Designs of the Heart

by Renee Ryder

  “Maybe we could find a big oak tree, but that’s not safe if there’s lightning. But then again, it could pass.”

  She pondered it over.

  “Listen, Nico. It’s only eleven o’clock. We have time. Better we go to the old hotel. Then we’ll wait there and see what the weather does.”

  “All right. From the hotel it should only take us twenty minutes at the most to get to the place where you can see the view.”

  Nico checked that no one was coming, and made a U-turn as he pulled out.

  A few curves later, she was thankful she’d made the decision. Dark gray clouds swept across the sky at a surreal rate, chasing them as they drove, and then opened to pour down copious amounts of rain.

  “We’re almost there,” he called back to her, while the Vespa’s tires cut through the mist created by the raindrops smashing themselves into the pavement so hard they nebulized into the air. “I’m going slow ’cause the road is just getting wet, so it’s really slippery.”

  “Yes, I know,” she answered, keeping her purse with their cell phones in it wedged safe between her thighs and his butt.

  Their clothes were drenched. Her braid, sopping wet, weighed on her back. She felt the water sliding under her shirt, down her shorts and legs and into her sandals; splashes from Nico’s helmet pelted her face. At least her helmet covered her head.

  She wasn’t scared, but not knowing what was going to happen to them gave her a distanced kind of anxiety, like when watching a surfer attempt a huge wave.

  “Shit!” he muttered as he stopped the Vespa in front of a half-rusted, locked gate. Beyond, a narrow driveway led the way to a building. “Why the fuck do they put a chain on it when the place is in ruins?” He looked angry for the first time.

  “And now? What do we do?” she asked through the noise of the now pounding rain.

  “Get down.”

  Motivated by a sense of danger and careful with her footing, she climbed down. He followed suit and parked the scooter at the edge of the road, setting the kickstand.

  “Come on.” He grabbed the bag with the sandwiches and began walking down along the cyclone fence that divided the road from the hotel’s property.

  After thirty steps or so of trudging with the current washing over their feet from the small stream created by the rain, he located an opening cut through the metal lattice, as though someone armed with wire cutters had faced the same problem. He slipped through and held it open for her, then they started for the building across the derelict lot. The ground here was grassy and partly covered by some randomly scattered trees, which muted the sizzling sound of the rain.

  “Anna, I’m so sorry. I really am,” he repeated while they sloshed through the mud, sidestepping small bushes and dodging low branches.

  “It’s okay, Nico. Definitively not your fault.”

  “My dad keeps an eye on the weather report ’cause we go out in the boat, and they said it was supposed to be a nice morning.”

  “Don’t worry. Only we have to find the way to this building.”

  They came up to another fence, taller than Nico, camouflaged by myriad leafy vines winding around themselves to form a dense green wall that surrounded the perimeter. Above it she saw the rectangular building rising up, its floors marked by symmetrical balconies up to the gently sloping roof, a type of architecture that her eye had grown accustomed to over the week. Nico followed the vines, continuing to mumble that there must be a way through, while flashes of lightning joined the rain and lit up the eerie sky.

  “Here we go!” he exclaimed when he discovered a spot that appeared to have been trampled by a herd of cows. “I knew it. If someone broke through back there, they had to of come through here.”

  Is someone already inside?

  Maybe a homeless person. Or a drug addict.

  “Do you think it’s secure?”

  “Of course it is. Don’t worry.”

  She trusted him, but even if she didn’t, what choice did she have? Go back by herself on foot through the deluge?

  They quickly made their way through the plants and shrubs to the parking lot of the hotel, now filled with weeds that fought for space between every crack in the asphalt. Once it may have appeared stately and welcoming, but sadly the years of neglect had left the building’s beige exterior crumbling and cracked, with glass missing in several windows.

  The main entrance gaped open, doors missing. Above, the glass was broken or gone from the balcony windows and sections of exposed brickwork stood out in discolored splotches, giving the hotel a sinister look. Her desire to find a dry place won out over her apprehension and she followed Nico inside cautiously, in case someone might jump out at any moment. Then she looked around.

  It must have been deserted for years, judging by the vegetation that had sprouted up in the lobby. The space was large and otherwise empty, with only a few counters that must have formed the reception area and bar. A good amount of plaster had fallen from the walls completely covered in layers of colorful graffiti that looked more like artistic decoration than uncivil scribbles. A yawning hole in the ceiling near one of the side exits, as if the room above had collapsed, caused her some distress. Underneath it lay a pile of plaster and rubble, leaving a large “O” where a chandelier might once have hung.

  She set the backpack on the ground and he did the same with the plastic bag.

  “My goodness, what a mess!” he said with a sigh, looking at her feet.

  “Well, just think if we had kept going!”

  “No, I don’t want to. It would of been all open space and … I’m so glad you decided we should come back!”

  She smiled and removed the helmet. He did, too.

  They were soaking wet from their shoulders to their toes.

  Her matted braid was becoming intolerable, so she undid it and tried to comb through it with her fingers.

  “This is one of those times when I envy the girls with short hair,” she said, tilting her head sideways while loosening the knotted strands.

  “You’d look beautiful with any haircut.”

  She thanked him, flattered; however her smile faded when she noticed that the rain had made her shirt nearly transparent. She blushed in a fit of modesty.

  Oh damn it! Why did I wear my white bra?! … At least I put on black shorts.

  She wanted to cover herself up, but worried he’d think she didn’t trust him.

  “Brr! It’s so cold!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Wait here. I’ll go look for a blanket or something.”

  “Okay, but don’t go up there. The floor doesn’t look very solid.” She waved a hand towards the huge hole in the ceiling.

  Alone now, she checked the backpack.

  “Fuck!”

  Her hat had absorbed a good amount of rainwater, but the sketchbook was ruined. Thankfully she had the habit of ripping out her completed drawings to keep them from getting creased while she worked on new ones.

  She looked around the room again and spotted a coat rack on the wall to the left of the lobby. She brought her things over to hang up the hat and backpack. Then she propped the sketchbook above them on the hooks.

  “There’s nothing clean to cover us, but I did find this,” Nico said when he returned, holding up a plastic bucket.

  “What you’re planning to do with that?”

  He winked and headed outside, sticking along the wall under the eaves.

  The wind wasn’t blowing like a storm gale, but was strong; she could tell from the way it shook the foliage on the fence and made the rain fall diagonally.

  “Don’t become wet!” she shouted after him as he left the shelter of the room and positioned the bucket below the gushing gutter.

  Before she could ask what he was up to, he returned dripping wet with the bucket filled. His black hair had plastered itself to his forehead and he pushed it back carelessly with his hand as he joined her.

&nb
sp; “Here we are,” and, with a sly little grin on his lips, he set it in front of her.

  “Um, do I have to do something?”

  He knelt down and reached for one of her feet.

  She didn’t understand his intention, but not wanting to be rude, she didn’t stop him.

  He undid the buckle of her sandal, then lifted her mud-encrusted foot and eased it into the bucket.

  “Is it cold?”

  “A little. But what you’re do—?”

  “I feel terrible, Anna. Here I wanted you to have a great day and look at the mess I’ve gotten you into.” He started on her ankle.

  “Come on, Nico! Are you playing at Jesus?”

  Without stopping, he lifted his eyes to hers and smiled in apparent appreciation of the irony—with his hair messed up, he was even cuter … She let him continue, because the caked mud was beginning to dry and irritate her.

  “Thank you. Is the first time that someone did this for me,” she told him, feeling ridiculous with one foot in a bucket, her purse slung crosswise and her arms clamped across her chest.

  The storm now added more sounds to its symphony, not with explosive thunder but the deep kind that rolls and builds, drawing out into a foreboding rumble.

  When he had rinsed her foot, she watched him curiously as he took out some napkins from the bag holding the sandwiches. He spread out a sort of mat next to the bucket. And then, unexpectedly, he pulled off his shirt and wrung it out forcefully until no more water could be squeezed out.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Gimme your foot.”

  “Oh, Nico. You don’t have to do so.”

  “Your foot!” he repeated, in an authoritative but joking tone.

  While he dried her off up the knee with this makeshift towel, she instinctively put her hand on his wet head for balance.

  “Sorry. I was losing my scale.”

  “Hahaha! Something’s off about that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A scale’s an instrument that weighs things.”

  “Oh yes, I meant ‘balance!’ ” she said, realizing that the word bilancia had mislead her.

  “Sorry it made me laugh ’cause a scale isn’t something you usually carry around. You can say ‘I’m losing a shoe’ or ‘I’m losing my hat,’ but a scale … Sorry.”

  Seeing him in such a good mood cheered her up, too.

  “You must have thought I was missing some Fridays!” she joked, making him laugh.

  Her foot now resting on the “mat,” he wanted to wash the other one, too, and insisted until she gave him permission.

  She appreciated that he didn’t put his hands up to her thigh, although he touched her so gently that even on her calf it felt sensual.

  “They happen often in the summer?” she asked him, to keep the moment casual. The silence was filled only by the whistling wind and created a rather romantic atmosphere, or recreated a tradition of old, with the foot bath …

  “What?”

  “These water bombs.”

  “Yes, but not only in the summer.”

  “Oh, that must be terrible,” she said, taking her foot out of the bucket. He wrapped it in his damp T-shirt.

  “Besides the disaster that they cause in the city with flash floods coming down from the hills, the awful thing is that they’re unpredictable. The sun’s shining, you’ve got plans, and a second later, bam!”

  “Yes. In a way they remind me of those frightening pranks.”

  “Frightening pranks?”

  “How do you call those prank when a guy hides in a garbage can and jumps out fast, screaming, at someone who’s about to put the garbage in?”

  “I’d call them ‘fucked up,’ hahaha! But I think we’d just call them ‘pranks.’ Or maybe ‘scare pranks.’ Is that better?” he asked about her now dry foot.

  “Yes, thanks. Wait, where do you go?”

  “To change the water.”

  She was in misery for him because he went out shirtless into the tempest, and now it was hailing; but he had the right to wash his feet, too. However, when he returned, he bent over the bucket again and dipped her sandals in it. Then he began wiping them off with his bare hands.

  “Nico, please. You’re—”

  “All done,” he interrupted, even though he was still cleaning them.

  “And your shoes? Your legs?”

  “Why clean them?” He chuckled. “They’ll just get dirty when we leave.”

  “Mine will, too. So why did you wash them?”

  “You won’t get muddy again.”

  She stared at him, searching to make sense of his words, when a loud noise made her jump.

  “It’s okay. A gust of wind banged a shutter.”

  “You know, this place looks like the set of a horror film, hahaha!”

  “It does.” He looked around as he wiped the sandals on his shirt one at a time. “But don’t be scared, Anna. As long as I’m here, nothing bad will happen to you.”

  “Well, thank you, my knight in shining armor!”

  She’d meant it to be funny, laughed a little too hard at the seriousness of his promise. He, on the other hand, didn’t react to the joke and that made the situation even more thorny. Time to change the subject.

  “So, you have never watched a video of those fucked up pranks, huh?”

  “No.”

  “You can find them on YouTube, if you want.”

  “Every now and then I watch a few videos about fishing, but I don’t spend a lot of time on there.” He propped her sandals against the baseboard and then hung his shirt on one of the coat hooks above.

  “But you should try to see those pranks. They’re funny. I mean, if you’re not the victim.”

  “You mean people do these and put them on YouTube?”

  “Uh-huh. Wait, I’ll show you some.”

  She pulled out her phone and found a compilation where the prankster hid to scare her unfortunate friend.

  “Come here,” she invited him over, as the screen was small and she stood barefoot on the little paper mat.

  She started the video. By now she was used to seeing him in only his jeans, but the closeness of that well-muscled body, the bare skin of his arm rubbing against her made it difficult to concentrate on the screen.

  “What the hell!” He startled when a woman opened a refrigerator and a guy in a costume jumped out.

  “See? It’s funny to see how they react.”

  And the video continued.

  “No, come on. That’s just not right,” he said when a raincoat came to life suddenly, frightening the man who’d opened the closet to death.

  “But you have to admit that the way he jumped, and the face he made …” and they started laughing again when a burly guy walking down the street stumbled clumsily and fell over after a mechanical mouse crossed his path.

  Darkness.

  When she re-opened her eyes, her ears rang with the terrifying boom that had scared her more than any of the people in the pranks. Her vocal cords still vibrated from the high-pitched shriek that had ripped from her throat. The cell phone lie on the ground and she found herself hugging Nico.

  20. Sense of Guilt

  Hannah was stunned into paralysis, with her cheek pressed against Nico’s neck. She pulled her head back from him, trying to understand what had happened. His face was inches away. She’d never seen him so close. His black hair glistened with water and a few drops slid to his temples. The warmth of the mutual hug lessened the chill of her damp clothes. As though hypnotized, she was lost in his eyes, the deep brown of an ancient, slumbering wood. In the quiet of his gaze, she felt an impending wildfire. Something untameable grew inside him and she waited, unsure if she was more scared or curious. His eyes sparked with heat and lowered to her mouth. She realized he was about to kiss her. He tilted his head toward her and she woke up from the trance. All the emotions he’d stirred up inside her instantly res
et. She turned to the side, denying him her lips and freeing herself from his hold.

  He stopped without pushing her.

  Not knowing what to say, what to do, where to look, and conscious of blushing, she turned toward the reception area with the intention of giving him her back.

  “Sorry, Anna. I thought that …”

  “No, it’s my fault,” she interrupted, bending to pick up her phone—an excellent pretext for avoiding eye contact. “That lightning scared me, and I don’t know what I was doing.”

  “I didn’t want to take advantage of the situation.”

  “Thank God the screen isn’t broken,” she sighed, then checked that the phone was still working.

  She hurried to get her sandals. Although they were wet, she dusted off the soles of her feet and put them on. Movement helped her to contain the tension that had been released in the big, empty room, but it echoed inside her like the very thunder that had pushed her toward him.

  “Anna?”

  She ignored him, eager to erase the memory of his eyes aimed at her mouth, and resolutely headed toward the exit.

  “Damn storm,” she muttered in English, stopping on the threshold.

  The gate was there, behind a wall of gushing rain.

  “Anna?”

  There was no way to avoid discussing it. She wondered what emotion kept her from turning around. She thought fear, but in that case she wouldn’t have turned her back to him. Maybe it was simply embarrassment.

  “Anna?”

  His voice sounded shaky and rough, as if he were fighting to get it out. He must feel even more embarrassed than she did.

  She turned around, hoping the fire in her cheeks had gone out. She returned slowly to him, her eyes still glued to the dusty floor.

  “Nico, I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  She wanted to look at his face, but what if his expression reflected the way he sounded, like a whipped dog? It would only amplify her own guilt, and already it was hard to handle.

  “I misunderstood. It’s just that when you hugged me I …”

  “I should have not done so, but it was an istint reaction to the thunder. I didn’t mean anything.”