99 Days

by Jessica Galera Andreu

  "Maybe," he replied, smiling again. “But that was a 16-year-old boy with a very superficial concept of what was really important. Now you have in front of you a 32-year-old man, something more mature and with a different way of looking at things, I assure you.”

  I felt so blocked that I had no idea what to say.

  “I don't tell you this to pity you, Claudia. In fact, I hate it and that's one of the reasons I don't go to promotion dinners anymore. I just wanted to be honest with you, although I'm not sure it was a good idea," he concluded, wiping another tear at me. I guess he didn't think it would affect me so much; just as I wouldn't have imagined it myself. I joined and tried to wobble as little as possible until the exit.

  "It's your decision, Marcos. And even if I don't agree with the way you proceed, after all, it's you who has the last word. But you should think about it.”

  "I have, Claudia. Believe me. It's not an easy decision.”

  “Promise me you'll do it again, at least you'll think about it. Please.”

  He took a long look at me and I guess my lousy appearance made him feel sorry for himself.

  "I promise," he muttered.

  I arrived outside and called Marga, while he looked at me, in silence and I swallowed the desire to continue crying, to shout and even to slap him.

  CHAPTER 4

  The journey by car to the hotel we had seen at the entrance to the village took place in absolute silence. Neither Victoria nor Marga asked anything else when I told them I didn't feel like talking. The tears bathing my face made it evident that something had not gone as expected and although I knew they could be imagining a thousand hypotheses, I felt I needed to process everything that had happened before telling them. Just seven hours at Marcos' house and my life had taken a radical turn. Already in the hotel room, with the faces of Marga and Victoria turned into poems, I burst.

  "It's your fault." I reproached them, while I was looking for some things in the sports bag I had brought with me. The idea was to spend a couple of days here, taking advantage of the visit to Marcos, but everything had been so twisted that the only thing I knew for sure was that I would run away as soon as I took a shower and changed my clothes.

  “Claudia, what happened?” asked Marga, fearful. “Has... been rude to you?”

  “Has he gone too far?” Victoria intervened.

  I looked at them and smiled ironically.

  "I confessed everything I had felt for him," I explained. “I drank enough wine until my cowardice disguised itself as courage and I told him everything.”

  “And what did he say to you?” Victoria wanted to know.

  “For God's sake, Claudia!” exclaimed Marga.

  “We slept together.”

  I put my hand to my forehead and walked nervously through the room. Victoria was sitting on one of the two beds and Marga was still standing, arms crossed and almost trembling when she saw me so upset.

  “God... Did he take advantage of you?” Victoria insisted.

  “No, of course not. Marcos is a heaven. I'm the imbecile for listening to you, for letting me be dragged along by every damn madness that passes through your head. I can't believe... God, I wish I hadn't come.”

  “And the American?” Marga asked me.

  "The American... good question," I answered.

  "All right, let's calm down," said Victoria, joining in. “You had drunk and it got out of hand. It shouldn't have happened, but it's happened, so give her a little coldness and think with your head, Claudia: you're going back to the United States and he'll stay here. Don't say anything to this John and you're done. If you're in love with your fiancé, you're not going to gain anything by confessing to him a shit like that. It was a mistake. That's it.”

  "A mistake?" said Marga, almost scandalized. Victoria had always been much more liberal than Marga, although in this case, the problem was rather another.

  “Claudia, are you... in love with James?”

  I looked at her, unable to give her an answer. Until that afternoon I had thought yes and that would have been my answer without giving rise to the slightest doubt but at that moment, I felt that the perfect puzzle of my life had jumped through the air.

  "Marcos is dying," I whispered. A cowardly way out not to have to answer and at the same time, the only idea that crossed my mind at the time.

  “What?” asked Victoria, astonished.

  I sat on the bed and sank my face into my hands.

  "He is dying," I repeated. “He has leukemia and refuses to treat it. He accepts with all the tranquility of the world that he has months to live. I can't believe it... He has invited me to have breakfast with him tomorrow... to say goodbye, with all the naturalness that... God.”

  “And you plan to leave?” exclaimed Victoria.

  “And what do you want?” I asked without looking at her.

  “He's dying, he's inviting you to breakfast and you're going out on your legs because you've slept with him and you're terrified to discover that you feel something, that you're not indifferent. Could you be more cowardly?”

  "Victoria..." Marga muttered.

  I stood up and on that occasion I did look at her.

  “And what do you want me to do? “

  “Damn it, Claudia, at least have the decency to go and not leave him lying around.”

  “Does Marcos know of James' existence?”

  I looked away at Marga. She's always so sharp.

  "No," I answered with a thread of voice. In spite of how badly I had done things, the only thing my friends reproached me for was the fact that I was willing to plant Marcos, but it was clear to me that the only possible way out of my enormous shit was to go back to New York as soon as possible, to get back to my job, not to tell James anything, and to use the months left until the wedding to find out if that's what I really wanted because whatever it was, James didn't deserve anything like that. Neither Marcos the lie nor the desperate flight. But mistakes always have to be paid for by someone else.

  I clicked my tongue and only succumbed to the silent embrace of Marga and Victoria.

  ***

  As they said that all roads led to Rome I managed to find the little cafeteria where Marcos had quoted me the night before. At times I doubted whether I would come or not, after my reaction to telling me about his illness but as he walked along the crowded dock, I could see him, sitting at a table, at the end of that paradisiacal place. He was wearing a blue shirt and a broken, worn-out cowboy. When he saw me coming he put his sunglasses on his head and stood up, smiling slightly. We greeted each other with two kisses on the cheeks and I sighed, sitting in front of the imposing ships that docked there.

  "How are you? Is the hangover better?”

  “Better, thank you. I guess I owe you an apology for showing up at your house like that and getting drunk. I swear it's not my usual thing. In fact, if I don't drink much... it doesn't matter.”

  "I don't need an apology. Like I said, I appreciate your visit. Although if I'm honest, I didn't think you'd come today... for the way you left.”

  "I almost didn't come," I confessed, looking him in the eye for the first time. “Last night I almost ran out of here with the firm intention of returning to America without waiting another minute.”

  "Why?" he asked serenely.

  A waitress with long, blonde hair picked up from a tail interrupted the conversation.

  "Will the lady have a drink?" she asked.

  “A latte, please.”

  "Of course." She'll have it right away.

  After taking a brief look at Marcos, the woman disappeared the same way she had arrived.

  “Cara...” I mumbled in a jocular tone. “The waitress in the alley.”

  The coffee was projected from Marcos's mouth as soon as he heard my words and I couldn't repress a little cry when I saw myself splashed by it.

  "God, I'm so sorry. Forgive me," he insistently exclaimed, standing up.

  I threw my head back, laughing.

 
; “Marcos, for heaven's sake, sit down and stop apologizing. It's just a shirt.”

  "An expensive shirt...." he replied, with sharp wit.

  I laughed while he listened to me and, still dazed, he recovered the smile on his face.

  “How opportune.”

  "You're crazy. Completely crazy.

  “Did you still doubt it?”

  His laughter faded and his eyes pierced me, as if they could reach my soul when he heard me speak:

  "Anger and fear," I murmured after a long silence.

  He looked at me without saying anything, so I continued to speak:

  “I wanted to leave out of anger and fear. I can't understand that you don't want to fight and it's... something that's not in my hand. I'm not used to problems escaping my control.”

  “You can't fix the world. This is what I want and I don't ask anyone to understand it. I'll settle for respect.”

  I nodded with no conviction.

  “Now...”

  “And fear? Of what?”

  “Fear of suffering, of having a hard time, of something I didn't have in my life all of a sudden... I broke it.... a little. Because we have met again and I am aware of your situation and... Well, it can't be indifferent to me.”

  "The girl who has everything under control, right?"

  “Always. Or almost always”.

  “I'm sorry that I became an unexpected problem; I assure you it wasn't my intention. The only thing I didn't want was for you to come back someday and think that I had left without a trace, as if what happened didn't matter to me.”

  “Don't apologize for that, Marcos. You're not a problem that comes out of nowhere. You are...­”

  He leaned forward in the chair and took my hand among his own.

  “You'll go back to the United States, you'll get back to your work, your things. And I hope they have you exploited enough to keep your head distracted. Everything happens, Claudia. Everything. And I'm not your problem.”

  "What did yesterday mean to you?" I categorically asked.

  He looked at me, as if in my eyes I could try to find out where I was going, but I couldn't even imagine.

  “Yesterday was what I ask of every day of my life: something unexpected, surprising, beautiful, and if it also gives you the opportunity to fix, even a little, a shit from the past, what more could I ask for? Yesterday was wonderful.”

  “A shit...”

  “I didn't dare tell you anything at the time. Do you realize that? I liked you, you liked me, and we found out 14 years later. Marcos from before would have thought that was a lot of time wasted.”

  “And now?”

  “He thinks that, even if it's only for one night, you come at the right time, that everything happens exactly when it has to happen.”

  The waitress deposited my coffee on the table and disappeared again, although this time I didn't even notice any gesture I could have dedicated to Marcos, because my eyes were glued to him, just as theirs were glued to me.

  "I'm not going back to the United States," I told him. Just like that. At least for the moment.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I want to stay with you. I want to turn every day of your life into one like yesterday. I want to make you laugh, enjoy... live.”

  “You're much crazier than I imagined. Not even in your dreams. You can't send your life to shit for me. For practical purposes I'm a one-night stand. Or an afternoon, it doesn't matter. Nobody leaves everything for a day's flirt.”

  “I'm not going to send anything to shit. I need to stop a little at work; I want to be in my land, with my people. Disconnect a little of the burden of New York and everything I have there. There will be... there will be time to go back. You may be a one-night stand... but those can hook up dangerously, even more so when that hook up already existed.”

  “Claudia, we're two strangers. You don't know anything about me, and I don't know anything about you. You can't do this, and of course, the wine has behaved worse than you thought it would.”

  He stood up and walked towards the bar, where he deposited a bill and, without even waiting for the change, he left. Logically I followed him and we went down to the beach. The heat wasn't so stifling as to justify the crazy people who were bathing already, but even so, there were ten or twelve people in the water.

  “I'm not asking for your permission.”

  “Why do you want to do this?” he asked, angry. “You were hung up for me when we were kids, just like I was hung up for you. But that doesn't justify mortgaging a life. Least of all for a few months.”

  “I'm telling you, I need to stop a little. What's wrong with me staying here?”

  “Now...”

  “If I go away and focus on what's mine, if I use that 'eyes that don't see, heart that doesn't feel' bullshit, I know that the next time I come back here and don't find you, I won't resist it. I will know that I have been focused on a thousand stupid and superficial things, while you live... I can't do that. I don't want to. I want to be with you, I settled, getting closer to him.

  “It is not your responsibility to make my days better.”

  “Well, I want it to be.”

  “I can't accept it, Claudia. I swear to you; it was good to see you. But I can't accept what you propose.”

  This time he approached me, placed his hand on my neck and kissed me on the forehead.

  “Thank you very much for appearing.”

  And he walked away on the sand, with his hands in his pockets and his gaze fixed on the sea, immense, eternal, enigmatic. Like death.

  ***

  "You're crazy," said Marga. “Like a watering can, Claudia.”

  "Maybe," I replied calmly. “But I've never been so sure of anything in my whole life.”

  "I think it's wonderful what you want to do," said Victoria, visibly moved.

  “I'm not arguing that it's very nice, girls, but what about your boyfriend? Your job? Your life? He... Marcos will die and you'll have to go on, Claudia.”

  “I know. But I need to stop a little at work; I'll ask for a leave of absence. I'll tell James that I need to spend some time here, with my people.”

  “And how long? You have no idea. It can be months, even a year.”

  “Whatever the weather, Marga. You were the first to urge me to come, to take the step and to be able to stand in front of him, to find out what I was feeling. I don't know how to describe what I feel but there is something, something that has survived the passage of time, my friend. Or that it has emerged again from somewhere, I don't know. And now that I'm aware that life is slowly slipping away from him, I can't abandon him. I can't focus on buying and selling, on travel, on wedding preparations while he shuts himself off and cuts himself off from a world he wants to leave on the sidelines. I don't want him to be alone in a drink like that.”

  At that point, Marga was crying, so I held her tightly and saw Victoria in the same tessitura.

  “Girls, it's not my intention to make you suffer, not even to make you understand me. Only...”

  "We will support you in everything, Clau" Victoria interrupted me, “because it is precious what you want to do. And because Marcos deserves it. You deserve this time together.”

  I looked at Marga, looking somehow for an approval that I needed, even though I was clear that I would carry out my purpose, whether she liked it or not. Marga nodded, still excited and hugged me tightly again.

  "Count on me," she muttered without a voice. “For whatever you need.”

  CHAPTER 5

  It was hard for James to understand that, right from the start, I would like to extend my stay in Spain and that what should have been a trip of just three or four days would end up becoming an indefinite stay, but I did my best to make him see that he needed to stop and spend some time with my people. I couldn't help but feel enormously guilty because I knew that it would be fair to leave him and give myself entirely to my desire to be with Marcos but another part of me demanded a face-to-face conversation,
something more courageous and just for him. The truth was that I didn't know how to face that situation and the thousand excuses that I managed to conglomerate, only took me to give it long until my mind was clear enough to make a right decision, hurting as little as possible to others.

  I watched my mobile phone while I waited. New message from James, to further complicate the mess in my head: "I can't help but be worried. I would love to be able to travel with you and talk quietly about what's going on with you, how you feel about suddenly needing this. But it's impossible for me at the moment. Please keep me informed of everything. I promise you that as soon as possible, I will be there, with you. I love you."

  I stopped the mobile, feeling like the dirtiest, creepiest person in the world. I needed my best state of mind to accomplish my purpose and of course, James' loving messages didn't make it easy for me.

  After spending the day solving a thousand issues to settle in Spain for some time, the night had me in front of Marcos's house, in whose living room there was light. Late in the afternoon I had prepared something that I wanted to set in motion at nightfall, so I sighed, ready for any kind of reaction on his part when he knew I was still there, stubborn in my task, and walked to the door, at whose doorbell I rang. A few seconds later, Marcos opened the door and looked at me with an astonished expression. He wore a short-sleeved gray shirt and dark sweatpants. He was barefoot.

  “Get dressed, I want you to accompany me to a place.”

  I turned around, determined to wait for him in his garden, but Marcos gently grabbed my arm and looked at me with a frown.

  “What does this mean?”

  “It means that I want you to accompany me to a place.”

  “Claudia...”

  “I've been preparing something all afternoon, and it would be awful for you if it had been for nothing. Get dressed and come with me. Please.”