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California. His father owns mines or something. Longtime friends of the Belmontes. Son muy ricos.”
    â€œ Everybody here’s real rich except you and me,” Jessie says. She gives Rayo a mock knowing look. “Hunting for a well-heeled hubby, are we?”
    â€œOh, please .” Rayo says. “Not well-heeled or any other kind, thank you. It’s just this guy’s got the look, you know? Like he can reeeally do it.”
    Jessie laughs. “You are such a slut. You’ll never change.”
    â€œGod, I hope not.”
    Jessie studies Gregorio—who looks like he can’t be more than nineteen or twenty—standing with his hands in his pockets and addressing a group of young people at a table near the bandstand. Handsome devil. His smile and body language exuding great satisfaction with himself and the table’s attention. He says something that prompts everyone’s laughter, then looks over and smiles at Jessie and winks at Rayo. Who raises her glass slightly to him and winks back.
    â€œI don’t believe you,” Jessie says.
    Rayo affects a look of blank innocence.
    Gregorio excuses himself from the group and comes over to the Wolfe women, smiling wide.
    Good evening, ladies. I am Gregorio Marcosas Alemán.
    Rayo introduces herself and then Jessie. Jessie says she’s pleased to meet him and proffers a handshake. He kisses her hand and says, “Encantado, señorita,” and asks her pardon for his lack of English. Then turns to Rayo and asks if he might have the honor of a dance.
    Rayo says he may. She hands her drink to Jessie and accepts Gregorio’s arm.
    â€œI’m off in a minute,” Jessie says. “Have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”
    â€œContradicting yourself again,” Rayo says as Gregorio squires her away. “First one back to my place is a hopeless skank.”
    Aldo returns with a glass of wine and with Jessie’s shawl from the checkroom. He hands her the shawl and nods at her drink. “What’s that? You wanted white.”
    â€œTry it,” she says, and trades drinks with him. He tastes the absinthe and frowns.
    â€œGood stuff, huh?” She smiles and sips at the wine.
    â€œWe gotta go,” he says. “Trio just told me. Everybody’s meeting at the front door.” He takes the wine from her and puts both drinks on the tray of a passing waiter.
    She lets him lead her by the hand and they wend their way through the throng, cutting through the dance floor, begging the pardons of persons they jostle. Then she sees the front doors up ahead and the waiting bridal party entourage.
    Both bride and groom are from families of means. Francisco Belmonte, father of the groom, Demetrio—called Trio by friends and family—owns interests in heavy equipment and food canning and a major share in a television network, but his most gainful venture is Fuentes de Oro, a company that manufactures platforms for offshore oil drilling and has a number of international clients. His American wife is the daughter of a Hollywood film producer of good critical reputation. Oscar Sosa, father of Luz, the bride, heads a corporate entity that builds and manages luxury resorts in many parts of Mexico and Central America. He also owns a number of real estate companies specializing in the sales and leases of mountain retreats and seaside villas. It is common knowledge among the capital’s social elite that Luz’s mother descends from the Xavier-Morales family, whose lineage extends from the viceroy era. Both mothers are lean and lovely exemplars of social grace, the fathers tall handsome men, trim by way of gym regimens, their naturally dusky complexions darkened the more from golfing, sailing, big-game fishing.
    Neither family, however, is given to ostentatious display of its wealth, and the wedding has been a relatively modest affair. One of the few excesses in the original wedding plan had been