Whether she noticed the expressions on her co-worker's faces as she declared, casually, that she wasn't single, Mary Beth didn't show it. She just finished her coffee, stretched her arms up with a satisfied grunt and checked her watch, saying her break was about to finish. And as she walked away, all smiles and hip swishings to start her new shift, the present exchanged shocked looks and hurried whispers.
"Didn't know she had a boyfriend" Desmond, one of the front desk employees commented, bitterly.
"No one knew" added Jeoffrey, a security guard.
"No one asked" snickered Betty, a female receptionist .
"She is pretty shy about sharing anything too personal" Val, the wardrobe girl said.
After a moment's silence, Johan, the egyptian section scholar grumbled, his narrow eyebrows furrowing:
"Guys, what if she's actually married?"
"Don't be stupid!" Desmond snapped "She doesn't have a wedding band"
"How do you know?"
An embarrassed silence followed, before Jeoffrey cleared his throat an continued.
"I don't think she's married either"
"Why not?" asked Betty.
"For one, I've never seen anyone come pick her up from here. She always leaves on her own car"
"That doesn't really prove anything..."
"Wait, none of us has so much as seen the guy" Val pensively said "That means he hasn't even shown his face at his girlfriend's work"
"Yeah...he must be a pretty lousy boyfriend!" Desmond agreed, somehow triumphally "No one was even aware of his existance. Have any of you ever seen him give her a call? Or send her flowers? Or come take her out for dinner at the end of her shift?"
"Not every boyfriend has to be like that, hon" Betty yawned "Some women like to have their space..."
"What are you people talking about?" came a nearby voice. They turned to find Güicho, as old and grumpy as ever, pouring something that looked suspiciously like hot chocolate inside his coffee mug and eyeing them in displeased curiosity. They exchanged glances.
"Güicho, you're pretty close to Mary Beth aren't you?" Johan asked in feigned innocence, Güicho chocked on his chocolate.
"I fail to see how" he retorted, wiping this mouth with the back of his hand and seemingly trying to act normal despite the fact that his eyes kept shifting guiltily. Betty held back the urge to roll her eyes.
"Well, you always escort her to her car when she has a night shift" the scholar hesitantly on "And whenever you catch a break to get yourself something from the store, you bring her something"
"Common courtesy. I encourage you to try it sometime"
"You know what to bring her without her telling you" Val remembered with a slight start. When he turned to her with something akin to irritation, she hurriedly explained "I heard her say that to you the other day. You got her a cinnamon bun and she said you always knew exactly what she'd been craving without asking"
"Dumb luck" Güicho stubbornly mantained, eyes set on his mug.
"Also" Betty added "That one day when her car broke down and it was raining really hard, you gave her a ride"
"You gave her a ride?!" the Desmond repeated. By the looks of it, he was wondering how an ugly, shrivelled old timer like Güicho got that kind of privilege and he didn't.
"I wasn't about to let her get caught in that storm" Güicho, now openly irritated, downed his chocolate, his huge adam apple wobbling up and down with each gulp, and finished it, wiping his mouth with his sleeve once he was done "Now, is there a reason for you to be asking this or are we just killing time?"
"Actually, yes" Jeoffrey admitted "We were wondering whether you knew Mary Beth's boyfriend"
Güicho stiffened on the spot, eyes wide.
"Oh"
"Oh?"
"I should go now" he turned his back on them, trying very hard to appear casual, despite the fact that he almost dropped his mug, and started to walk, slightly more hunched than usual, but Desmond followed him.
"Wait a second. We just wanna know what he's like!"
"What is it to you?" Güicho growled, turning to throw him a dirty, suspicious glare.
"We're curious" Desmond lies fluently, trained by his many years in front of a desk; Güicho stared at him for a moment and just when Desmond was starting to fear he might not have bought it, he smiled. A highly unpleasant smile.
"Oh, well, if you must know..."
"Then, you DO know him!" Betty exclaimed, approaching anxiously "Come on, spill! Is he handsome?"
"As a devil"
"Intelligent?" Val sighed.
"You will hardly find someone who could outwit him"
"Does he have a job?" Desmond demanded.
"A highly...rewarding, and important one"
"What kind of a job, exactly-?"
"If you are asking about his status, he is just what Mary Beth deserves, no less"
Jeoffrey and Betty exchanged an uneasy glance. Güicho had always had the irritating habit of speaking as though he were reciting a riddle instead of having a conversation, but something about the way he was avoiding speaking clearly about the kind of job Mary Beth's boyfriend had made them uneasy.
"What is he like?" Jeoffrey asked.
"Rather tall...dark skinned too...slightly older than her..."
"How much older?"
Oddly enough, the question seemed to irritate Güicho, as he replied, teeth all but gritting:
"A couple of-" he cut himself, shrugging "Just barely, nothing signficant"
"So she likes them older..." Johan mumbled. They could all but hear his little heart snapping in two.
"But, what kind of man is he?" Val asked.
"Oh, quite the charmer. Words come easily to him"
"And his temper?"
At this, Güicho snickered in an unpleasant, somehow contemptful way.
"I will only say, he is not someone you'd like to meddle with"
"Sounds like sort of a maniac to me" Betty muttered.
"What? No, he is just-"
"But, is she happy with him? He does make her happy, right? " Johan asked. To him, that was probably the only question that truly mattered, and Güicho's expression softened visibly at it.
"...yes. I believe so, anyway"
He turned and left, without so much as a tip of his hat. And the group exchanged glances again.
"Big fat lot of help that was" Desmond deadpanned.
"Doesn't it sound like he's fairly in love with Mary Beth's boyfriend, himself?" Betty snickered.
But Val, Jeoffrey and Johan didn't look like they want to know anymore.
Finally, after days and days of attacking the topic with subtlety, Desmond couldn't hold it back anymore, and in the middle of another coffee break, in which just him and Betty remained, he asked:
"Mary Beth, what's your boyfriend like?"
She stared at him for a second, seeming amused, and repeated:
"Boyfriend?"
"You told us about him the other day" he staggered, somehow thrown off by her tone. Had she lied to them before, then?
"She told us she wasn't single, hon, doesn't necessairly mean it's a boyfriend" Betty nagged under her breath with a smirk. His expression was priceless
"Wait, does that mean-?" he started, still in a whisper.
"I guess you could call him my boyfriend" Mary Beth finally intervented, albeit absently, eyes set on her mug as she stirred her drink with a slender finger. It was a weird habit of hers, on which no one commented, as they didn't on the fact that despite the invariably bitter taste of the Museum's coffee, she never put any sugar on it.
"What do you mean?" Betty asked, holding back her amusement at Desmond's relieved expression. Mary Beth's raised her face, and had she thought about it, Betty would have realized she was smiling the same way she did whenever she dodged or blocked paper projectiles.
"Oh, it's nothing."
"So...what's he like?" Desmond tried again.
"He is...hijole, how to put this..." she seemed to be hesitating for dramatic effect, though, because her expression was playful, even as she sipped her coffee "One of a kind"
"Meaning?"
"Exactly what I said. He is completely unique"
"But, is he, like...handsome?" Betty questioned.
"He is to me" Mary Beth quizzically replied and gave her coffee another sip.
"Güicho told us a bit about him" Desmond ventured, hoping it would prompt her to ask or try to explain what Güicho had said. Her eyebrows rose in an amused, mildly incredulous fashion.
"Oh?" was all that left her mouth.
"He said he was a charmer, but a dangerous one"
"He was not wrong" she hummed.
"But, is he violent?"
"Sometimes"
"With you?"
"Not unless I ask him to" she all but purred, dreamily.
Desmond went pink and Betty let out a laugh as Mary Beth, fresh as ever, kept sipping at her coffee.
"What's his name, anyway?" Betty asked once her laughter receded.
And Mary Beth smiled in a somehow mischievious way, pink lips curving over the edge of her cup.
"Louie"
It was still odd that this 'Louie' never showed his face at the Museum, he never picked her up or called or sent her anything, and generally behaved as a ghost, but most the museum staff had stopped wondering about him. Jeoffrey had lived enough to know the line between sane curiosity and obsessing over stuff that's none of your bussiness. The topic, however, appeared to him just one more time, months later, when he was sharing a good time and a box of cookies with Val.
"Say...do you remember Mary Beth's boyfriend?" she suddenly said. He nodded, chuckling at the memory of the fiasco. After Desmond and Betty had obtained the guy's name, they'd spent a ridiculous amount of time searching among the many 'Louie's in the phone book, only to all but give up at the thought that a)They didn't even have his last name b)They didn't know basically anything else about him c)There was always the chance that he wasn't even on the phone book. The lengths nosey people took to satisfy their curiosity!
"What about him?" he asked "Have you finally met him?"
"No, but I was just thinking...I took some spanish classes back in high school, you know...didn't really like it, it was too hard, but I was remembering this one class where the teacher was commenting on the latinized form of some names we use in America"
"Uh-huh" he hummed, not wishing to hurry her.
"Well, if I recall correctly, the latinized form of 'Louie' was 'Luis'" the spanish rolled clumsily off her tongue, making the name sound as 'Lewis', but Jeoffrey caught her drift "And, remember this one time we asked Güicho what his name even meant?"
"No" Jeoffrey admitted. Perhaps he hadn't been present, and he really didn't know what that had to do with anything.
"He said it's another way of saying 'Luis'"
Jeoffrey choked on the cookie he was munching, sputtering a rain of crumbs, and threw her a surprised glance. Val shrugged, unsure, but both were thinking along the same lines. All the evidence pinned against Güicho back when they first had the conversation, along with the fact that most of the Museum staff was convinced the old man was crushing on Mary Beth, and hard. A certain intimacy they shared, sometimes holding conversations in spanish or bickering in a way oddly reminiscent of an old married couple. And hadn't Güicho also mentioned the mystery boyfriend being older than her? Of course, they'd imagined he meant like...a couple of years, not entire decades. And the name...it was way too big a coincidence.
But even as they started to wrap their heads around the fact, Mary Beth happened to walk by, so young and bright and beautiful, contently munching on a pastry. And not too far from her, Güicho, drinking down from his mug greedily, perpetual scowl settled on his face. Hunched and knotty and looking more like an old tree than like a man. They exchanged one last look and burst, in unison.
"Nahhhh..."
C.C. (A) The Author here.
Uh...
I'm trash.
Again, I apologize for any mistakes, I haven't watched the movie, and I won't have a chance until the DVD release in February. I'm having way too much fun with writting these idiots in their play-pretend human lives, though. Specially other people's reactions to them.
Crittique and comments, as always, are welcome!