One Out of Two by Daniel Sada Read Free Book Online

their dressmaking.
    By keeping their eyes glued on that prize, they prevented people from tricking them into getting emotional over their still-budding courtship, or from the love of one affecting the other whereby both of them would end up leaving orders half done.
    We repeat: if resentment ever popped up, it was by that time so well hidden, so puerile, and so spineless, it didn’t matter a bit; in fact, neither made so much as a wisecrack, for they knew all too well that so much of what they were planning to live could never be anything more than a passionate game, a lurid possibility.
    Nor—at least at first—did it cross their minds that a full experience of mutual love—without all that foolish tact—would end in tragedy. If both of them accepted the lie, an excess of fiction could possibly, ultimately, turn the mistake into a truth; a blind truth, but still; in other words—and this fits right in—they’d both marry him and have identical children and confusion would reign in spite of proper or bad manners, and taken even one step further: the government and the Church would, considering the circumstances, allow modern marriages between one man and two women or a girl and two or three boys … So, the attempt: would it be tragedy? comedy? drama? or what?
    Supposition and faith complement each other. The etceteras are, will one day be, provisional certainties.
    In other ways—it must be said—each continued to weave her own ideal. Such prerogatives, reconsidered by Gloria and concealed by Constitución, were avoided when they spoke. Calm and, indeed, industrious, they stuck to the grindstone, and when there weren’t and customers, they took the opportunity to talk about the man, the ruse they were using, here and there dropping a hint or two about their doubts as to his intentions, satisfied, even in this, to pick apart the present and place it quickly on a sound footing.
    Though …
    Each coveted her own secrets, her own plans, just in case something unexpected occurred. In this case, Gloria, whose turn it was the following Sunday, wanted to be just a little bit treacherous: for: while listening every night to her sister’s advice, she toyed with the possibility of playing something other than second fiddle in this relationship. She wanted, rather, to also take some initiative, though she never said as much, she only listened and acted the saint, as if not even butter would melt in her mouth. Two-faced! Yes, that’s it, exactly the modifier she deserves. Especially when her sister mentioned such trifles as: that she shouldn’t ask him about this, that, or the other because then Oscar would think that his charming girlfriend was forgetful, or even, God forbid, that she wasn’t an ace with details, like so many other women around here.
    At night, while they were dining on light fare—as they often did to watch their figures—Constitución, brimming with enthusiasm and verve, wanted to pick apart, point by point, the most salient features of her conversation so that the other wouldn’t stick her foot in her mouth on the next date, and on Saturday night, the eve of, she took out a pencil and paper to write down step-by-step instructions: because she was nervous and for good reason.
    With the morrow still hazy, the so-called chatterbox considered of utmost importance the suitor’s concerns, a few of which we will mention in passing: he had a lot of questions about Constitución’s background: What about her family? Where did her parents live? Where were they now? and without blinking an eye she told him that she had been orphaned when she was young and that her aunt from Nadadores had raised her until she became an adult: that she had left when she was around twenty or twenty-one. Saying it like that, with so much relative honesty, was to employ a feminine wile that allowed them to observe the candidate’s reaction, though, to her relief, he said nothing that betrayed any shock, making only an expression