Fifty millimeters and wrinkled linen

Fucked in the superlative degree, with a lame shoe in her hand and the weight of a lie that had just been born dead.

"Your fiancé?" repeated Aunt Leonor. The olive in her daiquiri swayed on the rim of the glass like an undecided suicide. "Manuela, darling, I thought you came alone because your personal life was still on pause. As always."

Two meters away, Felipe Zúñiga arched an eyebrow over his glass of watered-down whiskey. That exact gesture. The same millimeter arch of smugness he put on when he explained to Manuela why she didn't understand investment funds or schedule synchronization. Felipe said nothing, but his Italian leather loafers took a step forward on the irregular cobblestones, creaking with calculated laziness.

Rodrigo didn't blink. He wore a raw linen guayabera with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, two camera bodies crossed over his chest with worn leather straps, and a drop of café con leche stain right below the left pocket.

"Ten years without seeing each other and you still have a fascinating sense of humor, Manuela," said Rodrigo.

Manuela's mouth went dry.

Things I am not going to do:

1. Cry.

2. Throw the broken heel at his head.

3. Remember how his green jacket smelled in October 2014.

"It's just that Rodrigo loves to joke," she blurted out, digging her fingers with clandestine force into the photographer's forearm. "Artist stuff. You know how they are. They live in another temporal dimension."

"In another temporal dimension he left you stranded on the school steps," murmured the voice of silly common sense in Manuela's head, but she swallowed it down with the bitter residue of coconut sunscreen melting toward the corners of her lips.

Rodrigo looked at Leonor. Then at Felipe. His eyes lingered half a second on Felipe's raised chin, on the thick condescension floating between the smoke of the cigars and the bougainvilleas scorched by the afternoon sultry heat.

"Actually," said Rodrigo, passing a heavy, warm arm over Manuela's shoulders with a naturalness that almost seemed rehearsed, "we were waiting for the ceremony to pass so we wouldn't steal the spotlight from the bride and groom. But my girl has never known how to keep a secret. Come here a moment, love. Your hair is messed up from the humidity."

He pulled her with relentless gentleness.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Leonor. Felipe, a pleasure."

Felipe narrowed his eyes. Leonor was left with her mouth half open and the daiquiri halfway to her carmine-painted lip.

The back room of the sacristy smelled of old paraffin, burnt-out candles over coral stone, and wet cardboard. On a wobbly table rested three artificial flower wreaths and a half-empty bottle of soda.

Upstairs, the fan blades spun with an asthmatic hiss, barely pushing the hot air against the whitewashed walls.

As soon as the heavy, worm-eaten wooden door closed, Manuela pulled away.

"May I know what you're pretending?" she whispered, even though there was no one else.

Rodrigo let out a short huff. He unhooked the heaviest reflex camera, placed it with almost surgical delicacy on a box of candles, and pulled a crumpled paper napkin from the corner bakery out of his pocket. With methodical slowness, he wiped the sweat running down the bridge of his nose to his forehead.

"Me?" he said, folding the damp paper into fours. "You were the one who grabbed my arm like it was a life raft in the middle of the shipwreck of your social dignity."

"I was desperate."

"It showed. The daiquiri lady almost choked on the ice."

Silence.

The fan coughed on its axle.

"Why didn't you disprove me right there?" asked Manuela, leaning her back against the cold wall so as not to rest her barefoot on the filthy floor. "It would have been your perfect revenge. Round. Ten years waiting to collect your dues."

Rodrigo looked her up and down. He stopped at the wrinkled hem of her olive green satin dress, at the strap slipping off her shoulder, at the tense expression she was trying to camouflage with irony.

"Because the face of that asshole in loafers was priceless," he replied in a flat voice. "And because the past cannot be cured with formal apologies; sometimes it just needs thirty degrees in the shade and a shared lie."

Manuela arched her eyebrows.

"Did you learn that line in a cheap poetry workshop?"

"It came on the back of an auto repair shop calendar," retorted Rodrigo unfazed. "Now listen to me, Restrepo. If we're going to pretend we're together so your family leaves you alone and your ex stops looking at you with pity, we're going to do it right. I hate bad photos and I hate bad setups."

"I didn't ask you to stage a play."

"You brought me onto the stage, so you deal with the script."

He crossed his arms. The fabric of his guayabera creaked slightly against the dried-up saltpeter of his skin.

"Condition number one: you don't give me orders about camera angles. I'm still working; the bride paid me in advance and I need to collect the balance. Condition number two: during the rehearsal dinner you sit next to me and laugh at my bad jokes. And condition number three..."

"Is there a number three?" she scoffed.

"Yes. You have to give me back my university sticker coffee thermos that you kept in 2014."

Manuela blinked.

"I threw it out during a move."

"Lie. You're a pathological hoarder. You probably use it to keep coins."

They stared at each other. Ten years of distance evaporated between the hum of the fan motor and the relentless heat.

"Deal," she said finally, extending her hand.

Rodrigo didn't shake it. Instead, he pulled his phone from his pocket and showed her the screen.

Mom (18:42): Leonor just sent me a voice note saying you came with a bearded shaggy guy. Who is it? Tell me it's not the one who left you on graduation day.

Manuela closed her eyes tightly.

"The espionage network works at the speed of light."

They came out to the interior patio when the sky was beginning to dye with that dirty, thick orange of five in the afternoon. The colonial lanterns were already on, casting an ocre light on the walls and the sweaty backs of the guests trying to revive with glasses of warm champagne.

In a corner, leaning against a clay jar, Felipe was chatting with two second cousins, but his gaze bounced toward them every thirty seconds.

"Pretend I'm telling you a hilarious story," murmured Rodrigo, getting so close that Manuela felt the heat radiating from his chest through the raw linen.

"I can't think of anything funny with this broken shoe."

"Tell me any nonsense. What you had for lunch."

"Cold cheese empanada at the airport. The dough looked like tire rubber."

"Fascinating," said Rodrigo, letting out a low, husky laugh that sounded dangerously authentic.

He raised the camera with a fluid movement. The viewfinder covered half his face. With his left hand, his fingers brushed Manuela's chin to tilt her head barely three centimeters toward the dim light of the lantern.

The dry, metallic click of the shutter cut through the noise of the patio.

Rodrigo didn't lower the lens. He kept it glued to his eye, inches from Manuela's nose, adjusting the fifty-millimeter focusing ring with deliberate, almost insolent slowness.

"See?" he whispered behind the viewfinder, so low that the murmur got trapped between the two of them. "Pretending I love you again isn't going to cost me any effort."

The shutter fired again.