The disappointment was physical.
I brought out my wallet and the piece of paper Mateo had given me. He said we could iMessage. I suppose I could have texted him, but I was afraid that the phone wasn’t private. What if his wife was super nosy and was always rooting through his stuff? What if she was super paranoid that he’d been gone for a month and was keeping an eye on him?
What if she knew?
I felt sick to my stomach. With the emotional haze of Las Palabras slipping away by the minute, like waking up from a dream you wanted to keep going, the reality of what had happened between us was slowly seeping in.
I was a bad person. This wasn’t news to me, but now I really knew. I wasn’t the black sheep, I was a black hole. I fell for a married man…I had sex with a married man. He’d told me I made him forget his vows and that had made me happy. People like me were disgusting.
And yet, it still did make me happy. It made me more than happy. Being with him had fulfilled me.
God, I was looney tunes. To hammer that point home, I went into my phone and checked my email, hoping to have gotten something from him.
There was nothing. No sign that Mateo ever existed except in my head.
And so began the rest of my day. I slowly got ready, taking a shower, my hair happy to have new shampoo and conditioner on it. I put on fresh clothes that had been laundered recently. Even though the maid service at Las Palabras did your laundry for you once a week, you were still stuck wearing the same things over and over again. I put on makeup that I hadn’t seen for six weeks, going nuts with shimmery emerald green on my eyes.
Every spare moment I had, between the shower and the clothes and the makeup, I was checking my phone. I kept entering my damn passcode so often that my thumb was getting carpal tunnel. Finally, just as I was pouring myself a bowl of gluten-free cereal (my mom had a gluten intolerance and my Froot Loops had gone stale), I got an email. I nearly leaped for joy.
It was from Eduardo, and it was a group email to everyone at Las Palabras, telling us all what a great time he had. It was weird to see those names again while I stood in my mother’s sterile kitchen, my memories of heat and gold contradicting with the grey and damp. It was like the two worlds could never really mesh with each other.
Minutes later there was another email, this one from Wayne, hitting “reply all.” And then another person and another. I wasn’t all that interested in Froggy Carlos’s first day speaking English to his co-workers, I just wanted to hear from damn Mateo. But, it seemed, he hadn’t emailed them either.
I really didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t even want to unpack because that really meant it was all over. But I couldn’t keep living with a backpack of smelly clothes. I took everything out and my heart sank at the sight of the turron from Nerea and the bronze pig from Angel and the Spaniards. I brought them out, carrying them as if they were baby birds, over to a corner of my bedside table. I would make a shrine to Spain.
Yes. That wouldn’t be weird at all.
I’d been sitting on my bed for hours and going through the photos on my SLR when Josh stuck his head in my room. My mom had been out all day, so for once I was grateful for the company.
“You’re home!” I exclaimed.
He gave me a puzzled look. “Yeah, just got cut early. Slow day.”
I could smell him from where I was, a mixture of burgers and weed.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“You keep asking me that.”
“You seem strangely happy to see me.”
I shrugged. I guess I’d become so used to having people around me twenty-four seven.
“What have you been doing?” he asked, leaning against the doorway. He eyed my backpack, the clothes strewn all over the floor. “Gave up already?”
Don’t give up on us. Mateo’s last words rang through my head. I hadn’t. So why hadn’t he contacted me? Maybe I had to email him. He did say it was private.
“Vera,” Josh said loudly. “Earth to sister.”
“Sorry,” I said absently, switching the camera screen off.
“Look,” he said, “I’m going to the Met tonight with some people. Why don’t you come with?”
Ugh. The Met. That skeezy bar was such a hit or miss. Still…I was up for getting out of the house, doing anything to take my mind off of things. I couldn’t believe I actually missed talking all day long.
A friendly Facebook message from Claudia and an email from Sammy later, I was shimmying into a pair of black skinny jeans and a tight Queen baseball tee that put Freddie Mercury’s eyes right on my boobs. Hearing from those two girls helped my mood, even though Sammy’s email contained a picture of a penis.
The Met was located in the bad part of downtown that resembled a typical episode of The Walking Dead. It was too far to walk, both of us were too cheap for a cab, and Josh wasn’t going to drive drunk, so we got on the bus. It was weird sitting on it and observing the people around me. Though Madrid had also been a bustling city, there was more life and friendliness there. More smiles.
“Why does it look like you’re plotting to kill everyone?” Josh leaned over and asked as the bus zipped down Broadway. “Is there something I don’t know about?”
“They were right, you know,” I said. “Whoever said Vancouver was a no-fun city.”
“Maybe, but…you know you can still have fun, right?”
“People in Spain were so…I don’t know…happy to see you. Friendlier. Talkative.”
“Vancouver has always been this way. It’s not that different from other big cities.”
“It’s changed.”
“No, Vera. You’ve changed.”
He was right. I’d been happy with my beautiful no-fun city up until now. This became more apparent as the night went on. We got a table in the corner of the dingy hipster bar, and while we waited for his friends to show up, I couldn’t help but notice the atmosphere. Oh, it was pretty much the usual—drunk chicks, cocky boys, $3 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon on ice—but I was now noticing the differences between here and Spain. The men would stare, but only the really drunk or overly arrogant men would approach the women. There was a lot of lusty looks that eventually led to grinding by the jukebox, but no friendly smiles or flirty conversations.
Josh’s friends weren’t much better, I knew this, but at least when they were around me they talked and didn’t stare endlessly at Freddie Mercury. Well, not all of them. I’d known the lanky Brad since I was a kid, and body modification lover Phil had been my friend since high school. I was pretty much a sister to them.
Then there was Adam, a guy I had only met a few times before. He was pretty hot, I had to give him that—green-blue eyes, wide jaw, spiky dark blonde hair, strong build—which is why I normally didn’t mind when he stared at my breasts. Now, though, it just felt wrong. He was pretty much leering and I wished I could make Freddy give him the stink-eye.
“So, Spain,” Adam said. “Bet you partied pretty hard there. Did you go to Ibiza?”
I shook my head, turning the can of beer around and around. “No, I was just in one place. Acantilado, teaching English.”
“That sucks.”
I gave him a sharp look. “Believe me, it didn’t.”
He leaned back in his chair and gave me a wry look. “I don’t know, teaching? That sucks. That’s, like, totally not a vacation. You should have seen some culture or something.”
I exhaled in a hard puff. “There was plenty of culture.”
“So who were you teaching? Were they kids?”
“No, adults.”
“Were they, like, retarded?”
I glared at his choice of word, feeling very defensive. “No, they were professionals. They all had a basic level of English. This was just for conversational English. To build their vocabulary and confidence in business situations.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, that still sounds boring to me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.” I got out of my seat and l
ooked at Josh who had been looking at me with a strange look on his face. “Do you want a drink?”
He nodded and Adam said, “Get one for me too, babe.”
I held out my palm in front of him and wriggled my fingers. He looked confused. “Give me money,” I said, “and I’ll get you a drink.”
He grunted and fished out some cash, tossing it across the table, nowhere near my open hand. He gave a chagrined smile to Josh. “Jeez, Josh, your big sister comes back from Europe and suddenly she hates my guts.”
I gave him an odd look and snatched the money off the table. Hate his guts? I didn’t even know him. Sure, I had made the flirty eyes, touchy-touchy moves on him a few times before, but that was then and this was now. Adam was just a boy, and I didn’t want a boy anymore. I wanted a man, I needed a man, and one man in particular.
I went to the dirty bathroom, checking my phone for texts and emails while I was in the stall. Nothing from Mateo.
I felt like crushing the phone in my hand, my lips pressed together. I stuck it back in my purse and made my way out to the bar. While in line, having a chick spill beer on my boots, I started thinking maybe I’d had enough of this place. When “Summertime Sadness” came blasting on through the speakers, much to the squeal of all the hipster girls, that’s when I really knew. I bought Josh and Adam’s beers and then plopped them down on their table.
“Where’s your beer?” Josh asked.
“I’m going home,” I told him.
He started to get up but I put out my hand. “No, I’m fine. Stay. It’s the jet lag. Need to go to sleep.” I gave everyone else a quick smile. “Have a good night.”
I turned and walked, hearing Josh yell, “Vera!” and then Adam saying, “Let her go, she’s probably PMSing.”
“Fuck you,” I grumbled under my breath. I walked out onto the puddle-strewn street, the lights reflecting forlornly in them. It wasn’t cold out but the dampness made me hug myself as I walked, my head down, my pace quick. I walked up a few blocks until the sketchy junkies were replaced by drunk bums, then walked past a hostel on the way to my bus stop.
I couldn’t help but stop. They had a small bar and computer area right by the windows. I stared in at the warm glow of the room, the travel posters of Vancouver and BC on the red walls. There was an Indian girl and a German-looking guy having a drink and chatting, all shy smiles, guidebooks in their hands. There were two Asian girls on the computers, fueled by paper cups of coffee, and writing up a storm. A tall couple with blonde hair and backpacks were talking to the young woman at reception who was pointing to a map of the city.
That had been me in London six weeks ago. All this promise and possibility ahead of me, the novelty of the new. Those people inside were experiencing something that would change them forever.
And here I was, standing on a dark, damp city street, alone.
Just memories.
No messages.
Chapter 19
I’d become obsessive.
This wasn’t a new thing for me; I’d always gotten easily wrapped in things. When I was twelve, I saw Indiana Jones for the first time (yeah, I know, took me long enough), and I became obsessed with not only Harrison Ford, but with archeology. I decided I was totally going to be an archeologist instead of an astronomer, and wanted to live my life traipsing through the jungles and deserts on wild adventures. I also decided I would invent a time machine to take me back to the 1980s when Harrison Ford was younger and less grumpy, then somehow convince him to marry me and bring him back to the future.
When I was sixteen I became obsessed with Nick Cave and everything Nick Cave related. I joined chat rooms and fan groups, I poured over lyrics, analyzing them, I collected interviews and read them over and over again in hopes of gleaning something from his words. I started babysitting, even though I wasn’t a big fan of children at the time, so I’d have enough money to drive around America and follow him on tour. Needless to say, I never saved up enough money for that, but I did earn enough to buy signed LPs for my non-existent record player and rare concert posters.
And when I was twenty-three, I went to Spain for a month, fell hard for a married Spanish man and became obsessed over the fact that I hadn’t heard from him. For two days after I had gone to the Met with Josh, I’d become a walking time bomb. I wrote countless messages to Claudia, even Polly, who I grew closer to after the program, it seemed, since we were going through the same thing. At least Eduardo was in contact with her. I talked to other people too—Sammy, Becca, even Manuel the rocker dropped me a line asking about a band we had been listening to together.
No Mateo.
I checked all the time, thinking that the world could change in ten minutes, five minutes, two minutes, thirty seconds.
“Okay,” Josh said to me one sunny morning over bowls of Froot Loops. “Time to spill the beans. Why do you keep checking your phone?”
Caught, I quickly shoved my phone back in my pocket. I opened my mouth to speak but he showed me his palm. “And don’t tell me it’s jet lag.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s nothing. I’m just waiting to hear from a friend of mine.”
His eyes narrowed and he shoved a spoon of cereal in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “This wouldn’t be a male friend, would it?”
I just stared at him blankly.
“Vera, you’re not blinking.”
I blinked. Several times.
He shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“What?”
“I’ve never ever seen you like this before over a guy,” he said.
He’s not just some guy, I wanted to say. He’s my man.
At least, he was.
Kinda.
“I don’t really feel like talking about it,” I said, making sure I was blinking a lot while I ate.
“Are you sure? Because your leg keeps shaking the table and you’ve got the crazy eyes going on.”
I stilled my leg. I brought the conversation over to Josh’s art because that was something that we both liked to talk about. But once he got up to put our empty bowls in the sink, I quickly ripped out my phone and checked. My compulsion was out of control.
But I had an email!
I wriggled in my seat, biting my lip as I got a closer look.
Shit. It wasn’t from Mateo. It was from Las Palabras. And it was an attachment.
With my heart in my throat, I downloaded the attachment and opened it.
I sucked in my breath, a pain forming at the back of my throat. It was the group picture on the last day.
From far away it looked like a blur of smiling faces against a blue sky. I took my fingers and zoomed in, going right for me and Mateo.
There we were. My cheeks were red, my face fresh and dewy, like I had this radiant glow about me. Mateo had his arm around me. Seeing his face on the screen felt strange, like he somehow knew I was looking at him, like I was being intrusive. I couldn’t explain it. The fact that he looked more handsome than my memories didn’t help either.
“I see,” Josh said, and I spun around, realizing he was behind me and peering inquisitively over my shoulder. For a split second I had déjà vu, then I remembered that Mateo had done a similar thing to me when I was writing an email to Josh.
“It’s the group picture,” I said. I quickly zoomed it out so it showed all of us.
“You look very happy,” he said in a tone of voice that let me know he wanted to say more. He turned and went down the hall to his room, leaving me with a picture of what was. I stared at it alone, in silence, for a very long time, memorizing everyone’s faces, remembering their voices, their accents, their laughter. Saliva flooded my mouth and I swallowed it down.
Eventually I got up, printed out the picture from my mom’s high tech office computer on a glossy 8x10, and then put it on the wall above the turron and the pig. My shrine to the person I was, was growing.
The obsession continued. I had a feeling it was the only thing keeping my heart from breaking.
&nbs
p; The next day, before Mercy and Charles showed up for dinner, I decided to bite the bullet and email Mateo. He had told me it was private, but just in case I wanted it to look as professional as possible.
Hi, Mateo!
Just wanted to drop you a line and see how your English was keeping up! Things are great back in Vancouver, although it’s raining more than usual and that says a lot. The sunny days remind me of Las Palabras! Well, anyway, thought I would say hello. Hope you’re enjoying time back with your family.
Best,
Vera Miles
Not the best email I had ever written but it had to do. I waited a full five minutes, debating on whether to send it or not before I closed my eyes and clicked send. Now it was gone, out of my hands. And of course, now my obsession was going to grow two-fold.
I decided to be brave and leave the phone behind at the house when we went out for dinner. Mercy and Charles were coming over for a few drinks beforehand and then we were going to go to The Fish House in Stanley Park.
“VeeVee.” Mercy said my nickname as she walked into the house with her arms open wide. “I would have thought you’d be more tan.”
“Nice to see you too,” I said as we did a quick, shallow hug. “Less than a week back and the rain has sucked the color out of me.”
“You really need to go to my tanning studio,” she said, comparing her orangey tanned arm to mine. It wasn’t really a fair comparison since I had tattoos on mine which seemed to highlight the pale.
Mercy and I looked vaguely similar. We had the same build, generous in the boobs and the butt, but she did a lot of pilates that made her stand taller and look more toned. Her hair was chemically straightened and a dark golden blonde that I couldn’t figure out if she dyed or not, since I hadn’t seen her natural hair color in years. In a nutshell, she was like Jennifer Aniston on Friends, right down to the sleek and simple way she dressed. The pricey rock on her ring finger and her diamond earrings were spoils from her materialistic aspirations.
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