That night, back in her little white guest room, she saw the man’s face in her dreams. In the dream he was younger, his face almost beautiful, his green eyes glowing in moonlight. He was moving forward her, about to kiss her, but as she leaned forward to meet his lips he began to grin unpleasantly. That horrible grin filled the dreamscape, distorting everything around her.
She woke up with a start, the full moon shining through as the curtains shuffled between the open balcony doors. She stepped out into the warm night, the sharp sea air gently blowing in her face. She felt a strange, deep longing overcome her, mixed with a sense of danger. She couldn’t place the feeling at all.
She sighed and looked down at the waves crashing over the side of the rocks, the water rushing back and forth over and over again.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she spied the long shadow of a figure moving, but it quickly disappeared.
She hunched up her shoulders instinctively. She suddenly felt like she was being watched.
She wrapped her loose dressing gown tightly across her body, naked underneath the thin material, and then stood very still, tracing her eyes along the coastline in search of the shadowy figure.
The dark beach was deserted, the waves moving furiously. The palm trees along the shoreline were swaying, but the beach road was empty.
She couldn’t see any signs of anyone at all, and after some time searching, she began to think she had imagined it completely.
The cool sea breeze began to numb her bare legs and finally she returned to her room, shutting the balcony doors behind her.
She noticed for the first time that the windows had transparent net curtains, and she felt like she was in a goldfish bowl.
Switching off her bedside lamp, she fell into a light and fitful sleep, not waking again until the morning.
Chapter 4
“Does my bum look big in these pants, Donna?” José asked, making sure she got a good look at the bum in question.
“Enormous,” Donna said between bites of Spanish donut as she fiddled with her phone.
“I thought so … How much weight do you think I should lose before the wedding?”
José pulled up his T-shirt to reveal his perfectly toned abs, sucking in his non-existent stomach.
“Oh, maybe 100 pounds or so. Have you thought about purging? I hear it’s all the rage …”
“Hey, okay, best man. Be serious now. Concentrate! This is the suit I’m getting married in, remember. I need to get it right.”
He made a grab at her donut and broke off half, quickly shoving it in his mouth before she had a chance of saving her stolen sweet.
“Who are you texting, anyway? Have you found a Spanish man already? You don’t waste any time,” he tutted loudly, teasing, until she reached out and thumped his arm. He giggled at her attempt at a punch, which did no damage whatsoever to his muscular bicep.
“No, actually I’m looking for an address. But it’s not coming up on Google Maps,” she said in annoyance.
“What’s the name?”
She pulled out the ticket and read the address on the back.
“Calle De Los Tristes y Diablo,” she answered.
“Ah, no … you won’t find it on Google Maps.”
“Why not?”
“It’s arriba,” he motioned with his hand, “up. Far up in the mountains.” He waved to some imagined scenery beyond the shopping mall they were currently sitting in.
“People don’t go up there. It’s not for tourists—or anyone really—just the old gypsy community that lives there. It’s barely a road, just some paths along the hillside, with dug-out caves where the gypsies live. Why are you trying to find it, anyway?”
“Have you been there?”
“Not for many years. Not since I was a niño. Very young, seven or eight. I had a playmate who came from the community. He took me up there a few times …” He broke off, a smile coming over his face at the memory. “My mamá almost had a heart attack when she found out! But I wouldn’t go up there now, not without an invitation.”
“Why not? Is the path dangerous?”
“No, but the people are. Gypsy people here are … unpredictable. Dangerous.” He paused, taking in Donna’s disapproving face. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s true. I know you think I am being irrational and racist, but you don’t know. You don’t know Spain. It’s different for you. America doesn’t have the gypsies.”
She ignored him, but clocked the narrowmindedness. She had found that the easiest way to cope with her disappointment so far was to find reasons as to why she didn’t mind him marrying another woman.
The list was building quicker than she’d expected, but she found that she couldn’t dislike him—not that she really wanted to. He had been right; they were best friends. She had resigned herself to being happy for him and to dying alone surrounded by cats and comfortable sneakers that she’d never sprain her ankle in.
Besides not being able to hate her best friend, Maria was too nice to dislike too. She was that most annoying combination of heart-stopping beauty and ridiculously caring nature. The kind of woman who was so perfect that you kind of wanted to hate her at first, but quickly ended up loving her. She had checked on Donna every day to make sure she was okay and to dress her wound. She couldn’t blame anyone for wanting to marry a girl like Maria.
“Why are you looking up that address, anyway?” José asked, bringing Donna back to the conversation.
He was looking over her shoulders at the ticket, which she quickly stashed away inside her coat.
“Just a silly leaflet I picked up,” Donna said, not entirely sure why she was lying. “Okay, José, we have about ten more stores to look at and only five hours before closing time.”
“Donna, I’m a man. We go to one or two shops at most, buy the suit, and wham bam! We’re done. That’s an hour, tops, and then we go get tapas for the remaining four hours.”
“Tapas? I thought you were on a wedding diet …”
The ticket sat on her dressing room table for the next week. Sometimes she’d wake up in the middle of the night and instinctually look at the table, making sure that it was still there.
During the week she had finally found the path leading up to Calle De Los Tristes y Diablo. It was behind the tourist center and a good half an hour walk off the main road. It was a bit out of the city, past olive groves and commercial greenhouses with tomatoes ripening from green to red.
The path itself was so overgrown with weeds and branches that it didn’t look like a path at all. She was only able to find the entrance when she spotted a man emerging from between two lemon trees, pulling back the branches as he went.
The man looked like he had stepped out of a picture book. He had a long black beard and was wearing a red bandana around his neck and was carrying a water jug on his back.
He was not someone you could ever have imagined walking into a city bank or dancing at a nightclub. He looked like he was from a completely different time.
She had an impulse to hide herself from his view, and quickly backed into the undergrowth until he had disappeared around the corner.
The sun was high in the sky and as she passed between the gap in the trees, she felt a wave of excitement at her little solo adventure. She’d told José that she was simply going for another walk on the beach, knowing that he wouldn’t approve of her little recon mission.
On the other side the path was a winding route up to what looked like a little encampment. In the midday sun, Donna trailed the path until she came to a set of doors in the hillside. These were cave houses, just as José had described, their protruding stones painted bright white.
There were numbers above each little door, which all seemed to be closed and locked. She looked at the address on the ticket. She was trying to find number 19.
The dirt path curled around again and finally, closed up, was a slightly larger door than the rest. The number was painted in deep purple on the door: No. 19
Sh
e paused at the door and looked down at the address, before looking up at her surroundings. There was not a soul in sight, and she couldn’t account for the sudden feeling of giddiness that came over her. Maybe it was just the heat of the sun finally getting to her.
The ticket read 10:30 p.m., hours away.
She walked back down into the town in a daze, not quite able to rationalize her excitement over this little adventure. All she knew was that it was very real, and that she couldn’t wait to come back.
Chapter 5
“You know, Donna, when I first heard about you, I was a little zealous … no, yealous …” Maria let out a little grunt of frustration, knowing that she didn’t have the right word, but soldiering on nonetheless. “You know, with you being so close in the States, I didn’t know what to think.”
Donna laughed nervously, hoping this next bit of her sentence would go in a different direction than it seemed to be heading.
“But now I have met you, I am happy you are here. You are like a little sister to José.”
Maria had driven them into the next town to do some shopping for the day, just the two of them. José had wanted them to bond, and this had seemed like the best idea to him.
“You know, Donna, I wouldn’t be upset if you do have feelings for each other. It is normal. So much time together, but a—”
Donna was no longer listening. She was looking at her watch anxiously and wondering how long it would take them to get home.
She had decided she would go to the show—even though she still had no idea what kind of show it was—that night. All day she had been summoning up the courage to walk back to the hillside by moonlight. But now, looking at the time, she thought her plan might be thwarted.
Fortunately, the journey was quicker than she expected, and by nine thirty she was on the outskirts of the town again, walking up the narrow little dirt path.
The place looked different at night. Light from campfires and the cave buildings twinkled across the hillside, which was now almost invisible in the dark, illuminated only by these tiny bits of light and the stars in the sky.
The scents of the Spanish hillside were stronger, too, in the night. Lemons and hibiscus flowers, hash and smoke from the fires fused together and wafted across the air.
Any trepidation she might have felt had left her by the lemon trees, and she walked briskly up the hill with that odd feeling of excitement she’d experienced the last time she’d made this trek. She could hear the faint sound of music as she climbed higher—haunting melodies full of passion, pain, and heartbreak, with peculiar rhythms behind them. She could hear the sounds of drums and hands clapping along to the music, seeming to contradict the heartbreak of the music and demanding energy and joy instead of tears and melancholy.
Enchanted by these sounds she had never heard before, she followed the music.
The cave doors were all open now and there were people around, showing signs of life that had been missing before. Men and women were hanging around outside the caves, washing, chatting, smoking, and watching her. As she walked past one of the caves, a plump toddler with a muddy face and marble black eyes, wearing nothing but a diaper, ran towards her with a squeal and grabbed her leg.
More children followed out of the doors, joking and laughing. When they saw her, they stopped in their tracks.
Here, she was a stranger, in a place where strangers did not usually venture.
Despite the stares, she was intent on finding the musicians. Her ears were attuned to the music now, intrigued, drawn in as if in a trance.
With 100 eyes on her, she finally reached cave number 19. She wasn’t surprised to learn that this was where the music was coming from.
The doors were open but there was a thick red curtain pulled across the doorway.
A man stood at the doorway, smoking. She recognized the black-bearded man from her first trip earlier in the week. Now he was dressed in a fine silk shirt, and stood as a watchman over the door.
Donna took out her ticket and handed it over to him. Without a word, he took the ticket and ushered her in.
The inside of the cave was painted bright white, just like the outside. She found herself in a long oblong room with brass pots and pans hanging from the walls. Tiny chairs encircled room, and in the middle was a large plank of wood that acted as a stage.
The band, playing away, was to the side of the stage.
There were a handful of other people scattered about the room, speaking over the music and looking quite dazed. Two floor lights gave off an amber glow which cascaded and bounced off the stone white walls.
Donna looked around at the other audience members—a small collection of old Spanish fishermen and a few other local women of the port who were laughing and flirting with the haggard old sea dogs. The rest were dressed like the gypsies José had pointed out to her in town earlier in the week. The musicians were mainly ignored, with people speaking and shouting over them.
She spotted a spare seat and, feeling out of place, darted across to it and quickly sat down.
The lights dimmed as soon as her bum hit the chair, and a strange hush came over the room.
As if from the shadows, a dancer appeared, walking into the center of the stage. With a fierceness that made Donna think of a caged animal, he circled the room slowly, making eye contact with each person before returning to the center. He was wearing a white, open-necked shirt and had long rebellious curls, which he wore in a ponytail. There was something familiar about him when he smiled, and yet his eyes were like nothing she’d seen before—striking black pools of unnerving seduction.
The dance began and Donna was transported. His stature was impressive—a broad chest that tapered down into trim hips, and long, strong legs that carried him gracefully through the steps.
He was a man, the likes of which she had never seen before. Most boys of Donna’s age were just that—boys. And she had a shocking and primal urge to reach out and grab this man, to touch his arms, to throw herself at his feet.
He was both agile and manly. She sat utterly captivated, breathing only when absolutely necessary as she watched him stamp around the stage. Beguiling and passionate, the dark skin on his chest glistened with sweat, drawing her attention to the open collar of his shirt. In those first few moments of shock, Donna thought she might die for a man like this. Walk into the storms of any sea to meet him in the middle of any ocean.
The disappointment of the past few weeks was completely forgotten, until the only thing left was pure desire. What she had felt for José was laughable compared to this.
With a final clap of his hands and stamp of his feet, the crowd was brought to attention. Then there was a flutter of cries from the audience, some claps and shouted “olés!” and then it was all over.
The crowd started piling out of the cave. Donna sat in her seat for a while without the thought or inclination to move.
The uncanny sensation of being watched came over her again, just as it had the other night on the balcony.
Suddenly, sitting in the seat opposite her, with his gold-toothed grin and purple shirt, was the old man who had given her the ticket.
He gave her a little nod and a shiver went up her spine. She didn’t know how she had missed him until now, rationalizing that the lights from the stage must have obscured him from sight.
“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t make it,” he said cordially as he leaned in to kiss her cheeks. “Well, did you enjoy it?”
“How could I not enjoy that?” she said simply.
The Virgin’s Dance_Older Man Younger Woman Romance Page 18