C2 Chapter 2

Ruben arrived at the hall for his father's speech the next morning.The seminar had already gone half way. The hall was filled to the brim. He quietly climbed on top of the gallery and took a seat near a woman who was trying to calm her baby with no success.The infant was just not having any of it. With each attempt to calm it, it intensified it's cries. The woman gave Ruben an apologetic look and he nodded in acknowledgement. He turned his gaze to the podium where his father was giving his speech.

“Twenty-four years," Mr. Saviola's voice boomed on the microphone. "For twenty-four years,we have faced all sorts of battles in the production market in the form of competition. Battles to keep this company standing still and make it the best. And as such battles one faces, one must always find strategies to overcome and prevail. And the thing about strategies is that one must always have varieties of contingency plans. We executed every plan and strategy possible. We did not slack. We did not relent. We did not back down. And our perseverance paid off. We have achieved so much by the grace and we have taken over the city of Bogota."

There was a loud applause as the chairman's voice filled the hall and his old face beamed with smiles. A few loud cheers reverberated the hall. The chairman signalled for calmness and the hall was silent once more. For Ruben, things had actually changed. The company had done a lot of upgrade and it looked a lot different than he remembered before he left for the states. The hall was bigger, modern and filled with state of the act equipments.

“Two weeks from now, we will be having our annual anniversary. It would be a time for reflections on what how hour hard work has paid off. We should set a new vision." Mr. Saviola continued.

Ruben smiled. He was very proud of his father. The old man really kept to his goal and worked tirelessly to build the company to what it was.

Ruben suddenly felt a nudge and looked to his side. The nursing mother was looking curiously at him. He raised his brows at her.

“Are you not Ruben, the chairman's son?” The woman asked him in a hushed tone.

He gave her a smile and nodded.

“Goodness!” The woman looked him up and down with admiration. “You have grown so much. I hardly recognized you.”

Ruben was lost for words. He did not know how to tell the woman that he was supposed to look different now that he was thirty one. He was terrible when it came to taking in complements. He was still smiling to the woman when he heard his name and he saw the crowd stood up, clapping and shouting out of excitement.

“My son, Ruben, has come to be with us for a while. He will contribute to the growth of this company where necessary as the spirit leads.” Mr. Saviola said.

There were more claps and cheers.

The seminar finally came to an end after three hours from the time Ruben came in. It was tiring greeting both old and new faces, shaking hands and receiving invites.

“My house is not far. You can always stop by before going back to your house.” A man that appeared to be wealthy said to him before he entered his car with his two giggling daughters and drove off.

"I.." Ruben stared at the retreating vehicle, not knowing how to respond to that offer.

"That was weird." He shook his head and made his way inside.

By the time Ruben got to his father’s office, he was told by the secretary that the chairman was in a meeting and his mother was with some other family friends. He was getting bored so he decided to drive around the town.

******

Juanita held her skirt together and walked briskly. She would go and pick her son who was coming back from the boarding school that day. But first, she had to make sure there was food in the house. Money was not forth coming the way it used to. She thought about the irony. As a stripper, she was one of the best in the business. And if there was one thing she knew for a long time, it was that nudity sells. At the sight of bare flesh, it was funny how money parts ways with man.

But things were taking a change. Life kept getting tougher as years rowed by and each year she told herself that she would make enough money to start another business and leave the neighborhood, each year her hope for better life thinned as she struggled to keep the one bedroom apartment which has been her home since her mother died and to pay her sons school fees.

She sighed as she remembered one of the nights that gave her the painful reminder.

“You can’t keep the boy with you, Juanita,” Her employer had said to her one of the nights she came to work with her son, Kiko.

“I have no other place to keep him, ma’am. Please let him stay,” Juanita had pleaded.

She had always taken the boy to the club and allowed him to sleep in the girl’s room while she did her job. As the boy got older, it became difficult to get him to sleep at all and to prevent him from seeing how dirty her job was. Kiko was very sharp for his age and growing up in the streets helped in that characteristic.

“I can’t afford it, Rosa. I struggle to pay tution fees alone, how can I pay for boarding school?” Juanita had lamented to a friend after she had fought with the lady that molested her son.

“Some of us will always help out, Juanita. This boy needs a life outside this place.” Rosa replied.

“We only have each other. How will I survive without him?”

“It is for his own good. Don’t worry about how the money will come. Things will turn up fine. You are already a sensation and most of these men return every night to watch you.” Rosa winked at her.

"That seems not to the case of recent." Juanita shook her head sadly.

"Come off it, my friend," Rosa drew closer and gave her a side hug. "Maybe they are busy. Just be patient. Things will get back to normal."

That was how Juanita sent her son off to boarding school, hoping that one day she would be able to quit the club and take her son to a better neighborhood.

Shaking the memories off her mind and bring herself back to the present, she unhooked the nail that served as the door lock, entered her house, threw her jacket on the bed and pulled the rusty stove from corner of the room.

*********

“Mother. What happened to the girl, Juanita?”

Mrs. Saviola froze. The question was unexpected. She turned around and gave Ruben a sudden surprised look. The night was cold and they were seated at the large garden. The gardeners tended to the plants nearby.

“Who is Juanita?” Mrs. Saviola feigned ignorance, clearing her throat.

Ruben could sense how uncomfortable his mother had become all of a sudden.

“Juanita. The girl that...that got pregnant…that I got involved with years back.You know, Mrs. Hueava's daughter," He stuttered.

Mrs. Saviola gave her son a suspicious look.

“Why would you ask me of Juanita after more than thirteen years? What business do you have with her?” she asked.

Ruben did not answer but he could not erase the image of the young woman he saw earlier that day. He was sure it was her. But then she was looking taller and curvier. He had stopped to get some oranges when the lady stopped few steps before him to buy carrots. She had her back on him. When she spoke, he could not mistake that voice for another. The rich deep feminine voice. The voice that attracted him to her the first time she arrived at the family home with her mother.

“I don’t know what happened to her,” Mrs. Justine finally answered. “I heard she is now a harlot who stands on the road side at night, calling men.”

“Really?” Ruben was stunned.

“Some even said she dances naked in club houses for money. A very good thing you didn’t entangle yourself with her any further.” His mother said.

Ruben didn’t know what to make of the news he heard. When he walked back to his room and pick his phone to surf the net, he could not think of anything to search. The guilt of what he did to Juanita and the shame to face the truth tore him apart.

“What have i done?” he whispered in the darkness of his room.