Page 32 of Cava with My Colleague

Now it’s Carlos’s turn to look confused. “What?”

“I was thinking about in the movie Men in Black, how they have those memory-eraser things. So if your memory gets erased for something bad happening, then does it completely change the way you act? Like a butterfly effect?”

Carlos cocks his head, the corners of his mouth tightening. “What happened to cause this?”

“Nothing so traumatic as what you’re thinking, I’m sure,” I tell him. “It’s dumb.”

He casts me a look. “Dime.”

We’ve been speaking in English so far, since Lisa doesn’t speak Spanish. I pop another piece of sausage into my mouth and dust my hands off while chewing. “Do you know what the Macarena is?”

Carlos’s abs flex as he sits up and begins the dance, one hand out, the other hand out, one hand on his head. “Like this?”

I laugh, surprised by this move from Carlos. I don’t know if it’s the casualness of sitting on the lawn in our bathing suits or the personal conversation, but it never occurred to me that Carlos dances.

What do I know? I never expected him to live in Chueca either.

His hands fall before the hip-gyrating part, and I continue the story. “Well, I was about twelve when that song came out, and at a school dance some of us were allowed up on stage to demonstrate the moves. Which was fine—I’m a good dancer.”

The corner of Carlos’s mouth lifts. “This is not a surprise.”

“So I’m up there.” I straighten and mimic the dance moves. “I’m dancing with the cool kids for once in my life. We’re singing along, the cutest boy in school is next to me, and I just made eye contact with one of the older girls who I thought hung the moon.”

I don’t tell him that I’d been friends with some of those people before my treatment. Or that I was finally getting away from being “that sick girl” and dancing for the first time since my diagnosis.

I get to the culmination of the verse and wiggle my butt in a poor imitation of swinging my hips.

Carlos doesn’t let me delay any further, though. “And then what happened?”

I clap. “I jumped, just like I was supposed to. But my foot got caught on something, maybe wires from the DJ equipment, and I fell. And I didn’t just fall on the stage.” I hold my hands out, fingers splayed, and widen my eyes, making sure my lips are tipping up just so. “I fell off the stage.”

He runs a hand over his face, hiding a smile, just like I wanted him to. See? It’s funny.

What’s not funny is the rest of the story. But that’s not what I want to finish with.

“So, stages and I don’t get along so well.” I flick my hand, waving the memory away. “Okay, I’ve shared my most embarrassing story with you. What’s yours?”

Carlos lets me shift the conversation and without missing a beat, says, “When my dog tried to eat your whip.”

“Okay, first of all,” I say through my laughter. “That was a riding crop. Secondly, he barely ate it. And thirdly, you didn’t act embarrassed. You acted as if . . .”

The smile falls from Carlos’s face. “How did I act?”

I hold his gaze. “You acted like I should be ashamed of it. And I’m not ashamed of having a riding crop.”

“This is what I miss when I leave you two alone?” Lisa is back from her flirtations. Carlos turns and offers her a tentative smile as she takes back her seat next to him. “You talk about riding crops?”

13

Jade

New-to-me cities like Valencia are best approached without a plan. I’ve learned this over the years—the ones that reward you most are the ones you let lead, and Valencia is leading me down a narrow street full of orange trees and laundry strung between windows and the smell of something frying somewhere I can’t identify but intend to find.

We got in this morning from Zurich, and while I should be checking emails or practicing, I made an escape instead.

I have my phone out, taking pictures of things that don’t matter. A cat on a step. A doorway painted the specific shade of yellow that only exists in Spain. A menu board with a drawing of a prawn that I find deeply charming. These pictures will go into my camera roll and I will scroll past them in six months and feel briefly, pleasantly nostalgic. That’s what they’re for.

The Polaroid is in my bag.