by Devan Sipher
“You bet Steffi has done what?” Steffi asked on the defensive. She was back at the table, gripping a fresh drink.
“Have you talked to Naomi?” Stu asked her.
“I told you Naomi’s in Spain,” she said. “Do you ever listen to anything I say?”
“What’s she doing in Spain?” Stu asked.
“She met a celebrity chef from Madrid. On the plane coming back from our wedding.”
“From your wedding?” Austin asked.
“Can you believe it?” Steffi said.
“No,” he replied. He absolutely couldn’t believe it. He tried to calculate the odds, but his brain started to hurt from the effort.
“Are you going to dance with me, or do I have to find someone younger and cuter?” Steffi asked Stu.
“Only if Austin comes with us,” Stu said, pulling Austin up from his chair. Steffi joined in, and though Austin protested, he found himself being dragged onto the dance floor, where he felt marooned among the dancing couples. He tried to return to the table, but he was like a pedestrian trying to cross an intersection against the light, as flashy dancers spun by him in every direction. Standing still was about all he could do to avoid becoming dance-floor roadkill.
The band was cranking out Barry Manilow’s “Bandstand Boogie,” and Austin swayed to the music, hoping he didn’t look half as ridiculous as he felt, before deciding it didn’t matter if he looked ridiculous, because he didn’t know anyone there. He needed to meet people. He needed to make an effort to meet people. But for the moment, he just let his head bob from side to side as the lights blinked on and off, or maybe it was his eyes blinking, but in either case it resulted in a soothing, strobe-like effect.
Stu seemed to be coming toward him in slow motion, and with him was the dark-haired woman in the red dress. “Austin, this is Bianca. She’s from Brazil.” Stu had a Cheshire grin on his face. “Do I come through for you or what?”
“Happy New Year,” Austin said to Bianca.
“Happy New Year,” she replied, putting her hands on his shoulders as her hips continued moving to the beat. Austin put his hands on either side of her taut waist. He had an inappropriate memory of going horseback riding for the first time and of the excitement he felt touching the horse’s flanks. He also remembered falling from the saddle and breaking his arm.
“So you’re from Brazil?” Austin asked.
“No,” Bianca said leading Austin in a small circle.
“No?”
“My family is from Brazil. I grew up in Kalamazoo.”
“Did you dance a lot in Kalamazoo?”
“You’re cute,” she said, lifting one of Austin’s arms and twirling herself underneath it. She was a swirl of hair and color. She was more than cute. She was beautiful, and she smelled of cinnamon. Yet Austin couldn’t help thinking he would prefer to be dancing with Naomi.
Maybe Bianca sensed that, because when Stu and Steffi shimmied by, she smiled broadly at them. “Your friend is also cute,” she said.
“He’s married,” Austin said.
“It’s New Year’s,” Bianca replied. “Everyone’s fair game on New Year’s.”
As if to prove her point, she grabbed Stu by his collar and planted a full-mouthed kiss on him. Austin thought Steffi would blow a gasket. But she was laughing. She pulled Stu off Bianca, spun him around and gave him more of the same, giving literal meaning to the term “sucking face” while running her lacquered fingernails down the back of his head. Stu responded by gripping Steffi’s five-thousand-dollar-clad butt, and they started mashing on the dance floor as colored lights spun. Or the room spun. Or at least rocked gently to and fro.
Austin wobbled his way outside onto the deck. He leaned over the railing and watched the black waves lapping against the boat. There was something ominous about the dark water. But also peaceful. He liked the sound the water made as it sloshed against the hull. Was that the right word—“hull”? It seemed like an odd name for such a crucial part of a ship. He was on a ship. He was sailing into the new year. Sailing forward. But now the boat was turning again. He didn’t want it to turn. He wanted the boat to keep going downriver to Lake Erie. Through the Erie Canal to Lake Ontario. Along the St. Lawrence River until they reached the Atlantic and then across the ocean to Spain.
He thought about what Bianca had said. “Everyone’s fair game on New Year’s.” He had an impulse to do something stupid. He fumbled with his phone, hitting the wrong buttons several times before the right number appeared. He was going to regret doing this in the morning. But he would regret not doing it even more.
“Hi Naomi. It’s Austin.” He wasn’t even sure what time it was in Spain. “I just wanted to wish you a happy New Year. And I wanted you to know that I’m thinking of you.” He stopped himself before he said, “I’m always thinking of you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Carlos was on top of her.
He said it was his favorite way to fall asleep. But he never asked Naomi if it was hers.
“You have such beautiful skin,” he murmured.
He said it tenderly, but it irked her. What did it even mean? It wasn’t like she was responsible for the quality of her skin. Sure, she used moisturizer and whatnot. But it was mostly a matter of genetics. And age. Of course, she was almost thirty-one, as her mother liked to remind her, and no longer quite the prize she would have been at, say, twenty-six. But he wasn’t thirty-six. Or even forty-six. Sometimes she felt like he didn’t love her so much as fetishize her.
And what about her? Did she fetishize him? Not for his age or his looks, though his grizzled chin and slate gray eyes could be darn near irresistible. No, the question was would she have been as attracted to him if he weren’t a world-famous chef? Was she nothing but a slightly sophisticated star fucker? Not even all that sophisticated, given how quickly she had moved to Madrid. But wasn’t it a good thing that she was seduced by his culinary skills, rather than his skills in the bedroom? Not that she was exactly complaining in that department. The sex wasn’t revelatory (like his fried squid with black ink mousse), but he was pleasantly attentive, if a little more interested in the entrée than the appetizers.
Maybe she hadn’t been immune to the perks of his professional success, but there was no shame in it. Everyone brings something to the table. And now, almost six months later, she had gotten rather used to her life of leisure. She enjoyed her daily walks along the Gran Vía or the Calle Mayor, stopping for a Napolitana pastry at La Mallorquina or a croquette at the Market of San Miguel. She enjoyed her afternoons at art museums, having the time to explore them slowly. She’d spent hours the previous day captivated by a black-and-white film at the Reina Sofía, and it was only a forty-second film. Sortie d’Usine III by Auguste Lumière. Her French was worse than her Spanish, but she had looked up the title when she got back to the apartment, and it translated as “Leaving the Factory III.” Made in 1896, according to Wikipedia it was the first film ever made. Well, the third version of the first film.
And it was precisely what its name implied. A simple scene of workers leaving a factory. Mostly young women in wide-brimmed hats and floor-length skirts. Also young men. Some in dark three-piece suits and boaters. Naomi had flushed in her loose silk blouse as she imagined what it must have felt like to be wearing such garments in an un-air-conditioned factory on a summer day. The workers scattered in all directions. A woman gave a quick tug to her friend’s skirt before they headed opposite ways. A dog cavorted with a man riding a bicycle. And just before the doors of the factory closed, a nervous man darted back inside, perhaps to retrieve a forgotten hat, though Naomi preferred to think it was a parcel for his paramour.
She watched the scene over and over. It all went by so quickly. And then it was over. Less than a minute in these people’s lives. An unguarded moment. She wondered if the workers knew the moment was being captured on film. And even if they did, could they have possibly co
nceived of it lasting more than a century? Freeze-framing them in their flickering youth. It struck Naomi that everyone in the film must be dead, though some might have great-grandchildren or even great-great-great-great-grandchildren. Others might have perished young in one of numerous wars, or succumbed to heartbreak. Naomi yearned to know what they dreamed of doing. What were their ambitions? Did they succeed? She had this awful feeling that their lives were never as carefree as they seemed in those forty seconds. Why were they in such a hurry? Each time the film loop completed its cycle, she had an impulse to try to stop them. To warn them that this was all they had. In this moment, they would stay callow and luminous. Where were they going? And wasn’t it about time she asked herself the same question?
Naomi hadn’t worked in a kitchen since leaving Miami, unless she counted the effort she made in preparing confections for Carlos. Though she wouldn’t accuse him of luring her to Madrid under false pretenses, the position in his restaurant never quite materialized. Her Spanish had improved, though it was still malísimo. She found if she smiled a lot, people tended to be patient with her. Or at least men did. It was one of the perks of being a young woman with attractive skin, even one who was almost thirty-one.
Her left arm was falling asleep. She gently rolled out from under Carlos. “Cariño,” he said softly. He called everyone darling. Even the busboys. She found it endearing. It just didn’t have a lot to do with her. She glanced around the room. Nothing seemed to have much to do with her. The chrome and dark wood furniture. The aboriginal art. She had come with only her one suitcase. Though she had clothes in his closet and tampons in his bathroom, she wasn’t sure she had a significant presence in Carlos’s life. No, that wasn’t quite accurate. There were numerous photos online that proved she had a major presence by his side at charity galas and restaurant openings. And, of course, in bed. No photographs of that. Well, none online. He draped his leg over her. She used to find it comforting. Now she felt imprisoned.
She often wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t come to Madrid. If she had stayed in Miami. If Austin had showed up a week or even a day sooner, she very well might have. She had been confused by his mixed signals since Stu and Steffi’s wedding. Of course he’d been ridiculously drunk that night, and she’d practically thrown herself at him.
She wished she knew what was going on in his mind. She suspected he had a girlfriend, and he was just too embarrassed to tell her. If she added up his hot-cold behavior, that was the simplest explanation. Steffi had thought he was single at the time of the wedding. But Steffi barely knew him. And Stu was completely unreliable about that kind of thing.
Which didn’t explain why Austin had called her two weeks ago. And on New Year’s Eve. Why would he do that if he was with someone else? And if he wasn’t with someone else, why hadn’t he once tried to talk to her about what he felt for her? Or if that was too much to ask of a guy, why hadn’t he asked her out? Which seemed a reasonable question, as long as she disregarded the minor fact that she was living with another man on another continent.
But the bigger question was why was she in bed with her lover, thinking about another man? Carlos was passionate, creative, funny, kind, charming, generous and successful. It was like she had filled out a questionnaire in a women’s magazine, and he had been manufactured according to her specifications. She lived in a multimillion-dollar Art Nouveau flat. Was lavished with expensive clothes and jewelry and was photographed at A-list events. Yet she was still unsatisfied. She was her mother’s daughter.
She was also living in a fantasy. A beautiful fantasy, maybe from a Jacques Demy film. But in the real world, she didn’t want to be someone’s trophy wife. And Carlos wasn’t the marrying kind. So trophy mistress was as good as it was going to get. He hadn’t been encouraging her career, which was a subtle way of saying he didn’t think she was good enough.
But none of that really mattered, because the crazy, stupid truth was she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Austin since she’d received his latest voice mail. Actually, since Miami. Oh, who was she kidding? Since their night in Crystal Cove. And her mother’s rules be damned, it was time he knew.
“Cariño,” Carlos called out to Naomi, “someone is at the door.”
He had heard the doorbell as well as she had, but there was an assumption that she was both part-time lover and part-time housekeeper. Though that was unfair, because they actually had a full-time housekeeper. Naomi was just in an unsettled mood. She was feeling guilty. As if she had cheated on Carlos. And she supposed, in a way, she had. What had Jimmy Carter said about lusting in his head? Or was it his heart?
The doorbell rang again. “Cariño,” Carlos drawled from his office, which was closer to the front door than the bedroom, where Naomi was pacing back and forth. She had decided to call Austin the moment she had gotten up, but it was too early in the States. And it was too early in Madrid for visitors. Who could possibly be coming by before ten? And why wasn’t Carlos concerned that the concierge hadn’t buzzed them?
Naomi was out of sorts as she clomped to the door, so it was hard to say if she was more or less irritated when she saw it was her mother standing in the vestibule.
“Happy birthday!” Lila Bloom trumpeted.
“It’s not my birthday,” Naomi said to her unexpected guest. Though nothing her mother did was ever truly unexpected.
“I’m one week early,” Lila said, kissing her. “So sue me.” Naomi hated celebrating her birthday early, and if she remembered correctly, she’d gotten the trait from her mother.
“¡Sorpresa!” Carlos said, coming up behind her. Naomi hated surprises. Something Carlos didn’t know. But her mother certainly did.
Lila breezed into the apartment, her lithe body within pounds of her daughter’s despite the twenty-two-year age difference. Her mother stood a tad taller, which was due to either an actual difference in height (as Naomi had claimed since puberty) or better posture (her mother’s verdict). They also wore their hair in the same side-swept, shoulder-length style, but that was where the similarities ended. Lila was immaculately put together, with nails and lipstick in a nearly identical shade of coral and an ivory wool suit that looked like she had never sat down in it, despite the fact that she had just gotten off a plane. Naomi’s nail polish was chipped and her lips were chapped. She was wearing one of Carlos’s old sweatshirts and little else.
“I was in New York, visiting Noah, and Carlos thought it would make a wonderful surprise to pop across the pond.”
She hated that her mother was the kind of person to say “pop across the pond.”
“I thought you were maybe a little homesick,” Carlos said to Naomi, rubbing her back.
Guilt. Guilt.
“She should be,” her mother added. “She hasn’t visited in a year.”
And more guilt.
“How’s Noah?” Naomi asked. She hadn’t spoken to her brother in more than a month. He had said she was living like a modern-day courtesan, which she didn’t like. What she particularly didn’t like was that she agreed.
“He’s dating a nice African man.”
“‘African American’ is the preferred term,” Naomi corrected her.
“I know what to call an African American,” Lila huffed. “But he’s dating an African. A Nigerian. Skin as dark as tar. But very buff. That’s the word people are using now, right? Buff?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Carlos said with a wink, while making her a mimosa.
“So you liked him?” Naomi asked.
“I didn’t say I liked him. I said he was a nice man. I didn’t understand a lot of what he said. He speaks with a British accent.”
“Ah,” Carlos sighed, as he handed her a drink. “That could be very difficult,” he said, rolling his “r.” Naomi had to stop herself from laughing.
“Carlos, I understand everything you say,” Lila assured him. “I have a Mexican gar
dener, and I talk to him every day without any problem whatsoever. It’s the British accent that throws me.”
Naomi was beginning to wonder how long her birthday gift was staying.
“Carlos, this mimosa is the most fabulous mimosa I’ve ever had in my life. Naomi, you’re a lucky woman.”
“She knows,” Carlos said as he handed Naomi a mimosa.
She did know. That was the problem.
“Naomi, don’t tell your father about the African. He’s going to shit bricks. He already thinks that Noah is dating men just to spite him.”
“What if they get serious?” Naomi asked. “Are you just going to keep it from him?”
“Of course not,” Lila said. “I’m going to tell him when I get back. I just want to be there to enjoy his reaction.”
Naomi didn’t know what to say. Carlos did: “I must go to the restaurant.”
“Don’t leave me alone with her,” Naomi wanted to scream out.
“For dinner,” he said, “I think tapas on Cava Baja, ¿si?”
Naomi had doubts she would survive until dinner, but she nodded. Within minutes Carlos was out of the apartment, and she thought she detected him moving faster than usual.
It was only after he was gone that the full magnitude of the inconvenience of her mother’s visit hit Naomi. There was no way she was going to be able to call Austin. Her mother didn’t understand the meaning of “privacy” or “personal space.”
However, Naomi knew it couldn’t have been easy for her mother to have schlepped to Madrid, especially given how little she liked flying, which was something she and Carlos had previously bonded over. Naomi also knew her mother loved her, and deep down her mother meant well. The problem was her mother wasn’t all that deep.
“So has there been any talk about a ring?” Lila asked.
“That’s not on my agenda,” Naomi said.
“Well, it should be, because men don’t move unless there’s a fire in the belfry.” Her mother had this habit of saying things that sounded like common knowledge but were in fact nonsensical statements she made up on the spur of the moment.