A Taste of Spice and Splendor

by Lacuna Reid

  “No fucking way!” Lana says.

  “And he makes it sound like he knows the guys, or at least Gino – mind you, this must have been sent before I left New York, which is even creepier. I didn’t know he even knew where I was. Not in New York, and definitely not here.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Now that you’ve hit rock bottom, let me in again, Mira. I just want to help. Come back to me. I know you’ve met Gino. You’re not meant to live in struggle week-to-week; you’re made for luxury. I hope you like my gift.”

  “What gift?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t received anything else.”

  “What do you think it means?” Lana asks.

  “I’m trying to figure it out. He doesn’t say anything good or bad about Gino – he just implies that he’s been watching me.”

  “Maybe he just doesn’t say anything bad about Gino because he doesn’t want to push you towards them. Maybe he knows how you’ll react to him warning you off, so he’s planting a seed of doubt. He wanted you to get this before you decided to leave New York. Think about it. What would you have done if you’d opened this letter back then?”

  “I don’t know – probably run away again?”

  “Exactly,” Lana says.

  “Exactly what?”

  “Cliff must have been watching you all these years, waiting for you to fail, waiting for you to run out of places to run…” says Lana.

  “Oh crap…” I say, the possibilities churning in my gut. “Lana, what if this is all a set up? What if Cliff is paying for all this?”

  “Do you really think he’d be that creative?”

  “Maybe he’s friends with the guys and he’s asked them to help him as a favor, get me used to the good life again, confuse me, break my heart… so, I come back to him.”

  “Shit that would be twisted, even for him…” Lana says.

  “I need to get out of here, Lana, before he finds me again.”

  “Honey, no. You don’t even know if he’s anywhere near El Cielo.”

  “No, but he knows Gino and… and there was a visitor for me here this morning – a man in the lobby. I didn’t see him and I didn’t know for sure who it was, but I bet it was Cliff. I have to get away, Lana. I don’t want to be part of anymore of his sick controlling games.”

  “You don’t really think…?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is, these guys have been keeping something from me, as much as I like them. What if they’ve been drugging me? Making me like them? Putting something in the food, so that I have weird dreams?”

  “That sounds crazy,” Lana says. “If Cliff was watching you in New York, then you’re probably much safer half a world away.”

  “Unless this is all part of his plan.”

  “Do you really think that?”

  “I don’t know. I need to get out of here, away from these men, so that I can think straight. It’s too confusing being here. Do you think if I caught a plane back to New York, I could sleep on your couch for a while?”

  “No, that’s not going to work.”

  “Please? You’re my only option.” It’s not quite true, I could go somewhere else by myself, but right now I don’t want to be alone. I want to be with my best friend. I want to feel safe.

  “Sorry, babe, we’re on our way to Argentina for a month and subletting our apartment.”

  Well, there goes that plan.

  “It’s time for you to confront this properly,” Lana says. “Stand up to those guys and demand answers. Do they know Cliff? What are they hiding?”

  “I don’t think I can do that,” I say, sprawling out on my bed with the phone.

  “No – you just don’t want to do that. You’re scared of confrontation, Mira. I get it. I’ve known you a long, long time, remember? Every time shit gets real, you run. That’s your thing, but it’s getting old. You can’t just keep running.”

  I look around the beautiful room I find myself in and realize how much I want to stay here in this gorgeous place with these gorgeous guys. “Maybe you’re right,” I say.

  “Don’t tease me,” Lana says. “You never really think I’m right.”

  I sigh.

  “Just take a few days to relax,” Lana says. “Even just a few hours. Calm down and you’ll realize that everything is going to be fine.”

  I hang up the phone and try to slow my breathing. Lana is probably right. I’m getting worked up and paranoid when I don’t understand what’s going on here. I just need to relax. I have a nap and when I wake up, it’s early evening.

  There’s a missed call on my phone from an unknown number and there’s no way in hell I’m calling them back.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Mira

  Elias is quiet as we work in the kitchen in the evening, preparing for a late-night function that Gino is hosting for the Turkish Ambassador.

  I keep glancing over at Elias, wondering if he knows about what happened with me and Theo. His expression is stormy and unreadable. I can’t help but wonder if he’s brooding because he has feelings for me too… but then I pull myself back to reality. How conceited of me to think like that.

  As I glance over at his deep sad eyes, I realize that the problem is I have serious feelings for Elias… but how can I have feelings for all the guys? I think back to my night with Theo. It felt so real, but now I’m starting to realize how ridiculous I’ve been to think that a guy like Theo could be interested in a girl like me.

  What have I done?

  As I slice the onions, tears form in my eyes and it's not just related to the fumes. Shame follows in a wave that overtakes me.

  Mira how could you be so stupid… How could you have slept with one of your bosses and somehow develop feelings for all four of them?

  This is impossible knowing how possessive guys can be. I don’t have any chance with any of them now… not really.

  I'm sure Theo would want more of a serious trophy wife, someone professional and wealthy like him. I'm kidding myself if I think he’d be interested in a lowly sous chef.

  And as for the other guys, well, now that I’ve slept with their friend, I'll be off limits… and even if I hadn't, they're all way too good for me.

  Maybe Elias wouldn't have cared about that. I look over at him, but he’s doing his best to avoid my gaze. Maybe he would have seen a deeper value in me beyond my mountains of debt and my messy life, but it's too late for anything to happen. Even if he is cut up about me now, he'll be over me in no time.

  The worst thing is that I clearly screwed it all up… It was so unprofessional to sleep with my employer. No wonder Theo took off. I guess that's what the real meaning of this meeting is tonight and they’ll be telling me I'm no longer employable and asking me to hand in my notice.

  I was feeling so sure about Theo, and about this place, just this morning but now all my insecurities have come to the fore and I can see how deluded I was. There are too many scenarios running through my head, each worse than the last. Either way, my time here is running out. I need to think of a new solution, a new possibility… a new life plan.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Mira

  As I walk through the lobby, Victor calls me over to reception.

  “You’re working late,” I say, smiling at him.

  Victor has a strange look in his eyes, his grey hair glints under the lights, and I wonder, for a moment if he’s in a bad mood.

  “This parcel was left here for you, earlier,” Victor says, holding a white box. “Your visitor asked that it get to you safely.”

  A shiver runs through me, and it’s not the good kind. I take the box from Victor, unsure if I should ask him anything else about the man who came looking for me earlier. What did he look like? Was he older or younger?

  I decide against it because Victor is still looking at me with that strange unreadable expression, and anyway, it’s not my father’s style… no, this is a Cliff power play.

  I take the box, because I don�
�t know what else to do and walk to my room as quickly as possible without actually breaking into a run.

  I throw the box in the trash because I can’t bear to look at it. I’m definitely not going to open it. Whatever Cliff is sending me, it’s bad news, and I’m 100% certain it’s from him now. I’d incinerate the whole box if I could, but for now, my options are limited.

  The problem is, the box is now just sitting there in the trash can. I can’t help but glance across at it and wonder who might find it there.

  There are cleaners who come every few days to dust and clean the floors and bathrooms and empty the trash… I go back to the trash can and look down at the box, wishing it would just disappear. I take it out again and shove it right to the back of the wardrobe, then I throw myself down on the bed.

  I’ve already got enough men in my life who I actually like… the last thing I need is this.

  I spend the night restless, tossing and turning in the bed that is now too soft, running through simulations in my head. I confront Theo and he laughs at me. It was all just a joke. I don’t belong here.

  Theo is coming back tomorrow… He wants us all to meet; he said he wants to explain everything… But the thought of a meeting with all four of my sexy bosses right now, when I feel like a total impostor, is enough to make me nauseous.

  Even if that’s not the case, and I stay, Cliff will track me down. He knows Gino, he probably knows this place. The things he tells them will get them on his side. He has a way of doing that… and even if they do whatever they can… even if they try to protect me, Cliff will find a way to destroy them.

  He has always been ruthless when it comes to business as well as pleasure. I never understood why he didn’t come after me when I left. I’d hoped he was avoiding me because he was trying to avoid paying a divorce settlement and alimony. I hoped that would be enough to keep him away. I never wanted his money. I just wanted freedom to live my own life.

  For a few weeks after I left, I was terrified he’d seek revenge or coerce me to come back, but the weeks turned into months and still there was no sign of him.

  After a few years I’d assumed he must have moved on. Now it seems, as if he was watching me, biding his time, waiting for me to fail and come crawling back, so that he has the upper hand. He always has the upper hand.

  I toss and turn in bed and after what seems like an eternity, I finally fall into a light sleep and have another dream. This time I’m being chased by Cliff. He has a sword, he’s catching up… just as he’s about to catch me, I wake.

  I try to reassure myself that everything is fine, but I feel the lead weight of dread in my stomach. I knew this place was too good to be true. I knew the guys were hiding something from me. Whether Lana is right or not, it doesn’t matter; I can’t confront them. No matter how much I want to stay here, I can feel it all slipping away like water through a sieve… the dream of El Cielo, of this whole enchanted place, of these beautiful men. No matter how much I’m in love with this place, no matter how much I want to stay… I can’t.

  I have the money from my first paycheck, not much, but enough to leave here, enough for a ticket home, but there’s nowhere I can stay. I can’t go to Lana’s. I search the internet for options. I could go to Italy or to Prague, somewhere cheap, somewhere I’ve never been before.

  A plan forms in my mind: catch a taxi to the nearest station and get on the next train heading north. I can stay in cheap backpackers’ and meet new interesting friends, get a job waitressing if I can’t find any kitchen work, change my name to something different, something exotic, something Cliff will never expect. I’ll never have to think about this place, or these guys again – not for years when they’ll just be a footnote, just one among the many adventures of my life.

  I pack my backpack just as first light is creeping into the room. I hardly brought anything with me in the first place, so there’s not that much to leave behind, and I certainly don’t want to take the present from Cliff with me. There are just a few items of clothing that I need, and toiletries, and of course, my mother’s comb. I clutch it to my chest, running my thumb over the half-circle of dark carved wood, looking at the red and white flowers.

  The grief hits me hard on top of everything else. It was such a long time ago that my mother died, and it has been a long time since a wave of grief this strong has come on. I’m not just mourning the mother I had, I’m also mourning my own childhood and adolescence without her.

  I pull myself back to the immediate task at hand. I don’t have much time if I want to get out of here early enough, before any of the guys notice. Theo is getting back sometime today, and he’ll find me gone. I decide to leave a note for him at reception. Marina is at the desk, looking tired, by the time I get down.

  She gives me a puzzled look as I use the phone to call a taxi, but she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she’s secretly happy that I am leaving; now she’ll have all the guys to herself. I ask her for a pen and paper and scrawl a note for Theo. It’s the least I can do. I tell him I’m leaving but I can’t find the right words to tell him why. I thank him for his generosity. It’s only when big teardrops hit the paper that I realize I’m crying. It’s too early in the morning for this – too early for any of this. I’ll have to find coffee at the train station.

  I fold the note and pass it to Marina. “Can you make sure Theo gets this?” I say.

  She has concern in her eyes and something else, something like sympathy. I don’t want your pity, lady.

  I bustle my suitcases out to the front of the lobby to wait for the taxi. It seems to take such an agonizingly long time that I’m worried one of the guys will see me, but it’s still early. They’re probably fast asleep or busy doing whatever highly motivated morning things they do.

  After an eternity, the taxi arrives. There’s a moment, when I’m getting in, where I’m almost wishing one of the guys will come out and intercept me, wrap his arms around me, hold me, ask me to stay. But the moment passes; the door is closed, and I’m watching El Cielo slowly shrinking away. Tears are streaming down my cheeks and I don’t even wipe them away. I just leave them to chill and remind me that what I’m leaving behind is significant.

  There’s a part of me that wants the driver to stop the car, to turn to me, to grab me by the shoulders and shake me and remind me what I’m giving up, but what would he know? There are thousands of cells in my body, aching, as if they’re screaming to go back, but I can’t get back within Cliff’s grasp. I thought I had escaped him before, but now I get the feeling he’s been watching me all these years, biding his time, waiting for me to fail, so I’d go crawling back to him. The thought gives me the worst kind of chills and I feel like I’m about to break out in hives. I can’t go back.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Gino

  My alarm sounded twenty minutes ago. Usually, I’d be up by now, but my thoughts keep drifting back to Mira…

  …Theo and Mira.

  It’s hard to get the image out of my head – not a sexual one, but worse. I keep imagining Mira falling in love with Theo, becoming his wife… his pet.

  If that would ultimately make her happy, then I would learn to live with it despite the pain, but from the little I know about her past, I’m certain it would do the opposite. Either she would wither away – like a princess in a tower, never rescued… or, more likely, she would run.

  I know the previous men in her life have kept her captive, and as much as I love and admire Theo, I know he has the same tendencies towards control.

  It’s a pattern he has been trying to break over many lifetimes, and yet here we are again.

  I roll over at my bed and look at the painting on the wall. It’s abstract – full of blocks of bright colors, the kind of thing Theo dismisses as child’s play.

  I can understand Helio’s rage, his frustration with what seems like a never-ending circle of repetition. We are doomed to repeat the lessons we do not learn… as countless spiritual teachings will tell us… but how can The
o learn? How can any of us?

  If only it was as easy as saying it… as knowing we have to change, but it’s so much deeper.

  My phone rings, and for once, I consider not answering it. I’m too wrapped up in the mystery that is Mira… the mystery that is our lives, present and past.

  Despite my reluctance, I reach for my phone anyway.

  “Gino here,”

  “Gino… it’s…”

  “Marina, what is it?”

  “Mira… she’s gone.”

  “Gone?!”

  “She left a note. She was crying.”

  “Where did she go?” I ask, my heart pounding as my worst nightmares flash through my mind.

  Mira running away… never to be seen again; priestess Mya running… to her death…

  “She didn’t say,” Marina replies.

  “Fuck… fuck, fuck…”

  “What should I do?” Marina asks. “I tried to call Theo, but he’s still on his return flight.”

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. It’s always my role to reassure others, even when I’ve got no fucking idea myself.

  “I’ll figure it out,” I say, more to reassure myself than anything else.

  I hang up the phone, and rage takes over my body. It burns from my chest, out through my limbs, leaving a lump in my throat.

  Theo… Theo did this… it’s worse than I thought.

  My rage swings back like a pendulum into guilt.

  I was so busy selfishly worrying about him stealing Mira away from us that I didn’t even consider her immediate emotional state… How it must have felt like for Theo to fuck her and then take off for Venice without a second thought… the power imbalance between her and this older, more accomplished man… between her and her employers.

  Now I realize how confused she must have been with so little information. If she’s feeling even half the intensity of connection that I am… that we all are.