PART 2
“Look, nothing more, the heroine of the poor came,” Fernanda said in front of everyone. The tramp already asked you to marry you or did he just tip you in coins?
Mariana, another saleswoman, covered her mouth to laugh. The manager pretended not to listen. Lucia accommodated inventory boxes behind the counter and preferred to remain silent.
But Fernanda didn’t want silence. I wanted humiliation.
“Clean my showcase too,” he ordered. You got dirty yesterday looking for garbage, so I guess you’re good at it.
Lucia swallowed saliva. I wanted to respond, but I needed that job. She paid a room in the Santa María la Ribera neighborhood, her backlogs and the medicines of Doña Elvira, a neighbor who had raised her as a daughter when her mother died.
So he cleaned up.
When he left, at night, he saw Mateo recharged next to a simple car. This time he was wearing a blue shirt and less messy hair.
“Lucia.
She was surprised.
How do you know my name?
Matthew pointed to his badge.
It’s hard not to see it.
Lucia laughed for the first time all day.
“Right. I forgot to take it off.
He took out a small bag.
“I wanted to buy a watch for someone special, but not in a store like that. Do you know any good place, without being used to be ugly for asking prices?
Lucia hesitated, but ended up guiding him to a more modest watchmaking near Reforma. As they walked, they talked about simple things: tacos, traffic, the absurd climate of the city. Matthew seemed clumsy, but attentive. That made her let her down guard.
In the shop, he chose a small steel watch.
“For a girlfriend?” she asked, half joked.
“For a twelve-year-old boy,” Matthew replied. He lives in a home. It’s his birthday.
Lucia stopped smiling.
Do you help there?
Sometimes.
He said no more. But her eyes changed. Lucia recognized that kind of silence. It was the silence of those who have lost too much.
That night, Matthew wrote to him.
“Did Fernanda bother you again?”
Lucia looked at the message from her little room, sitting next to a plate of instant soup.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry. People talk because they can. I work because I must.”
Mateo squeezed his cell phone with anger. In his private office, he opened the security cameras at the branch. He saw Fernanda ignoring clients, mocking Lucia, leaving her extra work, hiding a commission and talking bad about her with the manager.
He saved the videos.
“They think they own my company,” he murmured. They forgot who signs the contracts.
El domingo, Lucía fue a una casa hogar en Coyoacán con cuadernos y colores para los niños. Al entrar al patio, se quedó helada.
Matthew was sitting on a bench, talking to a disheveled-haired child. On the little one’s wrist shone the watch they had bought together.
—¿Mateo?
Él se levantó, sorprendido de verdad.
—Lucía… no sabía que venías aquí.
She sat down next to her.
—Yo crecí viniendo a este lugar. Cuando mi mamá se enfermó, las monjas nos ayudaban con comida.
Matthew looked down.
I grew up here.
Lucia looked at him without blinking.
“My parents died when I was ten,” he said. Then my grandfather took care of me, but he also died. This house was all I had.
Lucía sintió que algo dentro de ella se ablandaba.
“My dad didn’t die,” he whispered. I wish it had been that way. I would gamble, drink and knock the walls so that my mom would cry in silence. When I went to college, I had to leave her to work. My mom died on hospital. Since then I have learned that no one is coming to save you.
Matthew wanted to hold his hand, but he didn’t dare.
Lucia cleaned herself a quick tear, as if she was brave to have let her out.
“But it’s over. Here we go, right?
Then he ran with the girls to teach them how to make paper flowers.
Mateo la miró con el pecho apretado. Ya no era curiosidad. Ya no era culpa.
Estaba enamorado.
But she also understood something terrible: the more she loved her, the more unforgivable her lie was.
And the next day he decided to reveal the truth, without imagining that that truth could destroy everything…
PART 3
The watch was full when Mateo Herrera came in dressed in a dark gray suit made to measure.
El murmullo se apagó de inmediato. Sus zapatos brillantes golpearon el mármol con una seguridad que no tenía nada que ver con el hombre de playera vieja que había entrado días antes.
Fernanda lo vio primero.
“You again?” he said with contempt. Now you did get clothes borrowed?
Matthew didn’t even look at her. He walked to the center of the store, pulled out a black folder and spoke in a voice that made the manager tremble.
Good afternoon. I am Mateo Herrera, general manager and owner of Grupo Herrera.
The air was cut.
Fernanda was white. Mariana looked down. The manager felt his shirt collar tighten.
Lucia dropped the cloth in her hand.
“Matthew?” he whispered.
He looked at her with a mixture of pride and fear.
“I came to this branch dressed as an ordinary man to know how they treated people when they thought they didn’t have money. And I found two things: arrogance in those who should serve, and dignity in whom it never needed to appear.
He opened the folder.
“I have videos of mockery, discrimination, manipulated commissions and labor abuse. Fernanda, you’re fired. Mariana, human resources will review your case. And you, he said to the manager, is suspended for allowing it.
Fernanda started crying.
“Mr. Herrera, I didn’t know it was you.
“That’s the problem,” Matthew replied. It didn’t have to be me to deserve respect.
Then he turned to Lucia.
