Behind him Armando clipped and trimmed, coming at last to the end of his chore. He shaved the neck and cheeks, patted lotion onto the glowing pink skin, and whisked off the apron with a flourish. He accepted his tip graciously — the haircut itself went onto a monthly bill — and watched Valadares walk to the manicurist’s table and bend down to speak to the girl. She smiled, then looked at Armando questioningly. He nodded abruptly and watched as the girl came to her feet with a wide smile it was evident left Valadares with a dry mouth.
“I’ll be right with you,” the girl said in a low voice, and her husky tone contained the hint of a promise that sent blood coursing to Joaquim’s groin. She was back in moments, and Valadares was pleased to see her taste in clothes was far better than he had hoped for. He changed his mind as to the restaurant they would frequent; this one would look good anywhere. It would be at the pool of the Miracopa Palace, just beneath his apartment. And maybe he wouldn’t have to wait for dinner; there was nothing in his schedule for that afternoon that couldn’t wait...
He took the girl’s arm proprietorially and escorted her out, well aware of the jealous looks from the other customers directed at him, the envious looks directed at the girl from the other manicurists, and the slightly lascivious looks cast by all the barbers except Armando. That one looked after them with no expression on his face at all; forty years of marriage and seven children with large appetites and loud voices had dulled him to the finer points of romance. He sighed and started to call his next customer when the sudden jangle of the telephone diverted his attention. He picked it up.
“Armando’s Barber Shop,” he said, his tone capitalizing the words. He listened a moment and then nodded. “Yes, Senhor Dorn, this is him speaking.” He listened a moment more and then nodded again. “Yes, sir. He was here but he just left. What? Yes, sir, he did. Where did they go?” He shrugged. “I don’t know, Senhor Dorn. What? Yes, sir, senhor.”
He listened a moment more and then hung up, making a face toward the barber on the next chair.
“Now we’re a dating bureau,” he said sourly, enigmatically, and motioned the next customer to seat himself.
Lunch was everything Joaquim Saldanha Valadares had hoped it would be. The girl Bettina had poise, extraordinary beauty, brains — everything. It came to Valadares that he hadn’t felt this way about a girl in a long, long time, if ever. Maybe this one wouldn’t work in a house; this might well be the girl he had been waiting for all these years, a girl to keep for himself and not a girl to share as he had all the others.
His line, as he spoke, was automatic, smooth; the years of practice had taken away any rough edges, had taught him exactly what words, what facial expression, what tone of voice, best brought out the mother instinct in a woman — always the first step in any successful seduction — without detracting from a strong, masculine image so essential for ultimate surrender. It was a combination that seldom failed, and he felt sure this one would be no exception. Beneath the table the even pressure of her warm thigh against his seemed to burn right through his trousers, confirming the accuracy of his prediction; her hand in his beneath the table gave a quick squeeze whenever she laughed her delightfully husky laugh at one of his remarks, which was often. Maybe, he suddenly thought, we shouldn’t rush this one. Maybe I should just ask her to dinner and let it go at that. Tomorrow is another day, and waiting for this girl would make it all the more delectable when she finally came to his arms. And to take the slightest chance of losing her at this stage of the game would be stupid.
Unless, of course, she took the initiative, which she seemed to be taking...
The soft cries of the bathers splashing in the pool made a pleasant counterpart to their conversation. Joaquim found himself staring into her eyes, feeling himself drowning in their dark loveliness. He forced himself to tear his gaze away, staring instead at the small empty cafezinho cup his left hand was idly pushing about, while his right hand continued to seek solace in her warm grip.
“All we’ve done is talk about me,” he said, although anyone who knew him well would have been astounded at the variance from fact that talk had portrayed. He brought his eyes back to hers. “What about you?”
“What about me?” The girl called Bettina smiled. “There’s really not much to talk about. I’m afraid there’s nothing unusual about me. I haven’t done anything in my life and I probably never will.” She shrugged, trying to make it light, but her fading smile betrayed her disappointment in herself. “I’m not even a very good manicurist, as I’m sure Armando warned you. I’m not very good at anything, I suppose...”
“Oh, now!” Even for a man who was an expert at self-denigration — it was quite frequently necessary in the course of a proper seduction — this sounded hard to believe.
“I mean it,” she said, and her husky voice was serious. She tried to brush off her lack of ability, but there was a slight sag to her shoulders as she spoke. Joaquim Valadares never felt so protectively male in his life than at that moment. Bettina looked at him. “I suppose the best thing for me would be to get married to a nice boy with a steady job and stay home and raise children. My parents would be pleased, and I’m sure I’d be good at something like that.”
Joaquim was surprised at the unsteadiness of his voice.
“Do you have the nice boy picked out yet?”
“No,” she said slowly, and looked at him a long moment. Then she sighed and glanced at her wrist watch. She looked up in alarm, loosening her hand from his. “Heavens! I’ll be late!”
“Armando said you didn’t have to get back—”
Bettina shook her head, her full hair swirling around her shoulders, sending an intimate touch of perfume to entice him. “Go back there? I had no intention of ever going back. Armando knows I won’t be back, and I’m sure he’s just as happy.”
“But, then—” Joaquim found himself floundering for words, a rare state indeed, for him. He caught at the first ones that came to his mind. “But, your pay—?”
“All I worked for were my tips, like the other girls,” she said somberly. “And after a man came to me once, he never came back. And the uniform belongs to the shop. I have nothing to go back for.”
And any man who didn’t go back to you, Joaquim thought, just because of a split cuticle or a nipped finger, deserved everything that had happened to him. But that didn’t answer the major question. He frowned.
“Then where are you going?”
“Home,” she said simply.
“But must you? I mean, right away?”
She looked deep into his eyes and then looked away. “I’m afraid I must.”
Joaquim made up his mind in the instant. He picked up the waiting bill, turned it, scrawled his name on the face, and came to his feet. “If you must, you must. But I’ll take you. And I’ll pick you up for dinner tonight. Will seven be all right?”
Bettina looked up at him and laughed. “I’m afraid you can’t take me home. I don’t live in Rio. I’m just a little country girl who tried to make it in the big city and failed.” She shrugged. “I’m going home to — to Paraíso. That’s my home.”
Joaquim sat down again, slowly. “Paraíso? In Piauí?”
She looked surprised. “That’s right. Do you know it?”
“Yes. I have a — an office there,” Joaquim said.
“Oh? It’s really growing, isn’t it? When I was born it was just a small village, and all I ever thought about was how to get away from there.” Her voice saddened. “Well, I had my chance, but it didn’t work out. Now I have no choice. Back I go.”
“Look,” Valadares said earnestly. “You don’t have to go. Stay here. I’ll... I’ll help you get another job. A good job,” he said, amazed at himself for not making the suggestion he definitely would have made in the case of any other girl, and even more astounded that the thought was even a bit repulsive to him. “An honest job,” he added a bit inanely.