Chapter 17 #2
Alejandro’s birthday rushes back to my mind. The experiments have to work because I will not spend the rest of my life walking down dark halls, looking for missing children.
Supply closets number one, two, and three are locked. Supply closet number four’s floor is covered in tiny black pebbles, which I recognize as mouse poop. But no Valeria. My despair grows with every second I don’t find her.
I walk by the bathroom sign depicting a silhouette of a man and halt. Anyone else would think surely not. But I did. And I did it again less than a month ago.
God, I hate this job.
I push the door open with my shoulder and immediately hear sniffling. A mirror and sink welcome me in. There are three stalls separated by yellow metal walls, the doors visibly open to all but one.
“Valeria?” I venture.
The sniffing stops.
My knees go weak from relief. Gracias a Dios.
I knock on her stall twice. “Hey, I’m—”
Behind me, the bathroom door swings open, and I’m jarred into stillness.
“There you are. Is it a habit of yours to hide in the men’s bathroom?”
My face heats violently at the sound of Simón’s voice, recalling our first meeting. Documents raining down around us, me on my knees, him blocking the door.
I ignore him and point to the stall where Valeria is hiding. Simón gazes at me before his eyes widen with understanding. “You found her?” he mouths.
I nod.
“You’re a superhero,” he says, approaching. “Hey, Valeria, it’s Simón. Are you okay in there?”
I don’t want to smile, but damn it, his eyes are gleaming and his eyebrows are raised and he looks a bit desperate while trying to fight a smile of his own as he sways on his heels, putting both hands in his pockets.
“No,” Valeria says, her voice small but firm.
Looking away, I shake my head and mentally prepare a speech, but a metallic creak silences me before I even open my mouth. The door opens to reveal Valeria, eyeing us as if we’re the ones who need a pep talk.
Simón softens beside me and as soon as he sets those liquid brown eyes on her, her chin wobbles and silent tears are running down her face again. She wipes them angrily with her sleeve.
I kneel in front of her, resting my hands on my lap.
“Valeria,” I whisper softly. She looks up and I can see the tears still glistening in her eyes, but her expression is one of determination.
It encourages me to keep going. “We know you’re scared right now, but it’s going to be all right. It’s truly not the end of the world.”
She shakes her head.
“No, really, I threw up on a whole row of people once,” I tell her. “In a ballet recital. My mother wore white. Her dress never recovered.”
Simón and Valeria laugh. That’s something.
“Did you go back?” she asks in her little voice.
I shake my head. “I wish I had. My teacher was nice—” I look pointedly at Simón, who is watching me in admiration.
I almost wish I hadn’t seen it. “And so were the other kids. I was just embarrassed. Now, you only threw up on one person—” I point at myself, drawing a smile out of her.
“And I forgive you. Please, don’t let this tiny thing that could have happened to anyone stop you from going after your dream. ”
Valeria nods once. “Okay.”
I grin. “Okay.”
Simón claps and whoops, making her laugh. She shakes her head as she moves around me to walk out. He offers me his hand and pulls me to my feet.
“Nice job, Maria Antonieta.” He says my name like it’s a private joke between us. Not bossy, like Mileidy. Not a reprimand, like my mother. Not a punishment, like Alejandro. “Journalist, assistant, and kid whisperer. I think I almost have you figured out.”
I give him a short, humorless laugh. “Feel free to tell me what you find. I might need it.”
He shakes his head slowly. “You don’t need me to tell you who you are.”
Maybe not. But I still want to know what I seem like to him, what he sees when he looks at me.
We stare at each other for a second, two, before I cave and my eyes drift toward the urinals, meeting my gaze in the mirror.
My thoughts travel back to our first meeting, in a similar bathroom, where I was the one hiding.
What did he think of me then versus now?
My neck is flushed under my wool sweater, locks of hair curling around my ears as my bangs fall unceremoniously over my forehead. I push the loose hair behind my ear.
“Um, I’ll—” I point to the door and practically run out of there.
In the hall, I lean against a wall and try to steady myself, ignoring the pounding of my heart. I count to thirty, then force myself to walk calmly, as if there’s nothing wrong, but I can feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
God, how starved am I for attention that Simón being grateful I helped him is enough to send me into cardiac arrest? He’s grateful. And he’s an artist, so he has to be dramatic about it. It’s not a big deal.
As I’m walking back to the room, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
Please, let it be Alejandro. I need it to be Alejandro.
Alejandro will put my head back where it belongs.
But of course, it’s not. It’s an email from a newsletter I can’t remember signing up for.
If I were sticking to my list, I’d show up at his birthday party today.
I’d go buy a red dress and a new pair of boots and I would show up there looking every bit the important doctor’s wife.
But I’m not following my list anymore. I’m following Simón’s.
And Simón’s list is designed for me to lose control over everything and lose my sanity in the process.
“Hey, what—”
I jump at the sound of his voice behind me. He eyes the phone in my hand and the empty chat I’d been staring at. The chat I hadn’t even realized I’d opened. I lock my phone and put it away.
He bites the inside of his cheek, eyebrows close together. “I have to ask. What’s so important that it can’t wait for the end of the day?”
“It’s his birthday,” I explain, pathetically. I wasn’t thinking about Ale’s birthday just now. It was more about how…Ale isn’t Simón. And I need Ale. “He’d never buy that I forgot his birthday.”
“He wanted space, Marianto.” That’s the first time he’s ever called me Marianto. “Give it to him.”
I say the first thing I can think of: “He didn’t invite me.”
I sound pathetic. Yes, I want Ale to invite me, I want him to miss me, I want him to call and beg me to spend his birthday with him.
But at the same time, Simón called me Marianto.
Like we’re friends. Not just boss and employee, or crazy-woman-who-dragged-me-into-this-mess and relationship coach.
Friends. For some reason that thought overpowers the thought of Alejandro. And I don’t know what that reason is.
“Would you invite your ex to your birthday?” he asks, unaware of the chaos that is my mind.
Focus on Ale.
“He’s not—”
Simón sighs, raising both hands as if I were the police. “Fine. Perdón. We want you to succeed. If you want an invitation to his party, I’ll get you an invitation.”
“What?”
Suddenly, his phone is in his hands and his face is right next to mine with the biggest smile I’ve seen on him since we met.
“Say ‘whiskey.’ ”
Instinctively, I smile just in time.
I watch, mouth open in horror, as he logs into Caballo de Troya’s Instagram account and posts the picture on his feed, captioned “Ride or Die.” I feel my eyes widen. The feed is important. The feed is permanent.
“Done.” He gives his phone a little shake. “Viviana told me we’re going to karaoke tonight. If you want to try having a blast without him, you know where we’ll be.”
Simón gives me a tight smile before walking around me and disappearing behind the corner.
I guess we’re done leaving Ale alone and we’ve moved on to a different type of experiment. What I don’t understand is why Simón seems angry about it.