She’d left her umbrella somewhere behind them and felt a pang at the loss. It had been her talisman, that and the kite. Reminders that Javi had risen to the challenges of her nomad’s lifestyle. Her lips felt puffy, swollen from kissing him, her mouth and cheeks surely pink from the scrape of his stubble. Her hair was a knotty tangle of damp curls from the rain, her sundress a wrinkled mess clinging to her breasts.
Warm rain streamed over her as she walked down the middle of the alley by herself, Javi sticking close to the buildings where the balconies gave some protection from the downpour. She licked water off her lips. Puddles squelched up between her toes as she stepped in them, avoiding nothing, tilting her head back to let the rain strike her face.
She’d taken enough English Lit classes in college to know a baptismal metaphor when she strolled through one. The only question was what version of her would rise from the waters, cleansed and tender, absolved and starting anew.
It was late enough by the time they finally wandered past the bar she’d been aiming for all along that the heavy wooden door was closed. Earlier in the day, it had been propped open. But when she pulled on the twisted, wrought iron handle, the door opened smoothly on its hinges and the older man behind the bar in a white shirt and black tie nodded at them. They ordered more drinks, the buzz of alcohol already faded from her system. She didn’t know what time it was and didn’t want to know. The end of this evening was barreling towards them and the only thing waiting for her back in their hotel room was a conversation she’d promised herself would happen tonight. Words she was still searching for in the pit of her stomach, finding nothing but the rain.
The handful of people left in the bar were scattered around tall tables. A trio, two men and a woman, occupied couches in an alcove at the back of the room. The men were strumming guitars, the woman singing quietly. Slow, stripped-down sevillanas. Songs of love and the beauty of Sevilla, melancholy and unrequited when sung quietly for an audience that pretended not to notice the musicians, perhaps to give them privacy. She’d hoped to show Javi a performance, knowing they would get a display as full of fiery stomping and dizzying spins as one of the flamenco shows, without the cheesy tourist trappings. The sevillanas dancers were as likely to be local woman dancing for the hell of it as professional dancers. But this was better, a behind-the-curtain glimpse at the musicians in their off hours, round glass globes of brandy on the low table at their feet. They strummed and sang and their low mournful hum eased the knowledge that this night was coming to an end.
“Guess we missed the show.” Javi shook his head and frowned.
“Don’t you see? This is better.”
“How? They’re done. Maybe we can come back tomorrow.”
She swallowed a sip of whisky, the heat of the alcohol flooding her mouth, and shivered with a sudden chill. When Javi wrapped his arm around her, pulling her back against his chest reflexively to warm her, she left her hands on the bar and ignored her icy fingers. Normally, she would have wrapped them around his arm, warming herself on his heat, but told herself now to get used to the cold.
He squeezed her tighter as she shivered again, and his voice curved around her stiff shoulders. “We should go.”
Not yet. Please. “Just wait.”
“We’ll be too tired tomorrow to see anything if we stay up until dawn.”
“Then let’s be tired. Who cares if we don’t see anything tomorrow?”
“I don’t understand. You always want to see everything.”
She imagined that wine grapes in a press felt like this, crushed under an ever-tightening weight that squeezed the life out of her. This waiting for that other shoe to drop, for the moment when the way she lived proved too much for this man, was deadly. He wanted to be the one to give her so many things. How long could they last with her not doing the same in return? Everything felt like coded language to her now.
She pushed some coins across the bar to the old man and shook her head when he asked with a pointed finger if they wanted another round. They hadn’t finished their first.
“No, gracias.” She slid off her seat.
“Espere, si quiere ver algo especial.” Wait, if you want to see something special.
Her Spanish was just barely good enough to understand him. Javi had already taken two steps towards the door. She shifted her weight to her toes, an ounce of pressure away from following. Too late. It was too late. Besides, how special could it be at what, three or four o’clock in the morning in a nearly deserted bar in the barrio?
But this was what she did. Paused in a moment as it arose, to see something special.
“Javi.” He turned to her, eyebrows up. We’re leaving, yes? She raised a hand to the bartender, two fingers up. “Wait.”
Javi’s sigh carried from where he stood by the door, and his steps dragged on the flagstone floor as he trudged back. The room, even quieter than when they arrived, settled into a moment of stillness as a large man, bigger than her husband, stepped away from the tall table in the corner. The bartender slid their glasses across the rough wood, and she wrapped her fingers around the tumbler, not wanting it but needing the anchor for her hand, a focus for her tension.
The giant of a man stopped in the middle of the room, his brush of coarse black hair nearly scraping the low beam and plaster ceiling of the bar. His barrel chest sloped to the mountain of his belly. No one spoke, though all heads turned, quiet smiles on some faces.
“Magdalena—” Javi, at her side. She reached up with her fingers and pressed them to his lips.
“Shhh.” Wait. Just be, for once. No agenda. No itinerary. Nowhere else to be and nothing more to want but this moment with me. No next steps to worry about.
The man let the silence settle on him like a cloak. He opened his mouth.
The first low tones hummed in her bones and she shivered. Ever reliable, Javi shifted to stand behind her and wrap an arm across her chest. She held herself away from him though, refusing to relax into his embrace. This comfort didn’t belong to her any more.
“Nessun dorma . . .”
The tenor filled the room, an expanding cloud of sound that pushed against the walls and filled every corner until they were all surrounded with the ringing bell of his voice. It pressed at her ears and pushed on her heart and filled her bones with sound until she shook. Tears spilled and ran down her cheeks until even Javi behind her noticed that his arm was getting wet as the man opened his throat and sang about keeping secrets through just one more night. And she waited for Javi to pull away and whisper at her, demanding to know what was wrong, what he could do to fix it, any of a dozen questions that would take her out of this moment, this perfect moment. That would make her something else on his list to plan, to problem-solve, to fix. Her spine stiffened and she braced herself.
But it didn’t come. He took a step backward, arm still wrapped around her and hitched himself up on a bar stool. Then he drew her back between his spread thighs and wrapped his other arm around her waist, surrounding her with him, folding her up in his big arms, and dropped his chin on her shoulder, cheek pressed against her wet one, watching as she watched, listening as she listened, breathing slow and easy until her jerky, catching breaths slowed down and matched the rise of his chest against her back.
The tenor sang and sang and laid her heart out on the floor for anyone to see and she cried until her nose was stuffed and her ears were hot and her eyes ached. Until her breath slowed and the tears stopped and she sat in this moment, fully in it and with Javi for once, not trailing behind him trying to absorb something he’d already sped by, or near him geographically but so very far away from him emotionally that they might as well have been on separate continents. Sometimes she felt closer to Javi when she was far away from him, because she knew then that he missed her and was thinking of her. She wondered if he imagined her as the sort of person he wished she would be, rather than who she was. If he wished she were someone more like him, solid and methodical, dependable and steadfast. Steadf
ast. That was the word for Javi. The one who would hold fast.
She wondered if he wished she were more like that.
It was time to ask.
The silence when the song ended lingered for seconds, as if everyone in the room were holding still to draw out the moment, unwilling for it to end. The applause that followed was enthusiastic but quiet, sustaining the moment still further. Javi’s arms loosened after another minute and his chest expanded with a deep inhale.
Before he could say a word, she slid out of his grasp, nodded and mouthed gracias to the bartender, and linked her fingers with Javi’s, leaving the bar without saying a word. As if he sensed her need for quiet, to hold the spell for as long as she could, Javi stayed silent next to her.
The quiet streets were deserted now, their footsteps the only sound as they walked back to the hotel, the interminable search to find the bar commuted to a ten minute walk because finding your way home was always easier than figuring out where you were heading in the first place.
Chapter Three
At the hotel, light was flickering from the tiny black and white TV behind the reception counter, shadows dancing on the gray hair of the night porter, asleep at his post. She remembered the elevator’s heavy metal death rattle and led Javi from the silence of the empty lobby to the stairs, worn stone steps that sloped in the middle with years of wear. She wanted to pass without a trace through the halls, as if to wake another guest would be to return them to real time, to end the magical moment she’d managed to pull like taffy from the last drawn out notes of the singer and Javi’s arms around her—in that moment with her like he hadn’t been for so very long—stretching sweetness and bending the moment back on itself, hoping it wouldn’t break.
Javi keyed open the lock on their door and let her enter before him. He touched her shoulder as she passed him. His hand fell away when she didn’t stop, and she looked over her shoulder, wondering if he’d follow. He stared at her, desire naked on his face. Pain sang low and sweet in her chest until her breath hitched, and she opened her mouth to ask if he thought he’d made a mistake.
No. She didn’t know if he’d said it aloud or just moved his lips to form the word before pressing his mouth to hers. Her mouth, her forehead, her shoulder. Stripping the dress over her head as she pulled at the stupid buttons on his shirt and pushed his pants to the floor.
His skin against hers burned hot, and she sank under him on the skinny bed, head edging off the mattress at one end, ankles dangling at the other. His hands were at her breast, between her legs, then grabbing her wrists as she matched him in franticness, holding her still as she quivered on the edge of wanting and need, bucking against him with her hips until Javi let his weight settle into her, holding her still.
He pushed her hands over her head and stopped moving, waiting. Just waiting, until she caved and opened her eyes, knowing she couldn’t hide her emotions for shit and that he’d read it, all of the heartache and pain and feeling so very, very far from him.
“Stop it, Magdalena.” He squeezed her wrists, his skin damp against hers in the heat of their un-air conditioned room. “Just tell me what it is you’re so afraid to talk about.”
“Nothing.” She pulled her hands against his grip but he didn’t let go. She wanted to believe that he never would.
“It’s not nothing. You’re scaring me.” He brushed his lips against her eyebrow, pushing the tiny hairs the wrong way until they prickled. “You think I don’t notice you pulling away from me?”
“I’m not.” She stared over Javi’s shoulder into the dark corner of the room.
He shook her wrists, pushing their hands into the mattress. “You are. I barely hear from you when you’re traveling, and now that I’m here with you, you won’t talk to me either.” He inhaled and his chest pressed against her, making it hard for her to catch her own breath. “Sorry. It’s okay. I know you need space. You don’t have to hold my hand.”
Her scalp tingled, her hair caught beneath her shoulder, or some other more amorphous pain that crawled over her until her skin felt too tight. She couldn’t stand to see him try so hard for her when everything she needed, or wanted, disappointed him.
She couldn’t resist a glance at his face. His eyes locked on hers in an instant, as if he could push his words deeper into her that way. “We used to talk so much, Magdalena. Until I thought I could drown in your words. I loved it.”
She tucked her head under his chin, the tip of it pressing into her crown. The heat of his skin radiated against her mouth. Her mouth brushed him, so lightly it tickled the delicate skin of her lips, when she whispered into his chest. “I’m afraid to talk to you.”
“Why?” The word rumbled in his bones.
“Because.” She wanted to answer like a toddler and stop, but knew he would wait her out. He was far more patient than her. Yet another way she didn’t, couldn’t, be right for him. “We’re too good at talking, you and I. The truth always comes out. And I didn’t want this, us, to end.” Every muscle in his body stiffened against her. She flinched as if he’d pushed her off the bed. He knew. Knew as well as she did that their marriage was in trouble because of her, and the only reason they hadn’t discussed it before now was because she’d slowly stopped talking to him. About anything. “Javi—”
“Don’t say it.” His sudden reversal shook her.
“Wait.” She pulled her mouth away from his, twisting her face to the side.
“No.” He kissed her fiercely, stopping her words. “No. Don’t say anything.”
“Javi.” She spoke in between his kisses. “Stop.” He dragged his lips across her cheek and pressed his face into the side of her neck, holding still. He’d let go of her wrists and wrapped his arms under her shoulders, locking her against him.
His forehead against her collarbone hurt, but the pain focused her. Gave her an anchor to which she could attach her fear and her determination to speak at last. Javi’s breath was harsh in her ear, hot against her skin.
“Please don’t.” Her shoulder was wet. “I know what you’re going to say. Just wait.”
She’d been waiting since the day they met, it sometimes felt, for him to wake up. “We can’t.”
“We can. Just don’t . . . quit. I know you regret this.”
She shook her head, confused. “Wait. What?”
“God, Magda.” The nickname he almost never used, because calling her Magdalena was something only he did. “Do you think I didn’t leave you in Amritsar and know that you were going to wake up the next day wondering how the fuck you’d ended up married to some guy you met on the beach in Goa?”
“No.”
He didn’t hear her. “I know I talked you into it. Fucked you into it, because when we touch, we can’t think straight.” The heavy pulse of pressure between her legs at his graphic words spoke to their truth. She rolled her hips instinctively, and he pressed against her in turn. “I know as soon as I left, you regretted it.”
“No.” But she was shocked into inarticulateness and her stutter sounded false, even to her own ears.
“Don’t lie. You’re not good at it.” He lifted his head just enough to wipe his face against her pillowcase. She pretended not to notice. “Your face when you landed in Chicago—your face every time you land in Chicago—says it all. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, coming home to me.”
He was so fucking wrong she wanted to laugh. But she’d be doing it while crying herself because this didn’t fix anything at all, really. The only thing it let her do was make sure he knew that the fault was all hers.
She didn’t imagine that being blameless meant he would hurt any less.
“God, Javi. You’re so wrong. About everything.” The time for either of them to hide their faces was over. She wedged the heels of her palms on either side of his jaw and pushed his face up off her shoulder. If she turned the lights on, she knew his eyelids would be swollen, his nose red. But she could only say this in the dark. “I don’t regret anything. Anything
”—she let her fierce love for him, failure at it though she was, ring in her voice.—“except not being what you thought you wanted.” His mouth opened, but it was her turn to quiet him, fingers pressed to his lips. “I’m scared when I get off a plane at O’Hare because I’m afraid, every time, that you’re gonna meet me at the airport with my shit packed in boxes because you’re just done with me.”
He pulled his head back further, as if trying to take her in more completely. “I would never. I want you there. Whenever you can be there, I want you.” His voice had lightened, though he still hesitated. “But that’s not all, is it?”
She shook her head. Wondered if he could see glimmers of light in her wet eyes now. “No, that’s not all.”
His silence made an open space for her between the two of them.
“You know how we argue about your lists?” she asked at last.
His breath hitched. “I know you think they’re stupid. Boring.”
Was there no end of the damage she’d done to this man? The ache under her sternum throbbed with regret. “They’re not stupid. They’re you.”
“But.” It wasn’t a question. He knew there was a but.
The pressure behind her eyes built and her chest struggled to rise under what felt like a twenty-pound lead weight. “I feel like I was the next item on your list.” And the items that follow our marriage on that list scare me. But she couldn’t say that. So she feinted and cut her eyes to the side. “And I hate lists. I hate knowing exactly what we’re going to see tomorrow. You hate wandering. That’s what I do. For a living. What if we are too different?” She waited for him to deny it.
The Rain in Spain Page 4
