Love, in English

by Karina Halle

  Josh got my pack out of his trunk and swung it up on his shoulder with ease. Guess he’d been upping his workouts at the gym. “You never said a word about Herman.”

  I raised a brow. “Herman?”

  “My car. He’s German, ya?”

  “Aren’t cars supposed to be chicks?”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re so sexist.”

  “Look, do you really want to say, ‘I’m going to go take Herman for a ride,’ or ‘I love filling up Herman?’”

  He shrugged as we walked through the single-car garage where Mom’s Volvo was kept. “I’m not a homophobe. Besides, Kit, Hasselhoff’s car in Knight Rider, that was a guy. Shit, so was Herbie in the Love Bug.”

  “All right, all right,” I said, waving him away. We walked up the stairs to the main landing. It looked the same as before but the familiar was now foreign to me.

  My mom was in the kitchen, nursing a glass of wine and on the phone with someone. Once she saw me, she gave me her beautiful and genuine happy-to-see-you smile but then turned her back and continued to talk on the phone. From the tense way she carried herself, I could tell she was talking to a client.

  My mother was a gorgeous woman, even for her age. Though she was tiny and she’d gained a lot of weight on her lower half over the last few years, her face was unlined and her eyes behind her square glasses were youthful. She had long, dark brown hair that she always kept tied back in a bun. I knew she did this because she thought it made her look more professional and polished, but it also showed off her high Hungarian cheekbones.

  She was dressed well as always, too—she had a closet full of sharp suits, and she was wearing a slick navy one at the moment. This realization made my mind conjure up an image of Mateo, standing in the dining room at Las Palabras, wearing a silver grey suit that fit him like a second skin. In my head he smiled at me, a wide stretch of white teeth against golden skin.

  So breathtaking.

  And just like that, the bereft feeling encased my heart. All of that, all of him, felt so far away. Impossible to get back.

  “Are you all right?” Josh asked, putting a supportive hand on my shoulder.

  I nodded, noticing that my eyes were welling up again. “Jet lag.”

  And jet lag became my new excuse. I used it again during dinner when my mother noticed the glum expression on my face. For some reason my mother still insisted we all eat together at the dining room table, even though in the pre-divorce era everyone scattered to their rooms with their meals.

  “I’m sorry Mercy couldn’t be here,” my mother said as she daintily put a piece of maki tuna in her mouth. She finished chewing it completely before she swallowed. “She and Charles had a fundraiser to go to.”

  Of course. Mercy’s future husband, Charles, was an English ex-pat and worked for one of the city’s biggest developers. His company was always putting on a fundraiser or another, supposedly for charity, but I think it was just an excuse for a tax break—or a party.

  I shrugged. It used to sting when Mercy would throw me aside for her fiancé, but I didn’t care anymore. Funny, I think six weeks away made me realize who in my life was worth caring about.

  When dinner was over, I went straight to my room and told Josh and my mother I was going to bed. It was only seven o’clock, but again, jet lag. Actually, this time it wasn’t an excuse. I could feel my sleep deprivation catching up to me, making each step I took down the hall toward my room feel like I was moving through Jello.

  I dragged my bag into the corner of my room, started up my laptop with the noisy fan with the intention of uploading photos, and looked around my room. Posters of Mr. Bungle, Deftones, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Depeche Mode all stared down at me, as well as a few art prints I had ordered online. I had them all framed, so it didn’t resemble a teenage boy’s room. On top of my overflowing dresser I had my jewelry tree, lush with retro baubles and estate jewelry I had collected; on the tiny desk I had stacks of magazines, hardcover fantasy books, and my textbooks. On my ceiling I had stuck star charts and the stick-on stars that glowed in the dark.

  My eyes were drawn to the constellations of Pegasus and Leo, and suddenly I was seeing Mateo again, hearing his rich accent as he gave the presentation with so much ease and confidence, the way he blushed when I applauded so loudly at the end.

  This fucking sucked.

  One minute we were a memory in the making, and in the next we were just a memory. Something to haunt me for the rest of my life.

  I sighed, expecting the tears to fall again, and when I realized I didn’t have it in me anymore, I walked over to my bed, collapsed on it, and went straight to sleep.

  When I woke up the next morning, I had a blissful few seconds of actually thinking I was back in Las Palabras before the reality hit me. I blinked a few times, feeling the dampness in the air. The rain spattered noisily on the windowpane, partly obscuring a slate sky.

  I exhaled and lay there for a few moments, wondering what time it was. My purse was on the desk where I left it. At that though, I was suddenly struck with an extraordinary sense of euphoria. My phone. Who knew what texts I could have, what emails. I needed to hear from Mateo like a junkie needed their next hit.

  I got out of bed and staggered over to the desk, still in the same gross clothes that I wore on the plane. That I wore when Mateo hugged me goodbye.

  Stop that, I told myself. You won’t survive a day if you keep getting sad over everything.

  I tucked my unruly hair behind my ears and dug out my phone. I had a text from Mercy that said, “Welcome home,” though it wouldn’t have killed her to put an exclamation mark at the end. There was one from Jocelyn asking how I was. That was it.

  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.
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br />   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 looked 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 B
C 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 Nineteen

  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.