And you know what? Amá Sonyadidknow something about our mother being in town. And if I assume these sisters are more alike than they think…Nadia’s gotta know something about this cult, or whatever it really is. If she’s not running the whole damn thing herself.
“This was delicious,” Nadia says as she stands. “Let me get the dishes.”
“We can do that, Nadia.” I reach for the plate she’s picked up, but she pulls back before I can touch it. “Don’t you have to get to the baptism?”
“Not for another thirty minutes. Let your tía take care of you.”
I want to roll my eyes, but I don’t. That statement, though—what an unbelievable implication, that I don’t “let” Nadia “take care” of me. Okay, I roll my eyes when she turns away. I simply cannot hold back.
Adam catches it and tilts his head at me in question. I shake my own in response.
“Why don’t you show Adam your room?” Nadia asks. “I completely forgot the attic in the tour.” Her voice is high and awkward. The vieja is lying through her teeth. She didn’t forget. She made it so that when she left, Adam and I would be alone. In my room. In close proximity to my bed. I close my eyes and laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Nadia asks. She won’t make eye contact with me. “He didn’t even get one picture of you so far. Get one on the balcony, maybe. Adam, you should see the view from up there.” Nadia pretends to gasp. “Or, on your bed, mija. You have that pretty duvet on it, don’t you. Would look great alongside your dress.”
I glance at Adam so we can share another secret exchange about how silly this is. It’s clear my elderly auntie is trying to get us to bang. That’s nuts.
But when my gaze lands on him…I’m taken aback. He’s staring at my hips, and he drags his eyes all the way up, stopping at my eyes. He takes a breath in sharply, like somehow he forgot to breathe in the last two minutes.
I’m taken aback and all of a sudden, I am besieged with images of kissing a pink-cheeked Adam in my room, surrounded by my fairy-tale forest wallpaper. On the balcony, after I point out the distant, glimmering skin of the sea. In my bed, on my, yes, very pretty duvet cover.
Dammit, I think I’ve forgotten to take a breath in the last couple of minutes, too.
Nadia turns around, thankfully after I snap my jaw shut and hopefully don’t look like I’m thinking about what she seems to be planning way too hard. “Go, go!” She waves the both of us toward the stairs. “I’ll be home very, very late. Don’t wait up!” she calls as we walk up.
22
“Well, this is it.” Mydoor is ajar, revealing my enormous bedroom. I walk in and open my arms in an unspoken welcome to Adam.
“Wow.” He looks around, doing the same thing he did in the kitchen. Noting every detail, from the deeply detailed wallpaper to the patinaed silver handles of the armoire. The slat windows are letting in beams of light in the color of copper, and the whole room looks like dusk decided to make this place its home.
“This looks like the room of some dark woodland fairy princess.” Adam pulls out his phone contraption combo and begins taking photos. My bed, the windows, the light, the view over the balcony. I watch him as he works, his body moving fluidly as he enters some kind of zone that gives me a glimpse of how powerful a storyteller he is. Because that’s what journalists do, right? They tell stories.
“Has this always been your room?” he asks.
I shake my head. “It was my older sister’s room.”
“Sage, right?”
I nod, smiling. “Yeah. I moved in a little while after she moved out.”
“I don’t blame you. What a space.”
He takes a few more pictures, then approaches the bed with his camera out. I think he might take a detail of my comforter, but he freezes when he notices…something.
“What is it?” I ask, wondering if some strange bug is crawling on the bed. My windows aren’t exactly airtight. As old as this house is, and as little as Nadia has had it renovated,nothingis exactly airtight.
“Uhh.” He looks at me, then back at the bed. “Can you do me a quick favor?”
“Sure…”
He gestures for me to sit on the bed, which I do.
“Lie back. I promise this isn’t weird. Or, not creepy, I mean. It’s plenty weird. But could you lie back?”
I kick my shoes off and lie back on the bed. Adam studies me, and his breath catches and he throws his head back and laughs and then exhales a big sigh.
I smile up at him with a furrowed brow. “What’s happening? This isn’t going to be my portrait for the piece, is it? Because I gotta say, this isn’t my best angle.”
