She stuck her cigarette in her mouth and took them from me. “First you steal my passport, now you nose into this,” she complained, blowing out a mouthful of smoke.
“I did not steal your passport. You asked me to get it renewed for you, then took it back and got mad. What’s going on? Do you need money?”
“I had a bad streak in Reno over Thanksgiving,” she said, the French accent totally gone. “Fucking baccarat.”
“Really? That thing with the shoe in the movies?”
She nodded. “I’m short.”
“Shit. You know, we could get tougher about those outstanding accounts. Some of those parents owe you a lot, going back years. I know you don’t like to do it, but it’s probably a few thousand dollars that we could collect.”
“Seventy-five.”
“What?”
“That’s how much I need. Seventy-five K.”
I swallowed audibly. “Oh.”
“This came, too.” She reached into the pocket of her very voluminous, handwoven-wool skirt and pulled out a certified letter. From the IRS.
“Oh,” I said again. “Shit.”
“Do you think you can deal with it?”
“I’m not a CPA yet, Anouk. I’ve never had anything to do with your taxes.” Thank God. “You need to talk to the person who prepared them.”
“She left the country. I think permanently.”
“Anouk! Ok, then you probably need to talk to a lawyer.”
She shrugged. “Let’s dance now, worry later.”
I changed into my leotard and she put me through the wringer. I ended the lesson hanging onto the barre, red-faced, and gasping for breath.
“Not bad,” she said. “I was thinking. Beryl from the Intro II class, her mom is a lawyer, right?”
“I think she does estate planning. You need to get a tax attorney.” I stood up and looked at her pointedly. “Right away, ok, Anouk? The IRS doesn’t like to be put off.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She lit another cigarette. She was really going at it today. “Listen, Maura, I don’t think I can keep you on. I can’t pay you.”
“You can pay me in dance lessons. We’ve done that before.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I know you need the money.”
“I have a roommate now, and I’m not spending as much on commuting or groceries or utilities. You can pay me in the lessons.”
“It means a lot to you to dance,” Anouk said quietly. “I remember feeling the same way. I wish you had come to me sooner, when you were a kid.”
“Me too.” I hugged her, which I had never done before. “We’ll work it out. Call a lawyer.”
The retinue. I had just admitted it to Anouk. I was living rent-free, letting Iván buy most of the food, pay the bills. I had become part of the retinue that Julia described. I was using him, just like those other so-called friends.
I sat on the bus to Benji’s, miserable. It was only when I got off that I realized it had been packed with people, but I had been ok.
Chapter 8
I heard Iván come in, not too long after I did. I was lying in the big, comfortable bed that he had bought, under the sheets that his cleaning lady washed and changed.
I wasn’t feeling much happier.
Benji had reported an improved day at school, mostly because the mean kid wasn’t there. A bunch of his classmates had apparently also gone and told the teacher how they had been mistreated by that kid, too. Benji didn’t feel like so much of an island on his own, so even though the kids weren’t wanting to hang out with him yet, things were better.
“What’s with you?” Joana had asked me as we did the dishes. “You’re so quiet tonight.”
“Do you think I’m a bad person?” I asked her.
“Yes, I can barely stand to be around you.” She bumped me with her hip. “What are you talking about, Maura?”
“I was just realizing some things about myself. Things I don’t like.”
“No one is without sin. You should read your Bible. But you don’t seem so bad to me. What happened?”
I shrugged, not wanting to tell her. I had started to talk quietly about other things instead, and thought for a long time on the way back to Iván’s apartment.
There was a soft knock on my bedroom door now, and I sat up.
“Maura?”
“I’m awake.” Iván pushed the door open and I flipped on the light on the table next to the bed. “You’re home early.”
“Julia started yawning halfway through dinner and Dylan got very worried. He almost carried her to the hotel.”
“That’s nice,” I said, my throat tightening again.
“I wish you could have come.” He walked into the room and sat on the end of my bed. I drew my knees up to my chin, and ran a hand down my hair, smoothing it.
“Benji had a better day. I think that kid may have gotten suspended.”
“I’m glad. Qué gilipollas,” Iván responded. I had learned that word as part of my Spanish lessons. It was very apropos.
“Julia said…” he began, and told me a story about her and some fun project she was working on. I watched his face in the lamplight, animated and happy when he talked about her.
“Do you have a thing for her?” I interrupted.
He froze a little. “A thing?”
“You know what I mean.” I shook my head. “Look, you don’t have to tell me.”
“No, it’s all right.” He ran his long fingers through his hair. “I used to. I used to have a little crush. When she and Dylan were just starting, I guess I did.”
“Yeah. I can tell.” I blinked and looked away.
“I don’t anymore,” he said quickly. “We’re friends, and she’s completely in love with Dylan. She always has been, since they were kids. They’re very suited. Well-suited,” he corrected himself.
“Ok.” I didn’t think he was being honest with me, but whatever. Maybe he wasn’t able to admit it to himself, either. I paused. “I was going to talk to you in the morning about something. Maybe I should just tell you now.”
“Your poor lip,” he said, and I realized that I was biting so hard it was going to bleed soon.
“Um, I talked to Joana today. Her cousin Levi is renting a room in his house. I’m going to take it.”
“What?” He sat up straight. “Why? Because of the stairs?”
“No.”
“The commute?”
“No, no.”
“Then what’s the matter? Why would you want to move out?”
“Nothing’s the matter. I mean, there is something the matter.” I tasted a little blood. “It was something Julia said.” It was hard for me to even say her name. What was the matter with me? “I realized that I haven’t been treating you very well.”
“Me?” He stared at me. “You’re worried that you’re not treating me well, so you want to move out? Julia told you this? She’s wrong. That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it isn’t. She was talking to me today about your retinue, all those people who hang on you and sponge off you, and how she doesn’t like them.”
“Yes? She has told me that many times before. What does that have to do with you?”
“I’m acting the same way. I’m using you too, and it’s terrible. I’m sorry.” I twisted the sheet in my hands so I wouldn’t reach out to him.
“How are you using me?” he asked, his voice quiet.
“I live here without paying you a red cent. I make you drive me around, bring me treats, give me swim lessons…I could go on and on about all the things you do for me, and I just take and take.”
“That’s not true. You don’t realize all you do for me as well.”
I was nodding. “No, it is true. You and Robin—”
He jumped up off the bed. “¡Me cago en Dios, Maura! Please don’t put me in the same sentence as him.”
“Listen to me! I took advantage of him and I’m—”
Iván suddenly loomed over me, furious. “You took advantage of
that disgusting pedophile? Is that what you’re saying? That weak, pathetic piece of shit somehow made you think that you are the wrong one, the one to blame! He tricked you, a child, into loving him and depending on him and then he leaves you with nothing, and you feel guilty thinking that you treated him badly!”
I was scrambling backwards as he yelled and I went off the edge of the bed with a jarring thump. God damn it! I stood and felt the wall at my back. There was nowhere to go. I was trapped there.
Iván started to walk around the bed. “Maura, are you all right?”
“Don’t come any closer! Just stay over there.”
His jaw dropped. “No…I’m not going to hurt you.”
I knew he wouldn’t. Somewhere in my mind, I knew he wouldn’t. But I still held out my trembling hand to fend him off.
“Ok,” he said, his voice soft. He held up his hands too, as if in surrender. “It’s ok. I’m going to go. We can talk more in the morning.” He backed up as he said it, slowly and calmly.
I watched him warily. I had seen this trick before.
He reached the door and went through it. “We’ll talk more in the morning,” he said again, then closed it behind him.
I waited for a minute. You couldn’t hear footsteps on the carpet and I wanted to make sure he had really gone, that he wasn’t waiting just on the other side for me to approach and then he’d—
No. Not Iván. But I still waited, until I heard a noise on the other side of the apartment. Then I ran and locked the door, and just like I had done as a kid, I dragged over a chair and shoved it under the handle. Then, just like back then, I curled up in the bed, rocking a little, and tried to think of things to make myself go to sleep. I used to picture myself on the Santa Monica pier, going on the rides, playing in the sand, eating cotton candy. Now I pictured myself in Iván’s new house, with lovely furniture and curtains on the windows, my lamp on the table, the sounds children laughing and playing in the pool. I fell asleep with that running through my mind.
∞
“Hi,” I said the next morning.
“Hi,” he answered. He put both hands on the table, and then sat very still.
I held on to the back of a dining room chair. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I’m sorry I freaked out. You wouldn’t ever…that must have felt terrible, like I was accusing you. I got too emotional. It was silly.”
“I lost my temper and scared you. I shouldn’t have yelled.”
“You’re allowed to act how you want in your own house,” I said.
“No, you’re not allowed to scare people, or hurt them, wherever you are,” he told me.
“I know you and I trust you. I treated you like I don’t. There’s something wrong with me, Iván.”
He shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I’m sorry that I yelled and that I frightened you so much. Can you forgive me?”
I realized I was crying when a tear dropped onto my t-shirt. “Maura,” he said, and held out his arms, and then I was sitting on his lap and crying into his shoulder. He did that thing of murmuring to me in Spanish and when I calmed down a little I realized that I understood some words and snatches of phrases. I kept trying to stop crying and my throat was so tight with the pressure of it that it hurt. I kept my head on his shoulder and gasped out another sob.
“I don’t want you to move out,” he said. “Please don’t.”
“I’m really sorry,” I finally managed to say into his neck. “I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
His hands were rubbing up and down my back and I felt him kiss my hair. “People get mad and fight. Then they make up. It’s just part of being human.”
“I don’t do very well with fighting.”
“Next time you and I will just discuss. I’ll keep my temper.” He rubbed my back more, and I relaxed. “I was more afraid that you would never forgive me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on your—”
I sat up and put my finger to his mouth to stop him. “No,” I said. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. Let’s just make up.”
I had never touched his face. I breathed in slowly, then I ran my fingertip over his lips. I touched his thick eyebrows and found, to my surprise, that they were soft. I traced over his cheekbones above his beard.
He looked into my eyes. “Maura.”
It was the tide again, drawing me to him. I couldn’t fight the tide. I cupped his face with my hands, and leaned forward.
The buzzer sounded from the intercom to the front door downstairs, loud and insistent. I leapt to my feet like someone had poked me with a pin.
Iván took a deep breath and blew it out. “That’s Dylan and Julia. I was going to tell you last night that they were coming over this morning.”
I looked down at my pjs, trying to organize my scattered thoughts. “I need to go get dressed. Have a nice day with them.”
“Can’t you come? I wanted to show you something.”
I hesitated. The thought of spending the day with Iván outweighed the problem of also spending it with the saintly, pregnant Julia who knew Iván so well.
“Go get dressed,” he said. “We’ll wait.”
When I came out they were all at the table. Iván, chewing, gestured to a seat beside him with a plate laid out in front of it.
“Hi, Maura,” Julia said. “I made some breakfast.”
Iván swallowed his mouthful. “She’s a great cook,” he said enthusiastically, and Dylan squeezed her shoulder.
Of course she was.
Julia flushed. “Iván was just telling us that you always get up early to make breakfast for you both.”
“Nothing like what you’ve done,” I said, gesturing at the omelets, the bacon, the bowl of cut up fruit. My smile felt way too tight. “I just always remember someone saying to me that a good breakfast is the best way to start the day.” That had been the mom at my favorite of all the houses I’d lived in, with the nicest, kindest foster parents in the world. When they’d moved to New Mexico to retire, I’d been bereft. They had tried to make sure I got a good placement and even tried to keep in touch with me, but I’d had to move on.
“Remember when we were at the pro meet in Charlotte?” Dylan was saying. “Almost all the swimmers were staying at the same hotel and they had an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.”
Iván threw his head back and laughed. “I think you ate three loaves of bread making toast and used a jar of jam. The hotel probably went out of business after that meet.”
“You ate an entire pig,” Dylan countered. "I've never seen anyone consume so many pork products."
“Del puerco, hasta el rabo es bueno,” Iván told him. “Every bit of the pig is delicious. That’s a very famous saying. Not as much here as in Spain.”
I started laughing. “You really do love ham. We spent one whole Sunday going to different specialty shops until he found the kind he liked the best,” I said to Dylan.
Iván smiled at me. “You were very patient. Even though I don’t think you could taste a difference and you drank an entire liter of water along the way from the salt.”
And we’d had to stop so I could pee about five times because of it. I saw Dylan and Julia exchange another look. What the hell? I was a little done with them.
“When my mother comes, she’ll bring us a pig's leg,” Iván continued. “I know she’ll want to.”
“A pig’s leg?” I asked. “What would we do with it?’
“Hang it in the kitchen,” he explained. “Maybe in the pantry. There’s a little plastic cup, like an upside-down umbrella, to catch the grease as it drips down. I suppose it’s the fat.”
Julia was waving her hands around. “Ok, I’m not really morning sick anymore, but I can’t talk about that.”
“There’s no way your mom would make it through customs with a pig’s leg,” Dylan argued. “Does it still have the hoof on it? Hair?”
Julia pushed back from the table and ran down the hall. “On the left!” Iván called, and Dylan went
after her.
I ate quickly and cleaned up the dishes with Iván’s help. Dylan came in partway through, and I handed him a glass of sparkling water. “This may help Julia,” I suggested. It always had with the mom in the one house I’d lived in when she felt queasy. After she had the baby, she really didn’t want all the foster kids around anymore, no matter how useful I’d tried to be.
“Thank you,” Dylan said as he took it. “Iván, don’t mention anything else about pigs.”
Julia was quiet and subdued as we left the building. Iván and I took the stairs and then he started to run down the extra flight to meet them in the underground parking garage. Usually he sat in the front seat of the car due to his long legs when Dylan drove, but I caught his arm. “Let Julia ride in the passenger seat if she’s still not feeling good.” He nodded.
Dylan stopped at the entrance to the garage and I hopped in the back with Iván. “Why don’t you go into the garage? Or the elevator?” he asked me.
“Just one of those things,” I answered. “I don’t like enclosed spaces.”
“Julia doesn’t like flying. She’s very brave, though, and she hangs in there,” Dylan commented, and she threw him a courageous yet shaky smile.
Maybe I had a medal somewhere that I could pin on her. “Yep, I guess I’m just not very brave.” I laughed a little as if I was joking.
“Have you ever tried breathing exercises?” Julia asked, all concerned. “They really help me. Dylan’s sister taught me. She had some pretty severe anxiety.”
“I’ll look into that.” Iván raised his eyebrows at me and I realized my tone was not the friendliest. I resolved to keep my mouth shut. I was still feeling all strange and emotional, off-kilter from our argument the night before and then what had happened that morning. What had happened that morning? When I closed my eyes, I just saw his lips.
Apparently Dylan had always had a desire to go to Coit Tower, the big white monument to firefighters on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. Somehow, he even managed to find a parking spot in the lot.
“I’ve seen it,” I said, fully lying. “I think I’ll just stay out here and enjoy the view and the sunshine.” I tried not to let my teeth chatter as I said it. By my standards, it was freezing.
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