Before I could reply, she said, “I am Emma Garcia. Please. Come if you can. It’s at seven o’clock. The address is on here.” She handed me a different-colored flier and tried to smile. “You will be my guest.”

They couldn’t keep me away. I wanted to know what Cathy Vega had been doing with them.

The man pulled himself up straighter and inclined slightly toward me in the merest hint of a bow. “Yes. Please. Come tonight.” He urged in a strongly accented and somewhat seductive tone. Against the backdrop of the granite building and public space, he was not only handsome but imposing. He stepped away and was gone into the crowd as quickly as he had appeared.

Emma Garcia looked annoyed as she moved away from me to hand out more leaflets. I wondered if she was angry at me or him. For a few more minutes I watched her passing out her fliers as she worked her way through the crowd. Near the south end of the building she stopped suddenly and gave another woman her stack of paper. I saw her hurry down the gray stone stairs to the sidewalk and head east. I felt the man continuing to watch me from where he had stopped at the edge of the crowd, dividing his attention between me and the still boisterous Cubans, who had pulled themselves into a ragged circle and were picketing with their own signs. The Cuban who had prevented the altercation removed a camera from a black bag he was carrying and took a couple of hurried shots of the demonstrating crowd. I turned and moved away as he pointed the camera at me. Some of the demonstrators stopped, posed, waved, threw him a peace sign or the finger. A news crew leaning on a yellow van sent someone out for some cokes. The nuns kept moving, saying their silent rosaries.

I waited until I got to Bauchet Street to call Lupe. True, I had told her to get out of the apartment, but I was hoping as I dialed my number she’d still be there. The phone rang and rang. Why wasn’t she there? Had she gone out to work? Had she already gone to meet her boyfriend Eduardo Gomez or whatever his name was? I needed her help in translating for me. I had to know what the Guatemalans were saying.

“Hello.” The Marilyn voice sounded tentative. Did she think I was checking up on her? That I was going to yell at her?

“Lupe, you still there? Meet me tonight at seven. I have to go to a meeting and I don’t know if it’s going to be in English or Spanish.”

“I need to work. I work, remember?”

“You have to help me. When you wanted to stay at my place, you said you’d help me. You can work later.”