'd never actually used it. Unenthused by the prospect of more drinks with old colleagues, lest he board a six-hour flight feeling like he did this morning, he took the plunge. Declining to use a photograph as a display picture, he scrolled half-heartedly down the list of local female prospects.

Gulping down his penultimate dumpling, he was about ready to uninstall the app after all when the phone slipped from his grasp. Retrieving the device from under the table, Gregorio was mildly alarmed to find he hadn't been imagining things. It was indeed the face of Serafina Concessao onscreen winking at him, above the username 'ElephantRider61'.

Feeling his mind about to embark on an angsty reverie about the impropriety of potentially bedding a girl he'd once taught, he applied his mental handbrake, thumbed the big orange Holler button, and called for the check. By the time the costumed waiter reached his table, all he found was an empty chair and $150 in cash.