I needed some time away from Pablo. Just a few hours, nothing more. I needed a rest from his frightening outbursts and his confusing emotions. Just a nap, just a few breaths, without any butterflies in my stomach or hurricanes in my brain.

I needed some time to think, with a clear mind and no distractions. I still had to refine a few details about the plan I’d just explained to Gustavo. We all knew Juan was suspicious of me, but for the sake of us all, we couldn’t let him find out about the kidnapping. And so, it had been decided, we’d be throwing Juan a big, fat, stinky red herring.

I skipped out on Pablo’s invitation to return to the stables for my horse riding lesson. Instead, as soon as I stepped out of Gustavo’s office, I rushed back to my bedroom. I climbed up the staircase three steps at a time, brow furrowed, chin down, already focused and too busy thinking about how to solve all the flaws in my plan.

“Hey Baby Dog,” cheered Oso as he spotted me barrelling down the corridor.

“Hey Big Puppy,” I chirped, catching my breath after my crazed run up to the third floor. “Can you do me a favor? Don’t let anyone into my room. Especially Pablo.”

“This is the house of Pablo,” he frowned, “I can not say no.”

“Nevermind,” I groaned. “Just talk him out of it. Tell him I’m naked or something. Just try to keep him out.”

I shut the door behind me, and took a deep breath. I walked into the golden glow of daylight, and let myself smile and sigh. I was clever, I was nailing this, and I was going to survive long enough to figure out how to get away from this place. I had an absolutely genius, infallible plan in mind, and that was to make Juan believe that Emilia Kovács was an undercover spy.

I would be an undercover spy, because it would explain why I was hiding my true identity from everyone, while still leading them further from uncovering the truth that I had actually been kidnapped. And I would target Juan, because not only was he the person who held the most suspicions, he was also probably the only adult alive who was dumb enough to believe this.

The plan seemed a little stupid at first, maybe even dangerous, but with a little caution and a whole lot of planning, I was pretty sure it could work. Because although being an undercover spy might make me seem like a threat, I knew that as Pablo’s girlfriend, I was untouchable – at least by the Sandovals.

The best Juan could do was to warn Pablo himself, just as Gustavo told me he had already been doing. Then, Pablo’s team would cover for me. They’d tell him they’re looking into it, stall him for a bit, and the secret would be safe for another two weeks.

Then they’d lie to him, and say that thanks to his tip, they found out I was indeed a spy, but they would now be using me to feed the secret services some fake information. They’d tell him to keep it down, so that I wouldn’t be made aware that Pablo’s team had found out this fictional truth about me. That would keep him from raising other people’s suspicions, and let him leave me alone for at least a couple months. And then...

And then...

Well, then, that’s one part I still needed to figure out.

The more I thought of it, the more I realized I still had a lot of things to figure out. I didn’t even know how to convince Juan I was a spy. I couldn’t just walk up to tell him I was one. I needed to act the part, but how?

I walked in circles around my bedroom, acting out the same scenario, over and over, meticulously, relentlessly, almost obsessively, trying to fill in all the gaps and build a flawless plan. Lost in the meanders of my own mind, falling into a rabbit hole of half-baked strategies, I burned out the last remnants of my sanity.

“Oso?” I asked, peeking my head through the bedroom door. “Can you help me?”

“Yes Baby Dog,” he answered with a nod. “I help with everything for you.”

“Great, come inside,” I whispered, waving him over to me.

“But I guard the door.”

“I know, Big Puppy,” I sighed. “You can guard it from the inside, it’s okay. Come on, this is a top-secret conversation.”

He shrugged, and stepped inside. With his large frame leaning against the door, it would make it hard for anyone to get into the bedroom. I sat down on the chair by the vanity, nervously folding a paper bag to keep my hands busy and my mind clear.

“Have you ever met a spy?” I asked him, and he nodded.

“Sometimes, I am a spy,” he replied.

“No way, that’s perfect!” I whispered. “Tell me, how can I act like a spy? Like, how do I pretend I’m a spy?”

“You act normal,” he shrugged. “People must not know you are a spy.”

“Yeah, obviously,” I frowned. “But if you were trying to convince, say, a child, that you are a spy. What would you do?”

“Ah! Then, with artilugios. Gadgets. Like James Bond. For example, a shoe that is a phone.”

“You’re suggesting I pretend my shoe is a telephone?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a bit too unbelievable,” I muttered.

“If it is a child, they will believe,” answered Oso, a convinced pout drawn across his thin lips.

“It’s a big child we’re talking about,” I sighed.“It’s Juan Sandoval.”

“I think maybe he will believe,” Oso shrugged.

I huffed. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. I nervously fidgeted around with Mafer’s favorite clicky pen, which she had left on my bedroom’s vanity. If only she were here, she would have helped me find some ideas. Or perhaps we would have just wasted a couple hours playing Tic-Tac-Toe. Time went by strangely in Pablo’s house. Days went by like minutes, yet minutes felt like hours. Was Mafer coming home today or tomorrow?

“Baby dog, give me the pen,” said Oso.

I handed it to him, and he began to frantically press the little button-like thing on the end of the pen, his smiling face radiating a child-like glee.

“Tell Juan this is a camera. You can take pictures,” he explained. “Clicky-click.”

"Now we’re talking,” I whispered with a sly grin. “Hidden camera, good one, Big Puppy.”

Oso replied with a proud smirk. He gently threw the pen back into my hands, and began to rub his chin as he thought.

“You also need a phone,” he continued, “for the communication of information.”

“I can’t have a phone, Oso. I don’t think Pablo would let me.”

“A false phone, Baby Dog. A hidden phone.”

“Ooh, I get you. I need more gadgets.”

I smiled, and scanned the room in search of something that could be used as a phone. It had to be ridiculous enough that only Juan would believe it, but not too unbelievable, so it couldn’t be a shoe, as Oso had suggested. It had to be something discreet, that didn’t look out of place, that I could easily carry around and quickly whip out once no one else than Juan was looking.

There weren’t a lot of objects in my bedroom. At least, not many that I could use for this one very specific situation. All there was, was a broken lamp, a clock with no batteries, a sea of crumpled clothes on the floor, an open box of crayons, two DVDs still wrapped in their boxes, and a small makeup basket hanging by the sink in the bathroom, which caught my attention. I shuffled through its contents, hoping to find the right thing. Makeup brushes, eyeshadow palettes, mascaras, eyeliners, brand-new tubes of lipstick...

“A-ha!” I exulted, as I turned to Oso and opened up a small, round compact of powder blush. “Behold, my Compowder.”

Oso’s brow furrowed for a second, until I held the open compact up to my ear for emphasis. His eyes widened and a grin spread across his stubbly cheeks as he finally understood.

“Like the Totally Spies!” he gushed.

“You know Totally Spies?” I cackled back, snapping the compact shut in the palm of my hand. “Do you watch it?”

“My daughter watched it,” he answered, his eyes beaming with fatherly pride.

“You have a daughter?”

“Yes but now she is in the USA. Los Angeles,” he said, and the spark in his eyes slowly dimmed. “I haven’t seen her for ten years.”

“I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “I’m sure she misses you a lot.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand before any emotion could trickle down. “I miss her a lot.”

As a daughter who had spent her life missing her Dad more than anything in the world, I suddenly felt the urge to give Oso a hug.

Maybe, just maybe, we could support each other through our similar struggles, and fill in the missing pieces of each other’s puzzles. But maybe I was just both love- and sleep-deprived, and picturing one of Pablo’s bodyguards as a fatherly figure was just another one of my terrible ideas.

Oso straightened up as the door behind him wobbled, and its handle began to shake. Pablo’s voice crept in through the cracks:

“Gordita? Are you here? I thought you were coming back to the stables.”

“Don’t let him in,” I whispered to Oso as I backed up into the bathroom. “I don’t want to see him.”

Given Pablo’s tantrum just this morning, I felt it was best to keep my distances. Also, he’d told me the night before he wished he’d never met me, so I felt like he probably wouldn’t insist too much on coming in.

“No puedes entrar, está desnuda,” Oso told Pablo.

You can’t come in, she’s naked.

Something slammed against the door. A fist, a knee, or whatever else Pablo thought could help him bash his way in.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” Pablo seethed.

The tone in his voice triggered a primal fear deep within me. My heart began to race, and I stumbled backwards against the cold green tiles of the bathroom wall.

“Why did you say that?” I cried to Oso, trying my best to keep my voice low.

“It was your idea,” he protested, the panic in his voice barely drowned out by the sound of Pablo’s hands drumming on the door.

“Open the door!” shouted Pablo.

“I’m not naked,” I stammered, “Oso’s just... uh, confused.”

“Open the fucking door before I shoot through it,” he repeated, the rage in his voice still rising like water in a boiling pot.

Oso hastily moved away from the door, and squeezed his massive body into a tiny corner. The handle shook one last time, before Pablo barged in, holding his gun firmly in his hand.

“What is happening here?” he barked. “What are you two doing in here alone?”

The barrel of the gun swept across the room, swaying like a slow metronome between Oso’s legs and my stomach. My hands grabbed onto whatever they could. The sink, the shower curtain, a humid towel, the edge of the bathtub. The same fear that had almost paralyzed me just this morning was back, and it had now grown tenfold.

There were a hundred good reasons I could think of, about why I was alone in a room with Oso, and all of them were true and irrefutable. Yet the words couldn’t come out of my mouth, and choked up like tears in the back of my throat.

“Answer me, Gordita,” he said, turning his death glare in my direction. “Were you going to try and fuck your bodyguard?”

My whole body was shivering with a fear so gripping, Pablo didn’t even notice me shaking my head no.

“Talk,” he ordered, his tongue sharp as a dagger.

“No– Pablo, no,” I stuttered. “Hell no. I would never– he was just helping me, with some ideas, like, how to act like a spy, for my plan–”

“Bullshit,” he hissed.

“Baby Dog says the truth,” Oso intervened, settling a calming hand on Pablo’s arm.

“Baby Dog?” Pablo scowled, and turned to me again.

“Yeah, it’s... just an inside joke,” I tried to explain. “I’m Baby Dog and he’s Big Puppy. It started because–”

“Big Papi?!” Pablo yelled. “I say ‘call me Daddy’ and you say ‘ew’, but he waltzes in and gets to be Big Papi on day two of knowing you?”

“Puppy, Pablo, as in baby dog puppy,” I laughed nervously, my cheeks blushing with equal parts of embarrassment and panic. “Not Papi. I’m not calling Oso ‘Daddy’, I’m just saying he’s a big baby dog.”

“Have you lost your mind, Gordita, or have I?”

My eyes fluttered back and forth between Pablo’s lethal stare and that of his handgun, so much that it made me dizzy. Had my muscles not been frozen into place with sheer terror, I probably would have fallen over backwards into the bathtub.

“I swear I’m telling the truth, Pablo,” I said between two wheezing breaths, “I would never have sex with Oso, or anyone else.”

“You better be telling the truth,” he snarled, waving his weapon at me with each reckless jolt of his hand. “You better be, Gordita, trust me, or I–”

“Can you put your gun down?” I pleaded. “Please. Just let me explain.”

I looked at him with dry, anguished eyes. I was scared to the point of no tears. Uttering a single word drained all the oxygen from my lungs, and hearing Pablo speak back drained all the blood from my veins.

“You do not get to explain shit," he seethed. “Actions speak louder than words, Gordita. I know you hate me, and that’s fine with me, but if you ever dare to disrespect me, in my own fucking house–”

“Just listen to me, Pablo,” I begged.

"Just listen to me?” he repeated, rage frothing at his mouth again. “How funny you would say that. You know, yesterday night, when I wanted you to listen, you shut me out. You locked yourself up in that bathroom you’re standing in now. Remember that? I had things on my chest that I wanted to tell you, and you told me to get the fuck out, and I left you alone. I thought all you needed was a minute, and we’d talk it out like adults, and we’d be fine. But you didn’t come down to talk, and then the next morning, you acted like nothing was wrong, and you’d just moved on– and I never got the chance to explain what I meant. You can’t do that, Gordita, you can’t pretend there’s no problem. So now you can see for yourself, how it feels, when you really want to tell something to someone and they don’t want to listen.”

By the end of his raging tirade, Pablo was out of breath, shoulders heaving with wrathful twitches and heavy panting. His nonsensical rambling barely sounded like words in my ears– perhaps because I could hardly hear them over the deafening sound of my own pulse beating in my temples.

“I don’t want to see you, or hear you again, for the rest of the day,” he continued, looking down his nose at me. “Unless I change my mind before then, you can still come down to the party tonight, and we’ll act like everything’s alright. Understood?”

“Understood,” I breathed.

He stared me down for a little while more, but thankfully, with his gun now carelessly aimed at the bedroom floor. His nose was scrunched up as if he could smell something rotten, and his mouth bent in a grimace that meant nothing else than utter disgust.

“Right,” he spat. “I’ll leave you with your Big Daddy. Spread your legs for him if you want. See if I care, Gordita.”

Pablo left the room, and the sound of the slamming door made me shudder, along with Oso, the walls and the floor. The tension lingered for a long moment, even once Pablo’s crazed presence was gone.

It was as if I was frozen into place, still cowering behind my own crossed arms, fingers curled up into shapeless claws, with my neck cramped up as if my head had tried to disappear into my own torso, and my burning eyes staring off into the void.

“He is very mad,” sighed Oso, stretching his arms up to nervously rub the back of his bald skull.

“Angry mad or crazy mad?” I scoffed.

“Both,” he mumbled.

“Yeah,” I breathed, still struggling to get my eyes to focus. “Oso, this is really bad. I’m fucked. So fucked.”

He nodded silently, and an anxious ball of spit and nerves twitched down his throat.

“I think it’s best if you leave, and let him know we didn’t stay here, just the two of us, you know,” I said softly, still stunned by the violence of Pablo’s outburst.. “But thank you, Oso. You were very helpful.”

He wasn’t helpful. He was, at the beginning, when we were joking about spy gadgets and Compowders, but then he almost got me killed. But all he did was do what I told him to, and I couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t Oso’s fault.

“Okay,” he gulped. “Bye-bye, Baby Dog.”

As I watched him walk out the room and close the door, I wondered if perhaps this was the last time I’d ever see Oso. Or maybe, this could be the last time anyone would ever see me at all.

Bye-Bye, Baby Dog

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