The answer arrived minutes later:
“Miss Alicia remained at home due to domestic responsibilities. She is also not entirely suitable for social engagements.”
Cristóbal set his glass down and walked to the center of the ballroom.
He did not need to ask for silence.
Silence arrived on its own.
“I thank you all for your presence tonight,” he said clearly. “I have had the pleasure of meeting many distinguished young ladies. However, I have been informed that one young woman of this district could not attend because she is occupied fulfilling domestic duties.”
No one breathed.
“In my opinion,” he continued, “a woman capable of sustaining a household while others come to celebrate is precisely a woman worth knowing. I will make no choice tonight. First, I wish to meet the only person who is absent.”
Doña Mercedes felt, for the first time in years, her composure crack from within.
Rebeca lowered her eyes.
Zulema froze.
And the entire ballroom suddenly understood that the center of the evening was a woman who had not even been present.
The next morning, Alicia received a card signed by Don Cristóbal’s secretary.
Below it, in different ink, was a handwritten line:
“I have been waiting some time to meet you properly.”
Alicia read the message three times.
She thought about the razor.
The dark corridors.
The ball she never attended.
The suitors she never knew she had.
The years of usefulness without tenderness.
And she agreed to receive him.
They met in the small front sitting room, not the main salon Doña Mercedes had hurriedly prepared.
It was Alicia’s small victory.
