by Becky Blake
Tourists were stepping over my outstretched legs. I pulled up my knees. I’d seen how the woman with the blue purse had reacted after being robbed, but she’d been a special case; she’d recovered her lost item in less than an hour. Now I wanted to know what happened to our other victims, what they did to make themselves feel better and how long it took. “One time, I want to see what happens after,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Manu asked.
“I want to follow one of them.”
He threw another coin toward Atlas. “Definitely not in the metro.”
“Okay,” I said. “But maybe somewhere else?”
Tourists were staring at us as they walked by like they were expecting us to do a trick. I scratched at a mosquito bite on my ankle. We had no plans, nothing to eat, nowhere to be.
Manu looked across the street toward the entrance of the Boqueria. “Somewhere like the market maybe?”
“Sure.”
He sighed. “I’ll meet you back here afterwards.” He stood up and took off, skirting the traffic and then entering the crowd.
I stepped up onto the base of a lamppost so I could track his progress. When I saw him bump into someone and apologize, I knew he’d done it. The girl was a tall blond, Scandinavian maybe. She hardly looked at him; just flicked her long hair, then turned away. I crossed the street and followed her into the market, watched her join her friends, a group of girls. Next to the sweaty hard-working fruit sellers, the girls looked like royalty. I trailed behind them as they went out through the back exit of the market and into El Raval. They were probably staying at a cheap hostel there and hadn’t stopped to consider that it might be dangerous.
They walked into a convenience store and I watched them through the window. The shopkeeper was frowning at their bare shoulders as they approached the counter with a bottle of cheap cava. I watched the tall blond as she dipped her hands in and out of her purse, shuffling and rearranging things, laying out her possessions on the counter. I watched her movements begin to loop and backtrack, gradually becoming more urgent. I watched her friends trying to be helpful, the shopkeeper giving up hope before the others. Then I watched her become still for a moment, the shock of what had happened freezing her in place. It only takes a second for things to be lost, even things you thought were yours to keep. Then she was moving again, her eyes reaching to the ceiling, remembering in detail what was in her wallet: her money and credit card, her ID that she needed to get home. Maybe a little pouch with every fortune she’d ever gotten from a cookie. Or an old photograph of her grandfather that she loved. All of it was gone now. Someone had taken those things from her. She’d been wearing her purse across her body the whole time, just like the guidebook said, so why did this have to happen?
Outside of the store, a three-legged dog sniffed at my ankles and made me jump. I pushed him aside with my foot, then turned back to the window. The girl’s friends were looking uneasy now. There was nothing for them to say, no way for them to comfort her. They seemed to be wondering how they could step back from the situation, continue on without the wounded one, get back to the hostel and try on their new clothes. But of course they couldn’t do that. Not just yet. One by one, I watched them shift into postures of sympathy. Their friend had been careless, more careless than themselves – the lucky ones were tossing this thought between them with their eyes.
I crossed to the other side of the street as the girls emerged from the store. The young woman who’d lost her wallet took a deep breath, pulled a clip from her bag and began to wind her long hair up and out of her face. This was no longer the time for having hair that men wanted to touch. The girls conferred for a moment, then hugged each other, the wounded one heading back toward the market, alone.
I stayed where I was in the shadows, still as a human statue. She was going back to make sure it was really gone. I’d been planning to follow her for longer, but now I didn’t need to. I already knew what she’d be doing: slowly retracing her steps, studying the gutters and doorways, wondering what she’d done wrong. When she reached the market, she’d approach the sun-hardened vendors, asking each of them a single question in her fragile broken Spanish: My wallet, have you seen it? The vendors would shrug their shoulders.
I wished I hadn’t followed her. I’d wanted to see what happened next – how she made herself feel better – but now I was wondering if it might be time for me to go back to Peter’s. The idea made my chest hurt and the itch start under my skin. My voice would sound so tiny, cracked and broken, climbing up through the intercom from the street. It would feel like begging. It would feel like – something shifted inside me and I was outside my mother’s front door, knocking and knocking. I squeezed my hands into fists. I didn’t need to go back to Peter’s; I already knew that the things I’d lost there were gone.
Across the street, the three-legged dog was making its way from store to store, looking for a handout. Eventually someone would give him something, but so far he wasn’t having any luck. I whistled at him, and the dog hopped toward me, then sat at my feet, waiting to be fed.
“You shouldn’t beg,” I told him. I had a packet of crackers in my pocket. I ripped it open and bent down so he could eat them out of my hand.
When the last one was gone, I headed back to La Rambla to meet up with Manu. I was curious to find out how much money the tall blond woman had lost.
9
Manu hadn’t told his mother about the layoffs at the construction site because he didn’t want her to worry. If he could manage to survive in Spain for another year, he’d finally be allowed to apply for his permanent residency. Then he’d be able to get a real job again and bring over his relatives, one by one, reassembling his family like a jigsaw puzzle.
At the locutorio the next day we went into side-by-side phone booths, and after a moment, I could hear him talking to his mother, smoothing down the edges of the truth. In my own booth, I studied the number I’d written on my hand. Brigid had emailed again, and this time she wanted me to call her – she said she had something to tell me. It was probably just some news about her wedding, or maybe she was pregnant. If she was pregnant, then she’d officially have everything: a good job, a handsome fiancé, a rich family, a perfect life. When I’d lived at her parents’ house, the wooden bannister of their staircase had always been polished and gleaming, the sheets in their guest bedroom scented with lavender.
I pressed the buttons on the phone, watching as Brigid’s number appeared on a little screen. After a suspended silence her phone began to ring. Once, twice. Maybe she wouldn’t answer.
“Hello?”
Hearing a voice from back home felt like a scab coming off too soon. I had to stop myself from hanging up. “Hey, Brigid.”
“Niki! Oh my god! I didn’t recognize this number.”
“Yeah, my phone doesn’t work here and I haven’t got a new one yet. I’m just calling from an Internet café.”
“Oh, wow. I hope it’s not too expensive.”
“No, it’s fine.” On the little screen, the price of the call was rising in steady five-cent increments.
“So? Is it beautiful there? It is, isn’t it?”
“It’s pretty nice.”
“I love Spain,” she said. “You’re so lucky to be living there! How’s Peter doing? Is he liking his new job?”
Those things were connected in her mind: my luck and Peter. If I told her about the breakup, I knew she’d say all the right things, but inside, she’d be judging me – trying to guess what I’d done wrong.
“Yeah, I think he likes it,” I said. “The people he works with are really talented.” I suddenly remembered him telling me how there were five different Marias in the restoration department. Even if I’d been wrong about him cheating, one of them was probably sleeping in our bed by now.
“He must be busy,” Brigid said.
Crimson lipstick. Black lace pan
ties. “Yes.”
“You know” – Brigid’s voice brightened – “one of the girls at my office told me she hides a candy in her husband’s pocket every morning before he goes to work. That way, he thinks of her at least once a day, while he’s sucking on something sweet.”
I waited to see if she was joking. She wasn’t. “That’s very 1950s.”
Brigid snorted. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It is kind of old-fashioned. Still, I might try it. Or maybe I’ll ask Charlie to do it for me.” I pictured her drawing loopy hearts on the corner of a fresh sheet of paper.
“Are you guys doing okay?” I asked. In her email she’d mentioned they were arguing a lot, although it didn’t sound serious, just some minor disagreements about wedding-planning stuff.
“I think so. Sometimes I just feel like I’m going to freak out on him, and then the whole wedding will be cancelled. It’d be like forty thousand dollars down the drain.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine.” Brigid always mentioned the price of things.
“I know. But you guys are so smart! No wedding. No guests. Just put the ring on your finger, say the vows. Who cares who else is there?”
“Yeah, I guess it’s better that way.” She seemed to have forgotten that I didn’t have any family to invite anyway.
“Hey, how’s your painting coming?” she asked.
“Not too good. I haven’t really had a chance to start yet. I still need to buy some canvases, find a class to take.” I wondered if that would ever happen now – if I might someday find myself standing in front of a blank canvas again, a million possibilities surging through me. I pulled the red paint chip from my coat pocket. For some reason, I hadn’t thrown it away yet.
“You were always so good at that stuff,” Brigid said. “Almost every class Mr. B was dragging us over to look at your work.” She mimicked Mr. B’s pensive voice. “You see this line? This line has motion. It’s going somewhere.”
I smiled. “Mr. B was the best.” I’d had an intense crush on him all through grade twelve. I still thought of him every time I opened a new tube of paint.
“So, have you and Peter set a date yet?” Brigid was back on-point.
“Yeah. We made some arrangements at the courthouse for June eleventh.” This was actually true, although Peter had probably called to cancel our appointment by now.
“Wow, that’s only a couple weeks away. I really wish I could be there.”
I heard static on the line, another voice coming through faintly, like a conscience. I should just tell her the truth. A handful of words – that’s all it would take. I dared myself to do it. “Actually, Brigid –”
“Wait. Hold on a sec. My phone’s doing something strange. Let me take you off headset and see if that helps.”
I listened to her fumbling around. In the booth next door, Manu was agreeing to something with a long slow string of yeses. I touched the wall between us.
“Does that sound better?” Brigid asked.
“Maybe a little.” The voice was still there, an urgent whispered warning. Telling Brigid what had happened was going to make the breakup feel more real – like it was permanent in some new or sadder way. The thought disturbed me. It meant I was still carrying a little bit of hope inside, a dangerous useless spark that refused to go out. I didn’t know where it was coming from.
“What were you going to say?” Brigid asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. I can’t remember; it was probably nothing.”
She paused for a second – a hiccup in time, a skipped heartbeat. If she knew something was wrong, she didn’t ask. “Well, we’ll have to celebrate the next time you’re in Canada. I’ll get you a cake. A big floofy one with five layers and those disgusting sugar rosettes.”
I sighed. “You know I hate cake.” When I’d stayed with her family, I hadn’t been able to eat even one piece of the birthday cake they’d made me.
“Yes, I know you hate cake,” Brigid said. “But wedding cake is not optional.”
“Cake is always optional. Maybe you can get me something that doesn’t come from a bakery.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” she said. “That’s actually what I wanted to tell you: I saw your mom a week or so ago.”
Sugar rosettes – I could suddenly taste them; feel the sharp edges of cheap icing against my tongue. “Where?”
“I had to get my driver’s licence renewed and she was at the office. She was taking her test.”
“My mother’s learning how to drive?”
“I guess so.”
“That’s weird.” I’d just gotten a driver’s licence myself – less than a year ago with Peter’s help.
“Have you talked to her?” Brigid asked.
“No.”
“Hmm.” I could tell Brigid thought that was a mistake. “Well. I didn’t know if you had or you hadn’t, so I didn’t say too much. She was asking me a million questions. I wasn’t going to tell her about you getting married, but then she brought it up. She said she already knew. That you’d sent her a postcard.”
I let out a long breath. “I guess she’s in the same apartment.”
“Yep, she’s still there.”
“Great.” I picked at the edge of one of the little coloured stickers that were covering the wall of the phone booth. Most of them were ads for locksmiths: Cerrajero rápido. Servicio 24 horas. Especialistas. The stickers were all over the city for some reason: stuck like handfuls of adhesive confetti onto doors, street lamps and mailboxes.
“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you,” Brigid said. “Maybe you should call her. She seemed like she really wanted to talk to you. I know it’s none of my business though.”
“Was Max with her?”
“No. She was by herself.”
It had been so long since I’d seen my mother that I could only picture her in fragments: the soft curve of her upper arm, her smudged glasses, the chemical smell of her hair dye, the crumbs she left behind on the table – the only proof I’d had sometimes that she’d been home.
“Are you okay?” Brigid asked.
“I’m fine.” After six years, my mother knew something about me. And I knew something about her. A loose thread had been pulled, and I didn’t know how much damage would result.
“I miss you,” Brigid said.
“I miss you too.” Especially when she’d gone off to university. I’d missed her like crazy back then.
“Are you sure you won’t be able to come home for my wedding in August?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, let me know if you change your mind, and I’ll put you guys on the list. Two extra guests, one with no cake.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, can we talk again soon? I want to know how the wedding ceremony goes!”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll give you a call in a couple of weeks.”
After saying goodbye, I hung up the phone and touched my forehead to the wall. The booth next door was quiet. When I exited, I found Manu waiting for me in a chair by the window. His bandana was in his lap and his hair was covering his face. From his slumped posture, it seemed like his mother had asked him for more money.
I unzipped the inside pocket of my coat and took out the ring I’d been keeping in there. It was a white gold band with a sprinkling of small diamonds embedded in it like imprisoned stars. In the centre of my palm, it looked like a hole that a promise had fallen into. Maybe the last bit of hope I was feeling about Peter was coming from the ring. I didn’t want to carry it close to my body anymore.
“Here.” I held out the ring to Manu and he looked up. “Take it. For your family.” I figured he could get a couple hundred euros for it. Then maybe his mother would leave him alone for a while.
I was expecting him to protest, but he just looked tired, like he’d given up on something. “Are you s
ure?” he asked.
I nodded and handed him the ring.
“Thank you,” he said.
Outside the front window a couple walked by, their hands shoved deep into each other’s pockets. When I glanced back at Manu, he’d already stashed the ring away.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. He stood up and took my hand by mistake. As we walked to the counter to pay, I could feel him letting me go in tiny self-conscious increments, and I imagined how sweet he must have been a couple years earlier, with a first girlfriend maybe.
Out on the street there was a vendor selling flowers, his stall lined with deep buckets of freshly cut blooms. Manu went over and picked out a rose, a red one with its petals still tightly closed. “Do you like roses?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He passed the rose to the vendor, a large man in a blue apron, who stuck the stem into a little vial of water.
“A special occasion?” the man asked me as Manu paid.
I shook my head.
“A flower just for today, then. The best kind.”
I carried the rose around all afternoon, smelling it from time to time, and wishing I could paint it: a splash of vermilion on a white canvas. After a few hours the rose was drooping, and I considered trying to save it somehow: hanging it to dry, or pulling off the petals and storing them in my pocket. I let each plan pass through me and move away. Living on the street, there was no real way to keep things, no way to mark them as yours. You just had to enjoy them while they were there. At dusk, before leaving the courtyard, I wove the stem of the rose through the wooden slats of a park bench and left it behind. Manu had bought me a rose. I no longer had any proof, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been a very lovely thing.