Meet Me in Barcelona

by Mary Carter

  “This neighborhood has redeemed itself,” Carrie Ann said, looking up the street.

  “Yet it still holds on to its seedy past,” Grace said, looking at Carrie Ann.

  Carrie Ann nodded and held her hands up as if surrendering. “Are we here for a cat fight?”

  “It certainly seems like the perfect spot.”

  “Don’t forget. Cats have nine lives. Any chance you’d be willing to give me another?”

  Jake was still in the hospital; he was going to need some recovery time, but he was going to be okay. He’d already been given a blood transfusion. Carrie Ann had donated the blood. To everyone’s surprise, they were the same type. Carrie Ann had joked that maybe she and Jake were long-lost siblings. That wasn’t funny at all, but given that Carrie Ann had done something to help Jake, Grace had agreed to let Carrie Ann speak with her privately.

  “No more games, Carrie Ann. No more jokes. If we’re going to talk, we’re going to talk.”

  “You’re right,” Carrie Ann said. “Let me have it.”

  “Why? Why did you do this?”

  “I just wanted us to have an adventure—”

  “We haven’t spoken in almost fifteen years.”

  “But I’ve thought of you and your parents every day. Every single day.”

  “Look. I didn’t answer your letters. I’ll give you that.”

  “You sent them back.”

  “I sent them back.”

  “You. Not your mother. You wrote ‘return to sender’ across every single one and sent them back.”

  “Yes. To your PO box in Tennessee. Have you lived there all this time?”

  “No.”

  “I’m not going to pry words out of your mouth.”

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “If you were so desperate to talk to me, why didn’t you just show up in person?”

  “I did. I came to several of your shows. You’re so good, Gracie. You really are.”

  Grace started to pace in front of the cat. It was early in the morning, too early to draw the stares of passersby. Across the street there was a man sleeping in a doorway, folded up into a brown blanket. From a distance he looked like a giant, rotten banana. Otherwise they had the block to themselves. Grace was not embarrassed to raise her voice. “This is what I’m talking about! You were at my shows and then what? You just snuck out without saying anything? That’s not normal, Carrie Ann. That’s diabolical behavior!”

  “I was trying to respect you! After getting every single letter back, I kind of figured—hey, this chick wants zero to do with me anymore. I’m scum to her.”

  “Oh. So you kidnap me and my boyfriend instead?”

  “That wasn’t the original intent. It started out as a prank of sorts. Really it was the only way I felt brave enough to confront you.”

  “I don’t think that was normal, Carrie Ann. I think maybe you still need help.”

  “Well, believe it or not, I did this for you.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t see it that way.”

  “Grace. I saw what you were going through—that nasty review you posted on Facebook. I hated that guy. I fantasized about ripping his throat out for making you feel bad. You’re gifted, Grace. I swear to God. I thought maybe I could help you. I could feel the pain you were in—”

  “No, Carrie Ann. You couldn’t. You don’t know me. Not any-more.”

  “Maybe you’re right. And maybe you never really wanted to be my sister. But in my head and in my heart, you were mine. I didn’t know your mother thought I killed your cat, Grace. Think about it. Think about how I felt to be kicked out of the only place where I felt I had a home. The only place I had ever lived where I could actually exhale. Where I felt safe. And loved. By you. Do you have any idea what that did to me? Do you even care?”

  “Of course I care.”

  “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

  “I do mean it. But at the time—I thought maybe you did kill Brady. You were always so jealous.”

  “I know. I know I was. I can’t change that now. But you of all people should have known that my bark was way worse than my bite.”

  “Well, your bark was pretty fucking bad.”

  “Touché. So is this how it ends? We’re going to let a series of misunderstandings ruin everything?”

  “You didn’t kill Brady, and I’m sorry we thought you did. But you can’t say that living with you was easy sailing.”

  “I was a wreck. Okay? I was the Titanic.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “I would. But I loved you, Grace. I still do. You have to know that. I don’t care how much time has gone by for you. No time has gone by for me. Not when it comes to you. You gave me something I’d never ever had before. You were the only person who made me feel as if I was worth something. I’ve spent the past fifteen years determined to prove to you that you were right.”

  “Where have you even been all this time? I don’t know a single thing about your life. Where you live, what you do—if you’ve ever been in love. I don’t know you at all.”

  “At the psych ward, I had a great therapist. Karen. When I turned eighteen and was about to get out, well, I actually was going to come find you then. Karen talked me out of it. She said I was too angry, hadn’t processed enough of the trauma. She encouraged me to look at things from your point of view. But then she up and told me she was moving to Sarasota, Florida, to set up a private practice. I thought she was abandoning me like everyone else. To my surprise, she suggested I move with her. So I did. I didn’t live with her or anything. Got my own apartment. I stripped at first to make ends meet, but eventually Karen got me to see it wasn’t the best use of my assets. So I switched to waitressing. Even took some classes at a community college. I slept around a lot, but I could never get really close to anyone. That was because of Stan, of course. And in some ways—you.”

  “Me?”

  “You really hurt me, Grace. I guess I was stupid to think you really loved me—”

  “I did love you, Carrie Ann. But I was a kid. I couldn’t handle—”

  “Me,” Carrie Ann said. “You couldn’t handle me.”

  Grace and Carrie Ann locked eyes. Finally, Grace nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “I understand that now, Grace. I’m telling you. I worked through a lot of stuff. Karen was there when I was working through everything that happened with Stan, and Lionel. She was the one who encouraged me to confront Stan.”

  “That sounds like really bad advice,” Grace said. She leaned against the cat.

  “We certainly didn’t know he was a murderer,” Carrie Ann said. “Mental case, I was fine with.”

  “And so you went to see Stan.”

  “And so I went to see Stan. I’d been in Florida for eleven years. Eleven years of therapy. I even have a college degree, believe it or not.”

  “That’s great,” Grace said. “I mean it. I’m proud of you. In what?”

  “Theater.”

  “Perfect.” Grace laughed despite herself.

  Carrie Ann moved to the other side of the cat. “So, back to confronting Stan.”

  “That must have been difficult,” Grace said.

  “Well. It certainly didn’t go the way I thought it would. I thought he’d still be overweight and completely bumbling. I thought I’d intimidate the hell out of him—yell at him—hit him, even—anything to make myself feel better. Imagine my surprise when I saw his transformation. I didn’t believe it was him at first. Except of course he was still living at home. I mean—the door opens and here is this drop dead gorgeous man. At first I thought Lydia had bagged herself a younger man—I was like, way to go, Mrs. Robinson. Then he starts telling me how happy he is to see me, and how sorry he is for everything. I’m like, holy shit. That’s Stan? That’s Stan?”

  “Add a French accent and no one would ever suspect,” Grace said.

  Carrie Ann looked sheepish, but continued. “He said he’d been to therap
y too. He said he was on medication, that he’d had severe psychological problems and that all these years he’d hated himself for what he had done to me—he even said he blamed himself for his father’s death.”

  “That’s ironic.”

  “Right? Slowly but surely, we started to talk. I moved back to Tennessee. Against Karen’s wishes, I might add. She thought I still had a long way to go.” Grace arched an eyebrow. “I know, I know. Anyway. It wasn’t long after I moved back and started hanging out with Stan that he started talking about you. How miserable you seemed on Facebook. And how—if he and I could heal the rift between us, then why couldn’t we do it with you? I’d told him all about our tree house promise of our thirtieth birthday and how we always said we’d celebrate it in Europe. That’s when he came up with the idea for the surprise. I have to admit. I couldn’t resist the idea of seeing your face when you found out what Stan looked like now. Especially since you were always so grossed out by him.”

  “With good reason,” Grace said.

  “He made the plan sound so good, Grace. I got so involved with it that for a time I thought it was really my idea—after all, I was the one who came up with it as a kid. And then it just snowballed. I wanted to see you. I wanted the three of us to heal our past. I wanted to celebrate in Europe. Especially if Stan was paying for it. I guess I thought we deserved it. All of us. In my mind, you were the last piece of the puzzle I needed to heal. And maybe I wanted to hurt you a little bit too. For rejecting me. But never—never, ever, ever, did I think you were going to be in any real danger. I swear on my life, Grace. You’re my sister.” Carrie Ann let out a sob. “I was supposed to disappear. It was so childish, but I was supposed to disappear and I was going to leave you little clues all around Spain—like a scavenger hunt, and I had no idea Stan was a psychopath. This is my fault. This is all my fault. Jake is lying in the hospital because of me.”

  “Jake is going to be fine. Thanks to you.”

  “Somebody else would have donated blood.”

  “Somebody else didn’t have to. You stuck around. You could have left when I found out what you did. But you didn’t. You stayed. That means something to me. It means a lot.”

  “If anything had happened to you—”

  “Shhh,” Grace said. “You know how much cats hate water.”

  Carrie Ann looked at her tears, dripping onto the sculpture. “Sorry, kitty,” she said, wiping them off. Then, she laughed. “You could always make me laugh, Gracie Ann. Every time.” Carrie Ann sobbed again, tears that had been buried too deep for too long. Grace’s heart broke open too. She bridged the distance between them and enveloped Carrie Ann in a hug.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Is it?” Carrie Ann asked.

  “I want to know you again. I want to start over. As equals.”

  “I want that too.”

  “Nashville is a great place to live.”

  “Maybe a town over, so you don’t think I’m stalking you.”

  “Or maybe next door. Where I can keep an eye on you.”

  They linked arms and began to walk down the street. “Happy birthday, Grace,” Carrie Ann said.

  “Happy birthday, Carrie Ann.”

  “I think I finally decided what I want to be when I grow up,” Carrie Ann said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Grown up.” They held eye contact until Carrie Ann laughed. Then Grace shook her head and laughed with her. Soon, they were laughing uncontrollably, tears streaming down their faces. And they walked.

  Four days following the scene in the apartment, Jake was out of the hospital, and they were in the square near the apartment. It was warm and peaceful. Jake had a bandage wrapped around his head, and was warned to take it easy, but otherwise he was going to be all right. Stan was still in the hospital, but he was also expected to make a full recovery. That is, when he recovered, he would still be a psychopath. But this time he would be on his way to a Spanish jail. Lydia was on her way to see him. Grace wondered if she had ever suspected the truth about what happened to Lionel, and she couldn’t help but feel sorry for Lydia. So much pain for such a wonderful woman.

  Jody was weak, and her memory was coming and going again, but in her more lucid moments, her eyes lit up at her surroundings. Earlier in the day Jody and Grace had sat in the middle of the square watching tango dancers. Her mother’s eyes had filled with tears, and she had grasped Grace’s hand. Now that they knew the truth about who really killed Brady, they had all made their apologies to Carrie Ann, and Grace didn’t tell them how far Carrie Ann had gone to pull off this birthday prank. And even though it was just a small audience this morning—Jody and Jim, Carrie Ann, and Jake; in other words, family—this was the perfect place for Grace to face her one last fear. It seemed like nothing compared to what had happened the past few days.

  Her little audience sat on benches, and Grace stood in front of them, took a deep breath, and sang from the heart.

  “It was a Tuesday night,

  He was a working man,

  He had a son named Stan. . . .”

  The groove opened, that welcoming space where the music flowed through Grace as if she were the instrument and not the guitar. She was no longer afraid.

  “She was a foster child

  She was a girl gone wild

  Her name was Carrie Ann. . . .

  “We shared my tree house,

  She was a friend in need,

  But not a friend in deed

  “It was a Tuesday night,

  He was a working man,

  He had a son named Stan

  Stan had a tire swing,

  He liked everything,

  He was a boy with hope

  His feet could touch the sky,

  He could really fly

  It was a long, thick rope....

  “That was a long time ago

  And what I didn’t know

  Was what to believe

  But what I didn’t see

  Through all her smoke screens

  Was that she needed me

  She was my sister then

  She is my sister now

  And we’ll forgive somehow. . . .”

  She looked up to find tears in Carrie Ann’s eyes. Carrie Ann looked at Grace and nodded.

  “It was a Tuesday night,

  He was a working man,

  He had a son named Stan

  I’m just a Nashville girl,

  And I’ve been on a whirl

  And now I’ve got what I need

  My family is here and my love is near,

  And I’m lucky indeed

  Marsh can go to hell because I can tell

  There’s only one thing to do

  He is my everything, and he’s there

  When I sing and he loves TV—”

  Jake snorted on that line—not a sound he meant to make, but he’d tried to disguise his laughter. Grace was thrilled to hear the sound.

  “Jake, I love you, you’re my hero to be,

  Jake, will you marry me?”

  Grace finished the song on her knee. Jake rushed up. “Careful, careful,” she cried. Jake got on his knees too and gently touched her face.

  “I forgot the ring,” she said.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  “I’ve loved you ever since we met and you cried over that little kitten.”

  “A little louder. I don’t think they heard you in France.”

  “I never want to lose you again.”

  “You never lost me at all.”

  “Will you, Jake? Will you marry me?”

  “Of course I’ll marry you,” he said.

  “Your partner Dan is not invited to the wedding.”

  “In his defense—he thought he was helping us get a free trip. And he has been taking care of our sweet Stella.”

  “Fine. Dan can come too.”

  “You’re a pushover.”

  “Damn,” Grace said. “Marsh Everett is right. Everything in my li
fe always ends on a happy note.” And before she could complain anymore, Jake wrapped his arms around her and shut her up with his beautiful lips. When they parted, her mother clapped. Her father took her mother’s hand and held it. Grace took Jake’s hand, and pulled him up. Then she stretched out with her other hand, and waited for Carrie Ann to take it.

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  MEET ME IN BARCELONA

  Mary Carter

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  The suggested questions are included to enhance

  your group’s reading of Mary Carter’s

  Meet Me in Barcelona.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Grace Sawyer is leery when she and her boyfriend, Jake, “win” a trip to Spain. Should she have followed her initial reservations and remained at home?

  If Grace had remained at home, do you think Carrie Ann would have showed up in Nashville instead?

  Grace’s mother isn’t well and may not have long to live. How does that influence Grace’s decisions throughout? Had her mother been well, do you think Grace would have told her that Carrie Ann had come back from the past? Would it have changed any of the outcomes if she had?

  In the beginning, Grace is obsessed with a bad review from Marsh Everett. Does her perspective change by the end? In what way?

  What influence does the setting of Barcelona play in the events as they unfold? Could the story have just as easily taken place in Paris, or Rome?

  Do you think that confronting her past changes Grace as an artist? If no, why not? If yes, in what way?

  If Carrie Ann had never showed up in Barcelona, do you think Grace would have ever tried to find her? Why or why not? Do you think it was ultimately a positive thing for Grace that she was forced to confront Carrie Ann and the past? Please discuss.

  Along those lines, do you think Grace would have eventually told Jake the truth about Carrie Ann and Stan? Why or why not?

  Carrie Ann and Grace had a complex love/hate relationship. Was Carrie Ann all to blame? Did Grace let Carrie Ann down after she went to live with the Gales?