He turned to meet her gaze, and then they stayed like that for a moment, staring. Wanting. At least, he knew that’s what he was doing—wishing everything was different, wishing he wasn’t about to walk out of her apartment with no reason to see her again.
He moved his arm, almost imperceptibly, and his hand just barely brushed against hers. She didn’t pull away though. She didn’t look away from him either.
“I’m really struggling with this rug!” Alma called.
Grace jerked her hand out of reach. “On it,” she called. She gave Rafael a sad smile. “It is a really big rug. Alma picked it out.”
“I guess we should help her.”
They unrolled the massive thing in the living room without making eye contact. They weren’t alone the rest of the day, but sometimes he noticed her glancing in his direction. She still looked at him, and maybe that was a good sign. Or maybe it was just another form of torture. He needed to accept that he couldn’t have her. He needed to let it go.
Alma continued to act as if nothing had ever happened, which he supposed is what Grace wanted all along. If Alma was happy, they could get on with their lives, never mind the fact that he was brokenhearted for the first time in his entire life. That didn’t matter as long as they could pretend. They just had to act like it was normal, and maybe someday it would be true.
Rafael couldn’t imagine that though, especially not when they finished organizing the furniture, and it was time for him to go. He should have been kissing Grace goodbye, should have been making plans to see her again as soon as possible. Instead, he didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. He didn’t know if he’d ever have a reason to be alone with her again, and the thought cut through him like a dagger.
“Thanks for the help, Rafa,” Alma chirped.
He nodded. “See you at the Picasso party?” he asked. He glanced toward Grace as well, since he was really asking her, and he noticed her flinching before she turned back to the bookshelf she was organizing.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Alma said.
“Don’t call it a Picasso party,” Grace said, and maybe he was fooling himself, but there seemed to be a tinge of humor to her voice. She just couldn’t stop herself from correcting him. “That was kind of my whole point, remember?”
Rafael tried to match her nonchalance, but his response was flat. “Ah, yes, we are not celebrating the man. I know that. And there are a lot of other artists there to admire.”
Alma looked confused. “I’ll be interested to see it.”
“Right…yeah. I’ll see you there then.” Rafael rubbed the back of his head, and without another word from Grace, without another look, he left to return to his very empty apartment.
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE
The endof the term arrived out of nowhere. Grace had been teaching students from across the world, students who spoke different languages, had vastly different lifestyles and cultures, and yet, she’d felt so relaxed in that room, having hours-long discussions about how institutions evaluate art and Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. She belonged there somehow. And so did her students. They all fit together so well.
As she sat in the auditorium while her last section of students scribbled diligently on their final exams, Grace’s mind wandered. On paper, things were good. Classes had gone well, and she was hopeful about her contract being renewed the following year. She even had a new course to teach, Feminism in Art, and Marco had already enrolled, despite the fact that he didn’t need it for his program of study and was only taking it for fun. It was a relief, though. She was going to miss a lot of the brilliant students she’d had in her classes, but at least she’d have Marco and the connection to his mother. Lucia had agreed to take up the brush again, and Grace couldn’t wait to see her new work.
Additionally, she was back in her apartment with Alma, and things were going well there, too. Alma seemed to be making it a point to stay in the apartment with Grace more often, instead of sleeping at Obinna’s place every night. She and Alma stayed up late gossiping like teenagers, just like they had in college—joking about their colleagues, planning out Alma’s future with Obinna, reading juicy details from celebrity news sites even though neither of them cared all that much. They ate too much cheese and drank too much wine and sprawled across their newly installed floor trying to do different yoga poses, even though they mostly just ended up lying there.
“Corpse pose,” Alma would say, “my favorite.”
Grace felt settled in a way she’d never expected after uprooting her entire life. She felt like she was rebuilding everything from the bottom up, but it was actually working, and maybe…maybe she could be happy in Spain, long term.
The problem was that despite all the things that were finally looking up, she wasn’t exactly there yet.Happy.Actually, she was miserable most of the time, lost again in the dark hole without Rafael to offer a hand, but this time it was because of him. Or it was because of her, really. She was the one who ended it, even if it had been for perfectly logical and valid reasons.
Still, her brain kept returning to him—images of his dark eyes searching for hers across the room, the way he’d said he wanted to be with her for real, that it wasn’t just sex to him. She missed him. And no matter how well everything else was going, she couldn’t seem to get him out of her head.
“No need to bother grading that one,” Marco said, handing over his exam paper. “That’s an A+ for sure.”
“Is that right?” Grace smiled. “I seem to remember you mixing up Tzara and Janco on your last quiz.”
“No, no,” Marco chided. “Don’t worry,Profe, you haven’t stumped me with the Dadaists again. I’ve figured it out.”
“We’ll see,” Grace said. Then she whispered, “how’s your mother?”
Marco beamed. His pride in his mother’s artwork was unparalleled, and Grace was honored to be a part of it. She only wanted to encourage Lucia to keep painting, because the way Lucia saw the world—the way she captured the beauty in the smallest, most mundane details—it was something that gave Grace hope.
“She’s good,” he replied. “I haven’t seen her this excited about something in a long time.
“She’s coming to the student night, right?”
