Chapter 8

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I ask Alena for the tenth time, and she gives me her most withering stare. I deserve it, but I’ve never left the bar alone for the night before. Accepting dinner invitations, any invitations really, has never been my thing, though there have been precious few invitations, and certainly not in the last few years. When I was setting the bar up, I had an excuse—too busy—but then the invitations dried up as people got the message that I wasn’t going to come. So why did I say yes when Florencio came in two nights ago and said his aunt had invited us to dinner? Was it because Rafe was also going? I’ve enjoyed their company over the last few evenings, more than I care to admit. But saying yes and actually leaving my bar are two very different activities.

“We’re going to be fine,” Alena reassures me. She’s very competent and has been with me as my second in command for the last five years. I’ve thought of promoting her to bar manager for some time, but it didn’t seem necessary as I’ve always been here. I couldn’t leave the bar in more capable hands.

“Perhaps I should stay?—”

“What’s the real problem?” She stops restocking the fridge and straightens up. I’ve never confided in her as a friend, but she’s seen enough of me to know that I’m not my usual self, and of course, she saw me with Rafe and Florencio over the past week.

“Am I doing the right thing?”

She leans her forearms on the bar and gives me her full attention. “I think you need to get out once in a while. It can’t be healthy staying here day after day like a hermit. Everything will be fine. Wednesdays are usually quiet, and I have Anton and the band here if I need them.”

“I don’t know. . .”

I sense rather than see her exasperated sigh.

“When did you last go out?”

I run a towel over the bar and mumble. “I don’t remember.”

“Exactly,” she replies. “Look, they seem like really nice guys, and to be honest, apart from one of us”—she gestures towards herself, the musicians, and Anton, the other barman—“I’ve not seen you talk to anyone else for longer. You deserve to have some fun, so go out and enjoy yourself.”

“Thank you.” I know I’m lucky to have her.

“Estrella Winters?” I immediately recognise the very glamorous, ageing star in front of me, and I receive a wide smile as well as a proffered hand, which I of course take and press my lips to the back of. I turn to Florencio, who looks very smart all in black. His trousers cling to his narrow hips, which sway with a dancer’s grace as he moves across the floor to stand next to his aunt, who is elegantly dressed in purple velvet. Her neck is adorned with enough jewels to buy my bar several times over. “Why didn’t you tell us your aunt was Estrella Winters?”

“Wait, you’re Estrella Winters?” Rafe’s voice holds a hushed awe. He enters the room a little behind me. Though we’d arrived at the same time, Rafe’s attention had been caught by a large painting in the cavernous lobby of this vast house. He looks very handsome in linen trousers and a loosely fitting linen shirt, both in neutral tones that make his hair seem lighter and accentuate the amber in his eyes. He takes the other proffered hand and repeats the same process.

Estrella looks radiant, basking in the attention.

“You’re both so delightful. I think it’s been at least a decade since someone has referred to me as Winters. Mostly, I’m asked whether I used to be her.” She turns to look up at Florencio. “My dear, you didn’t tell me you had such charming friends.”

I know of Estrella, of course I do. I own a tango bar in Barcelona, where she’s an icon. I’ve never met her before, though,and if I’m honest, I thought she’d passed away years ago—she must be in her eighties, maybe even nineties. How Rafe knows who she is is a mystery, but then again, the guy has been full of surprises. I’m about to ask him, but Florencio beats me to it.

“How do you know who my aunt is?”

“Well, I wrote a book... kind of. I wrote a short story a few years ago based in the French Riviera, mostly Monaco and Saint-Tropez. Set during the sixties and seventies. I know most of the stars who used to go there during the summer and also to the Cannes Film Festival. You were one of the set, weren’t you, Miss Winters?” he says, sitting down on the couch next to her.

“Ah, those were the days.” Estrella sighs, confirming she was. “There is nothing like lying on Prince Rainier’s yacht with a cocktail, watching the sun setting over the ocean.”

“But I did a lot of research. I love the stars and old movie icons. You know, like Rita Hayworth, Sophia Loren, Sean Connery, and Steve McQueen.”

“Judy Garland?” Florencio’s question sounds innocent enough, but I catch his smirk.

“Why, yes, of course, Judy Garland.” Rafe answers, smiling briefly up at Florencio before turning back to Estrella. “Do you know Joan Collins?”

“Ah, Joan is three weeks older than me, and would she ever let me forget it?”

Florencio tilts his head and raises an eyebrow at me. I understand him perfectly—this guy is supposed to be straight. I shrug at him and see his silent chuckle.

Florencio offers pre-dinner drinks and I sit across from where Rafe is talking animatedly with Estrella, watching them and wondering who exactly Rafe is.

Dinner is delicious. Estrella tells us that the chef, Sofia, is the sister of her housekeeper, Juana, and caters specifically for customers holding dinner parties in their homes. Juana hovers in the background, trying to be unobtrusive, but is clearly concerned about her charge.

We’ve been entertained with stories of Estrella’s past and some of the stars she met on a couple of brief trips she took to Hollywood nearly fifty years ago. Now, there’s a lull while the dessert plates are being cleared. Rafe sits back, looking round the table.

“Do you know, if you’d told me a month ago that I’d be eating dinner with Estrella Winters in her own house, I’d think you were mad.”

“What did you think you’d be doing instead?” I ask. I’ve always been intrigued by him. I know he’s a writer and smart, but I also know there’s a story to why he’s here and why, the first night I met him, he looked like he’d lost everything.

“I would have said that I’d be happily married, having a great honeymoon, and looking forward to returning home and getting sucked into writing my new series,” he replies and drops his eyes briefly before looking back up, his mouth a thin line. “But none of that happened.”

It’s not what I was expecting. I can’t quite imagine him with a wife, maybe because I don’t want to. Don’t I? I’m not sure where that thought came from. I glance over at Florencio and he’s giving Rafe a curious look.

“Would you have been happy? Being married?” It’s Estrella who voices what we’re all thinking.

“I thought I would, but now I’m not sure. Everything happened so fast, and every time I think about it, all I get is a lot of confusion. I don’t even know whether I was really in love.

“You’d know if you were in love.” I didn’t mean to blurt it out. Estrella gives me a shrewd look.

“What’s it like? Being in love?” Florencio asks.

I think for a minute before answering. How can I possibly condense it to answer the question properly? How can I put the vastness of love into words? But Florencio is looking at me like he genuinely wants an answer.

“Have you ever felt like you would do anything to put a smile on someone else’s face ?

“Like every time you wake you discover a fresh new world where the colours are brighter, your senses sharper?

“Felt your heart so full that your chest cannot contain it and it must be shining so brightly that everyone must be able to see it?

“Like you would do anything, even cut off your own arm, rather than let any harm come to the one you love?”

I stop speaking and look round at them.

Estrella is smiling knowingly. Florencio has a hand pressed to his chest, a dreamy expression on his face. Rafe, though, is frowning, his eyes lowered as if he’s going through some internal process. He lifts his head and gives a wistful smile.

“I said you were a romantic.”

“It isn’t about romance,” I say sharply. “Romance is the fluff, the small things in the gestures we do. Love is more than that, much more. It’s something that weaves its way into every fibre of your being. It becomes symbiotic in your soul, like you can’t exist without that part of you anymore.”

“Then no, I’ve never felt that.” Rafe’s eyes shimmer as if he’s trying to discover something past his grasp.

“It must be wonderful,” Florencio sighs.

“It’s also a curse,” I bite out. The whole exchange has brought up the memory of despair along with the euphoria.

“I’m not sure I’m capable of that depth of emotion. It feels too big for someone to bear. I don’t think I’m strong enough.” Rafe’s voice is despondent.

“Strength has nothing to do with it,” Estrella says. “We are never given more than we can bear. It’s just a matter of being open to love.”

“Auntie, have you been in love?” Florencio asks.

“Only once, though I’ve had many lovers.” She smiles serenely.

“Tell us all, Auntie, what was his name? ”

“His name was Salvatore. He was very handsome and so charming. He was a dancer as well, that’s how I met him. I would have done anything for him and he’s one of the reasons I didn’t settle in the States. I could never be away from him for too long.”

“Do you regret that?” Florencio is hanging on every word.

“I regret nothing. I’m happy with how my life turned out. I never regretted the chance of love.”

“Did you want to marry him?” Rafe asks.

“In a heartbeat. But that’s the thing about love. You don’t get to choose who you fall in love with.”

“Then why didn’t you?” This is from Florencio.

Estrella pauses slightly and her voice takes on a brittle tone.

“I don’t think his wife would’ve approved.”