Chapter 24
Carlos
The doors slide shut and suddenly the elevator feels very small.
I move to the corner opposite Jade. The button for the twelfth floor is already lit. We stand in silence as the elevator begins its ascent.
Eleven floors. That’s all. One minute.
The elevator lurches.
Then stops.
The regular lighting flickers off, replaced by dim emergency lights. We’re suspended somewhere between the second and third floors.
“No,” Jade mutters. “No, no, no.”
I press the emergency call button. An automated voice responds immediately in French: “Emergency services have been notified. Maintenance is en route. The estimated wait time is twenty to thirty minutes. Please remain calm.”
“Thirty minutes?” Jade’s voice pitches higher.
“It’s fine,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “It’s just a mechanical issue. We’re safe.”
She nods, but I can see her hands gripping the strap of her laptop bag tightly.
I pull out my phone. No signal. Of course.
Jade checks hers and sighs. “Nothing.”
We stand there in silence. One minute. Two.
This is fine. We can handle thirty minutes. We’re adults.
Jade slides down the wall to sit on the floor, setting her laptop bag beside her. She pulls her knees up and rests her head on them. Today she’s in pants instead of a skirt, and I’m glad I don’t have to distract myself from her bare legs.
I remain standing for another minute, but it feels ridiculous to loom over her. Finally, I lower myself to sit against the opposite wall, legs stretched out in front of me.
The space between us is maybe four feet. Might as well be four miles given how careful we’ve been to maintain distance.
Five minutes pass. The emergency lighting casts strange shadows. I can hear the building’s ventilation system humming. Jade’s breathing. My own heartbeat.
I want to say something. Ask if she’s okay. Comment on the absurdity of this. Anything.
But we agreed. Professional only.
Then, so quietly I almost don’t hear it, Jade says: “I’m sorry.”
I look up. “For what?”
“For what I said. About your son. That was unfair.” She lifts her head to look at me. “You’re right—we’re colleagues. Your personal life isn’t my business.”
Hearing her say it hurts more than it should.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I say.
“I was angry. I . . .” She trails off. “I shouldn’t have made it about you keeping things from me. You don’t owe me your life story.”
I should agree. Should let it drop. Should maintain the professional distance we’ve worked so hard to establish.
Instead, I hear myself say, “I should have told you. About Fernando. About . . . everything.”
She looks up, surprise in her eyes. “Why didn’t you?”
The question hangs between us. I could deflect. Could give her some non-answer about professional boundaries.
But we’re stuck in an elevator between floors, and I’m tired of the walls.
“His name is Fernando,” I start. “He just turned thirty and works in graphic design. His wife is Diana—the woman you saw me with. They have a daughter, Carmencita. She’s eight months old.”
I pull out my phone, find the pictures. Jade shifts slightly closer so she can see the screen. Not touching, but closer than we’ve been in days.
I show her the photos—Carmencita in the chest carrier, Carmencita with Izan, the family photo from Retiro Park.
“She’s beautiful,” Jade says softly. “They all look so happy.”
“They are.” I scroll to another photo—Fernando and Diana laughing at something off-camera. “Fernando is . . . he’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Him and his family, they’re my whole world.”
“What about his mother?” Jade asks carefully.
I turn the phone off and set it on the floor between us. “She passed away years ago. Ovarian cancer.”
A beat of understanding passes between us. For both of us, our job is about more than a paycheck or the research. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. It’s one of the reasons I got into this position.
I worked for a car manufacturer before, but with everything I learned while Marisol was in treatment .
. . Anyway, we had an . . .” I search for the right words.
I’ve never had to explain this to someone, and that thought makes me shift. “Unconventional marriage.”
Jade waits, not pushing, just listening.
“Spain was still recovering from Franco when we were young. My wife—her name was Marisol—her father was an MP with the Partido Popular. Very conservative. Very Catholic. Very anti-gay.”
Jade frowns.
“I loved her—she was my best friend. So we married. By the time Fernando was born, Marisol’s relationship with her father had deteriorated.
We moved to Chueca. The neighborhood was rough then—crime, drugs, poverty.
But without her father’s money, it was what we could afford. And it was the best thing we ever did.”
Jade hugs her knees, all of her attention on me, on the rusty memories I’m dredging up.
“Marisol was a lesbian.” Jade’s eyebrows raise. “It was . . . hard,” I admit. “We weren’t . . . in love. Not like that. But we loved each other.”
“That must have been difficult.”
“It was complicated,” I agree. I pause. “Eventually, Chueca changed. Grew. And Marisol changed too. She was able to discover herself, to live authentically. We stayed married, stayed a family. But she had her life, I had mine.”
“And yours?” Jade asks.
The question is simple. The answer is more complicated.
“Fernando,” I say. “Work. The neighborhood.” I pause.
“There were a few years early on—after we’d settled into what we were—where I thought perhaps I would find someone.
Someone for me. But I’m not . . .” I consider the right way to say this.
“I’m not a person who feels things quickly.
I need to know someone before anything else happens.
Getting to know someone takes time I didn’t always have, and was an investment I wasn’t always sure I wanted to give. ”
The truth of it, when I say it out loud, is that Marisol had found her world and I had slowly, quietly, stopped looking for mine.
“So no,” I say. “There wasn’t anyone else. Not really.”
“That’s actually beautiful,” Jade says quietly. “That you gave her that space. That you built a family together anyway.”
“It was complicated,” I repeat. “My whole life has been complicated. The marriage, the neighborhood, raising Fernando through all of it. The uncertainty. The constant adaptation.”
I look at her directly now. “And now it’s not. Now it’s simple. Settled. I have Fernando, Diana, and Carmencita. Saturday dinners at my apartment. Park walks with Izan. My routine.”
The words feel rehearsed even though they’re not. Like I’m convincing myself as much as her.
“I’m fifty-six, Jade. I’ve had a complicated relationship. The uncertainty. The upheaval.”
Her face shutters at my certainty. She’s younger than me by sixteen years. She’s American. Our lives have been very different—and still are.
“I’m happy with my life,” I say, and the words sit heavy between us.
She’s quiet for a long moment. Won’t meet my eyes.
“Right,” she says finally. “Of course you are.”
The silence that follows is different than before. Heavier.
“You’re leaving in a month,” I say, and I don’t know why I’m pushing this. Driving the point home.
Her head snaps up. “I know when I’m leaving, Carlos.”
“I just meant—”
“What? That even if you wanted this—which you clearly don’t—it wouldn’t matter because I’m temporary?”
“That’s not—”
“It is, though.” She’s looking at me now, eyes bright. “You’re right. You have your settled life. Your family. Your routine. And I’m the colleague passing through who made things complicated for a minute.”
I feel the distance yawning between us even though we’re still only four feet apart. I want to say: It’s more than a minute. It’s been more than that for weeks. I want to say: I can’t stop thinking about you.
Instead: “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t.” Her voice is flat. “You were honest. That’s . . . that’s good.”
There’s a scraping noise, a knock, and then the elevator doors open a few inches. We scramble to our feet, Jade grabbing her laptop bag, me shoving my phone in my pocket. Both of us are desperate to get out.
When they finally get the doors open enough for us to climb out, we realize we’re between floors. The maintenance man is kneeling on the floor above us—the fourth floor, it turns out, but it’s easier for us to get out onto the third.
I go first, sitting on the edge and jumping off, one of the hotel staff standing by to help me. I brush off their concern and turn back to Jade.
She’s crouched down, eyes wide, looking at the distance to the floor.
I reach out to her and gesture toward myself. “I’ll catch you.”
She reaches a hand out and I step forward, my hands circling her waist under her blazer and her palm hitting my shoulder.
She scoots, and I catch her as she hops off the edge.
Her momentum brings her body almost flush with mine, and I try to ignore the slide against me as I set her down gently on her feet.
Our eyes connect, and I wait, holding her steady until she looks away.
I take a step back and dust my hands off.
We have to assure the staff that we’re fine, then they have to assure us that the other elevator is working perfectly well. We get in it, but this time with the hotel manager escorting us to our rooms.
Jade smiles at him, making small talk. I think about the feel of her in my hands. It’s hard not to think about the other times my hands were on her body.
The elevator dings at our floor.
The doors slide open and Jade exits quickly.
The manager moves to follow her, but I stop him. “We’re fine,” I assure him, a palm up as I step out of the elevator. Thankfully he takes the hint and retreats back, pressing a button on the wall. The doors close. I lengthen my strides to catch up with Jade.
“Goodnight, Carlos.”
I catch up, just two steps behind. “Jade, wait—”
She turns, and I see it in her face: walls fully up, locked tight.
“We agreed,” she says quietly. “Professional only. That’s what this is.”
I nod, because what else can I do? What else can I say that won’t make this worse?