“This is me.” Raul’s voice echoed in my head. “You said you wanted to have more fun.”
“This isn’t fun anymore,” I whispered. My toes circled a plank in my wood floor while Duncan Sheik’s “Barely Breathing” played in my head—my personal anthem that winter.
“Baby.” He stepped toward me. “Come on.” I could feel his warm breath on my bare shoulders. “I needed you then, I need you now.” His warm hands squeezed my cold arms. Tears pooled in my eyes. He spun me around and grabbed my chin with his thumb. “Look at me,” he whispered, wiping a lone tear trailing down my cheek. His brown eyes watered. Seeing Raul’s emotional side made me cave. I began to question my actions. Am I wrong not to be supportive? He was my boyfriend. Did I desert him? He hugged me long and deep, then lifted my chin so our lips would touch.
“Why is it always so damn hard?” I asked, letting the tears pour. Deep down, I knew coasting along with Raul couldn’t continue much longer. I just didn’t have the energy to find a new boyfriend. And I still thought I needed one so Skin City wouldn’t swallow me whole. Starting over from scratch with another guy—fumbling around for weeks to try to figure out if we were compatible or if he was going to turn into a bat and fly away after midnight—seemed like more work than I could handle.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” I watched a tear trickle from his eye for the first time. “You know how much I care about you.” Raul wrapped his long arms tight around me. I inhaled his musky cologne, a welcomed scent after the stench of a mall stairwell. My lips began to move, reacting to my need to reciprocate with an “I love you,” but I stopped myself. He had yet to tell me he loved me even though I’d said it several times. “I’ve never said that to anyone but my mom,” he’d kept telling me. “It’s going to take time.” Raul knew how to push my buttons—the good ones and the bad. We’d had passionate, sweaty sex on every piece of furniture in my apartment and against every wall, door and appliance. Raul had the moves—and body—of Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights. Kicking a good lover to the curb when we spent the limited amount of time we had together kissing and screwing didn’t seem rational. Not only was it the longest monogamous relationship I’d ever had, it was the first relationship where I’d learned the importance of having sexual chemistry with someone. Too bad we only had the physical part aced.
I moved into a one-bedroom apartment in South Miami with a remodeled kitchen, room for a dining room table, a screened-in patio for my lizard and a communal pool in the courtyard. Working two jobs helped me squirrel away enough cash for the upgrade and a makeover. I sold my hand-painted living room furniture to a co-worker and purchased a sleek, oak futon couch with matching coffee table and entertainment center. The last remnants of Matthew’s ghost were officially gone. I bought my first wine rack and filled it with newly discovered bottles from Santa Barbara, California, to Colchagua, Chile. The finer things were gaining importance in my life, but Raul was still drinking bland beer. A few months had passed since the stairwell fiasco, and I still gave him the spare key to my apartment. “Not that you’ll ever stay the night.” He knew it was a challenge. Then he told his mom he was staying at Manny’s house and slept the entire night in my new apartment with his long, muscular arms wrapped around me.
My college graduation finally arrived—the day I’d been looking forward to since high school. I sat in the blazing sun of Miami in May, wearing my black cap and gown amidst a sea of fellow classmates and couldn’t have been happier. Raul wore dress slacks, a white oxford and a tie. I couldn’t help but marvel at his metamorphosis. He sat with my mom and brother in the bleachers on the lawn at FIU’s South Campus, whistling, clapping and hollering my name, as I crossed the stage with sweat on my brow and gold honor society ropes around my neck. When the words “magna cum laude” echoed through the loud speakers, I raised my chin. My father didn’t come to the ceremony, which stung, but I hid my hurt under that hideous, tasseled cap. Dad could drive a truck to Canada to fish for a week, but he couldn’t get on an airplane to watch his only daughter become the first woman in the family to receive a college diploma. Growing up, he rarely came to my softball games or cheerleading performances, but I thought graduation might be different. I’d yet to learn the biggest lesson of all: You can’t change a man.
“I’m so proud of you, Baby,” Raul said afterward, squeezing my hands. That boy could be so good when he needed to be. I wondered if he might like the feeling of that dress shirt and tie so much he’d transform into a devoted career man. It was one of the most rewarding, happy days of my life, and Raul was there by my side. For my graduation present, Raul gave me an iguana that would be “ours.” We named him Parker. We’d rocked back to a good place at the eighteen-month mark—the longest relationship of my life. I began wrestling with the notion that the longer relationships last, the more extremes a girl must endure.
I came home from an afternoon shift at Cheesecake and found Raul sitting on my futon. Three empty Heineken bottles were lined up on my coffee table. It was the first week of June and humid as hell.
“I’ve made a decision about my future,” Raul said, swallowing air. I draped my work apron on the back of the futon. He was wearing his usual daytime attire: a logoed T-shirt and cotton gym shorts.
He grabbed my hands and pulled me down to the couch. My mind began to gallop. Has he declared a new major? Will he graduate before the new millennium? My eyes fixed on his lips, awaiting the next few words. I’d made a decision about my future too. I had a diploma; I’d crossed over into the real world. We’d drifted too far apart. It was time to dump Raul. Being the breaker-upper was something I hadn’t really done since Chris.
“I’m sailing to Brazil,” he said firmly, rubbing my knuckles. “I’m going to sail on a sixty-foot boat from here to the Rio de Janerio with a crew of just four.” He grabbed a new bottle of beer from a cardboard six-pack next to him. His face had a look of determination I’d never seen. “This is a chance of a lifetime I never thought would happen.” His big fingers laced into mine. I looked into his brown eyes—past the bent rim and chipped lens on his glasses. Can he take care of himself at sea?
I sat on the edge of my futon. “When are you leaving?” In two weeks, I’d be on a flight to France, spending a week studying viticulture in the Burgundy wine region. The trip was an award for earning the highest grade in my Wine Technology 101 class. My plan had been to break-up with Raul when I returned from my trip.
“I leave this Saturday.”
My eyes widened. Sailors are amazingly free-spirited people. Gypsies of the water, I thought, mind whizzing back to Matthew. Who can decide in seven days that they’re going to cross the equator by boat and just do it? “I’ll be back in September.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I know that’s a long time to be apart. But will you wait for me?” His eyes locked onto mine.
I sat in silence on the edge of my futon. I felt like I’d been punched in the throat. The break-up speech I’d already begun practicing flooded my brain. I took a deep breath and collapsed into the cushion. He was leaving me. The exit ramp was wider than a Los Angeles freeway.
“Come on, Baby,” he said. “Don’t leave me hanging.” His signature line. Raul smiled at me with his brown eyes flashing. He leaned in and started nibbling on my neck.
I pulled away. “Do you think this is the best thing for your future?”
“I’ve dreamed of doing this since I was a teenager.” He peeled the label off a Heineken. “If I don’t do it now, I may never get the chance.”
I admired him for chasing his dreams, no matter how polar opposite they were to mine.
“Ummm, okay,” I smiled sheepishly. “I guess I’ll wait for you.” My teeth clenched as the words crept out of my mouth.
“You will?” A look of pleasant surprise washed over his baby face.
I hopped off the couch. “Three months apart will be good for us.” I walked to my refrigerator to grab the chilled bottle of dry rosé.
“That’s the only part
I’m not cool with,” he said. “Guys will be after you.”
I poured myself a glass, shaking my head. “I can handle myself.” I sipped the crisp, strawberry-hued wine from my fancy, Riedel crystal glass. Breaking up before his oceanic adventure—the easy way out—didn’t seem fitting after nearly two years of our tumultuous relationship. I was challenging my morality. A strong woman would choose three months of celibacy over another summer of dating the plethora of immature men who treated their women like cars—lease but never own. Ninety days without the headaches of relationships seemed like a great way to cleanse my soul and say “adiós” forever to my college-dating era. I listened to Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” constantly that summer; it made me feel like it was okay to be out of faith, filled with illusions about love that hadn’t become real.
I stood outside customs at Miami International Airport, pacing. It was Labor Day weekend, and Raul was coming home. His mother and father stood across the crowded aisle as travelers streamed between us. They never made eye contact or waved, which didn’t surprise me. I always felt like a stray dog they didn’t want hanging around their house. I was stealing their youngest child, their only son, their baby. And I was as white as rice.
A deeply tanned, tall, gangly guy strutted into the corridor. If it wasn’t for the thick glasses, I wouldn’t have recognized Raul. Black ringlets covered his head, not unlike an afro. His thin cheeks were covered with scrappy stubble. I stood quietly, waiting to see if he’d scan the crowd for me. I watched his eyes move from me to his family on the other side of the barricades. That big grin that had won me over in the first place spread across his face. He waved to his parents, then rushed over to me, dropped his two duffle bags and scooped me into his arms, hugging me tightly. My entire body was a ball of nerves. He’d called me twice during his voyage and had sent me three postcards. After two years, I truly cared for him. Even though the movie credits were about to run on our love story, we’d been through a ton of crazy shit together. We’d chalked up so many memories—some quite disturbing then, but laughable now.
“I missed you,” he whispered in my ear. His glasses squished my cheeks.
“I missed you too.” I pulled back. I could feel his mother’s eyes burning into my head.
“Don’t move.” He turned to his parents. I watched Raul dart across the aisle and hug each of them. His mother covered his face in kisses. Then Raul walked back to me with his duffle bags slung over his shoulder. “I’m going with you.”
An hour later, Raul tugged me up the steps onto the covered patio of their beachfront condo. My legs locked just short of the front door.
I looked down at my sundress. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.” His family rented a big condo on Hollywood Beach for two weeks every September, and I’d never been invited to join them before. Crashing the treasured family time of thirteen Puerto Rican-Americans was something I had not prepared for, and I’m sure his mother had not either. Raul hadn’t made any phone calls the last two weeks of his journey.
“Come on. It’ll be fine,” he said with a scoff. “I’m not letting you leave my sight.” His tanned fingers squeezed mine. I followed him into the sparkling white great room, which combined living, dining and kitchen into one cozy space. Two of his sisters sat on a tropical-patterned, wicker sofa with their noses buried in People and Cosmopolitan magazines. “Hi,” they said in unison. I looked over to his tall, thick mother, standing over a white kitchen counter.
“¿Que quieres beber, Raulito?” she asked. His mom always spoke in Spanish. She began banging cabinet doors and plates in the kitchen. I gripped the straps of my purse, waiting. Sand sprinkled across the white tile floors crunched under my flip-flops. There was no “¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?” for me, and definitely no bebida. I was the invisible woman.
“I’ll get changed,” I said to Raul, then slipped outside to the parking lot. I fished my beach bag from my car. In Miami, bikinis and beach towels were always kept in the trunk in case of emergencies, just like spare tires. And this was an emergency.
We went for a sail to have some alone time.
“I think I should go.” I was perched across from him on his Hobe Cat. I wore my new blue-and-green striped bikini. The boat glided parallel to the beach about fifty yards offshore. “I’m not welcome here.” My toes and fingers pressed against the fiberglass. His mom always made me feel like an outsider. I figured she wanted him to settle down with a pretty Latina—not spend two years dating a gringa transplant who tended bar. My mind zipped back to Alicia telling me Latin men were tethered to their mothers for life. It was yet another reason why our relationship was doomed.
“Oh, come on.” He pulled the ropes on the sail. “Tack!” he shouted coolly, and we ducked our heads as the main sail flew to the other side. “Just give them some time.” My ponytail flapped against my neck as I watched his lips. “I’ve been gone for months, and the first thing I wanted to do was spend time with you. That’s hard for my parents.” I pushed my sunglasses up my nose and rolled my eyes. Having lived away from home since age eighteen, I could not relate. A fiercely independent woman and a fiercely dependent man make for strange bedfellows.
“I’m never going to be welcome.” The wind whipped stray hairs around my face. “I’m a white girl from a broken home who fled to Miami to find a new life where I live alone, don’t go to church and want to market wine for a living.” My hands gripped the top of the fiberglass hull. “I am the devil, el diablo.” Deep down, I always believed that one of the reasons Raul dated me was because it pissed off his parents.
He rolled his eyes and laughed, brushing off the cultural differences like always.
The fear of confronting him felt like a rusty anchor in my belly, pulling me deeper into the ocean with every passing second. I took a deep breath of salty air. “We can’t keep pretending this is going anywhere, you know.” I watched the sail above, preparing for the next tack. Tiny turquoise waves patted the bow.
He tugged on the ropes. “Where should it be going?” His bare, tanned chest glistened in the afternoon sun. He looked leaner and more muscular than ever before. I pushed the memories of his sensual touch out of my mind—an easier feat than usual, thanks to his unruly cheek hair and afro.
I looked out into the open ocean, watching the water melt into a deep blue at the horizon. “Nowhere.” I took a deep breath of the salty air. “We’re in different places in life. We want different things.” The words flew from my mouth. They’d been imprisoned in my head for months. I kept my eyes fixed on my tanned legs against the white fiberglass.
“How do you know that?” he asked. “I’ve been gone for three months. Spending weeks at sea can change a person.” My chest tightened. The wind died down. The jib sail fluttered slowly, then collapsed against the pole. The boat stalled twenty yards offshore.
“I’m moving to California.” A wave of relief washed over me as soon as the words left my lips.
“You’re whaaaaat?” His head crooked as he dropped the rope. The main sail’s boom banged against the hull. “When did you decide this?”
“While you were sailing.” My eyes stayed fixed on my calves; my heartbeat thrashed. “I started a new job last month working for a wine magazine. If I want to be successful in winery public relations, I need to live in California wine country.” My fingers squeezed my knees. Quality wine grapevines can’t grow in the tropics, so most Florida wine jobs were in sales. I’d accepted the fact that the only way to advance my career was to leave Florida, but first, I’d landed one of the few non-sales jobs. The Wine News, a well-regarded bi-monthly with international circulation, had editorial offices located in The Biltmore Hotel. When the publisher learned of my journalism background, she’d offered me a position as editorial assistant. After gaining a year of experience, I would move to Santa Rosa, California, the largest city in Sonoma County wine country. I would finally be a California girl—just three years after I’d seen the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Maybe I’d meet a
winemaker and fall in love.
Raul jumped into the water and guided the bow to starboard. “I can’t believe you’re saying this.” He glanced up at my face. “All I thought about on that boat was you.” His voice cracked while waves sloshed against his chest. “And how much I missed you. I thought maybe we’d move in together when I graduate.” My eye widened. My throat tightened. I felt like I’d swallowed a mango.
“You’re finally at the place in our relationship where I wanted you to be a year ago.” I threw one hand in the air. My toes curled against the fiberglass. I shook my head, glancing out into the still water. We sat in silence, listening to the water slosh against his boat.
Raul exhaled. His head and shoulders bobbed in the water. “Baby, you’re the first girl I ever loved.” He angled the tiny boat toward the shore with me sitting atop like a princess in a chariot. Hearing the words “girlfriend” and “love” come out of his mouth sounded like a foreign language.
My head cocked sideways. “Oh, now you love me.”
“Come on!” His brown eyes pleaded. “You know I love you.”
“How many guys spend their entire life with their first love?” My expression was as flat as the water. I glanced from his eyes to my bare feet resting between the hulls. Raul didn’t need to scour two states looking for love as I’d done, but he needed to date more girls to be sure which one was The One. I tried to count the number of guys I’d loved since my first and lost count at twenty, and I still wasn’t sure how to spot Mr. Right.
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” His tiny brown eyes scanned my face from the water.
I looked him straight in the eye. “You think I can’t leave you on my own? I can. I am.” I’d gone ninety days without a man’s touch, and felt like I could conquer the world on my own for the first time. My determination had shifted to focusing on my career. I wanted to quit bartending and work in the wine trade from nine to five; that thought filled me with the kind of pleasure and joy that Raul could not.
THE EXES IN MY IPOD: A Playlist of the Men Who Rocked Me to Wine Country Page 22