Epilogue
Calle de Santa Engracia is pretty quiet at this hour. This part of it always is actually. You have to go a hundred meters farther down, where it feeds into Alonso Martínez, to find any kind of hubbub. The sun sparkles on the stone of the stately buildings and the concrete of the sidewalks. There’s hardly any traffic; it’s almost exclusively taxis seductively flashing their green lights.
Suddenly, a woman barrels out of a doorway at top speed. She looks like she’s in her thirties and seems to be in a hurry. She’s not wearing heels, but her shoes tap against the ground, and she’s going so fast they take on an almost Latin rhythm. She’s toting a big, black bag on her arm. Her hair is scraped back in a ponytail, with a middle part, although she’s been thinking for a while that this style makes her face look rounder. She can’t deny that her last breakup left her with the gift of a few extra pounds in the wrong places, but she doesn’t think it matters very much. Especially not today, when she’s so happy.
A gust of wind travels up Cuatro Caminos, rustling the leaves on the trees on its way past and licking her face, even caressing her eyelashes despite the huge sunglasses she shoved on as she left the office. And the air makes her pump the brakes, because the smell brings back memories. Ever since a few months ago, she’s had an almost reverential respect for memories, because she’s discovered that they can hold a kind of healing power.
Memory transports her to the door of her high school in her first year of the baccalaureate. She can almost feel the laminated plastic book covers in her sweaty hand while she waits for him to get out of class and take her home, just like he promised. It’s the memory of her first love. She smiles, fishes her phone out of her bag, and taps out a message:
Miranda:
I talked to Tristan, and it was like pulling out a splinter I didn’t know was there. Take a breath, Ivan, there’s no drama. Abort the “best friend to the rescue” mission. And anyway, I’m running to fix a shit show, and I’m slightly hungover because of the event last night, but…life is beautiful, you know? And mine is exactly how I choose. And that’s magic. I’m so lucky. And I believe in love.
She drops her phone back into her bag and picks up her pace again, matching the one she hurtled out onto the street with, but the light of a taxi seduces her, and she lifts her hand to hail it. She puts on her mask carefully so it doesn’t get smeared with the lipstick she just touched up, which still feels a little damp, and as she climbs in and gives the address to the driver, her phone chirps to tell her she just got a message.
It’s from Ivan, her best friend.
Ivan:
Miranda…are you high?
The taxi turns the corner, rolling down Calle de Génova toward Colon, as she cracks up.
In the end , she thinks, life is a never-ending dialogue between the people we were, the people we are, and the people we will be. And even though sometimes we might think otherwise, the only thing we should really worry about are the things left unsaid. I hope we can look in the mirror and answer the me of today’s questions with a simple: “Wait, here’s everything I’ll say to you tomorrow.”