Chapter 12
Jade
I watch Lisa saunter across the grass and feel the warm, easy looseness of the afternoon sitting in my chest. This is one of those afternoons I’ll remember—the river, the borrowed picnic, a new friend and her dramatic exit.
My Polaroid is in my bag, and I need to remember to take a picture of Lisa and me when she gets back—sun-kissed and happy.
“I’m sorry,” Carlos blurts out once Lisa’s out of earshot.
I glance at him quizzically. It’s hard to look at him right now.
We’re alone, and he’s mostly naked, and the silver chest hair and the happy trail down into his banador is very distracting.
The first time I had described him to my friends, I’d picked a flattering nickname—Superman, because of the dark hair and chin dimple.
But after a few months at work, I realized it didn’t fit.
He stopped feeling like a comic book character and started feeling like a person who didn’t like me.
Under normal circumstances—meaning, any other man in any other context—I would have at least three things to say to tease him in this moment. I keep all of them to myself. We’re in new territory, the two of us, and I don’t know yet if it will hold my weight.
“For what?”
“For this morning. I apologize for not being helpful or understanding.”
“Oh, that.” I wave the apology away. “I’d already forgotten about it.”
Not entirely true, but I am trying not to think about my stage fright or the next presentation I have to give. Vienna had been so much better, and I’d hoped I was rounding a corner. Better than Berlin isn’t a high bar, but it was something.
Having my friends there had given me a confidence boost, but they couldn’t be at every presentation. And the picture Luc took last week—the four of us at the Schonbrunn Palace, which I placed on the podium with me for moral support—was a poor substitute.
At least we have a one-week break before we present in Paris.
“Is there something I could do for you? To help you with the presentations?” He’s sitting close enough that I could reach out and touch the silver at his temple. I don’t, obviously. I redirect instead, the way I always do when something feels too close to something real.
This is something I’ve asked myself many times. I chuckle, but it’s bitter. “Do you think if memories get erased, we still have the trauma from them?”
Now it’s Carlos’s turn to look confused. “What?”
“I was thinking about in the movie Men in Black, how they have those memory-eraser things. So if your memory gets erased for something bad happening, then does it completely change the way you act? Like a butterfly effect?”
Carlos cocks his head, the corners of his mouth tightening. “What happened to cause this?”
“Nothing so traumatic as what you’re thinking, I’m sure,” I tell him. “It’s dumb.”
He casts me a look. “Dime.”
We’ve been speaking in English so far, since Lisa doesn’t speak Spanish. I pop another piece of sausage into my mouth and dust my hands off while chewing. “Do you know what the Macarena is?”
Carlos’s abs flex as he sits up and begins the dance, one hand out, the other hand out, one hand on his head. “Like this?”
I laugh, surprised by this move from Carlos. I don’t know if it’s the casualness of sitting on the lawn in our bathing suits or the personal conversation, but it never occurred to me that Carlos dances.
What do I know? I never expected him to live in Chueca either.
His hands fall before the hip-gyrating part, and I continue the story. “Well, I was about twelve when that song came out, and at a school dance some of us were allowed up on stage to demonstrate the moves. Which was fine—I’m a good dancer.”
The corner of Carlos’s mouth lifts. “This is not a surprise.”
“So I’m up there.” I straighten and mimic the dance moves. “I’m dancing with the cool kids for once in my life. We’re singing along, the cutest boy in school is next to me, and I just made eye contact with one of the older girls who I thought hung the moon.”
I don’t tell him that I’d been friends with some of those people before my treatment. Or that I was finally getting away from being “that sick girl” and dancing for the first time since my diagnosis.
I get to the culmination of the verse and wiggle my butt in a poor imitation of swinging my hips.
Carlos doesn’t let me delay any further, though. “And then what happened?”
I clap. “I jumped, just like I was supposed to. But my foot got caught on something, maybe wires from the DJ equipment, and I fell. And I didn’t just fall on the stage.” I hold my hands out, fingers splayed, and widen my eyes, making sure my lips are tipping up just so. “I fell off the stage.”
He runs a hand over his face, hiding a smile, just like I wanted him to. See? It’s funny.
What’s not funny is the rest of the story. But that’s not what I want to finish with.
“So, stages and I don’t get along so well.” I flick my hand, waving the memory away. “Okay, I’ve shared my most embarrassing story with you. What’s yours?”
Carlos lets me shift the conversation and without missing a beat, says, “When my dog tried to eat your whip.”
“Okay, first of all,” I say through my laughter. “That was a riding crop. Secondly, he barely ate it. And thirdly, you didn’t act embarrassed. You acted as if . . .”
The smile falls from Carlos’s face. “How did I act?”
I hold his gaze. “You acted like I should be ashamed of it. And I’m not ashamed of having a riding crop.”
“This is what I miss when I leave you two alone?” Lisa is back from her flirtations. Carlos turns and offers her a tentative smile as she takes back her seat next to him. “You talk about riding crops?”