19 And for us to pull it off
19
And for us to pull it off
Tristan has never been very good at communicating when it comes to feelings, but he’s really good about sending photos. All kinds of photos. I still have a folder hidden in my iPhone of some pretty…explicit ones. I swear he has the most beautiful penis I’ve ever seen, and nothing will ever change my mind.
When Ivan leaves, I go into the kitchen to wash our coffee mugs. When I get back, I collapse into my chair, and just as I’m starting to flip through my planner, searching for what’s special about today or how I can make the most of waking up today, my phone screen lights up with a message from Tristan.
It’s a selfie. He’s sitting in the office he shares with three other colleagues. His tie is loose, his hair is a little disheveled, and the dark bags under his eyes are impossible to miss.
Tristan:
I don’t think I’m ever gonna get out of here. The clock isn’t moving.
How are you doing?
It’s 3:30 in the afternoon, that difficult time…
I flip my camera into selfie mode and study myself before I take a photo. I look fine. My eyeliner is still in place. My hair, in messy waves, too. The red lipstick is a little dry, but nothing I can’t fix by licking my lips. My eyelashes are on fleek. I smile and take the picture.
Miranda:
Not to be a dick, but my day is flying by.
Ivan came to see me after lunch and I have a ton of work.
He’s online when I send it, but he still takes a few seconds, more than a few actually, to answer:
Tristan:
So pretty.
I’m going to have to send a résumé to your magazine to see if the days are magic there.
Should I pick you up when we’re done?
I need a hug.
I glance at my planner again. I have a video call with the head of a brand who wants to contract an advertorial and needs us to finalize some details before we go over the final budget. I think I remember that whole thing being a huge pain in the ass.
Miranda:
I have a video conference at 6:45 and I think it might take a while.
Tristan:
How long?
It’ll take me 15 minutes to get to your office from mine.
Miranda:
I’m scared to say yes in case it ends up taking forever.
Tristan:
If it takes a long time, I’ll wait for you at Dori’s having a beer
Actually it’s looking like I’ll need more than a quick one after today…
Miranda:
Okay. Are we sleeping at my house after?
Tristan:
We’ll see.
My need to be meticulous with time and have everything organized. His need to go with the flow. It crosses my mind that we’ve always been very different, and that idea makes a breeze whip around my office.
The cover shoot was kind of a disaster. We don’t know how it could’ve happened. It was a photographer we trusted, but when we saw the photos, the lighting is hideous… We call an urgent meeting to decide if we should reshoot the whole thing, even though it would be so complicated to find a time when all three actresses on the cover can come in again or if it can be fixed in postproduction.
Plus the digital team are up in arms because I’ve vetoed some content that’s always a big hit with certain recurring advertisers. And I feel like a witch for standing my ground about saying no. Marisol delegates certain responsibilities to me, and that’s great because it shows professional growth and confidence in how I do things, but…it’s hard. The truth is I’m not a writer anymore, so for a while now, ever since I was promoted to deputy editor, there’s been some distance between my colleagues and me. It’s normal. It’s not like they’re suddenly avoiding me or whispering behind my back; it’s just that…well, you don’t let off steam with the deputy editor in the kitchen, clutching your coffee, saying you’re sick of how many hours you invest in your professional life.
These executive decisions don’t make my relationships any easier, but at least I have the support of Eva, the editor in chief, and Cris and Rita, who, as the directors of beauty and fashion, always have my back.
We just got the sales numbers for last month, and…they’re not good. And I know that curve is only going to get worse and that within two years, the pandemic will decimate us. I won’t let my anxiety make me take a few girls aside and recommend they start sending their résumé around. It would cause panic…
I shut myself in the beauty closet, trying to find a moment of calm, but they find me and ask me to go to the “wardrobe” because Marisol has an event and she wants my opinion about what they’ve lent her. The look is a disaster, but we fix it, taking off layers and adding a few accessories. It’s not like we have a huge selection, but we can make a few emergency fixes.
They’re gonna give me a heart attack if they don’t let me have a few seconds to myself.
The video call is delayed. The client asks me to start at 7:15 and…of course, the client’s always right. As I wait, I scroll through the tweets that are scheduled for the week. Yesterday, apparently, was the night we were a trending topic…and not the good kind.
My phone saves me from the urge to scream the community manager’s name from my office so she can explain to me what the hell was going through her head when she decided to tweet a joke about lactation to sneak in a collaboration with a yogurt brand. Sometimes I think the competition is paying her.
Tristan:
How’s it going?
Miranda:
I’m half an hour behind…at least.
Tristan:
No worries, I’ll wait for you. I’m here.
Miranda:
I’m going to get out super late. Why don’t you go to my place and wait for me there?
Tristan:
What keys will I use to get in?
Miranda:
Mine. Come up for a second and I’ll give them to you.
Tristan:
Nah, I have time.
I just ordered a drink.
Not a quick one. A double.
Miranda:
Tough day.
Tristan:
Is that a question or a statement?
Miranda:
A statement.
Tristan:
You can say that again. And I still need that hug.
It’s bugging me that I can’t remember this day. Why am I reliving this? Is it because it’s important for him that we see each other today? Is it because I failed in his day and now I’m being offered the opportunity to fix it?
“Miranda…” Marisol appears in my doorway.
She looks gorgeous. I haven’t seen her in a long time; it made me happy to spend a little time with her in the wardrobe, even if it was a crisis. Well…these time jumps are like life. Marisol is always running around a million miles a minute, and there are weeks when we don’t see each other much or at all.
“Talk to me, boss.” I smile.
“You’re gorgeous, you know that, but go home soon. Stress takes a toll over the years, and one day, you’ll wake up wrinkled like a raisin.”
“I dunno about wrinkles, but gray hairs…”
She scrutinizes my head from where she is, but I waggle my finger at her.
“Not there.”
“Ah!” She laughs. “Filthy.”
“Have a good time.”
“I’m not going to have a good time, but I’m going to kill it for the magazine.”
“That’s my Marisol.”
When she leaves, her heels tap out the rhythm of the call coming into my computer. Finally…
“Good evening, Myriam. How are you?”
“Good evening, Miranda, sorry for the delay.”
No problem… I’m used to it…
I leave the magazine at 9:15. Tristan already left over an hour ago and went home. And I don’t blame him. I asked him if he wanted me to go by his house so we could go out, but he told me that he felt like he had been hit by a truck he was so exhausted. He wasn’t angry. I know him. He’s just tired.
He’s not angry…right?
Today I wore a plaid shirtdress combined with flat boots made for walking, so I’m walking home. The late-spring breeze is tousling my hair in the side streets, and my mind is filled with frivolous stuff, like how I love that the days are getting longer and stretching into the night. That or how I don’t understand how a city like Madrid, all exhaust, construction work, and crowds, can still smell like this in spring. Also how useful my habit of laying my clothes out ready for the next day has been in this “time travel” lark. My present self or past self, I don’t know what to call it, makes my mornings so much easier.
When will it end?
Will “she” (me) be aware that I’ve gone through all this, or will she take it for granted that she lived the day the normal way I did in the original thread? Will she think she’s going crazy? And what if…
I stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk. I don’t know what unleashed this torrent of reflections all of a sudden, like a flood, pouring over me. It’s a chaos of sounds, consonants, and exclamations, with no beginning or end, no rhyme or reason, gripping my chest. They are questions, even if they sound like exclamations, even though they don’t have question marks with them. They’re screaming fears, like a friend’s WhatsApp written in all caps.
Stop. Miranda. Stop.
This doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t.
But if it doesn’t and it’s still happening, I have to do something. Beyond just putting out fires at the magazine. Beyond telling Ivan how I’ve fallen back in love. Beyond…today, for example.
Today.
I turn around and pick up the skirt of my dress, the sound of a few horns warning me the walking signal has turned red.
If he’s surprised to see me at his door, he doesn’t say anything. He just gives a restrained smile.
“Hi.” He’s wearing jeans and a speckled blue shirt. He looks great even though he’s exhausted. “Come in.”
“No, no.” I shake my head. I ran up the four flights of stairs, and I’m out of breath.
“What do you mean, no?” He furrows his brow.
“I just came to give you that hug.” I take a deep breath. “You’re tired. And you had a bad day. And I owe you a hug, and…well…it’s just a hop and a skip from the office.”
He raises one eyebrow.
“You came here just to give me a hug?”
“Yes. And then I’m leaving.”
I throw myself into his arms and bury my nose in his neck. The relief is immediate. The flood of doubts, fears, and worries is losing water.
Once, a prestigious perfume house invited us to a presentation. It was fun and interesting to learn more about all the notes that make up a perfume, like a symphony. They talked to us about how they sometimes try to give an olfactory interpretation of a moment, a memory, or a story. When I got home, out of curiosity, I looked up what Tristan’s is composed of. Apparently it was trying to evoke the image of a night of an intense blue color. Intensity, mystery…all the stuff perfumers says about their “brews.”
Ever since then, when I hug Tristan, I’m immediately plunged into a deep blue color, a pool of dense, fresh paint, that leaves me feeling hungry.
The hug is intense, and it feels like a goodbye, which gives me mixed feelings: the relief of being able to hold him and the sorrow of knowing he’ll want me to stop. Actually, we had pretty much stopped when he dumped me. We didn’t hug. We didn’t kiss. We didn’t cuddle in bed after we made love. We didn’t even make love anymore.
“What’s going on?” he whispers into my neck, landing a distracted kiss there.
“Tristan…let’s never stop hugging, okay? Or kissing.”
“Miri, I’m not mad that you left work late. Your work is important to you, and I understand that.”
“But you are too.”
“Miri…” He pulls back and forces me out of my hiding place in the curve of his neck and looks into my eyes. “I’m not mad, honestly. It’s not a competition.”
He raises his eyebrows, underlining his words. I nod, even though I don’t know what exactly I’m saying yes to.
“Promise me,” I repeat, like I didn’t hear a word he said.
“Promise what?” he asks patiently.
“That we won’t stop hugging each other. That when we start to forget, we’ll make ourselves remember how good a hug can make you feel.”
He laughs, and now it’s his turn to nod. This guy isn’t very into promises. He’s firm. He’s silent. He’s honest. But words are not his thing. And I can see how uncomfortable he is right now not being able to say those two simple words: “I promise.” So I decide to do what I always do and clear the air.
“Tristan, you have really straight eyebrows, you know that?”
A silent laugh escapes him, more of a puff from his nose, and he grabs my arm, like he’s scared I’m going to run off down the stairs, while he takes his jacket off a hook. It’s a light jacket, navy blue.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that I’m in street clothes and not house clothes?”
I look at his jeans. Oh, right…duh.
“I was heading over to your house,” he says, smiling. “I wanted to go by Lady Madonna first to pick up something for dinner and go see you. I needed this hug.”
My expression must be full of laughter, because Tristan’s smile spreads even wider.
“Thank—”
“Shut up,” he says, coming a little closer and grabbing my other arm as well. “See? I wasn’t angry, and we weren’t going to miss our hug. I promise.”
To hell with I love you. I just want him to promise. To promise me everything. And for us to pull it off.