Yolardis
by: Hojat Salehi
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"Do you think she would like to meet me?"
"Sure. If you want I'll invite my stepsister and her to have dinner with us."
"Be my guest. You're a real wonderboy."
Euclide had taken me to Casa de Margarita, the nice guesthouse in Vedado that I was staying in. Margarita and her husband and their two little daughters had all moved to one small room of their beautiful old home and were renting out the three remaining others. I had the nicest room with a private bath, a twin bed, ceiling fan, a small refrigerator and a little boom box.
The wonderboy had also introduced me to Alejandro's restaurant where I would dine and hang out almost every night. The cozy, literally homey restaurant was inside a 5th floor apartment in Vedado. I used to sit on its small balcony overlooking the street and read my book over Chop Suey and beer. The old proprietor, a retired journalist turned restauranteur and waiter, would often keep me company recounting his memoirs on revolution, Angola, and the soviets.
That night Euclide delivered the box of cigars to my room and walked me to Alejandro's where, to my pleasant surprise, his amiable stepsister Maria and her friend, the enchanting Yolardis joined.
So after all it was in my destiny to have dinner with Yolardis. She was wearing the same dress she wore that day. Up close she was even more radiant and captivating than when I had seen her from a distance. Her irises were as pitch-black as her pupils. Her ample, cascading black hair flowed onto her shiny bare shoulders. She wore no makeup and her neat ungroomed eyebrows joined ever so slightly. Her tiny, round lips were full like a tulip bulb. She was shy, pensive and reserved and barely said a word all night but she seemed to know that she was the special person on a special occasion. I had to make conscious attempts to veer my eyes off her from time to time.
That night after Alejandro closed the restaurant, we all walked by the breezy and moonlit oceanfront Malecon drive and I got to have a few words with her.
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