Candela started hounding me about where I had been as soon as I got home. Suddenly, reliving our boarding school days by living together didn’t feel like such a great idea because I didn’t have any desire to have to explain myself about this…or about anything. A few days before I had started experiencing a kind of fatigue that went way beyond physical. It was like I was tired of everything: TV, food, the conversations I heard on the street, radio, music, books, shows, all the shady messes my sisters were getting into, and even my own train of thought. Everything that was familiar to me, but especially anything that smelled vaguely of an interrogation.
Where was I coming from? From eating a hot dog and drinking two beers with the bartender from the dive bar they dragged me to when they were trying to help me get over my breakup.
“I just grabbed a bite with some friends,” I lied easily.
She wouldn’t understand it. I didn’t even really understand it myself.
David messaged me the next day to ask me if I wanted to make plans, but I dragged my feet. I felt like it would be weird to suddenly be attached at the hip overnight. I had just met him, and even though it was true that he was one of the few people I felt comfortable with…it didn’t seem normal to me. Deep down, really deep, our nascent friendship seemed weird to me. It had nothing to do with the fact that I was part of the board of a large multinational and I held a significant amount of its shares and he had three low-paid jobs. Or even with the fact that he was wearing black sweatpants when I met him in a park to pick up dog poop. It was just…he was the first and only person outside my normal life (work, social events, family) whom I had struck up a relationship with, and I didn’t want to impose or obsess or entrust my whole heart to someone whom I still didn’t really know, no matter how good his intentions might seem.
That evening, when I was already desperate at home, not knowing what to do, he texted me with the strangest proposition I had ever received in my life:
Wanna watch a movie and then talk about it?
He had told me he lived in Vallecas, and I lived on Paseo de la Castellana, but that night we watched 12 Angry Men together despite the kilometers of distance. They were showing it on one of those oldies DTT channels, and we messaged about it the whole time it played.
Patricia suggested we meet up on Thursday morning. She needed to check how her jewelry brand display in a department store downtown was doing, and then she had been summoned to a meeting that wasn’t going to leave her time to meet for lunch. So she thought a late breakfast was a good excuse for the three of us to catch up. And the plan seemed perfect. To them. I wanted to sit at home eating Doritos and watching My 600-Lb. Life, but, as usual, no one asked me what I felt like doing.
“I ran into Mama on the street,” an ashen-faced Patricia said as soon as she sat down at the table where Candela and I were already settled and served. “She was drinking a mimosa on the patio of Hotel Wellington. Do you think we should be worried?”
“Look, look! Look how worried I am,” Candela tossed out while she stuffed a huge bite of tortilla de patatas in her mouth.
“How’s the store going?” I asked.
“Fine, fine. Listen, tomorrow I have to go see the detective. You’re both coming with me, right?”
Candela nodded vehemently. The truth is she was living for this whole hiring-a-detective-to-trail-our-brother-in-law thing. She thought it was the best thing ever. I, however, pretended not be interested, looking at my phone.
“Hey, are you not coming?”
“I can’t,” I dropped without looking at her. “I have things to do.”
“Aren’t you on vacation?”
“Yes, but…I’m going on a trip,” I informed them. “And I have things to finalize.”
“What do you mean you’re going on a trip?”
“Well…I was talking to Sonia, and she thinks I need to get out of here and find things I like to do. Rest. Sunbathe.”
“Ah, well, if Sonia thinks so…” Candela threw down a piece of bread from her sandwich and cleaned her hands on a napkin. “Who’s Sonia again? The one from work? The one with the eyes like an anime character, right?”
“My personal assistant.”
“Your secretary,” Patricia corrected disdainfully. “The one who was in your office the other day.”
“You know you’ve inherited your mother’s idiocy?”
“Well, I’ve noticed you inherited her flat ass,” she retorted.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Candela waved at us to calm down. “You, stop being such a snob. And I’ll inform you,” she pointed at me, “that I’m with Sonia. But I’m crashing at your house until you come back.”
I rolled my eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Candela. Fine, but you can’t stay anywhere except the guest room. It’s a pigsty in there, and I can’t handle the chaos.”
“Fiiiiiine,” she muttered, chewing. “I’ll stay ’til Patricia figures out this thing with Alberto. How long are you going for?”
“Two weeks. Or more. I don’t know yet. I’ll see.”
“Sounds good.”
“Hey! We’re talking about my appointment with the detective!” Patricia protested.
Guess we’re not going to dedicate more than two minutes to my terrible emotional state.
“So what do you have to do tomorrow?” Candela interrogated me with one eyebrow raised.
“Errands,” I lied, stirring my café con leche. “Buying things.”
“And you can’t go some other day?”
I considered it. Maybe it was an obligation of being a good sister to go with them on any pointless mission, even if I didn’t agree with it and thought it seemed like hot garbage. But…a feeling of utter apathy settled in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to go.
“I can’t,” I heard myself say. “I already made plans with Sonia to lock down the details of the trip.”
“Oh, right. The flights and all that,” Patricia looked resigned. “Fine, we’ll tell you all about it tomorrow night.”
“Okay.”
Patricia sighed.
“Alberto came home super late last night. Playing paddle tennis, he said.” She waved over a waiter. “Could I have a cortado, please? And a pincho. Thank you. Obviously I didn’t believe him, so I looked in his gym bag and…guess what I found?”
“A jockstrap?” Candela asked excitedly.
“Sweaty clothes. Really sweaty. Soaked like he had put them under a faucet. Do you think he could have gotten them wet on purpose? Except they did stink a bit. Do you think it’s possible he wore his gym clothes to fuck his lover?”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Yeah. So I wouldn’t catch him. It would be a perfect alibi.”
“Oy, oy, oy,” Candela was laughing her head off.
I didn’t even think about it. I grabbed my phone from the table, shoved it into my bag, and stood up.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to go.”
“Now?”
“Where?”
“I just remembered that…I have to go.”
Before I even realized what was happening, I found myself heading toward the florist.
David was tying on his apron when I came in. Only one of the sisters was behind the counter, and she gave me a huge smile.
“Are you alone today?” I asked politely.
“My sister’s at the doctor. She has a bad knee.”
“I hope it gets better.”
“Are you here for more flowers?” she asked.
“No,” David declared, smiling at me and finishing the knot at the nape of his neck. He shook his hands and mockingly held out his right one to me. “She came to help me. Can she stay?”
I looked up at the woman, like she was David’s mama and he was asking her if I could stay to play.
“Oh, you cad. Look at those little puppy eyes! Don’t let anything happen to her because she’s not insured and I don’t want to go to jail. Ever since Pantoja got out, I have no desire to get thrown inside anymore.”
I smiled, and we headed into the back of the store.
“David!” she yelled. “This isn’t setting a precedent. And don’t spend the whole afternoon yackety-yakking. Otherwise you’ll have to pay me instead of me paying you.”
“With a massage,” he shot back. “Here.”
He tossed me an apron that I tied on as I followed David to the back room, piled high with buckets, flowerpots, cloth, bows, and tissue paper.
“We have to make some arrangements for a wedding. Please, Margot focus.”
He showed me a photo he had on the worktable of the final result, and with the same finger, he drew a path through all the flowers surrounding him.
“Watch me and then you can do a couple if you want.”
“Okay.”
He stretched his neck, cracked his knuckles, and got to it.
“Wait…aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing here?” I said, weirded out.
David looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled as he laced some flowers together by the stems surprisingly delicately for such rough hands.
“You came to be you for a little while. I get it. It feels good and…sucks you in.”
The back room was quickly covered in small floral arrangements adorned with white bows and packaged into boxes. There were only a couple left to finish, and we chatted as we both worked. It was…relaxing.
“Then she said the thing about the gym clothes, and…I don’t know, I just…I had to get out of there. I never do stuff like that. I always stay to listen, even if what they’re saying takes years off my life. It’s always been like this. I used to be a very polite person. What’s happening to me?”
Explaining how my sister had ended up needing a private detective and the circumstances that led to her bringing it up when we saw each other had taken me longer than I thought, and surprisingly, I felt lighter after venting about all of it. More awake. Less responsible. It was so easy to talk to this near stranger.
“Nothing. It’s completely normal. What wouldn’t be normal is if you stayed to hear that horseshit. Your sister is paranoid.”
“I don’t get her either. Seriously. Where’s all this coming from? Especially right now? Right after everything that…you know.”
“Maritus interruptus.” He smiled.
“I have a theory that she’s doing it so I don’t think about Filippo and the INCIDENT too much, but…”
I turned to him with the last finished bouquet and handed it over. He studied it with a critical eye and then nodded his approval, gesturing for me to put it in a box.
“I’m boring you, right?” I asked him.
“Hmm? No, no, not at all. I was just thinking.”
“About how boring I am?”
“Nooo.” He laughed. “OMG. Exactly the opposite. This is like an IRL telenovela, like a choose-your-own adventure. The thing is…your sister seems like she’s only thinking about herself.”
“Maybe she spent so much time thinking about everyone else, fulfilling expectations, and now she just wants to focus on herself,” I was making excuses for her, but deep down…I had just been talking shit about her a little.
“I’m not criticizing her,” he clarified with a smile. “And I know you aren’t either. Remember our rule: we don’t judge each other.”
“So?”
“So I think your sister is unhappy and she’s looking for external causes. You have more in common than you think.”
“You are judging!” I laughed.
“I’m giving you potential reasons so I don’t have to say things like your sister is a jerk.”
I let out a laugh, and he did too. He finished his arrangement and boxed it up.
“One thing I’m sure of is you were right to bounce.” He stopped in front of me with his hands on his hips, and after a few seconds, he shifted them to my shoulders. “Seriously, don’t feel bad.”
“But that’s exactly how I feel.”
“Right now, you’re into other things, Margot. Wild loop, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember, but…couldn’t we make it a demure loop?”
“No, no,” he teased. “OMG…we’re going to have to make a list of things to accomplish on your trip to Greece.”
“I really like checking things off lists.”
“Great. Write it down while…Amparito!” he yelled. “The flower arrangements for the wedding are done! Ay…” He looked at me. “I didn’t even think that maybe…this would be triggering for you.”
“Why?”
“Wedding flowers.”
“Oh, no. I don’t even have a clue what mine looked like. Remember, I didn’t even make it into the church.”
“You’re a brave little gangster,” he roared with laughter. “I’m going to make dried flower bouquets now!”
“Great!” Amparito yelled from outside.
“As I was saying, you write while I make these bouquets. Go on.”
I sat down at a worktable with my legs dangling and gestured for him to continue, but David went over to my bag, casually rummaged through it, and pulled out my phone.
“Hey! That’s private property!”
“My head is too, and you fuck with it every time you give me one of your little advice things, so fucking deal with it.”
“Advice you ask for, by the way.”
“That I beg for desperately, true. Go on, write this down. If I have a notes app on my phone, you must too. Make the title ‘Wild Loop.’ Come on, I’m watching you.”
He loomed over my shoulder as I manipulated the phone with both hands. I felt his unhurried breath on my skin, and I leaned to one side.
“You’re breathing on top of me!”
“Sorry, so self-indulgent of me. What do I need oxygen for?”
Not only did he not move back, he stayed right there, centimeters from me despite my protests, while I tried to wriggle away and he laughed. David smelled like something that felt very familiar to me. Something I had smelled before, but it didn’t really fit him.
“Hey, what do you smell like?”
“Me?” He looked at me. “Baby powder. I stole it from my friend’s kid.” He flashed his teeth at me in a weaselly smile.
“You’re something else. You need to make a list too.”
“Yours first.”
I wrote Wild Loop on a note and hit enter. He nodded to himself and went back to his workstation.
“Eat moussaka.”
“What?” I asked.
“Write down: eat moussaka.”
“Jeez, this is going to be easier than I thought. Noted.”
“Go topless.”
I laughed and wrote it down, knowing there was no way in hell I’d do that.
“Skip out on paying at a restaurant. Skinny-dip. Get drunk. Sunbathe in the buff, of course. Drive a motorcycle. Have a wild night.”
“What does have a wild night mean exactly?” I looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.
“Lady.” He glanced at me and bit his lip as he cut some stems. “Make out with someone, at least. Ooh, look, you gave me an idea: make out with a girl. Moral obligation before you return.”
“What about the wild night?”
“The wild night too. Write everything down. What else? Tell some lies. That’s super fun. You have to spend a whole day telling lies. Everything that comes out of your mouth needs to be a whopper. And…did I already say skinny-dipping?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re done. If I think of anything else, we’ll add it to the list.”
“You’re realize you’ll have no way of knowing if I do these or not?”
“Margot, you’re a woman of your word.” He winked. “Tell me you’ll try at least.”
“I’ll try if you try too.” I jumped up from the bench I was sitting on and grabbed my bag. “I’m leaving.”
“Already?”
“I’m not going to spend the whole afternoon watching you work.”
“What about my list?”
“I’ll send it to you on WhatsApp.”
He blew me a cheeky kiss, and I pretended to catch it and shove it into my bag.
“See you later. Bye, Amparito.”
“Take care.”
I hustled out of the florist, but with my phone in my hand. I dodged several passersby as I typed, alternating my gaze between traffic, people, and the screen. When I finished, I sent the message to David.
To Do List to Get a Modern Goddess Back:
> Having a lot of fun
> Doing things you never did with her
> With girls who aren’t her
> Not looking like you drink forties in the park while you eat seeds (no more sweatpants)
> Working. The flower thing will get you laid
PS: We’ll make you into a prince.
PPS: Scratch that.
PPPS: We’ll make you into a god.
It didn’t even take him two minutes to respond with:
Are we hanging tomorrow to go shopping?
When I caught my reflection in a store window…I was smiling.
When I got home…I smelled like flowers.
When I went to bed…I wasn’t wondering anything. I had stopped worrying about pumping the brakes.
And now I wonder…how could we be the only ones who didn’t see it coming?