Three days passed, and I wondered if I had dreamt them. Life had never been so easy, the sunsets never so beautiful, my mind never so peaceful. I felt good, not because anything amazing had happened, but rather because nothing happened at all.

Things with Pablo were neither great nor terrible. They were fine, and that was just enough. He’d bring me cocktails when I tanned by the pool, and we would chat a little. We’d talk about the weather, how we were doing, what we would have for dinner. He gave me many smiles, but not a single kiss. We shared a few laughs, but never a bed. Sometimes, mostly when there were other people around, he’d hold my hand or wrap an arm around my shoulder. It never felt wrong or uncomfortable, always warm and natural. And I was fine with that.

I had some company, besides Pablo and the occasional just-passing-by-for-lunch Beto, Oscar or Gustavo. I had Mafer, who spent two hours cleaning my room in the morning, and another six hours playing Tic-Tac-Toe with me as she told me about all the drama going on in the maid’s quarters.

I had Oso, who followed me around for most of the day. Sometimes, it was because I asked him to, for my own safety– usually, when I knew some of Pablo’s men were around. Sometimes, it was of his own volition, following me on my daily jogs around the garden, to either cheer me on, sing me Pitbull songs, or tell me to keep going when I began to huff and puff and drag my feet.

I had Ana’s heart, hanging around my neck, enclosed in a small pink pebble. I’d still think of her fondly as I touched my necklace, but I no longer whispered ”I wish I was with you“. Instead, I’d say ”I wish you were here“.

And then I had alcohol. Tons of it. Mimosas in the morning, champagne in the evening, and then, throughout the day, I had some piña coladas, frozen margaritas, strawberry daïquiris or whatever other drink Pablo felt like inventing.

Three days passed, and things were going well. The icing on the cake was that, since Pablo had punched Hernan in the face, I hadn’t seen a single Sandoval.

Just like the ones before, this day was going just fine. I was napping by the pool, designer sunglasses set snug on the bridge of my nose, stretching out my smooth, shiny legs I’d meticulously lathered in sunscreen. Pablo joined me after about an hour. He kissed me on the cheek, and went to sit in the sunbed beside mine, grunting as he kicked off his boots and settled down.

“Where were you yesterday night?” he asked. “I didn’t see you at the party.”

“In my room, with Mafer,” I answered. “I was too tired. Didn’t feel like coming to your party.”

“Tired? Your lights were on until three in the morning,” he mumbled.

“Hanging out with Mafer is way less tiring than trying to socialize with your friends,” I shrugged.

“You could have come down for a drink. To say hi. At least to me.”

“Pablo, you need to learn how to live without me,” I snickered.

He chortled, but I was only half-joking. If I kept things peaceful for long enough, and taught him little by little that he could give me a bit of leeway and some slack in my leash, then maybe one day I’d be independent enough to feel like I’m free.

“Did you at least have fun?” he said.

“Yeah,” I answered. “We had a bottle of wine and a few shots of rum.”

“Is that your idea of fun?”

“I’m sure you’d find it lacked hookers and cocaine, but yeah. It was fun.”

“Not too hungover?”

“No, I’m fine, the trick is to stay hydrated. Mafer has a headache though, so I gave her the morning off.”

"You gave her the morning off?” he scoffed. “What, are you the boss around here, now?”

I smiled, and opened my eyes. I looked over at my bodyguard, who sat in the shade of the pool bar, and nodded at him. Without a word, he stood up, opened the minibar, and walked over to us with two ice-cold beers.

“I mean, I guess I am,” I shrugged with a smug grin. “Thanks, Oso.”

Pablo blew a raspberry and shook his head, yet still smiled and accepted the bottle.

“As long as you’re happy,” he sighed.

“I am. I am happy,” I answered.

He turned his head to look at me, and gave me a smile so wide, I wondered if I’d ever seen his dimples seem so deep. His chest swelled up with a deep sigh of relief, as if he’d waited weeks to hear those words from me. And I’d waited for it too.

Finally, I felt relaxed enough that I neither longed for nor dreaded my imminent death. And for once my happiness was unaltered, or at least not by horse tranquilizers or anything other than the three drinks I’d downed since the beginning of that afternoon.

My bliss was a victory, and the sunbed was my throne. I did it. This was what I wanted. No worries. No rent. Just sunshine, swimming pools, and booze. I raised my glass to the sky, cheering to the twisted god who’d blessed me with this curse. I brought the cold drink to my lips, ready to enjoy my afternoon and be rocked to sleep by the sound of water lapping against the pool’s shiny tiles.

But Pablo’s phone rang.

I sighed. Phone calls meant there’d be people, and people meant no good. My happiness was like an ephemeral butterfly. You wait so long for it to hatch, and it only lives for a day. All it takes is a grazed wing or a drop of rain, and the little butterfly is dead.

“The Sandovals?” said Pablo to whoever had called him. “Of course you can let them in, you moron. That’s my best friend and my godson you’re talking about. You shouldn’t even be asking.”

He hung up the phone and I frowned.

“The Sandovals are here?”

“Yeah. They’re coming for dinner,” Pablo answered. “Can’t stay mad forever, can we?”

“Couldn’t you have told me that before I had my fourth drink?” I huffed.

“Why? I thought you needed to be drunk to deal with Juan.”

“If it wasn’t for my plan, sure. But what am I supposed to do now? I’m half drunk already.”

“Your plan?” he mumbled. “What plan?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” I gasped. “Didn’t anyone tell you? I’m supposed to–”

I was interrupted by the cheers and shouts of the Sandovals echoing through the house’s halls, and growing larger as they came closer.

Manée pranced out first, her silky hair flowing around her shoulders like enchanted vines, and her chin tilted up at a regal angle. She looked down her nose at everyone, including Oso, as she dropped her leather handbag into his hands. He walked away with the bag, probably to drop it off somewhere inside the house. One ally down.

“Thank God we’re back,” she sighed as she laid down on a sunbed. “I hate the pool at Hernan’s. Who builds their garden on the North side of their house?”

“And a good day to you too, my darling Manée,” Pablo muttered.

“Don’t call me darling,” she retorted.

“Always a pleasure to have you over for dinner,” he snickered.

Hernan and Juan walked out soon after, and I couldn’t stop myself from shaking my head in despair. Cladded in matching suits, tailed by their small army of bodyguards, lit cigarettes hanging at the edge of their lips, they reeked of arrogance and ill-gotten power. And, as a final blow to my peace of mind, Juan Sandoval had grown a mustache.

“Juanito Lindo, you look just like me!” Pablo squealed when he saw him.

“Thine beauty hath no equal, Tio Pablo,” joked Juan as he executed a minstrel-like curtsy. “But I’m trying to learn from you in the hopes that one day, when I’m old and wrinkly, I can also live a happy life surrounded by sugar babies.”

He earned himself a deadly glare from his fiancée, to which he responded with a shit-eating grin.

“Speaking of sugar babies,” he continued as he turned to me. “Do you like my mustache, Emily Smith?

“I hate it. Shave it off.”

“Wow,” he scoffed. “You’re hurting my feelings, Emily Smith.”

“Don’t care.”

“Pablo,” he whined with a mocking tone. “Emilia doesn’t love me, and it’s really breaking my heart.”

“No one loves you, Juan,” huffed Manée.

"I love you, Juanito Lindo,” Pablo cooed.

“Thanks, Tio Pablo,” answered Juan. “I wish you were my Dad.”

“Given the amount of times I fucked your mother back in the day, I might be your real Dad,” sneered Pablo. “You never know.”

Disgusting, I thought to myself. My peace was disturbed, my sunshine was gone, my drink was empty and my day was ruined.

Even when I closed my eyes, I could still see Juan’s face. His soulless eyes, his smug grin, his stupid mustache. Why would he grow a mustache? Just to spite me? To annoy me? To destabilize me?

I could hear his voice, too. Not because it was etched in my mind, but because he was standing right behind me, shaking my sunbed like bullies shake bus seats, singing songs to taunt me.

“Oooohhh, who lives with a narco and is always angry? E-mi-ly Smith!”

“Oh my fucking god,” groaned Manée. “Juan, shut up.”

“Flat as a surfboard and grumpy is she! E-mi-ly Smith!”

“Flat?” scoffed Pablo. “Have you seen her ass?”

“Guys, I need more lyrics,” Juan said. “Help me out.”

“You don’t need more lyrics,” I muttered.

“She won’t buy a phone ’cause she’s scared of 5G, E-mi-ly Smith!” he kept on singing.

“What song is this?” asked Pablo.

“Spongebob Squarepants, the Emily Smith remix,” he answered. “Ooohh, who lives under a false identity? E-mi-ly Smith!”

I threw Pablo a nervous glance, and everything fell quiet, as if the whole patio had been smothered under a thick blanket, heavy with truth and deadly revelations. Hernan coughed. I gulped.

“Okay,” said Pablo. “Who wants mojitos?”

“Need any help?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from quavering.

“Sure,” he mumbled.

I followed him to the pool bar, and once we were out of earshot from the Sandovals, I let out a shaky sigh.

“Did you tell Juan?” he asked with a blood-curdling calm as he grabbed a knife and started to chop up mint leaves.

I made sure to turn my back to the others before I answered, lest one of them knew how to lipread. You never know what cards people have up their sleeves. One of those people spoke Hungarian. They were capable of anything.

“He figured it out on his own, Pablo,” I whispered. “A while ago.”

“How much does he know?”

“I didn’t tell him anything. I’m not sure whether he thinks that–”

“You are lucky that Gustavo wasn’t there to hear that,” he retorted, waving the blade of his knife a little too close to my chin. “If he was, we’d both be dead by now. I guarantee it.”

“Gustavo knows already.”

“No. If he knew, he would have told me.”

“Maybe he thought you’d noticed,” I hissed. “It was kind of obvious from the very first night that Juan didn’t buy the whole Hungarian thing.”

Pablo glared at me, and slammed his knife down on a lime to chop it in half.

“Yeah, I’m going to convince Juan that I’m an undercover spy, so he doesn’t figure out I’m actually your hostage.”

“I didn’t make up a fake identity for you just so that you can waltz in and create a whole other one. Just stick to my plan,” he muttered.

“Well I’m sorry, but your plan has failed miserably,” I scowled. “This is plan B.”

“It’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, Gordita,” he said. “Do you know what would happen to a spy if we found one here?”

“Gustavo said it could work.”

“Don’t listen to Gustavo,” he hissed. “If they thought you were a spy, they would skin you alive, break every bone in your body and violate every square inch of you, in any random order.”

“Not if you tell them not to,” I gulped.

“That would be very out of character for me.”

“I’m your girlfriend, Pablo. Tell them you won’t do it until you’re certain, and stall them while you pretend to look into it.”

“And then what? That gives us a week. Two at most.”

“That gives us a head start,” I whispered. “We can think of something else.”

I paused for a second, as an idea popped up in my mind.

“Or maybe,” I continued, “you could help me run away, and I’d disappear. We could disappear, if you want to.”

“A head start,” he scoffed. “Last time one of my men left this cartel, we gave him a head start. He grabbed his wife and kids, and they tried to go live a new life in the Philippines. Now they’re all dead in the Philippines. I don’t think you understand, Emilia, there is no way out.”

“Alright,” I breathed, and bit my lip. I started to worry about how unbothered I was over the threat of a violent death. “I thought of something else. Picture this– you find out I am a spy, but during my mission, as I’ve gotten to know you, I’ve fallen in love with you. I’ve accepted to betray my employers, and now I’m giving them misleading intel. I’m now an asset to the cartel, as well as your loving girlfriend, and it doesn’t make sense to get rid of me.”

“How long have you been planning this?” Pablo asked, one eyebrow arched and the other still frowned.

“Just a few days, but that’s not the problem,” I sighed and shook my head. “Do you think Juan would believe it?”

“Of course Juan would believe it, Gordita,” he mumbled. “Juan probably still believes in Santa. It’s not him I’m worried about, it’s the others. Hernan isn’t very forgiving.”

“That’s the thing, for the moment, only Juan is suspicious,” I explained. “If you act fast enough, and tell him to keep quiet while you look into it–”

“He just told everyone you were living under a fake identity,” Pablo spat. “He sang it to the fucking Spongebob Squarepants melody.”

“Not everyone. Just Manée and Hernan. Let them write it off as Juan being stupid. And get him to shut up before he says anything else.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Alright,” I sighed, throwing up my hands in defeat. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

“We don’t do anything,” he muttered. “Not yet. I need to think. I just wish you had told me this earlier, Gordita.”

“I did, Pablo. I told you the day I met Juan that he didn’t believe me,” I seethed. “So we just let him run around telling everyone my name is Emily Smith and my identity is fake, then? Why don’t you just start digging my grave now, eh? Save yourself some time.”

Pablo sighed, put down his knife and handed me a halved lime.

“Squeeze this for me,” he said.

“Oh, will it save my life?” I rolled my eyes.

“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” he mumbled as he pulled out his phone and began to type.

“This isn’t a lemon. This is a lime,” I deadpanned. “Lemons are yellow.”

"Límones are green, limas are yellow,” he argued.

“I’m about to die, Pablo, why are we arguing about citrus?” I whined.

“I have an idea. Just make the mojito.”

“Was that a fucking poem? Pablo, are you even–”

“This is perfect,” he said. “John Glade. Call him John Glade.”

“What?”

“Sandoval roughly translates to ‘newly cleared land in a forest’. So, if you are Emily Smith, then his name is John Glade.”

“What?” I repeated.

“Beat him at his own game. He’s calling you out on your name, so you’ll do the same. Understood?”

“That sounds really stupid,” I tutted.

“That’s the whole point.”

“Thanks for the mojito, Emily Smith,” snickered Juan as I handed him his drink.

“You’re welcome, John Glade.”

“Who’s John Glade?” he squinted.

“You are,” I shrugged. “It’s your American name. John Glade.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed.

“Not my fault if you were named after a toilet freshener.”

I heard Pablo chortle behind me, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that I’d even managed to wring out a smile from Manée’s usually stoic face. It was a very thin silver lining, given that I still didn’t understand what I was supposed to be doing.

“Why would I need an American name? I’m not American.”

“Well, neither am I. And yet you still insist on calling me Emily Smith.”

“Because you can’t pronounce your own name in Hungarian,” he sneered.

“I can’t pronounce yours in Spanish either, so I’ll just call you John Glade.”

Juan gave me a blank stare, and stayed quiet for long enough that I wondered if he’d had a stroke. You could almost hear his single brain cell bouncing around his big empty head.

“That’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid,” I mumbled.

“Shut it, Emily Smith.”

“Will do, John Glade.”

“Stop calling me John Glade.”

“Should I just stick to Jungle Jew then?” I grinned.

He frowned, and finally stopped talking. Victory for Emilia. With my own drink in hand, I walked over to Pablo, who was sitting on the edge of the pool. I settled down beside him, dipped my legs in the water, and rested my head on his shoulder. He leaned over to kiss me on the forehead, and discreetly whispered in my ear:

“That was perfect.”

“I still have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, but thanks,” I muttered softly.

“Writing off the whole fake identity thing as Juan being stupid.”

“And you think it worked?” I scoffed.

“Yup, you should have seen their faces,” he chuckled quietly.

“Cool. Now what?”

“Now we stick to your plan.”

When Life Gives You Limes

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