Sanibel Scribbles

by Christine Lemmon

  The waiter set down a platter of bacalao a la vizcaina, which she recognized as cod, tomato, thyme, red pepper, bay leaf, onion, garlic, and fried croutons.

  Rafael, the king, took her hand and, in his native romance language, continued with his poetic proposals. “I will design you a wardrobe. I will brand name it ‘Victoria.’ I have already begun to create the skirt, pants, and blouse with you, my preciosa, in mind. Now, I only need to measure your waist, and I will do that after dinner.”

  “No,” she said in English. “No,” she said in Spanish. “No,” she said in French. No, being universal in almost any language, he understood. No man was going to put a tape measure around her waist.

  Why can’t he make you the wardrobe without measurements? asked the wine from deep within.

  She peered deeply into his eyes and said once more, “No!”

  “¿Porque?” He dared to ask why.

  “Por que.” She answered, “Because.” Then she asked him how anyone could ever fit into the clothes he designed if they feasted so much.

  “Victoria, you eat plentiful. Eat food from God, nature’s food. Limit papas fritas, food in packages, food with chemicals and man-made ingredients. Eat only God-given food because it brings beauty both inside and out - eggs, avocados, tomatoes, lemons, grapes, olives, beans, fish, rice, basil, vinegar, potatoes, espresso beans, and more, and combine those one-worded, simple ingredients into creations muy delicioso. I don’t understand why Americans want to drink coffee in paper cups in their cars. Take time out for food so you can savor every bite and enjoy every sip. Food demands time, time to prepare and time to enjoy. When life gets too busy to prepare food in a healthy manner, and to sit and slowly savor it, then life is not good. Then one needs to make emergency changes. This, Victoria, is what I tell the models for whom I fashion my clothes. Never starve or binge and never make your job more important then enjoying one of life’s greatest pleasures—food.”

  He sounded like a sexy, romantic, yet sensible electronic grocery list that talked and she felt a desire to return to the States to publish a new diet, a new lifestyle approach to food, a new way of making time in one’s life in order that healthy food might become a priority. She would call it,

  “The Rafael Diet.”

  She swigged more of the seductive, speaking wine, then bent down, not to catch her breath, but to reach into her purse on the floor and pull out a red crayon. Rafael closed his eyes, as if savoring his bite of food, and Vicki started to write on the white linen tablecloth. In English, she scribbled down, “Home.”

  Writing it on the tablecloth now turned it into a visualized goal. Just as a ballet dancer stops herself from getting dizzy by focusing her eyes on one thing, she would focus on home, and in turn, she wouldn’t allow his proposal to throw her off balance or make her dizzy. Then again, was home Michigan or Florida? She did not know. She would figure that out later. Home definitely meant the United States of America, and that was good enough for now.

  Rafael opened his eyes and for a moment stared at her scribbles, then grabbed the crayon from her. Just as the waiter approached the table, he quickly covered the red markings with his bread plate. When the waiter walked away, he asked, “¿Escribe? You wrote on the table? What did you write? ¿Porque?”

  She felt a battle within her. The cheese and fried croutons teamed together to overtake the red wine, but the wine had some strength left.

  “Sometimes I like to write out my goals. Americans do this all the time. It brings them to life, gives them personality,” she said. “Oh, Rafael, you have no idea! Life in America is so hectic that we drink nothing but coffee in to-go cups, and we drive and drink at the same time, burning our hands. This is why some designer has recently become very wealthy creating a—I forget what it’s called—wraparound skirt, I guess you might say, a cardboard wraparound skirt that fits snugly around a hot cup of coffee to go,” she said.

  “Sounds very sexy,” added Rafael.

  “Oh no! It’s very sad how we rely on that coffee to get us through our never-ending lists of errands, but without the list, we hang out on the sofa eating chips and pop. We go to pieces without a list of things to accomplish.”

  “Ahh, si, si, Americana,” he said. “But why a list on the tablecloth? ¿Por que not on paper, Victoria?”

  “It’s an American custom,” the croutons within lied in her defense. “Lo siento. I didn’t realize the Spaniards do it differently.”

  He lifted his bread plate and scribbled down, “Ser feliz.” He moved the plate over the words, hiding them from the waiter.

  Vicki translated it as, “To be happy.”

  She slid the candle centerpiece over and wrote, “To return to America, alone.” She understood why woodpeckers carved out holes in tree trunks, left, and then returned to the same hole year after year. There was something about the concept of going home that sounded right.

  He took the crayon and wrote, Ser feliz con Victoria—to be happy with Vicki.

  Next, they feasted on cochinillo a la segoviana, suckling pig roasted over a wood fire and basted with lard and seasoning. Once the food overpowered the wine, she turned the conversation over to more intelligent things, like the religion of Spain.

  “Does everyone in Spain practice Catholicism, Rafael?” She was back in reign over her body, her thoughts, and her conversation.

  “Franco had forced it upon us all. But today, we worship in whichever denomination we choose.”

  “What have you chosen?”

  “Because it was once forced upon my family, I am still confused. I know many who struggle with this, still today.”

  As he pulled up to the corner of El Corte Inglés, he took out his black planner and flipped to the end of the week.

  “I like you. I like our conversations. But Rafael, your proposals at dinner made me nervous, you understand that, right?”

  “Si, si. I understand. I will continue to wine and dine you, Victoria.”

  “Oh?”

  “And you will fall in love with me soon,” he said.

  “How soon?” she wanted to know.

  “You will fall in love with me tomorrow. ¿Mañana!”

  “No Rafael, that is not the goal of our meeting. I will not let that happen. As I said, I enjoy talking with you. I enjoy you as a friend.”

  She knew she could love him as more than a friend, and she knew it the moment he innocently kissed her on each cheek the first time they met. Well, back then, she didn’t know she could love him as a friend because she didn’t know a thing about him. She only saw his dimples and colorful eyes that lived carefully hidden under those glasses, the kind she only wished she needed a prescription for, the kind that made an ordinary person look mysterious, intelligent and potentially sexy all in one.

  “My friend and nada mas.” He said sadly.

  “Nada mas,” she stated.

  “And you do not enjoy romance? How sad, que triste.”

  “Yes, I like romance, but not now. I have to leave Spain in a few months, and I cannot allow myself to fall in love.”

  “Is it my age? I am only a few years older. American women appreciate older men like they appreciate older wine, no?”

  “You are more than just a few years older than me. Yes, your age has something to do with it,” she said.

  “Oh, Victoria. That is not fair. A man cannot control time, but he can control how he changes with time.”

  “Then tell me, Rafael, how do you change with time?”

  “I grow wiser and better physically, mentally, and spiritually. I was good to start with, but soon, with such improvements, you will fall in love with me. You will love me very soon.”

  “Impossible,” she declared. “There will be no ‘soon’ for us. I’ve got so much to do. I need to graduate and move close to my family and friends again. Spain is only temporary for me.”

  She grabbed his day planner and flipped it forward three more weeks. She’d meet him then, no sooner.

  “If Spain is on
ly temporary for you, then I am only temporary.”

  “Si, si, you are. So am I. Everything is temporary, Rafael.” She got out of his car and started to walk down the sidewalk.

  “Then what do you want from me that is permanent?” he called out the window.

  She walked beside his car as he slowly drove. “Your friendship for now and your memories for later.”

  “And what do you want from me that is temporary?” he asked. “Tell me your last name. For now, all I want is your last name.”

  “Rafael de España,” he said.

  “Oh, well. Don’t you want to know my last name?” she asked.

  “I know it. Victoria precious angel, Victoria de los Estados Unidos.”

  He drove away, leaving her to stand on the street corner, a tulip standing tall and proud, waiting for the photographer to snap its photo, but then the man with the camera drove away. With him gone, she wanted his attention, she wanted him to pick her, to take her home and place her in a beautiful vase and give her water and care for her, admire her. She stood alone now, without his interesting facts, his sophisticated Spanish, the smell of his foreign cologne, his romantic little sayings, his coming on to her. She wilted and walked away, realizing she was just one flower in a world full of beautiful petals. Three weeks seemed a long time, and surely many others would bloom before him in that time. She might be forgotten. Yes, she might never see him again, and it was her own doing.

  She climbed in bed and lit a candle because she didn’t want to wake her family by putting a light on that could be seen under the curtain of a door. She picked up a book she had been meaning to read for quite some time, A Death in the Afternoon, a documentary study of bullfighting by Ernest Hemingway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Dear Grandma,

  It was a holiday for me. My entire Spanish family left me alone. They had something to go to in some nearby town and kissed and hugged me good-bye a million times before leaving.

  As soon as they left, I shaved my legs and ironed all my clothes. I feel guilty for all the water and electricity I must have used. At least I didn’t wash my clothes. Washing clothes means I would then have to hang my underwear outside on the rope overlooking metropolitan Madrid. Rosario does the entire family’s underwear once a month, all in one huge, collective load. Then it hangs outside for a good two days after that. Lorenzo had a colorful pair so big I thought it was the Spanish flag. I guess I wouldn’t mind my undergarments hanging in the country, but in the city? No way! Not mine! Had I known they’d hang publicly like flags, I wouldn’t have packed my hot pink bikini pairs.

  Spain and Tarpon Key certainly have something in common: Night life. For the islanders, it’s tarpon fishing or dock chatting. For the Spaniards, it’s walking the city streets or hanging out in cafés all night. I’m not saying all insomniacs need to relocate to a remote island or Spain, but they should certainly keep in mind that not everyone in this world goes to sleep at nine o’clock. Maybe as they sit in their recliners or pace down their hallways they can think of such places, knowing they’re not the only people awake at odd hours.

  P. S. I heard it in class and agree. This world is a stage, and we are the actors. I’m so convinced. I’m shifting my perspective because I prefer comedy.

  Mañanas came and went. She knew this because she had originally packed over twenty pairs of underwear for the trip and was now down to two clean pairs. As she crossed the corner of El Corte Inglés department store carrying a bag full of new underwear, she looked around for Rafael. He wouldn’t show up. They had no plans. Why hadn’t she at least got his number? Why hadn’t she insisted on getting his last name? Why hadn’t she given him hers? Where exactly did he work? She kicked herself about Rafael from Spain, her secret source. That’s all she knew. She kept him her secret, never telling anyone about him, not even Rosario.

  As her Spanish improved, she discovered things she never knew about Nacho. He had normal friends, ones who weren’t as intense as he appeared to be. They were childhood friends, dating back to infancy. They were all carrying guitars and backpacks as they picked her up on the street below her family’s apartment and together took the Metro to the Lago stop, then walked to Caso de Campo, miles of parkland filled with pines lying south of the Royal Palace across the Manzanares River. It was once royal hunting grounds, and they pointed out the gate through which the kings rode out of the palace grounds on horseback or in carriages. Now it had a zoo, an amusement park, and plenty of scrubland.

  “Javier, Michaelangelo, and I sing this song in the English language all the time,” Jesus told Vicki in his national tongue as they sat down on the grass near the lake filled with rowers. “It’s about four women. We want to sing it for you. It is very famous, and we think you will like it.”

  As she listened to the three Spaniards singing, she wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry.

  “Guys,” she said in Spanish after their song had ended. “Do you know what winter, spring, summer, and fall means?”

  “Si, claro que si,” replied Javier. “Names of women.”

  “No, no.”

  “We sing this song all the time. Of course we are singing about four women,” said Jesus. “It’s a very romantic song.”

  “Invierno, primavera, verano, y otono,” she said. “Names of seasons.”

  “I could have told you that,” stated Nacho with a laugh. He was the only one without a guitar and who hadn’t sung.

  “Yeah, right,” said Jesus.

  As they continued singing songs from Crosby, Stills, and Nash, then the Beatles, in English, but with strong Spanish accents, Vicki laughed until she cried. She no longer felt embarrassed about her weak Spanish skills upon her arrival to their country. At least she could differentiate seasons from names.

  As if a wonderfully exciting storm had arrived, the men, all but Nacho, quickly excused themselves, then returned twenty minutes later wearing navy embroidered suits—performance costumes.

  “We are taking you someplace special. We will bring you back tomorrow,” Nacho told Vicki.

  “Tomorrow? Where are we going? ¿Adonde vamos?” Vicki asked the men, passionate as storm chasers.

  “Mis amigos are muy popular, and tonight they have a concert. We want to take you,” explained Nacho. “I am proud of them and of their music.”

  They took the metro, then the autobus to the pueblo. With three hours until the concert, they drank wine and ate bits of skewered meats, omelets, olives, and ham in a nearby, noisy bar. Waiters were clinking glasses. Everyone was heavily engaged in laughing and shouting. The television in the corner served no purpose, but it stayed on, adding to the noise.

  “What’s up with your girl?” Nacho asked his friend, sitting next to him.

  “She told me ‘no,’“s shouted Michaelangelo to the group. “I asked her to marry me, and she declined again.”

  “You two have more love than a flock of lovebirds. Did she tell you why she refuses to marry you?” asked Javier in Spanish.

  “I didn’t say she ‘refused’ to marry me. I said she said ‘no.’ There is a difference.”

  “Did she say why she said ‘no’ to marrying you?” asked Nacho.

  “Si, si, she told me why.” He wiped a tear from his face, and then bit the head off a sardine. “Her career. I get in the way of her career.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Jesus. “Men work, and they get married. They’ve done this for centuries. Now women want to work. Why don’t they want to get married and work? They can have both.”

  “It’s not marriage that gets in the way,” added Javier. He had brown, curly hair, huge brown eyes and wore a yellow-flowered tie under his navy suit. “It’s the babies.”

  “Why can’t she marry you and wait a few years to have babies? Women are having them now in their forties,” said Vicki.

  “How could she wait that long? I would get her pregnant before then.”

  “What about birth control?” asked Vicki.

  “Speak up
,” whispered Michaelangelo in her ear.

  “Si, si. We can’t hear you,” shouted Javier.

  “I said, what about birth control?” she yelled across the table.

  “She doesn’t believe it’s right. She says if God wants her to have a baby, she will get pregnant. If He doesn’t, she won’t. The only way she thinks she can control it is not to marry me yet.”

  “So she still wants to marry you,” said Nacho.

  “Si, si, of course,” he added. “Once she gets her job and works it for awhile.”

  “How long?” asked Vicki, pushing the platter of sardines away from her and down the table toward Nacho.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think she knows. A year, five years.”

  “How long does it take a woman to tire of what she’s doing? How long until a woman gets tired of the world out there and feels like having a husband, and staying home to take care of a baby?” asked Michaelangelo.

  “Well, don’t look at me,” said Vicki. “I don’t have the answers. I am, however, wondering about something. Who is this love of Nacho’s life that I’ve heard much about but never met?”

  For a moment, no one said anything.

  Nacho rolled his eyes at her. “I told you, Vicki,” he said. “I love her dearly. We were becoming too emotionally connected and needed time apart. There’s nothing more to it.”

  “That’s right,” added Jesus. “Nacho was no longer spending time with all of us. We’re glad to have him back for now.”

  “For now, si, si,” said Nacho. “I am back for now, but a part of me is missing. It’s only a matter of time before I return to her. Enough of this talk.”

  “So what can I give her to make marrying me, having a baby, and staying home sound good to her?” asked Michaelangelo.