21. Do We Know Each Other?
21
DO WE KNOW EACH OTHER?
Dahlia
The Past
“ W hy architecture?”
I glance up from my iPad and watch as he rinses out a few red peppers. Alejandro’s right sleeve starts coming undone and rolls down his forearm so I reach over the kitchen island and push it up again, making sure it’s folded enough times to keep it in place.
“I always liked it.”
“Buildings?”
I nod. “When I was little, there was a picture of a Cathedral in a book I was using for a presentation at school. I thought it was so beautiful and wondered how things like that were made. Everything from palaces to monasteries and old bridges.”
He takes out a knife and a cutting board from one of the drawers. “Just old buildings then? Not modern ones?”
I shake my head. “Modern buildings don’t have the same history or artistry as older ones. When I first started undergrad, I wanted to be a historic preservationist for the city but those jobs are so few and far between. It didn’t seem realistic so I decided to double major in engineering instead.”
“Is that what you want to be now? An engineer?”
“I don’t know what I want anymore.”
Alejandro accepts this answer and doesn’t probe further. I wish he’d keep talking to me—did I unintentionally shut down his attempt at starting a conversation?
The drive to the villa took longer than we thought with all the traffic we encountered. We tried to leave earlier but I was indecisive about what to pack since the weather is changing and I haven’t been to the villa in ages. On the way here, we made a stop in town to buy groceries for the weekend and as soon as we arrived, I did some housekeeping in the bedroom and Alejandro started on dinner. Once I was done changing the sheets and opening all the windows, I joined him in the kitchen with my iPad and continued working on my project.
“What about you?” I ask.
He answers very calmly. “You already know what I do.”
“But if you weren’t doing this. If you could do something else, what would it be?”
“Something as simple and isolated as possible.”
Watching him cut up a bunch of red peppers is the most at peace I’ve seen him at weeks. It’s incredible the way he transforms in this environment. I can practically see the tension melt off his shoulders and watch the weight drop from his chest. Every breath he takes is deep and steady, almost leisurely. I wonder what he’d think if he could see himself the way I see him; if he can feel the difference in himself as poignantly.
“I’d live in a small cottage up in a mountain somewhere with a tomato garden and a bunch of goats.”
That pulls a laugh from me. “I can’t imagine you as a simple country boy.”
“Yes you can. You’ve seen it before.”
He’s referencing our trip to meet his family earlier this year. I’d seen Alejandro race through the countryside on the back of a Colombian Paso Rino at a speed which sent my heart into my throat. With all the confidence and skill of someone raised on the land, he rode like it was second nature to him. Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that maybe the Alejandro I knew was barely surface level deep. April was only months ago but it may as well have been a lifetime. I hadn’t thought of that until just now.
“Do you not like the life you have?”
He hesitates before answering. “It’s the life I was given and I live it as best as I can.”
“Were you raised in the country?”
“A little over the place. I was born in Manhattan and for the first few years of my life my parents moved back and forth between New York and Mexico but we always spent the summers with my grandparents. They split their time between Colombia and Spain. I don’t remember much but we did move to Brazil for a bit after Lettie was born.” When he’s done cutting the peppers, he sears them in a cast iron pan with the onions he cut earlier. “We were all over the place after that. We spent time in Peru before going to Mexico again and then settled in Puerto Rico for several years. My grandmother got sick and my mother wanted to take care of her.”
“Is that when Anthony went to live with you guys?” I ask, referencing his cousin.
“Yes, that royal pain in my ass.” He hides a smirk.
“I imagine you don’t feel very connected to anything. At least, in terms of having a hometown.”
“I feel very connected to my culture; being Colombian and Puerto Rican. But no, I don’t feel connected to places. At this point, I’ve spent most of my adult life in Barcelona but I don’t consider myself Catalans. For one, my handling of the language is disgraceful.”
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Fluently? Three. Spanish, English, and I spent enough time in Brazil to speak Portuguese like a native. My Italian is fine but I can’t read or write very well and I’d be better at Catalan if I practiced more often.”
“It’s almost like it’s difficult? Learning another language?” I remark slyly.
He laughs. “Nice try. My juggling five languages is very different than your horrible attempts at a second. One you were raised with no less.”
I can’t focus on anything other than the sound of his laughter; so short and fleeting, almost like a dream. I find myself leaning forward on the counter, hoping to hear it one more time, but it fades so quickly. How long has it been since we laughed together? Why can’t I remember?
“Was your family very Americanized?”
It takes me a second to find my voice again. “No, actually. Well, my mom a little bit. Sometimes. My father not so much. He doesn’t even speak English.”
Alejandro glances at me as an indiscernible emotion flickers across his features. “How did you two communicate?”
“We didn’t.” I drop my chin in my palm. “We yelled.”
“You don’t talk about him much.”
“It’s on purpose.”
“I’d like to know.”
The mere thought of my father digs into every inch of sensitive flesh like a chain of thorns. It wraps around me and squeezes until even the air in my lungs fills with blood.
When he left, I packed the memories of him like trinkets in a box and abandoned him somewhere in the attics of my mind, in a cold, dark corner, destined to never see the light again. Thoughts of him, when nurtured, blossom into pain instead of fondness and I have enough inside me to last several lifetimes. The scars of one parent were enough for me; I don’t need him picking up where Mom left off.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” I answer weakly.
This time when the conversation dies, I leave it dead and buried. We eat mostly in silence and I can’t help but wonder if I’m also the problem. I sense his closeness and I push him away.
Some wounds just aren’t meant to be shared.
A lejandro is determined to resurrect our evening together. I admire his determination and reward him with honesty in the form of one of Lettie’s magazine quizzes.
“This is important, pay attention!” I nudge him in the side with my elbow and read the question again. “ As most fashionistas know, the best way to determine one’s color palette and seasons is to start with their favorite color, as we tend to lean toward ? — ”
“This is absurd.”
A huff of frustration leaves me. “Can you just answer the question please? Favorite color.”
He tucks a wave of hair behind my ear and kisses the top of my head. “Red.”
I uncap the pen with my teeth and scribble into the margins. “Red…” I murmur around the pen cap. “Okay. Mine is gold.”
“Why?”
“Gold goes with everything.” I turn the page. “Okay, it wants to know our birthdays and favorite seasons.”
“Mine is January tenth.”
I manage a smirk. “I know. You have the weakest passwords in the world. It’s a miracle no one’s hacked into your devices before.”
He gives a nonchalant shrug. “Diego and Arias are the tech whizzes of the family. I let them do their thing.”
We’re sitting on one of the lounge chairs on the back patio, watching the pool lights dance between shades of blue, purple, and green. The evening is warm with a cool breeze and the sky is clear enough for the stars to blink back at us. Hours must’ve passed by now but we’ve lost track of time. Our phones are inside the house and I’m glad for it. The last thing I want to do is share him with anyone else.
“Okay. Favorite season.” I fill in the blanks. “Summer.”
“I like all the seasons. Except winter.”
“I don’t mind the winter. I love snow.”
“I hate the cold. The winter is for dead, barren, lifeless things.”
A burst of laughter leaves me. “All right Edgar Allen Poe.”
“What’s the point of this ridiculous quiz anyway?” He holds the cover of the magazine up to the light so he can read. “Are they going to ask for my social security number next?”
“Apparently, it’s supposed to help us find our season.”
“Our season? Like the weather?”
“No, color season.”
His eyes narrow a bit. “You lost me.”
“It’s fine.” I drop the magazine on the pile beside me and pick up a different one. “Lettie dresses you anyway, you don’t have to worry about it.”
I flip through the next magazine—a teen fashion edition whose existence I’m certain the Vogue-loving Lettie will vehemently deny—and find a best friend quiz in the back.
“Okay, we went through zodiac signs, birthdays, favorite colors and seasons,” I rattle off the ones whose answers I already know for the both of us. “This is a good one. Who was your favorite teacher growing up?”
Alejandro answers with remarkable quickness. “Mrs. Rubinsky.”
I turn to face him completely, shifting in his warm embrace. “Mrs. Rubinsky?”
A sly smile crosses his lips. “ Mrs. Rubinsky .”
“I feel like there’s a story there.”
“She was my science teacher when we lived in Brazil. Tall, tan, curvy, bossy?—”
“I feel like you have a type.”
He laughs. “Maybe. At least half the kids in my class had their sexual awakening that year. Me and a group of other boys used to get lunch detention on purpose because she was the supervisor for that period. It was a very interesting year.”
“Is that how you learned to speak Portuguese so well?”
“Absolutely.”
I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “Does she look like me?”
Alejandro opens his mouth. Closes it. “No, not at all?—”
“You hesitated!”
“I didn’t.” he takes my face in his hands and kisses me quickly. “You’re much prettier.”
“Mhm…nice save.”
“Are you not going to tell me who your favorite was?”
“My favorite was an eighty-two-year-old sophomore English teacher. Who also just so happened to be a priest.”
He whistles. “Religious roleplay?”
I hit him with the magazine but he just laughs. “Don’t be a creep! I went to Catholic school almost my whole life. Most of my teachers were nuns or priests.”
“It’s the button downs, right?” he gestures to his shirt and tugs on his own collar, the one whose buttons are never done. “And the high collars?”
“Maybe. It’s part of the reason I hooked up with my sociology professor.”
Alejandro bolts upright beside me, disbelief coloring his voice. “You slept with one of your professors?”
“Fall semester, freshman year.” I flick imaginary dust off my shoulder. “It’s a rite of passage. And Professor Cardenas was fucking hot.”
“Not hotter than me.”
My nose crinkles and I tilt my head back and forth, hands extended palms up as if measuring the hands on a scale. “Well, not to choose favorites?—”
He slips his hand behind my neck and pulls me forward, sealing his mouth against my own. Electricity bolts down my spine as his tongue glides against my lips, gently urging them open. The kiss is fleeting but tension builds deep inside me.
“He was…um…” I murmur. “Very…very skilled…”
“Yeah,” Alejandro replies, an edge of sarcasm and satisfaction to his voice. “Okay.”
“And…” I lose focus when his free hand follows the curve of my waist and rises to cup my breast. “Older…”
My words fall on deaf ears. The pressure of his mouth against mine sends my nerves into a frenzy, the reverent and familiar touch of his hand setting fire to my skin. I wrap my arms around his neck and tangle my fingers in his hair, loving the sounds he makes when I gather his bottom lip between my teeth and bite. He lifts me off the lounge chair and carries me back inside where we stumble through the hall, attempting to undress with grace but failing at every step of the way.
I manage to unbutton his shirt while he sets me on the edge of the bed and unzips my dress. My shoes fall off and he kisses down my neck and my heart stutters and expands, three sizes too big for my own chest?—
Until the shrill, insistent sound of a ringing phone cuts through the haze. I recognize it as his immediately.
“Let it ring.” I unbuckle his belt and pull his face back down to mine. “ Please .”
He’s distracted for only a moment before it starts ringing again.
“Hold on.”
“Alex—”
He kisses me quickly. “I’ll turn it off.”
He reaches for the phone on the nightstand and almost declines the call but hesitates. He glances between me and the screen, torn between the woman in front of him and whomever is trying to reach him.
“It’s Diego.” Finally, he answers on the last ring. “What is it?”
Suddenly, I feel naked and exposed, as if he’s just allowed a stranger into the room to witness our vulnerability. I adjust the straps on my dress and wrap my arms around myself, wishing I could shrink away into nothingness.
“Diego, I can’t—” His voice is quiet and he eventually sighs. “All right, all right…”
He turns to look at me but I move away. I feel his hand caress my cheek and he says quickly, “Five minutes, I promise.”
Alejandro leaves, his whispers turning urgent and impassioned. And I sit there, silent and foolish, unable to defend myself. To be interrupted during such an intimate moment is one thing but for him to allow the interruption is a violation that stings.
Yesterday, I wasn’t able to answer his question about our happiness but now I can. I may love him but I am not happy with him.
And with terrifying clarity I realize my options are quickly diminishing to none.