I stared out of the window but I didn’t see the shoeshine boys or the prostitutes on the street corners, the cobblestone streets where boys kicked soccer balls between the traffic. I didn’t even look around to watch the little kid run from the shop with a loaf of bread, the fat baker in his white vest yelling and puffing down the street after him.Because my world consisted of Angel and me. This was all that mattered.A few minutes later we pulled up outside Inocencia's apartment. I could feel the heat from the pavement as I got out of the car. It felt like it was going to melt my shoes.As I climbed the stairs I thought about her performance at the club. It was hard to reconcile that torchy, tortured singer with the restrained and elegant Miss Velasquez, my piano teacher. But then I supposed we all keep a part of ourselves hidden from the world. If my father knew about Angel and me, the things I had done - about the things I had imagined and not yet done - he would have died. But Inocencia's private self sang in public six nights a week; that was the secret of being a bolerista.
