Page 1 of No Sweeter Poison

A SPANISH GUITAR IN BARCELONA

Dahlia

“I f I’d known it was going to be this hot in May, I would’ve saved this trip for the fall.”

Karina examines the map in her hands, dark brows pushed together as her gaze follows a narrow street line. “It’s an adventure. Try to have fun.”

I bring a hand up to my face to dab away the droplets of sweat gathering along my forehead when I remember I put makeup on this morning. I purse my lips, irritated all over again. “We’re lost and it’s ridiculously hot out here. Not exactly my idea of fun, Kay.”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby.” She teases. “It’s not hot—just humid!”

“Same difference,” I huff. “It feels nastier than New York in July. I can practically feel the sticky, putrid subway air smacking me in the face.”

With pursed lips, she turns the map completely upside down in search of a street she likely won’t find. Cobblestone roads stretch in every direction around us, some twisting and curving, others straight and narrow. Her cheeks are slightly red and flushed with heat, eyes a light shade of brown in the sun. Karina looks up, stares at the cobblestone road ahead of us, and announces, “That way to the hotel.”

I stay behind as she soldiers on into the brutal Mediterranean heat, fearless under the unrelenting sun. Karina waves a hand over her shoulder. “Come on, Prima!”

With achy feet I follow, making a mental note to never let Karina plan our annual cousin trip ever again.

Barcelona is beautiful but I’d much rather be enrolled in a summer course to get ahead in my graduate program. We usually take our trips over the Christmas break, but Karina and her fiancé Brent (fuckingBrent) want a “wedding to remember” which means taking their vows as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve. Hence, our annual two-week-long trip turning into a three-month-long-European-excursion starting in hot-as-fuck Barcelona, Spain.

I hate Brent. Always hated Brent. I’ve hated him since I was a freshman at Columbia and walked into his junior English class by accident. After figuring out I was a freshman, he waited until our third lecture to tell me I was in the wrong class. Don’t ask me how I hadn’t put two and two together myself, I was a naïve and trusting eighteen-year-old at the time, but he got a good laugh out of it. When he tried to apologize to me about the whole ordeal, insisting it was tradition for upperclassmen to play pranks on incoming freshmen, he locked eyes with Karina as she pulled up in her bright red Kia and the rest was history.

They’ve been together ever since.

Reaching for the camera in my purse, I snap a few pictures as we walk. Earlier today we went to Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familiaand Karina, ever the adventurer, insisted we break away from our tour group to do more exploring. Despite living in the age of iPhones and GPS, she’s a badass with a map and a compass.

I stop at the corner of a curved street and lift my camera to catch the light as it moves over the building in front of me. Four stories high and about a quarter of a city block wide, bright floral designs on the white walls are at odds with the dark skull and bones balconies at every set of windows. I count about a dozen of them.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’d known I wanted to be an architect. My first introduction was during fifth grade religion class when we discussed cathedrals around the world and their historic significance. The history was interesting but not nearly as much as the cathedrals themselves. Those beautiful stained glassed windows, high stone arches, elaborate gold altars, and flying buttresses. From there, all manner of architecture fascinated me. Old Victorian houses, eighteenth century English estates, Russian palaces, German villages. I’d go home and build things with Legos, attempting to mimic the pictures I saw online, before drawing them in my sketchbook. I’ve never wanted to do or be anything else.

Karina spins in a full circle in search of street signs. “Okay never mind, sorry. That way.”

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

Karina ignores me. We walk in silence for about five minutes and as I’m taking pictures of a heavily decorated waterfall, I bump into her, nearly dropping my camera.

“Kay!”

“All right.” She nibbles on her bottom lip. “I think we’re officially lost.”

I stare at her, unable to manage words for a few seconds. “Didn’t I fucking tell you we should’ve stayed with the group!”

“I know, I know, I know! Don’t yell,” she whines and covers her face with the map. “I’m hot and sweaty!”

I gesture toward my long sleeves and heavy polyester skirt. “And I’m not?”

“I was afraid of sun-poisoning,” she justifies frantically. “We have to cover up or else we’ll get burned.”

“Karina,” I do my best to control my temper. “We’re Latin. We don’t burn, we tan!”

“You did that one summer in Puerto Rico!”

I throw my arms up. “That wasn’t a sun burn it was poison ivy.”

“Ugh!”

Karina collapses to the ground, right there in the middle of the street. We’re surrounded by heavily restored gothic buildings with gabled roofs and stone walls, nary a vehicle in sight. This isn’t New York—I can’t just hop on the subway or hail a taxi. Plus, I can see the water over the horizon and the sun is behind us which means we’re losing light. We have another two or three hours before total darkness and who knows how long it’ll be until we find our way back.