Three hours remained until dinner, and Eugenia had already made a mess of the entire room.
The clothes she had brought to the hotel were piled on the bed: two blouses, a pair of dark pants, a straight skirt, a blue dress, and the outfit she had worn to the meeting. Each option seemed to say something she wasn't prepared to say.
"It's just dinner," she murmured.
She repeated it while trying on the first blouse. It was proper, elegant, and completely harmless. That was precisely why she took it off. The pants with the silk blouse looked too much like her work clothes. The skirt was sober. The blue dress, which on any other occasion she would have considered quite pretty, suddenly seemed like a way to hide.
She stared at herself in the mirror with her arms crossed.
She didn't know what she expected from the night. Maybe nothing. Maybe just a pleasant conversation before returning to her room and going to sleep. But if she truly expected nothing, why did none of her clothes seem good enough?
The answer appeared with Samuel's face.
Eugenia closed her eyes, irritated with herself. She remembered his voice, the way he had leaned ever so slightly toward her, and the attention with which he had followed each of her answers. It wasn't just that he was attractive. It was the feeling that, whenever he looked at her, the room changed size.
She opened her eyes.
"This is absurd."
And yet, ten minutes later, she was in the elevator, on her way to the hotel boutique.
She knew the place because she had walked past it the night before. The clothes displayed behind the glass looked nothing like what she usually wore. They were too daring, too self-assured. They seemed to belong to women who entered a room without wondering whether they had the right to attract attention, even though they did so more often than not.
Eugenia stopped in front of a black dress with a plunging neckline. Too plunging, she thought. The cut descended to a point where any bra would have been exposed.
Farther along, there was a short miniskirt. Scandalously short, she thought now. So small that it left her legs almost entirely bare.
And beside the miniskirt was a semitransparent white blouse. Very transparent, she told herself. So translucent that the front revealed everything beneath it, including its delicate weave.
She felt her breath catch.
"May I help you?" the saleswoman asked.
Eugenia was about to say she was only looking. Instead, she pointed to the three pieces.
"I want to try them on."
The woman showed no surprise. She picked them up and led Eugenia to a small fitting room separated from the rest of the boutique by a thick curtain.
Eugenia stepped inside.
For a few seconds, she stood perfectly still. Then, as if she needed to keep her prudence from taking control again, she undressed completely. She folded her clothes on the bench and picked up the black dress.
The fabric slid over her body with unsettling softness. When she lifted her eyes to the mirror, it took her a moment to recognize herself.
The deep cowl neckline transformed her posture. It forced her to keep her shoulders open and her chin high. It didn't show everything, but it promised more than enough to make her imagine the attention of anyone looking at her. In the mirror, a Eugenia appeared who didn't seem to be waiting for permission.
Samuel would have noticed the change immediately.
The thought sent sudden heat through her chest, and the dampness in her lower belly wasn't far behind.
She took off the dress and tried on the miniskirt. Yes, it was scandalously short by her standards. It left all her legs exposed, ending only a couple of inches below the start of her buttocks. She walked back and forth, gauging the effect. It made her uncomfortable but was, at the same time, strangely stimulating. And since she wasn't wearing underwear, she was far too aware of the cool air beneath it. For the first time, she understood that modesty could have a precise boundary, and that all it took was moving right up to it to feel the air change.
The blouse was worse.
The white fabric was so transparent that Eugenia could see herself beneath it with a clarity that made her lower her gaze. When she looked up again, she realized that her breasts and erect nipples, so plainly visible, reflected an image that would have been unfamiliar if it hadn't been her own. She hugged herself for a moment, even though she was alone. It wasn't the garment that unsettled her most, but her own reaction: she didn't want to take it off immediately.
She looked at herself from the front and in profile. The blouse didn't turn her into another woman. Rather, it revealed a part of herself she had always preferred not to deal with.
She took it off before she could change her mind.
She put the black dress back on without bothering to put her underwear back on.
"I should only buy one piece," she told herself.
The justification sounded rational. Almost convincing. But deep down, Eugenia saw something else: the expression Samuel would try to hide when he saw her enter the restaurant wearing that dress, its neckline plunging almost to her navel and showing the side of her proud breasts.
She didn't want to scandalize him. Nor did she want to seem available. She wanted to find out whether she could shake, even for a few seconds, the confidence of a man accustomed to provoking reactions in others.
She paid for the dress and left the boutique wearing it. The saleswoman wrapped her former clothes in a bag, and Eugenia took it as if it contained evidence of behavior she still didn't dare name.
On the way back to her room, she passed the lobby bar. Several tables were occupied, and warm lighting softened the voices. It was still a long time before eight.
A very long time.
Eugenia headed for the bar.
She walked carefully, aware of the dress's slit and the neckline she couldn't stop thinking about. At a nearby table, two men looked up at the same time. One of them said something to the other. They both looked at her again.
Eugenia felt the urge to lower her eyes.
She didn't.
She even smiled at them.
The smile appeared before she could stop it. The two men exchanged a look, and when she took a high stool at the bar, one of them immediately approached.
"Can we buy you a drink?" he asked.
Eugenia held his gaze. He was an attractive man in his forties, with a confident but not insolent expression. His companion remained a few steps away, watching her with obvious interest.
"Do you always buy drinks for strangers?"
"Only when they seem to need a reason to stay."
"And what makes you think I need a reason?"
"You looked toward our table before you sat down."
Eugenia picked up the drink menu, though she didn't open it.
"Maybe I was looking for the bathroom."
"Then we've been lucky to be sitting in the wrong direction."
The answer drew a brief laugh from her. She was surprised that his boldness didn't bother her. On another occasion, she would have cut the conversation off immediately. That afternoon, however, the game allowed her to measure something about herself.
"One drink," she agreed, "but that doesn't mean I'm going to join you."
"Of course not," the man said. "It's called courtesy."
"And what are your names?"
"Ricardo. He's Esteban."
"Oh, nice to meet you. I'm Eunice." Eugenia, surprising herself more and more, had no idea where or how that name had come from as it left her lips, hiding her real one.
Esteban came over then and called the bartender to order her drink. Eugenia chose white wine. A perfectly safe drink, she managed to think. While the bartender poured, Ricardo rested one arm on the bar without touching her.
"Are you visiting?"
"For work."
"That explains the dress. Women who come here on business usually know exactly what they want."
Eugenia arched an eyebrow.
"And the others don't?"
"The others usually pretend they don't know."
The phrase sent a small shiver through her. Not because it was particularly profound, but because it touched the same place Samuel had brushed against during the meeting. That part of her which seemed tired of pretending she didn't want anything beyond what was proper.
"You two seem very confident that you understand women."
"Not as much as we think," Esteban replied. "But pretending to be confident helps."
Eugenia took a sip. The wine was cold. The conversation was dangerous precisely because it had no consequences. She didn't know these men, owed them no explanations, and could get up whenever she wanted.
"And what do you think you understand about me?"
Ricardo looked at her for a moment before answering.
"That you don't usually dress like this."
Eugenia felt heat in her cheeks.
"That isn't understanding me."
"No. It's observing you."
His honesty threw her off. Samuel observed her too, but he did it with a concentration that seemed to pierce her defenses. She thought of dinner and the possibility that he would notice the dress before saying good night to her.
"Observing someone doesn't entitle you to anything," she said.
"I agree."
Ricardo raised his glass as if accepting a formal rule.
"Then we can keep talking while you decide whether you want to leave."
She liked the answer. Eugenia allowed herself to relax a little. She talked about the city, work, and the hotel. They made her laugh with harmless anecdotes. Every so often, Ricardo let his gaze linger on her cleavage, and Esteban followed her legs whenever she shifted position. Eugenia noticed everything.
And, contrary to her usual habit, she didn't try to disappear.
She told herself she wasn't doing anything wrong. She hadn't lied to Andrés. She hadn't touched either of them. She was only having a drink and chatting. A woman could feel attractive without betraying anyone.
The logic was impeccable.
The uneasiness wasn't.
When she checked the time, forty minutes remained until dinner.
"I have to go."
"Already?" Ricardo asked.
"I have a date."
"Then I hope he knows how to appreciate what he's about to see."
Esteban added with a smile:
"And that he doesn't take too long to tell you."
Eugenia tried to leave a bill on the bar, but Ricardo shook his head.
"The drink is on us."
"I don't want to owe you anything."
"You don't owe us anything. That was the condition from the start."
Eugenia picked up her purse. When she stood, both men looked at her with such open attention that she felt her pulse in her throat. This time, she didn't smile to reassure them. She smiled because she discovered she could leave something hanging in the air behind her.
"Good night, Ricardo. Good night, Esteban."
"Good night, Eunice," Ricardo replied.
She stopped, surprised by the name.
"You remember my name."
Ricardo nodded.
"I always remember what's important about a woman who catches my attention."
Eugenia lowered her gaze and let out a laugh, surprised and somewhat embarrassed.
"Then I still have a lot to learn about dealing with strange men."
"Maybe you'd like to do that tonight. If you come back early, we'll be here until a little after midnight. We'd be happy to buy you dessert."
Eugenia said goodbye to both men by giving each of them a light kiss on the cheek.
The words followed her to the elevator.
When the doors closed, Eugenia leaned her back against the mirror and took a deep breath. Nothing had happened. That was true. Nothing she could reproach herself for.
But she had enjoyed the looks. And she had even felt aroused by the suggestive conversation. Even the farewell kisses had been completely innocent. Though the invitation to dessert had been left hanging in the air, with her deciding that was where it would stay.
She had chosen the dress with Samuel in mind and tested its effect on two strangers. The revelation didn't make her feel guilty. It made her feel alive, and more like a woman. That was unusual enough in her life story. And the feeling was more disturbing than any accusation.
When she reached her room, she left the bag with her clothes on the chair. She went to the mirror and looked at herself again, wrapped in that dress that made her feel so naked. Short, though not as short as the scandalous miniskirt. Thin and soft, but not transparent like the white blouse. And with the deep neckline that, she warned herself, required extreme care, since one sudden movement could expose one of her breasts completely, nipple and all.
"Just dinner," she told herself again, erasing the image of her breasts being revealed by accident.
This time, the phrase sounded less like a promise and much more like a challenge.
"What if I didn't want it to be just dinner?" she dared to ask herself, crossing the mental barrier she had established.
She picked up her phone. She had no new messages from Samuel. For an instant, she wished she did. Then she scolded herself for waiting for a sign from him.
At seven fifty-five, she began fixing her hair.
At eight ten, she looked at her reflection in the mirror again, fully dressed and ready. And she shivered again at the sight of that figure so different from everything she had always been. She smiled.
At eight twenty, while applying a little more perfume to her neck, she imagined Samuel's expression when he saw her.
And, forgetting that she had agreed to speak with Andrés, she kept smiling as she left the room.