His lips move rapidly when he talks, his hands in constant motion.

My foot taps in time with the music, mimicking the beat of my heart as I watch him, willing him to look at me, to notice me.

And miraculously, he does. Maybe the dress is a little magic.

He turns, mid-conversation, his hands lingering in the air like a conductor instructing a symphony, surveying the crowd, the same hardness in his eyes that’s stamped all over his face. There’s a hunger there, though, beneath that hardness—a hunger I’ve seen before—the kind that looks at the world and isn’t afraid to say it isn’t good enough, that there must be more, to demand change. He looks like a man who believes in things, which is truly terrifying these days.

My breath hitches.

His eyes widen slightly, as though he can hear my breath over the sound of Benny Moré, the laughter and sin spilling all over the party.

He doesn’t appear callous, merely as though life has tested him and roughed his edges. His gaze rests on me, and those lips pause for a moment. He doesn’t do the polite thing and glance away, or pretend he was looking at something else and just happened to catch me in his path. No, he settles in and looks me over, and slowly, so slowly, a smile spreads across his face, and suddenly, surprisingly, he’s handsome.

I freeze, my mother’s voice in my ear—don’t fidget, smile—not too much—put your shoulders back—until her voice disappears, floating above this party she would never approve of, and in the space of a heartbeat he’s standing in front of me, a little taller, a little more broad shouldered than he appeared to be across the room.

I swallow, tilting my head up, staring into solemn brown eyes.

“Hello,” he says, offering a perfectly ordinary greeting in a voice that is anything but.

“Hello,” I echo, traversing one thousand guesses surrounding who he is, what he does, why he crossed the room to speak to me, in the time between those hellos.

His lips curve, those eyes softening a bit. “I’m Pablo.”

I turn his name over and over in my head, testing out the sound of it to my ears alone before giving him my own.

“Elisa.”

An elbow brushes past me, jostling me. I lurch forward, the rum in my glass tipping precariously, entirely too close to Pablo’s black suit. He reaches out, steadying me, his hand connecting with my arm.

I blink again in an attempt to right myself. My drink isn’t the only thing that’s tilted on its axis.

“I’ve never seen you at one of Guillermo’s parties before,” he says.

Guillermo must be our host, the friend of a friend of a friend, or something or other, of Isabel’s boyfriend.

“I’ve never been to one before.”

He nods, that same solemn expression on his face, and I revise my guess about his age. He is older, late twenties or early thirties perhaps.

Another person nudges my back, and Pablo shifts, putting his body between me and the rest of the crowd, his hand exerting the faintest pressure on my elbow to steady me.

The song changes, the tempo increasing, guests dancing to the spirited beat as we remain pressed up against the wall, his hand on my elbow. His fingers are long and lean; they tell the story of a man who works with his hands, slightly incongruous with the dark, well-worn suit and the party’s solidly Havana crowd.

Pablo’s hand falls to his side. I look up.

His mouth is parted slightly, his gaze narrowed as though he doesn’t know what to make of what he sees.

Another body bumps into us. The rum lists in my glass.

Pablo leans into me, his voice rising to be heard over the loud music, the laughter. My heartbeat thrums, equal parts nerves and anticipation running through my veins.

“Do you want to step outside?” he asks. “It’s quieter out there.”

It seems the most natural thing in the world to give him my hand and follow him out of the party.

Chapter four

Pablo leads me through the house, his steps guided by purpose and familiarity. We weave through the crowd, and I search for Beatriz and Isabel as we walk, but I can’t find them in the throng. Every so often Pablo turns around and glances at me, his fingers laced with mine. We step out into the night, the backyard nearly empty as we walk toward a palm tree to the side of the house. The backyard abuts another, the lots small and crammed together.

He’s right—it is quieter outside, the roar of music and partygoers now a low hum.

I look up at the sky, the stars shining down on us, taking the opportunity to compose myself. When I glance back at him, he’s not looking at me, but up at the stars as well, his gaze hooded.

I jump at the sound of a boom off in the distance, then another, and another. The explosion is far away, relegated to another part of the city, but these days it could signal anything—gunfire, fireworks, bombs.

I glance at Pablo, his attention no longer on the sky, but focused on me; his expression is unreadable, as though he has grown immune to the sounds of violence and armed revolt.

“Those probably aren’t fireworks,” I comment, my heart pounding.

“Probably not,” he agrees.

I wait for him to say more, for him to remark on the recent violence, but he’s surprisingly quiet. I’m used to men who fill conversations, offering me little opportunity to speak.

“How long have you known Guillermo?” I ask, searching for someplace to start. It’s more private out here, but it was easier back in the party, the music and people filling the spaces and silences in our conversation. Now it’s up to us, and I’m at a loss for words. I know how to speak to people from my own world, people who have mastered the art of speaking without saying anything at all, but I can’t imagine having such a conversation with the boy—man—standing before me. He seems like the sort who parses and weighs his words with economy and care.

Pablo doesn’t answer me right away, those brown eyes piercing, his gaze lingering on my feet, and I immediately regret my decision to wear my mother’s fine Parisian shoes.

His are black, the leather creased in places from wear.

“Years,” he replies absentmindedly, his gaze still on my ridiculous shoes. “We’ve known each other for years.”

I shuffle back and forth, my mother’s voice in my ear again—

Don’t fidget, Elisa.

Surely, this time a little fidgeting is warranted.

“How do you know Guillermo?” I press on, motivated not only by his answer but a desire to remove his attention from my footwear. His manner makes me a bit bolder, the inclination that he’s also off-balance, a tension threading through his silence.

This time he looks into my eyes, a ghost of a smile on his mouth.

“We went to law school together years ago.”

The University of Havana has been closed for two years now, so he must have graduated a while ago.

“How do you know Guillermo?” he counters.

“I don’t. He’s a friend of a friend of a friend of my sister’s boyfriend. Or something like that. I came with my sisters.” The words escape in a whoosh. I take a deep breath. Then another. “Are you from the city?” I ask, attempting to place him in the insular circle of Havana society.

“Just down the street, actually.”

It isn’t the nicest neighborhood, but far from the worst.

There’s a twinkle in his eye when he asks his next question, and before the words leave his mouth, I know these stupid shoes have given me away.

“Miramar?”

I nod, slightly embarrassed by the knowing tone of voice, the images my neighborhood’s name conjures up. Havana’s wealthiest citizens live in our own private enclave, and the rest of the city knows it.

I was raised from birth to be proud of being a Perez; we all were. My sisters and I cannot work, but that doesn’t mean we don’t do our part to carry our family’s mantle, that it hasn’t been instilled in us that we must never tarnish our family’s reputation, our every word, every action reflecting on the Perez name, the legacy of our ancestors resting on our shoulders.

Still—this is the point in the conversation when I wish I had more to contribute, that I could share career ambitions or something similar. It has not escaped my notice that so many of my countrywomen are far more accomplished than me.

Thanks to our father’s insistence we had the finest education, are well acquainted with the classics. Thanks to our mother’s influence we have been trained in the art of entertaining—hosting dinners, organizing charity functions; living, breathing decorations that form part of the trappings of our family’s empire. Times are changing in Cuba—how long will we be little more than ornaments?

Pablo walks forward a bit before turning back to face me, his shoulders listing with the effort, and I’m surprised by how lean he is, the suit hanging from the slope of his shoulders.

“What’s life like in Miramar?” he asks.

“Probably what you’d imagine.”

I feel as though I’ve become a point of curiosity, an exhibit like the island of crocodiles at the Havana Zoo, those mighty animals sunning their backs with contempt for the gawking tourists and locals who point and exclaim over their size. Being a Perez in Havana—one of the sugar queens—is akin to wondering if you should charge admission for the window into your life—the stories they print in Diario de la Marina and the like. Beatriz welcomes the attention, Isabel attempts to cast off the veneer of notoriety, and I’m somewhere in the middle. Maria is too young to care either way; her chief amusements are still playing in the pool and the backyard.

“Fobbing off marriage proposals and attending parties all day?” Pablo teases.

I fight back an utterly unladylike snort. “Yes to the parties. No to the marriage proposals.”

“Then the men in Miramar are fools.”

His tone is light, bantering, but the solemnity in his gaze makes my heart pound.

Suddenly the nerves are too much, and I turn, looking out to the direction of the sea. I can’t see it, but I can hear the sound of the waves crashing along the Malecón.