exchanged a look with Mercedes. They were both exhausted from the trip. “Thanks, Carlos. I’ll see you down here tomorrow morning to go to wardrobe fittings.”
As he touched his cap and walked off, the hotel clerk, a thin woman with ash blond hair and sharp blue eyes, was writing their information down on some cards. She looked up, pushing an official smile onto her lips. “Buenos tardes, Señorita Jones. We’re so delighted to have you staying here for the next few weeks. We have the suite ready for you and your maid.” Her eyes flicked to Mercedes briefly, dismissively, then back to Pagan.
Heat rose up from Pagan’s heart. Beside her, Mercedes got very still.
“My maid?” she asked, as if not quite understanding, although she understood all too well.
The woman nodded. “Did you not want her in the same suite?”
“Do you mean my sister?” Pagan blinked innocently and linked her arm through Mercedes’s, leaning into her warmly. Mercedes’s whole body was rigid, but she didn’t push Pagan away. “Did you hear that, sis? She thinks you’re my maid. What would Daddy have thought of that?”
The clerk’s eyes got wide, first with surprise, then with disbelief. Pagan and Mercedes were close in height, one skinny, the other strong, one pale and perfectly platinum blonde, the other darker with a strictly controlled mass of black curls. But they both had brown eyes, and they were both staring right at the hotel clerk.
“Daddy would’ve checked us into a different hotel,” Mercedes said in a low tone. “One with better service.” Mercedes wasn’t half as good a liar as Pagan, so she kept her voice low on the rare occasion when she did it. The louder your voice, the more likely the strain of lying would show.
“And he would’ve told the studio and everyone he knew what a horrible mistake they made,” Pagan said to her. “Do you think other people from my movie are staying here? We’ll have to tell them all about this.”
The clerk’s eyes bounced back and forth between them, a nervous sweat dotting her upper lip. But Pagan could see that she still didn’t believe them. “I’m so sorry, ladies. You have different last names on your passports, so naturally I assumed...”
“Mercedes Duran equals maid?” Pagan said, smiling prettily. “Sure. There’s no possible way I could have been born a Duran, changed my last name to Jones and dyed my hair. No one in Hollywood ever changes their name. Just ask Rock Hudson.”
The woman paled. “My mistake, señoritas. I do beg your pardon. Sisters. Sharing a suite. How nice...”
“We’d like to speak to the manager, please.” Pagan’s voice was still sweet, but edged with iron. “And we’d like anyone other than you to serve us for the duration of our stay.”
An apologetic manager showed them to their lush suite, ushering in a bellboy with a complimentary bottle of champagne to earn their goodwill, only to have Mercedes tell him to take it away. The rooms were opulent, shiny with gold-patterned wallpaper, fresh flowers on the marble tables and two large bedrooms with giant satiny beds. The heavily draped windows featured a view out over the rooftops and the busy boulevard below.
As the door shut behind the last bellboy, Pagan took off her white gloves and threw them on the gold brocade sofa. “What the hell? We’re in Latin America. You’d think the name Duran would be a badge of honor down here instead of Jones!”
Mercedes shook her head with resignation, which somehow made Pagan angrier. “From what I read, most people in Buenos Aires are of some kind of European descent. The indigenous people were driven out and mostly disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Pagan put her hands on her hips. “You mean killed.”
“Probably. But that woman who checked us in, her family probably came from Germany originally, or maybe England or Sweden. Anyone who doesn’t look European here is considered lower class and referred to as indio, or negra.”
Pagan shook her head. “I’m sorry, M. I wanted to smack her.”
“You can’t smack them all.” Mercedes slumped onto the sofa. “But you did confuse her. You’re good at that.”
“Everyone needs a specialty.” Pagan came over and flopped next to her on the couch, leaning her head back against the carved gilded wood lining the back. “Does that happen to you a lot back home, too?”
“Not in my old neighborhood,” Mercedes said, using her right toes to tug her left shoe off her heel, then switched to do it with the other foot. “But where we’re living now? They all think I’m your live-in maid.”
“What!” Pagan swung up to her feet again in agitation. “What do we do with these people? It’s not like we can put a big sign over your head saying I’m Your Equal, You Sons of Bitches.” She paused, thinking. “Can we?”
“Stop trying to save me,” Mercedes said. “I’m fine.”
Pagan stopped pacing and looked at her friend. Mercedes had leaned sideways onto the fat pillows on the sofa and closed her eyes, feet tucked under her. Pagan kicked off her own shoes and flung them into her bedroom. They thumped satisfyingly against the wall. “Okay. I’m ordering us some sandwiches and putting up the Do Not Disturb sign. I need to rest up before wardrobe tests tomorrow.”
“But what if Devin Black comes knocking?” Mercedes said with a sly, sleepy smile.
“Damn you,” Pagan said. Without even opening her eyes, Mercedes knew exactly why Pagan was so agitated.
Mercedes started giggling, burying her face in the pillows as her shoulders shook. She must be tired indeed to descend into such girlishness.
“While I’m at it, damn him, too,” Pagan said. “Devin Black can sit on it. And rotate.”
* * *
Devin did not appear that night, and he still hadn’t called by the time Pagan left for costume fittings the next morning. She’d awoken at 2:00 a.m., unable to fall back asleep while her mind raced, wondering whether she’d made the right decision to come all this way to shoot a terrible film.
She was risking her career, a career that had recently been revived on the brink of death due the accident and her conviction for manslaughter. The comedy she’d shot in Berlin had started to warm the public to her once again because it was actually funny. And Daughter of Silence was likely to win over the critics. But one truly terrible picture and not only might the audiences turn away, but the studio might rethink using her in anything else of quality. She was still a box office risk. Taking this part in Two to Tango might turn her into something worse—box office poison.
And what if Devin never showed up? What if he’d been hurt or killed? Okay, so that was a farfetched late-night fear whispering in her ear. But he could’ve been pulled into another assignment, in which case they’d stick her with some idiot who didn’t understand her, someone who wouldn’t allow her to get what she needed out of this whole patriotic mission thing.
And now, fittings. Given how much she hated the character she was playing in the movie, Pagan was not looking forward to seeing the clothes Daisy would wear.
“If there are too many frilly dresses, I’m rioting,” she said, finishing her second cup of coffee.
Mercedes didn’t look up from the morning paper. “Trying on hand-tailored clothes is such a chore.”
Great. She couldn’t even be grumpy with justification. Because Mercedes was right. It was one of the most irritating things about her.
“Girdles are torture devices,” she muttered, and put her cup down with a click.
“Bras are worse,” Mercedes said. “But on the plus side, they make your chest look like it’s about to launch two rocket ships. And rockets are cool.”
Pagan laughed, threw a long trench coat over her jeans and wrinkled white shirt and left to find Carlos waiting