Eduardo's Story

Fernando had told Lety he had a surprise for her. She was excited at the idea. She loved surprises. She had left work a little early to get to their apartment before he got home. She had a surprise for him too. She continued setting up the table for dinner. At his place she set a set of baby shoes and a baby rattle. On his plate she places the dinner she had ordered. A salad of baby greens and baby carrots with caviar. She thought back on the last year as she set the table.

She thought back to Fernando finding her in the hotel room where they had first made love. She thought of the whirlwind that was their wedding in the Cathedral de Monterey, she thought of the wedding night. She was the happiest woman in the world. She was married to the man of her dreams and now she was going to have his baby and the feeling of contentedness overwhelmed her as happy tears ran down her face. It had been a difficult year despite everything.

She had resigned Conceptos and turned the presidency over to Marcia. Fernando had resigned Conceptos as well and even though they had the choice to go back they had decided not to. They loved Conceptos but needed a fresh start. Somewhere where their memories could start new and fresh. Fernando had told her that he wanted the opportunity to show her to demonstrate how much he loved her. He took the money he had leftover from filming Agente Corazon Corazon Amor, the money he got for acting in it and took them on a honeymoon. They spent two months traveling the world. She saw all the places she had only dreamed of seeing. It was hard to imagine how much love she felt from him. Even now it sometimes overwhelmed her. She would look at him and feel overcome with emotion. In hindsight, she thought she fell for him the first time she saw him. But the love she felt for the person he was today was so much deeper and profound than anything she could have imagined back then. And when he looked at her with love and laughter in his eyes, sometimes, she just wanted to get up and do a happy dance. And sometimes she did. And it was okay. Because he would join her and they would dance and sing, and be payasos together and it was ok.

Eventually, they needed to work. By the time they returned from their honeymoon, their telenovela had been a hit. Fernando and Aurora were being asked to record more episodes. They went back into the studio and recorded another season with Luigi. This time the chemistry on screen was more palpable than before. Besides the one kiss it had been restrained but now, it was unavoidable and they played and had fun with growing these characters. They even wrote the scripts together. The recording of the television show became a completely different and new aspect of Conceptos. Within six months of the initial release, it became evident that television would become a new aspect of the abilities of Conceptos. Filmo Imagine had never been shut down. It became stagnant after Aldo bought the debt of Conceptos, but without the embargo, it was never completely closed down. Fernando had a brilliant idea one night and woke Lety up in the middle of the night to tell her.

"Lety, Lety, wake up!"

"What is it Fernando, it everything ok?"

"What happened to Filmo Imagine Lety?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you ever shut it down? I know we had intended to do it after the debt was paid off and you returned the company but everything changed." He said changed in a way that told Lety that he was thinking of the bad times.

"After I turned the books into you and you took out the money, it has just sat. All of its debts to the banks were paid and I never went to the public registry to close it down. So technically in name it still exists."

"What if I bought out Thomas's one percent and we used the money we have been saving to buy the rights to the television show from Conceptos and opened up a television production house under the name Filmo Imagine."

Lety had thought about it and they made it happen. Fernando paid Thomas $1 for his percentage and Fernando and Lety, la familia Mediola Padilla owned the casa productora Filmo Imagine. Fernando was the president and Lety was the VP of finances and they were the talent as well. They took over the studios that Conceptos had purchased and rented them until they made enough to buy them. Luigi spent most of his time working for them and the other directors took over Conceptos commercials under the never ending tutelage of Luigi. They were becoming well known in their own right, and the Conceptos Filmo Imagine brand was growing. Fernandos parents were happy and proud of their son. Lety knew Fernando was happy, he enjoyed the business end and the script writing. He was writing for another show now. She was amazed at his brilliance.

She got to see the cuartel on a regular basis and her life was full. When she thought she might be pregnant she realized that the only thing missing from her life was a child, hers and Fernandos. She remembered a dream she had of having his son and the little boy that looked just like his dad. She hoped it was a boy. A hyper energetic little bit neurotic boy just like her Fernando.

Those thoughts brought her back to the present and the table she was setting. She realized that someone was knocking on the door of their apartment. She looked around. It was going to be too small for a child. They had invested all of their money in the new company. It was time she thought they start investing a little in a house for their family. Family she thought. Her own family.

The knowing of the door was getting incessant. "Voy!" she yelled at the door. She sat down the last thing on the table. Fernando had a key and so she wondered who was here. No one had called.

Lety opened the door and there stood Eduardo. She looked up at him and just stopped their dumbfounded. She was so surprised her eye even started twitching.

"Eduardo!" She stepped into the hall and embraced him in a huge hug.

"Lety?" He pushed her away from him and stared at her. "Lety" he stated with a definitiveness. And pulled her in for another hug.

"Come in!" They entered the living room and she offered him a drink. He asked for water.

.

"What are you doing here?" She was digging in their tiny refrigerator for a bottle of water.

"Fernando told me he had a surprise for me and gave me the address. He told me to knock and my surprise would be at the door. I suppose he meant you."

"He told me he had a surprise for me too. I guess he knew you were coming for a visit."

"I can't believe he did it" Eduardo seemed to be thinking out loud.

"Did what" Lety had a deep inquisitiveness in her eyes as she tried to figure out what Eduardo knew and didn't know. But Eduardo had always been honest and he never tried to hide things. In that way Eduardo reminded her of Aldo. Aldo she thought her angel de la guardia.

Eduardo leveled Lety with a serious look. "The last time I was here, when I met you. I knew the game Fernando was playing."

A look of pain shot across Lety's face.

Eduardo continued "I warned him but at the same time I told him that you were someone who would give her life itself for love. And after i found out what was going on and I heard you talk about your "novio" I figured it was about him. I could feel the love you had. I told him about Ingala and my love for her. And here you are. You have to fill in the gaps because from here it seems as if it has all changed. The Fernando I spoke to on the phone was not the same unhappy man I saw 2 years ago. He seems content. It makes me happy to know he is, but happier to know that you are the reason."

Lety explained to Eduardo about her finding about why he had wooed her. She told him about the letter, that she had nearly given her life for her love of him. She told him about Acapulco and Aldo, about being president of Conceptos and how she almost married someone else until she realized that no matter what happened in her life she could not live or exist without loving Fernando Mendiola, and that somehow, he felt the same about her.

Tears were running down her face as she finished her story. Tears of joy because of where they were now. Knowing that her husband would walk through the door tonight. But tears of sadness for all that had to happen to get them would be a long time before she would be able to think of those times without some pain.

Eduardo handed her a hankerchief. She dried her tears. "What is it Eduardo? I can see your wheels turning."

"Something I need to ask Fernando, no worries. Nothing bad. I am very happy for you Lety and I can see that despite the pain you have suffered you are happy too." He pulled her into a tight embrace. She hugged him and tears began to pour from her eyes.

Fernando walked into the door and saw his wife crying in the embrace of another man. The jealousy he felt in regards to Lety all the time reared its head. And then he realized that it was Eduardo. And that Lety was crying.

He sat behind her on the couch. He met Eduardos eyes and saw the question there. Apparently, he didn't know what the tears were for either.

Lety felt Fernando sit down and let go of Eduardo. She kept her face hidden while she tried to compose herself. She dried her eyes and turned to Fernando.

"It was a beautiful surprise. Thank you"

Fernando smiled at her. He didn't know what the tears were about but he could see she was happy. She was easy to please and he enjoyed thinking of all the little things he could do that would make her smile. He knew she would be pleased that Eduardo visited.

"I am going to set another place for dinner. Will you be ready to eat soon?"

Fernando nodded and Lety went to the kitchen.

Fernando and Eduardo stood up and gave each other a hug in proper greeting.

"Brother, I am so glad to see you! What brings you back to Mexico? and your wife?"

"Thats why I am here. We have been in Guatemala for the last year at a dig Ingala has been on. She is seven months pregnant and started having complications. They recommended us to a doctor here in DF. So we are here. She is in our hotel room resting. Our appointment is in the morning. We might be here awhile. I wanted to see you as soon as possible. Things were left very undone the last time I left. I didn't know what to expect this time. But from what I see you are happy my brother."

Fernando's eyes shifted to the door to the kitchen where he knew Lety was. "Yes, Lalo! I didn't know I could be this happy. I didn't know it existed."

"Lety kind of gave me the run down on what happened with the company and how she found out about what you were doing. But what about from your side? What happened?"

"I fell in my own trap Lalo, I set out to make her fall for me so that I could guarantee the future of the company. In the process I fell. I fell hard. I had no idea what love felt like until she showed me." Fernando looked at Eduardo with his heart in his eyes.

"I lost her…she almost married someone else…Lalo, you have no idea…I wanted to die, it almost killed me."

Eduardo could see the emotion in Fernando. This was a new Fernando. This was not the same cold, calculating Fernando from before. This was a changed man.

"I blame you and I thank you!" Fernando eyes shown with love for his friend. An appreciation that Eduardo had never seen.

"For what?"

"Do you remember the night you told me about Ingala and what it felt like to make love to her, and how you could imagine doing it forever?"

"You felt that with Lety?"

"The first time we made love was the night you left. Her birthday." He smiled at the memory. "I was so drunk that night, I felt so guilty for what i was doing that I couldn't face it. But I felt I had to do it, it was the next logical step in the game I was playing. But what I felt that night, what she did to me in those moments changed me… Honestly, I was changing before, I just didn't realize it. She was becoming more and more important to me but I couldn't see beyond her outside. That night, I saw her soul. I have never been able to see her any other way since that night. She has a beautiful soul."

"Then why the change to the outside? She is a beautiful woman. I didn't recognize her at first but as soon as I looked again, it was Lety. I knew her by her heart."

"She chose the change. Its a long story about Aurora and all kinds of other stuff, but at the end of the day. Mi Lety is as preciosa on the outside as she in inside. She always has been. She just hid it. If you will be around for awhile, I can tell you the whole story. It has to do with Omar too."

Fernando went to the fireplace and picked out a framed press picture from Agente Corazon Corazon Amor and handed it to Eduardo.

"This is also Mi Lety"

Eduardo looked at the picture. He was surprised but not as much as most might be. Fernando didn't know what it was like to see the soul and not the outside with the same experience that Eduardo had. He had spent years seeing beyond the superficial. Even growing up rich he saw beyond what money and privilege could buy.

"She is beautiful Fernando, but she always was."

Fernando smiled. Yes, she always was he thought. And at night when Lety would pull her hair into a braid and take off the make up and take her contacts out and put on her glasses, there she was, his beautiful Lety. His wife, his lover, his accomplice, his partner, his best friend. The person with which he wanted to share everything in his life.

"Yes, she is and was and will always be."

"Time for dinner" Lety placed the last of the third place setting on the table and starting seeing the salad course.

Fernando and Eduardo came to the table and sat down. "Whats the occasion Lety?" Fernando looked at the table. They usually ate take out surrounded by scripts and laughed their way through their meal with the new adventures of Aurora and Agente Inocencio Tenorio.

"I told you I had a surprise. Since Eduardo is here, he will get to be here when you get it."

Fernando eyed her warily. "I thought you had a different kind of surprise in mind" he claimed as he looked at her suggestively.

Lety turned beet red, she did often try to surprise him that way too but talking about it in front of guests was not her idea of fun.

"Not that kind of surprise" she gritted at Fernando in a low voice. "Now take a seat."

"For dinner tonight we are having baby green salad with baby carrots and caviar. For dinner we are having a veal fillet with baby potatoes and for dessert, mini empanadas with baby pumpkin puree."

Fernando looked around the table, his eyes settled on the baby shoes and rattle and his eyes met Lety's across the table.

"Are we are having a baby?" Lety nodded her head.

Fernando stood up and pulled Lety to her feet. "I didn't think I could be happier than I already was. But I am" He pulled her into a tight hug.

Eduardo looked at the couple and his heart was full. Two years ago he could see the weight of dissatisfaction in his friend. A man who had everything any man would want to be happy, yet he wasn't. Yet when Eduardo overheard Fernandos interactions with Lety he heard something in his voice, the true Fernando, not who he was trying to be. And now he knew why. Lety had changed Fernando. He was a man who loved everything in his life and tried to find more. All because of the woman who loved him and because he fought for that love. Eduardo thought of Ingala. He needed to get home to her. He thought of his child coming soon and his friend having a baby close to that time as well. And then he thought that maybe it was time to come home.