“Christos invited us over to dinner with the team at his mother’s house tomorrow,” Iván prompted.
“Sorry. I was thinking about someone—something else. Thank you for inviting us, we would love to come.”
They made an announcement about boarding and I involuntarily dug my fingers into Iván’s arm. Then all of a sudden, we were getting on the airplane. It was even smaller than a bus inside. The aisle was narrow and there were people everywhere stuffed into the little seats. The ceiling was too low.
“That’s you by the window,” Iván was telling me. He had to turn his legs sideways into mine to fit into his seat. I put my forehead on the thick glass, trying to imagine myself outside. It was ok. I was fine. I had to do this, if I wanted to go to Spain, if I wanted to be a regular adult. I heard some of the swimmers talking to Iván. They leaned over the seats in front of us, way too close. “Sit down,” he told them.
“All right?” he asked me. I nodded. I had done the elevator. I could do this.
“Is it going to be over soon?”
Iván got a very strange look. “We haven’t taken off yet.”
I put my forehead back on the window and resolved not to be an idiot anymore. It was just that everything was so close. “Maybe I could just get off for a minute,” I heard myself say. “Like five minutes.”
“They already shut the doors. We’re going to back up away from the gate, and then drive out to the runway, then take off. It won’t be that long.”
There were thumps, noises, announcements. I kept my eyes on a puddle of greasy rainwater on the concrete below us. I watched it get farther away as the plane started to move backwards. Iván put his arm around me. “Does this help or should I leave you alone?” he asked me. “Maura, you’re shaking. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I asked you to do this.”
I opened my mouth to tell him that I was fine but a choked breath came out. “Could I just get off for a minute?” I said instead.
“Look right at me. Don’t worry about everything else.”
The plane jolted. I looked into his eyes. “See? Just you and me. Think about us in bed.” I blushed and his eyes crinkled with his smile. “I love to see you do that. Think how it feels, just the two of us, skin to skin. Think about when I touch you.” His voice had dropped to a whisper. “I think about you sometimes during the day. I think about the weight of your breast in my palm.” His eyes burned into mine.
“Iván…”
“I think about when you sleep how you put your wrist over your eyes. You talk sometimes.”
“No, I don’t!” I protested.
“You do. You told me, ‘Iván, get the cat.’ I heard you perfectly.”
“You snore when you lie on your back,” I informed him.
“No. I breathe deeply.”
“You breathe deeply, loudly,” I said, and he laughed. The plane jolted hard and I clutched his arms.
“We’re in the air. Look.” He pointed to the window.
It was beautiful. I could see the bay and the bridges below us, the hill that announced South San Francisco. It didn’t feel like the plane was so small when I could see so far. Iván leaned into me, his chin on my shoulder. “You’re flying, Maura.” His arms went around my waist. It never made me feel like I couldn’t get away, or that I wanted more space from him. I turned and kissed his cheek. I couldn’t tell him how I felt about him, because I didn’t really understand it myself. I was just so glad to be with him at that moment. I would be so, so sorry when he was gone.
I made it through the flight. About halfway there, I started to panic a little and I really wanted to get off. Immediately. I managed to get myself back under control, but I was never so glad as when they cracked open the door and I felt new air rush in. I didn’t think I was quite ready for a flight to Spain. But I was getting there.
The swim team walking through the airport in Oakland had gotten some attention, and they all did in Los Angeles as we left, too. There happened to be a tour group from Spain in the same concourse as ours, and they went nuts when they saw Iván. He let go of my hand to sign autographs. The guys on the team were sniggering and Christos rolled his eyes. “I forget that we have an international celebrity in our midst.” Two teenage girls stood on their tiptoes on either side of Iván, grinning widely, to take a picture with him. They kissed his cheeks and looked like they were going to pass out. I could understand their feelings.
“He doesn’t act like an international celebrity,” I defended him. “He certainly never pulls any diva stuff.”
“No, but before he came, I had thought that he would. And I think that he’s used to arguing with coaches, instead of being one. That included arguing with me.”
I watched a woman kind of rubbing on Iván. “Maybe,” I answered. “But you’re getting along now, and it’s better for your team.” Iván disentangled himself and came over to us. “Did your new friend want to join us?” I asked him, pointing to the woman still staring after him.
“Maura, you know that you’re my only friend,” he told me, and started laughing.
The hotel was equidistant from the two university pools where the team would compete. They went over almost immediately to see the first pool after we checked in and I wandered around this new campus.
It was a pretty school, not as nice as ours, but not bad. I was walking back to the hotel when my phone rang. The area code was Georgia.
My stomach dropped. What was wrong—was he—“Hello?” I demanded loudly.
There was a silence. “Maura?”
Tears filled my eyes. “Benji? Hi, buddy!”
“Is it ok that I’m calling you?”
“Of course, it’s ok. How are you doing?”
“I’m all right,” Benji answered. “I like being with my grandma. I’m moving to my aunt and uncle’s house next weekend and I’ll probably like it there, too.”
“I’m sure you will. Hey, do they still have those geese you told me about?” I asked him.
“Yes!” He filled me in on some new additions to the farm, a special kind of chicken. “The chicks are so cute. But you know, you have to be very careful to wash your hands after playing with animals. Do you know about zoonotic illnesses?” he asked.
“I’ll remember to wash thoroughly. Tell me about your new school.”
We talked for a long time. Finally, Benji said he had to go to dinner then bed. “Grandma doesn’t know that I stay up late reading.” He chuckled. “You’re not here to catch me.”
“Benjamin Darin Dorset, you better go to sleep when your grandmother tells you to,” I threatened. “Got it?”
“Ok, Maura.” He paused. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too, buddy.”
“Bye.”
I stayed on the bench, holding my phone in my hand. Then I slowly walked back to the hotel to find Iván.
He texted me instead and asked me to meet him and the team at a restaurant near the hotel. It was a good, fast, and extremely expensive meal. I knew that Iván ate a lot, and he worked out a lot, too. But I had never seen a quantity of food disappear like it did that night at dinner. I thought if I’d put my purse on the table they would have eaten that too.
Partway through the feasting, Iván looked over at me. He was in his element, laughing and talking to all the swimmers. “You ok?” he asked.
I nodded and smiled at him. “They’re just louder than I am.”
“They’re louder than everybody else, too.”
“Do they care that I’m here? Am I crimping their style?”
“No,” he said, and kissed me. “Anyway, you’re my style, so it doesn’t matter because I’m in charge.”
“Christos is in charge,” I reminded him, but he waved his hand at me. “A canas honradas no hay puertas cerradas.”
“Have you heard this proverb? Iván va a quemar ese puto libro de dichos.”
“I don’t think that one is in my book.” He laughed and kissed me again. He didn’t care that anyone else was watching.
“What are you wearing?” he asked me. His Adam’s apple moved up and down.
I slowly pulled the covers off. “I think it’s called a chemise.”
He swallowed again. “It’s mostly lace.”
I nodded and held out my arms. “Come here,” I told him, and he slid into bed with me, every luscious inch of him.
Chapter 16
“Are you seducing me?”
“Do I need to?” I asked nervously. I wanted to. I wanted to have all of him, while I could.
Iván trailed his fingers down my arm. “No, you don’t need to. I want you all the time, but the chemise is very nice.” Now his fingers drifted across my nipples. “Very nice.”
“I have to tell you something first. It’s just so you don’t take things personally.” My nerves increased.
“I feel like we’re about to do something very personal.”
“We are, so I want to tell you.” Now I was swallowing. “Sometimes I kind of check out,” I said finally. “It won’t have anything to do with you.”
His fingers stopped. “Check out? What does that mean?”
“I just…go somewhere else in my head. During sex. I don’t even know what’s been happening, sometimes.”
“You never did that before, when we were kissing, touching.” His forehead crinkled. “Did you and I didn’t notice?”
“No!” Strangely, I hadn’t. “But we never went all the way, so I just don’t want you to think that you did something wrong. I can’t really control it.” I bit my lip. “No, that’s not true. I never tried to control it.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“I guess I never had the greatest experiences with sex. It’s always been easier to avoid it.”
“You don’t mean physically avoid it.” Iván’s voice was a growl. “You mean, that man did what he wanted to you while you lay there and made your mind escape.” Every muscle in his body clenched in anger and I didn’t know who it was for.
“That’s not what I mean. Robin would have stopped if I asked him to. Don’t be mad at me, please. I’m trying to explain. It was before.”
Iván visibly got himself under control. “What do you mean, ‘It was before?’ What happened before?”
Little snatches of memories drifted through my mind. The door opening. Footsteps. “It’s all over now. It was a long, long time ago and it won’t happen again,” I explained calmly. “There’s nothing that can be done.” How many times had I told myself this? “Even if the police could find them, the statute of limitations is already up,” I heard myself say.
“Them? Maura.”
From the look on his face, I thought he was going to cry. “I’m ok,” I told him. “I’m definitely ok. It was a long time ago.”
I ended up telling Iván everything. I hadn’t ever, not to anyone. He got up after a while to get me a glass of water and then later, a cold cloth to put on my swollen eyes. I had cried a lot, and I hadn’t been able to stop it. Sometime in the early morning I fell asleep, and when Iván’s phone started chiming with his alarm not too much later, neither of us was ready for the day.
“Stay in bed,” he said, disentangling himself from me, his voice hoarse and rough. He looked exhausted. “Come over to the pool later after you sleep more.”
I sat up, my hair tumbling around my face. I felt like I had done a triathlon—every muscle in my body ached. I listened to Iván getting dressed, unnaturally clumsy and loud. He sat on the bed before he left and hugged me. “I’ll call you. Will you answer?”
I felt terrible that he needed to ask me that. What kind of unreliable person was I, to make him worry? “I will. I’ll call you, too.” He didn’t seem to want to leave. “Go,” I told him. “I’ll sleep and come down to the pool, like you said. Go.”
But when he left, I couldn’t get back to sleep. All these years, I had thought that I couldn’t remember, and that it was better to make myself forget. I thought I had successfully put it away, stored it up neatly, and moved on.
It hadn’t worked, what I tried to do with my life. There were bad things that I’d tried to box up and ignore, but I hadn’t controlled them by doing that—they were still there, as much as I didn’t want them to be. My life hadn’t been all darkness and misery, not by a long shot. There were plenty of good things, too. Why had I wanted to forget them? Was it better to try to make the slate clean even of the happy times, the decent people, the love I’d experienced? I started to think that I didn’t want to let those good things go anymore, even if the memories could hurt.
I felt a little strange, kind of confused. I also felt oddly light now that I had said it all out loud to Iván. I realized I needed to do some things.
I sat up again, reached for my phone, and called Benji’s grandma. We talked for a long, long time, mostly about Benji and how he was doing right now, but also about Undine and his future. When I hung up, we had firm plans for me to go to Georgia over my spring break, and Benji was going to come to visit me in the summer. She had put him on the phone, too. He was heading over to his aunt and uncle’s for their party for him. I told him that I would see him soon, and he started whooping and then panting a little.
“Are you out of breath from doing that weird happy dance?” I had demanded.
“Yes!”
Next, I finally called Joana back. I told her all about Benji and we set a time to meet up when I got home. I left a message for Iván that I would see him soon. I stretched a lot, showered, and got dressed slowly, the aches working themselves out. I felt better, really, than I had in a while. The lightness inside me seemed to be increasing.
The swim meet was not boring, as Iván had thought it might be for me. I watched some incredible races, cheered loudly for our team, but mostly just stared at Iván. I watched him talk seriously to the swimmers, I watched him pat them on the backs and console them, I watched him laugh, but not as much as he usually did. He still looked tired and worried. I knew it was due to me, and I wanted to wipe that away from him. But at the same time, knowing that he cared that much, it made me glad. Which was probably not the nicest thing, but it was true.
As the day wore on, I started to get really tired. During the last race, when a lot of spectators had cleared out, I made my way down the bleachers and leaned over the edge of the stands.
Iván saw me and came over. “Good job today,” I told him.
He beckoned, and I leaned down further so he could give me a kiss. “They swam well.”
“I’m going back to the hotel. See you there?” I smoothed my hand over his cheek and he turned to kiss my palm.
“See you there,” he told me.
I lay down fully dressed, so sleepy. Just as I was dozing off, my phone rang with a LA number. I answered, expecting a call from the pool.
“Hey, you! Are you coming back soon?” I smiled in anticipation of hearing Iván’s voice.
“Maura?”
I sat up straight in bed. “Mikey?”
“Yeah. Hi.”
I didn’t know where to start. “Mikey?” I repeated. “You’re back in Los Angeles?”
“I never left California. We never made it to Mexico,” he said. “You know how it is.”
Not really. I had never had warrants hanging over my head like he now did. “I was so worried about you. I wish you had let me know where you were.”
“Yeah, I was busy. Sorry,” he said.
There was a silence. “I have your stuff,” I told him. “We moved it a few times for you.”
“You can get rid of that junk,” he responded.
I got very angry. “I think you meant to say, ‘Thank you. Thank you for helping me.’ Right?”
“Yeah.” Mikey sounded very surprised. I never got mad at him. “Thanks, Maura.”
&nb
sp; “You need to come back and talk to your parole officer and we can try to straighten it out. You know you have to.” He didn’t answer. “Sooner or later this is going to catch up with you, Mikey.”
“How are you doing?” he asked me, rather than responding. “Everything ok?”
“Yeah, I’m ok.” I thought for a second. “No, I’m better than ok. I’m really good.”
“I’m glad.” He sounded surprised again. “You still with that dipshit Robin?”
“No.”
“I always hated that guy.”
“No one really liked him. I was only with him because I felt obligated to him, and I was afraid to be alone.” I was shocked as the words came out of my mouth. They were totally true.
“Robin was a tool. You always had to take care of him.”
I had done the same thing with Mikey, too, or I had tried to. “I guess I did.”
“Listen, I don’t know when I’ll talk to you again. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“Yeah.” I thought of Iván. I couldn’t let him get hurt by Mikey. “I don’t want that, either. But Mikey? I love you.”
A sound came through the phone that sounded almost like a sob. “I love you, too.”
I didn’t want to hang up. I closed my eyes. Maybe I wouldn’t ever talk to him again, but I had to hope. “Goodbye.” I put the phone down and my head on the pillow, and thought for a while.
Iván came in not too much later and threw himself on the bed next to me. He rested his head on his folded arms for a minute then reached over and pulled me to him. “You’re not sleeping,” he announced.
“It would have been hard with you bouncing me off the bed. You know, cuando el gato—”
He put his hand over my mouth. “I’ll stop bouncing if you promise to give me that book of sayings.”
I pointed at my head. “I can give you the book, but they’re all up here, now. It’s too late. La persistencia de la memoria.”
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