by Karina Halle
His eyes widen in surprise and then cloud over with something akin to pity. “Oh dear. You can’t be serious.”
I wish I never said anything. It was something that had only been in my head, now it was in Lucia’s, and now it was in Bon’s.
“Mateo, Mateo, Mateo,” Bon says with a sigh. “Stop holding on to your youth, old boy. This type of woman is good for a few rolls in the sack. Maybe many. She looks like she’d fuck you into another decade. It has done wonders for you, you look great. But that’s all she is. That’s all those types of girls are. Now what you should have done, was have your fun with her, and never told Isabel. Now you’ve got a divorce for nothing. You really think you can go and marry this Vera? You can’t. Stop fooling yourself. The way you met, you know that kind of thing can’t last. You should stop lying to yourself and let it be what it is.”
I don’t even know how to respond. All I know is that he’s wrong. I know he’s wrong. Then why do I feel that thread of doubt deep inside?
He continues, seemingly tired now. “I know you, Mateo. You always want to do the right thing. So noble sometimes that it’s boring. That’s why this little episode of yours has me interested, you see. It’s not like you, not the you that I know. But now, you feel that because you threw out a perfectly acceptable marriage, you must hang on to this girl, make her, mold her, into something that she isn’t. You need to learn to let go. You can’t marry a tattooed, twenty-four-year-old Canadian girl. It won’t work, and you’ll be trapped in a world of unhappiness even worse than your first.” He taps his hand on the table. “You need to start thinking less with your dick and more with your mind. Let her go and find someone else your own age, with your own class.”
He gets up and excuses himself to the bathroom before I can say anything. Bon had once been my friend, but now I am not sure if that’s true. This sounds like more than just concern. Has he been talking to Isabel? Is he jealous or just disapproving?
I don’t know. But what I do know is that I don’t need to listen to it.
I go up to the waitress and slip her a hundred euros to cover the bill. Then I leave the bar—and Bon—behind.
When I arrive back at the apartment, Vera isn’t back yet. The long walk has done nothing to calm my nerves—in fact the heat seems to have only made it worse—so I pour myself a large glass of scotch that I save for rare occasions and sit outside on the balcony. There is a slight breeze up here, and the hustle and bustle of the street below distracts me.
Bon is wrong. That’s all there is to it. Though there is some truth. It’s true that I have always tried to do the right thing—that is probably why I stuck with Isabel for so long—and that I care highly about reputation, whether it be my family’s or my own.
But things change. Sometimes all it takes for a person to lose themselves is to find another. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good thing, to always be noble, to have appearances be the first concern. Maybe it was what I needed, to find Vera, to let go of the person I had tried so hard to be, and just finally be myself.
I just wish it wasn’t so hard.
I sit there for a long time, listening to people chatting on the street, the roar of cars as they zoom past. When the scotch starts to pull me under into the stickiness of sleep, I get up and head back inside just in time to see Vera stumble through the front door.
She’s drunk, her breasts nearly spilling out of her low-cut dress, her hair half-up and half-down, wild around her face.
“Have fun?” I ask as she leans haphazardly against the counter and tries to kick off her slingbacks to no avail. “Hold on,” I tell her gently, and crouch down beside her. She leans on me for support as I pull her shoes off and place them beside mine on the shoe rack underneath the coat hooks.
“Thanks, baby,” she slurs, and I feel the weight of her on my back. I place my hands around the small of her waist and hold her steady as I straighten up. Her makeup is smudged and she’s giving me a crooked smile.
“No problem,” I tell her, peering at her closely. “Where did you guys go?”
She shrugs. “I don’t really remember. We met up with Ricardo at some bar. He was there with a bunch of his friends.”
A fist of unease opens in my stomach. I like Claudia’s boyfriend Ricardo a lot, but the two times I’ve met his friends, they failed to impress me. They were young and brash with no scruples, like a bunch of modern-day Spaniards trying to resurrect Sid Vicious. I didn’t like it when Vera went out with them, but then again, it’s not like I would go. Bar hopping and clubbing weren’t my scene anymore but they were definitely Vera’s.
“I see,” I say. “Sounds like you had a good time.”
She shrugs. “Lots of shots and dancing. The usual.” She attempts to take off her dress, and I help her out by pulling down the zipper. She’s stark naked underneath but for once I have no interest in fucking her. My anxiety seems to build instead, and I’m staring at her body wondering why someone like me deserves it if I don’t even have the desire to go out with her and her friends.
“Are you going to take me to bed?” she asks, batting her eyes and biting her lip.
Naturally, I will take her but not in the way she thinks, not when she is this drunk. I’ve learned my lesson a few times before.
Sure enough, the moment she climbs into the sheets and lays her head back onto the pillow, she closes her eyes and passes out. Light snoring ensues.
I sigh and tuck her in, then fill up a glass of water for her and get out two ibuprofen. She never does very well in the mornings after a night of drinking, and since she still has work at Las Palabras in the morning, she needs to be on her best behavior.
I strip down to nothing and get in bed as well. She’s not the only one with a big day ahead of her. Tomorrow, everything changes.
Yet, it feels like everything has already changed.
Chapter Four
Friday and the weekend rolled on by almost as usual. There was, of course, the event of me calling Pedro and informing him that I would be delighted to take the position. I celebrated that by having a bit of brandy in my coffee. Vera was at work, terribly hung over, otherwise she would have partaken in the moment.
Saturday we picked up Chloe Ann and took her to an outdoor children’s concert. She was a bit moodier than normal, perhaps because the heat never relented, but she seemed to enjoy herself by the end of it. Cotton candy fixes all of life’s problems when you’re a child.
Sunday was a day of lazing around, reading the paper and drinking drunken lemonade. It was easy to fool ourselves into thinking everything was fine.
But today, I know things aren’t fine. I feel it when I wake up, that gnawing sensation of something eating away at me. I should be happy, on cloud nine—I’m about to get dressed and head into the office at the stadium, to start my first official day at a job I’d even dreamed of when I was back on the team.
And yet my gut is a ball of nerves.
Even Vera senses it as we shower together; her brows knit together in a mix of discomfort and concern.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “You seem distant.”
“Like I’m in another galaxy?” I answer, turning her around to rub soap on her back.
She lifts her hair off her shoulders to give me access. “Something like that.”
“I guess I’m nervous about my first day,” I tell her.
She nods. “I’m nervous this will be my last.”
I pause, and she shoots me an apologetic look over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not about me.”
“Maybe it’s always about you,” I whisper. “I can’t pretend that I’m not afraid for us.”
Her face falls slightly. “Don’t worry,” she says, and I almost believe that she doesn’t. “I worked my ass off on Friday. They won’t let me go. I won’t let them.”
I lean down and kiss her shoulders, tasting the soap and the freshness of her skin. “You can do anything you put your mind to. But it doesn’t mean I won’t worry.”
She turns a
round, her eyes determined. “You know that we’ll be okay, don’t you? This will all work out. It’s just a hiccup, that’s all.”
I try and give her a smile but it fails to form on my lips. “I’m just tired of the universe giving me something and taking something else away.”
“Well, the universe can go fuck itself for all I care,” she says. “You deserve this job. I deserve mine. There’s no reason why we can’t have both.”
She’s right. There is no reason. But maybe I’m still afraid that we got off too easy, that there is still punishment for our actions. Bon reminded me that though the ink on the divorce papers is dry, the wounds are still fresh for everyone involved.
I still have that thought on my mind as I drive to work, to the stadium by the river. I haven’t been back here in years, not even to watch a game. It feels strange but still right at the same time.
As most first days are, this one is easy. I don’t even meet the team, just the administrative staff, plus Diego and Warren. Even though I expected contempt from Warren for taking over what should have been his job, he’s friendly enough, and Diego is as cordial as the first time I met him, if not a little defensive over the team. I don’t blame him. Even though his eyes and heart are set on Argentina, he is the guy that helped bring this team back. It’s personal to him so I treat him and his views with respect.
At the end of the day, after I am shown a small desk in the same room as Warren’s where I am to temporarily work, Pedro calls me into his office. He’s sitting behind a Lucite table with a wooden cigar box in his hands. His walls are white and covered with rich black and white photographs of the team; his windows are large and wide and look out onto the grassy field and the rows of seats in the stadium.
“Sit down,” he commands, and I do so in a plastic chair that is so modern it’s uncomfortable. He opens the cigar box, sticks one in his mouth, and then tilts it toward me in offering.
I raise my hand, shaking it off. I make a point of not smoking cigars with people I don’t know that well—I hate the idea of being stuck with someone while you’re waiting for the paper to burn.
“Suit yourself,” he mumbles out of the corner of his mouth, then lights one up. He puffs on it for a few moments, his grey brows furrowed in concentration until he has it burning just the right way. “How was your first day?” he asks when he’s finally satisfied.
“Very good,” I said. “Diego has been very welcoming and Warren seems to be easy to get along with.”
“He is, he is,” he says with a nod. “Just too bad he’s not a Spaniard. Though what’s too bad for him is great for you.”
I smile placidly at him, feeling like there is a more serious undertone to this conversation other than checking in on me.
He continues, “This, of course, will be a slow start for you. But I think that is for the best. It’s good for you to just observe for the next few months. I believe you can learn a lot more by watching and listening than by doing.”
“I agree.”
“Good,” he says, leaning forward slightly. “But even though we will ease you into things, the moment you signed the contracts this morning is the moment you became part of the team, part of this administration, this international symbol of Spain.”
I nod. Uh-huh.
“And as part of this team, you have a certain reputation to uphold. Now, your personal life is none of my business. In fact, if it weren’t for your face showing up in the tabloids late last year, we might have forgotten all about you. Though I am sure it was not intentional, it did help. But now that you are here, I do think there needs to be an air of . . . respect and class when it comes to representing Atlético. Do you agree?”
I think I say yes. I can barely tell, the blood is whooshing so loudly in my head. I am braced for something horrible and I don’t know what it is.
“As I said,” he goes on, “your personal life is none of my business. But if you could, I would prefer it not to appear in the papers anymore.”
I frown. “It hasn’t.”
He gives me a sharp smile. “Oh, but it has. Don’t you read them, Mateo? Perhaps you should.”
Pedro reaches into his drawer and pulls out a copy of Diez Minutos, my most hated magazine. Cheap, tawdry, and tacky, it was the first one to spread lies about me and Vera, and I immediately think back to the photographer I saw taking my picture outside of Fioris over a week ago. But how could a picture of me, leaving the restaurant alone, spark any sort of concern from Pedro?
He shows me. He flips a few pages, and there I see a fuzzy photograph of Vera. She is wearing the same sexy clothes she was wearing on Thursday night. She is dancing close with a man that is not me, and laughing.
I think I’m going to be sick. I do what I can to keep my face as neutral as possible, and I look up to him as I say, “So, that is Vera. What about it?”
But I know what the problem is because it’s a problem for me too. I don’t want to examine the photos any closer, not with him watching me, waiting for a reaction that I refuse to give him.
“Have you read the headline?” he asks, jabbing a finger at it. I hadn’t. I glance at it now, quickly.
Mateo Casalles Has New Competition.
I swallow and look up at Pedro. “All lies,” I say.
“If you read it,” Pedro says, “it goes on to say that your girlfriend was seen partying at a local hotspot last Thursday night and getting close with a young man. It then goes on to say that there are rumors of you joining Atlético in a managerial position. How could one be true and the other not?”
I shift my jaw back and forth for a moment, trying to quell the embarrassment and rage that threatens to shatter me. “Do you not remember the photographer standing outside of the restaurant after our last meeting? It would be easy for him to deduce that I am involved in Atlético again.”
“Stupid paparazzi,” he mutters, though I’m tempted to point out that it was him who waved for the camera.
“Yes,” I say, making a motion to get up and leave, “they are stupid. They made assumptions about me which turn out to be half true—coaching is not exactly a managerial position. They make assumptions about Vera, that this boy she is dancing with is someone more than a friend. Their whole business is based on selling assumptions. Everyone knows that.”
“It looks bad, Mateo,” Pedro says as I stand up. “This was normal when you were younger, and it’s normal for the players, especially a few particular ones, but I don’t want to see this from their coach. You might need to put your girlfriend on a leash if she can’t behave.”
I raise my brows. “Excuse me?” My voice is hard and cold.
Pedro looks mildly apologetic. “Sorry. I don’t mean to insult her, or you, but I just want you to be aware of your image now going forward. You don’t work for yourself anymore. The restaurant is long gone. You work for me, for Atlético, for Madrid. You have a face to show the public. Preserve it.”
I can only nod in response before I turn and leave the room. Somehow I manage to keep it together until I can’t handle it anymore. I pull over beside a newsstand to quickly snap up a copy. I read it over when I’m in my building’s parking garage.
Up close, the pictures are worse. There are two of them. In both they are dancing; in one Vera is laughing and the boy leans in close. In the other, he has his hands around her waist. From the fuzzy details I can make out that he is one of Ricardo’s friends—spiked hair, leather, studs, and tattoos. He looks like someone that Vera would be with. He looks like the opposite of me.
I fight the urge to rip the magazine in half, to pound my head against the steering wheel, to find Claudia then find Ricardo, and punch his face in just by association. I zero in on his hands, the possessive way he is holding her, and I think I may just lose my mind.
She is mine, not his. Why is she letting this happen?
I swallow hard and try to breathe through my anger. It’s an uphill battle. I tell myself that the photos don’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean Ver
a is having an affair. It doesn’t mean that she’s sleeping with this guy, that she’s in love with him. It doesn’t mean they are a better match. For all I know, he may have made her laugh, put his hands on her, and in the next moment got a drink in his face. Vera is feisty like that, too. The photographs don’t tell the whole story.
There is only one way to find out. I have to confront her, immediately, before I make this bigger than it actually is. My mind is always eager to make things worse. I shove the magazine in my suit jacket pocket and take the excruciatingly slow elevator up to our floor. It’s four in the afternoon and she should be home.
At the door, I pause, trying to go over how I’ll approach her. Vera can get very defensive over things, whether she’s guilty of them or not, and the last thing I need is a fight because she’s mad that I’m mad. Funny how it usually works out that way.
I suck in my breath and open the door. She is on the balcony, stirring a large iced coffee from Starbucks, reading a hardcover book in the shade. For a moment I think I should leave her alone in peace, but then I know I won’t get any peace that way.
“Hey, handsome,” she says, pulling her oversized sunglasses away from her eyes and glancing up at me as I stand in the doorway. “How was your first day?”
When I don’t come any closer, her eyes trail to the magazine poking out from my jacket. I can tell she hasn’t seen it before. She looks curious but not ashamed.
“It was fine,” I say. I try to smile, but from the way her brows knit together, I can tell that it reads false.
“Are you doing some light reading?” she asks, eyes back to the magazine.
“Tell me again about Thursday night.”
She pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head. There is a smattering of new freckles across her nose. She must have gotten some sun during her lunch hour. It’s cute, but I push aside my affections for now.
“Thursday night?”
“Yes, Vera. You went out with Claudia. You came back drunk. Where did you go? Who was there? What did you do?”
She blinks and then rubs at her forehead. “I told you. I don’t know, it was the usual. We went to some place near the university, I don’t remember the name. Something Spanish, obviously. We drank and danced and did shots.”