Canary Island Song

by Robin Jones Gunn

  “Yes. Mind-bending, isn’t it? The history of this place, I mean. Can you imagine who might have been crawling through those tunnels five hundred years ago? And here we are, sitting on top of them, now that they’re filled in, and about to order dinner.”

  A man in a long-sleeved white shirt and black necktie greeted them but didn’t offer any menus. Bryan said something in Spanish, and the man gave an honored bob of his head and left.

  “Did you just tell him to make the dinner selection for us?” Carolyn asked.

  Bryan nodded. “He’s the owner. He did all the renovations. He’s also the chef. The appraiser I met with today tipped me off and said that to get the best of the best here, I should honor our host and leave all the selections up to him.”

  Carolyn leaned back and let the peace of this inner garden pour over her. It felt as if they were guests at a private dinner party. “This is pretty amazing. I’ve never been to a place like this, and I’ve never left the choice up to the chef.”

  “You don’t have any food allergies, do you? I suppose I should have asked that.”

  “No, I’m on good speaking terms with just about every sort of food I’ve ever tried. What about you?”

  “No food allergies. I don’t like beets or watermelon, but that’s just a preference thing. I am allergic to bee stings, though. So is my son. If I get stung during dinner from a rogue bee hiding out in one of these creeping vines, rush me to the hospital right away.”

  “Okay. But you know, it could become rather suspicious if we keep dining out all over town and leaving in a dash to go to the emergency room without paying the bill.”

  Bryan grinned. “Good point.”

  Their suave host appeared at the table with a wheeled cart and prepared a tossed salad complete with anchovies, chopped tomatoes, and thinly sliced carrots. He served Carolyn first, then Bryan. A plate of baguette-sized bread slices was placed in the center of the table along with a smooth red mojo sauce served in a white dish shaped like a fish.

  Bryan reached across the table for Carolyn’s hand and prayed just as he had at Al Macaroni. Once again his easily spoken, sincere words comforted Carolyn and made her feel as if she were inching her way back into a place of familiarity with God.

  The calm that came with his prayer remained with them throughout the delicious dinner of chicken in a white wine sauce and zucchini baked with a crusty sort of top.

  They were nearly finished with their delightful dinner and equally delightful conversation when Bryan said, “You know what, Carolyn?” He put down his fork. “I need to confess something to you.”

  Carolyn felt a grab in her gut. Everything had been going so smoothly. What did he feel he needed to say? Hadn’t they waded through those murky waters days ago and come out on the other side? She hoped he wasn’t about to apologize to her again for something that was part of their ancient history. As she saw it, all the old tunnels in their past had been filled in, and the relationship was renovated, just like this house. All she wanted to do was enjoy the cool comfort and beauty of the new space.

  “I debated whether I should tell you this.”

  She put down her fork; she suspected she wouldn’t be hungry anytime soon.

  “You know how I said at your mother’s party that for a long time I wanted to apologize to you?”

  Carolyn pressed her lips together and gave a slight nod.

  “Well, I actually did try to apologize to you a long time ago.” He rubbed the side of his neck. “You told me that summer when we were here that you were going to Cal State Hayward in the fall. You told me that’s where Jeff went to college, and you were excited about being out of high school and on the same campus with him.”

  Those details were all true. It surprised her that Bryan remembered them.

  “After I left the Canaries that summer and went back to my dad’s house in Los Angeles, I, uh, shall we say ‘borrowed’ some money and rode my motorcycle up to Hayward.”

  Carolyn’s eyes widened. She knew that had to have been at least an eight-hour motorcycle ride.

  “It took me two days of hanging around the campus until I found you.”

  Her heart raced. “You were on campus?”

  He nodded. “I saw you. You were walking across an open quad area all by yourself. You had on this flowing white blouse with long tails and a row of tiny buttons down the front.”

  Carolyn knew the blouse. It was her favorite. She called it her “poet’s shirt” and felt artistic every time she wore it, which was often that first year of college.

  Should I be freaked out that he was there? That he remembers what I was wearing?

  That Bryan went to Hayward and waited around for two days before he spotted her was shocking enough. Knowing that he remembered what she was wearing doubled her shock. She didn’t know if she should be overwhelmed by his sentimental gesture or a little alarmed that he went looking for her.

  Bryan lowered his gaze as well as his voice. “You see, I had convinced myself that you and I belonged together. In my eighteen-year-old wisdom, I thought all I had to do was show up on campus, apologize for the way things went between us that last night here in the islands, and then ask you to …”

  She waited for him to finish his sentence.

  Bryan looked up. “I don’t know what I thought. Maybe I was hoping you would be so happy to see me that you would forgive me and … I don’t know … hop on the back of my bike, and we would ride off into the sunset. Something like that.”

  Carolyn let a small grin meet his eyes. She was dying to know why he didn’t say anything to her that day. When he didn’t add any more to his story, she ventured further, saying, “I never knew you were there.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t see you.”

  “I know.”

  “So, what did you do? I mean, when you saw me, I guess you changed your mind …”

  “I didn’t change my mind when I saw you. I changed my mind when I saw Jeff.”

  “You saw Jeff?”

  “Yes. As soon as I saw you, I started heading toward you.” He offered a shy grin. “I have to tell you, I was pretty nervous. I kept going over the lines I’d been rehearsing all the way up. You were walking across the grass toward a bench. There was a guy sitting there. The minute he saw you, I could see the look on his face. I wasn’t the only one smitten with you. I pulled back and watched him come to you and wrap his arms around you. He kissed you. And you kissed him.”

  Carolyn felt herself blushing.

  “When I saw the two of you like that, only ten days after you and I had been together, I knew I’d lost my chance. I needed to go. It wasn’t right for me to cause you any more pain than I already had. So I left.”

  Carolyn didn’t know what to say.

  Bryan leaned back in his chair. “You can see why I debated whether to tell you. But it’s bothered me that, when I walked away from Cal State that day, I didn’t find a way to still offer an apology to you. It’s also bothered me that for the past twenty-five years you probably thought I didn’t care about the way things ended with us. I did care, Carolyn. I still do care.”

  Carolyn reached across the table and gently placed her hand on his. “I’m glad you told me that.”

  Bryan opened his clenched hand and turned his palm up. Carolyn laced her fingers with his. For a long moment they sat in a comfortable silence.

  “I would give anything to go back in time and do things differently,” Bryan said. “But we can’t go back. Only forward. And that’s what I’d like to do, Carolyn. I’d like to move forward. But I need to know what you think about that. What do think about us moving forward?”

  They were still holding hands across the table, their last few bites of chicken left to cool in the evening air. Carolyn wasn’t quite sure what he was asking. She hesitated before finally saying, “How do you see us moving forward? I mean, realistically?”

  “I have some ideas. But first I need to know that you’re interested in even talk
ing about it.”

  “I am. Talking, at least, for starters.” In an effort to lighten the moment she added, “I mean, this is our first date, after all.”

  “It might be our first official date without a chaperone, but you and I both know that a lot of life has rushed past us in a very short time. I want to be deliberate about the way I live. I also want to pay attention to what comes my way. You came my way. Or I came your way.”

  “Or we both just came here, and there we both were.”

  “Exactly,” Bryan said. “We’re both here, now. The old feelings I had for you—they’re still there. And I have a pretty strong notion that you still feel something for me.” His eyebrows rose slightly as he waited for her affirmation.

  Carolyn felt comfortable telling him. The words came out in a hushed voice. “Yes, I do still feel something for you. Something new and surprisingly sweet has been growing in me every time I see you.”

  “So what does all this mean? What is God doing?”

  Carolyn didn’t reply. She had given up long ago trying to explain anything that God did. “I don’t pretend to even try to guess what God is doing. I do know that being around you these past few days has been wonderful. I wish there was a way to keep going forward like you said. I don’t know how that would be possible.”

  As soon as the words were released into the air between them, Carolyn felt a sadness creeping in. She would go home in a few days, and then all this would be over.

  Bryan didn’t seem to feel the same sense of finality. He leaned forward and covered Carolyn’s hand with his other hand, holding it between both his hands, as if it were something fragile and precious.

  “I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this. Please just hear me out. Take as long as you need to think through what I’m going to say before you give me your answer. That’s all I ask, that you think about this. And pray about it.”

  “Okay.”

  Bryan smiled. “Okay. So, here’s what I’m thinking …”

  “Quien bien te quiere, te hará llorar.”

  “The one who loves you a lot can make you cry.”

  IN THE HUSHED quiet of the night, Carolyn lay on her side watching the shadows fade into the silken haze of her mother’s bedroom wall. Steady sounds of ruffled breaths came from her mother as she slept, unaware of all that had happened to Carolyn that night while she was at dinner with Bryan. Her only report to her mom and Tikki, when they mercilessly needled her for date details, was that she and Bryan went to a restaurant in a renovated house that had tunnels. And the coffee was very good.

  All the other details she kept to herself. She wasn’t ready to outwardly process any of Bryan’s well-thought-out plan for how their relationship could move forward. True to her agreement at the restaurant, she had heard him out, and now she was going to give herself a day to think about everything.

  He could wait, he said. He had smiled and said that, if he had waited this many years, he could wait another day or two to know if he would have a second chance with her.

  In so many ways, though, it didn’t feel like a second chance to Carolyn. It felt like part two of an affection that had blossomed in two young hearts before either of them knew what to do with that attraction.

  Part of the challenge for Carolyn was that, if she would be willing to open her heart again all the way with Bryan, she knew it would mean she would need to come into a place of reconciliation with all that she didn’t understand about God and his uncomfortable ways. To overlap her life into Bryan’s world would mean praying together and living inside the mystery, as he called it. She couldn’t remain in her cloister of spiritual neutrality if the two of them were going to move forward.

  She also knew that meant she would have to accept God on his terms. And they weren’t easy terms. He was God. He could do whatever he wanted. He wouldn’t be tamed by her demands or swayed by her cries. She would have to surrender to him.

  And something deep inside her rebelled against that.

  Carolyn sighed. I need to sleep. I need to wait until I’m fully rested before I decide if I can agree to Bryan’s plan. I need sleep. Sleep.

  A gentle pat on her hip woke Carolyn. She opened her eyes slowly in the brightness of the sun-flooded room.

  “Mom, are you pretending to be asleep again, or are you really asleep?” Tikki asked.

  “I was really asleep. What time is it?”

  “It’s almost nine. Grandma is anxious to get going. She doesn’t want to be late.”

  “Late for what?” Carolyn noticed that Tikki was dressed, her new cute, short hair was styled, and she had makeup on.

  “Don’t give me that! Late for what! Mom, you are going to take this dance lesson with us, and you can’t get out of it. I can’t believe you forgot.”

  Carolyn pushed up on her elbow and pulled the clip from the back of her tussled hair. She yawned. “I can be ready in ten minutes.”

  “Good. Hop to it. ¡Ándale! ¡Muy pronto! ¡Arriba!”

  “Okay, okay. I got it. I’m going to hurry. Go tell Grandma I’m getting ready.”

  When the three of them were in the taxi forty minutes later, Carolyn could tell her mother was nervous. She didn’t know if the nerves were over the possibility of their being late to Lydia’s for the first flamenco dance lesson, or if it had to do with the lesson itself.

  The only reason Carolyn was doing this was for Tikki. She had a feeling the reason her mother was doing this was to finally feel as if she was on par with her sisters.

  Once they were out of the cab and walking down a cobblestone alley that led to Lydia’s home, part of the reason for her mother’s nerves became clear as she reminded Carolyn and Tikki of their manners.

  “I want you to know that Lydia is a highly respected woman, and I must show her honor.”

  “Sí, Abuela. No te preocupes,” Tikki trilled, letting her grandmother know she didn’t have to worry.

  “And I will try my best not to embarrass you,” Carolyn promised.

  “No one is going to be embarrassed. All of us will try this, and we will learn something new today. ¿Sí?”

  “Sí,” Carolyn agreed.

  “Sí,” Tikki echoed.

  They arrived in front of tall narrow doors that showed the wear of many years, and for the first time Carolyn felt a tinge of gladness that she was taking this flamenco dance lesson with her mom and Tikki. This immersion in her mother’s world was one of the reasons Carolyn had made this long journey. She didn’t come for Bryan—obviously, because she had no idea he was going to be here. She came to be with her mother in her mother’s world, and this was her chance to experience more of that world before she went home. This is what she had hoped Tikki would experience as well. And here they were.

  The weathered doors opened in response to her mother’s tapping of the round metal ring against the wood. In the movies, plundering pirates would break down doors such as these and find chests filled with gold and jewels.

  The treasure behind these doors was Lydia, a lovely woman with smooth brown skin who opened to them and welcomed Carolyn, Abuela Teresa, and Tikki into her home. Lydia pressed her cool cheek to Carolyn’s as she greeted her, sending feathery kisses into the air. First the right cheek to right cheek and then the left cheek to the left cheek. She spoke in rolling Spanish, taking efforts, it seemed, to make sure every “r” received sufficient tremors on her tongue before escaping her perfectly shaped lips. Lydia’s graying hair was pulled up in a smoothed-back bun. She led them into her home with an air of refinement, as if they were entering her castle.

  The interior was far from castle status. The condition of the home surprised Carolyn. It was old and showed every sign of its age more obviously than Lydia did. The tile floor raised in irregular bumps. The paint was peeling on the walls, and the room they were directed into was dark and crowded with old furniture. This was how Carolyn remembered the feel of her grandparents’ house. Old and dark. It made her realize why her mother and Aunt Isobel preferred the op
en, light, and airy feel of the new apartment complex where they lived.

  Lydia set to work moving back a sofa and an end table. Tikki and Carolyn stepped in to help her make room on the floor for their dance lessons. Lydia rolled up the faded rug and motioned for the three women to come stand in front of her in the newly cleared space.

  With perfect posture, the five-foot-and-a-few-inches woman struck a pose in front of them. Her left arm was bent with ease in front of her tightened stomach, and her right arm rose in the air like a graceful calla lily. Her hands were fixed in a ballerina’s pose, with the thumb straight, first finger slightly bent and the remaining fingers curled in easy succession.

  All her directions were in Spanish, and all her motions were fairly easy to follow. Not that Carolyn could imitate the grace and ease with which Lydia moved through the positions. Carolyn did notice that her mother came by the movements naturally and seemed to already have an idea of what she was supposed to do.

  “Are you sure this is your first lesson?” Carolyn asked her mother as she switched her right-hand position to over her stomach and tried to get the elbow of her left arm bent just right.

  “Yes, why do you ask?”

  “You look like you already know what to do.”

  “It’s in our blood. Did you understand what Lydia just said? This is a dance of life.”

  Carolyn pulled back her shoulders and willed that the half of her blood that ran as red as Spanish rioja wine would flow through her veins and tell her hands and arms what to do.

  No sooner had Lydia showed them the basic arm motions than she switched tactics. Now they were to stand with their hands on their waists just above their hips. The position reminded Carolyn of the statue beside Al Macaroni of the fisherman’s wife standing with her hands on her hips, gazing out to sea at twilight.

  Lydia explained something else, and Carolyn said, “Mom, can you translate? I’m not catching much of what she’s saying.”

  “I’m lost,” Tikki added.

  “She is explaining that this is the dance that draws out of you what is held deepest inside. Most women cannot dance flamenco with true … what is the English word? Fortitude? Honesty?”