The tour guide nodded tightly.
Edie did not have jet lag, but she had good reason to be exhausted, even in the unbelievable hulking collection of stone-crystal towers that was Gaudí’s La Sagrada Família, the Sacred Family basilica, growing up from the sun-washed, golden-roofed neighborhood of the same name like a cluster of smoky quartz.
It was gorgeous and weird, like nothing she’d ever seen, andit made her feel both rapturous and small. But Edie could not stop yawning because the woman to her right, prim in a chocolate brown sleeveless jumpsuit paired with another one of her silky full-coverage blouses, had kept her up all night. With sex. Sex like no sex she had ever had before. Orgasms upon orgasms. Feelings upon feelings. Rhapsodic, sacred eye contact and utter debauchery.
When Cosima looked at Edie, her expression was as stern as the tour guide’s. But her eloquent eyes were smiling.
After she’d made Cosima show her how she liked to use her wand, they had shivered their way into the pool, which was as warm as bathwater, and told each other stories about themselves. This time, they weren’t stories that revealed how their hearts had been broken or proved whose life was the worst. They were stories about where a scar had come from, and one of Cosima’s fantastical trips with her mother, what a particular celebrity was like, how Edie cultured nut milk and built a cedar cooler to develop a perfect rind on vegan brie. They’d devoured the tray of tapas the villa’s staff had left, each bite an ambassador for the produce of Spain. Edie had made Cosima open her notes app to write down what had gone into a skewer with ripe olive frito and thin pieces of preserved lemon.
They’d dozed between food and stories and kissing and patient orgasms until they realized the light coming into the villa was the pale gray that meant they had to shower and dress. Over vegan bocadillos with layers of thin-sliced roasted vegetables and peppery oil, they consulted the map. Its rendering of Spain indeed had a sketch of the basilica, this one accompanied by a nun with a ring of keys.
The tour guide began walking over the ochre floor, and Edie stifled another yawn. “How are you so perky?” she asked. “You look like you got eight hours and had a massage.”
Cosima patted her smooth curls. “I didn’t turn down a triple espresso.”
“I can’t have caffeine if I haven’t slept.” Edie tugged on the hem of her jacket. “It makes me see colors that don’t exist.”
When the guide stopped at a contemporary-looking nave, Cosima stepped them to the back of their tour group. “Can you ask Nerea if any nuns work here? I may notlooktired, but I don’t know if I can stand up for as long as this tour is going to last.”
“We’ll get in trouble. Remember Barnabus? He didn’t like it when we ditched the group at Tattershall, and the tickets to this one were three times pricier. Nerea would string us up on a tower so the seagulls could peck out our eyeballs.”
Cosima raised her hand.
“What are you doing!?”
The tour guide stopped mid-lecture, and every single person in their group turned around and stared at them. “Si?”
Cosima looked at Edie. “Translate for me. Ask her where the nuns work.”
“What? No. Absolutely not.”
“Señorita,” Cosima began.
“Señora,” the tour guide bit off. Edie looked under her feet for a handy trapdoor.
“Lo siento.” Cosima cleared her throat. “Where could we find, um, la religiosa?”
Edie yanked her elbow from Cosima’s grip. “Por favor, disculpe a mi amiga. Necesitamos consejo y nos gustaría hablar con una hermana. ¿Podría indicarnos dónde ir? No lo pediríamos si no fuera urgente. Gracias.”
“Thank you,” Cosima whispered. Edie glared at her.
The tour guide and the group had gone quiet, but an older woman who had come in with a young man smiled at Edie.“There are some offices behind the crypt. If you’re looking for a nun who works here, that’s probably where to go, but I can’t promise you’ll be able to get back there. The sisters also present a meditation of singing at noon.” Her Mexican accent was thick, but her English was perfect.
“Gracias, Señora.” Edie smiled at the woman, feeling a little homesick for kind Mexican matriarchs who had been bossing her at her jobs for years. She looked at the tour guide for permission to depart. Nerea nodded once in irritation.
“Let’s go.” Cosima took her elbow again.
Edie gave another apologetic smile to the rest of the group before she followed behind Cosima’s clicking heels, looking up at the fractal patterns the interior buttresses made, the windows, the carved and sculpted art everywhere, meant to create a feeling of golden satisfaction with the heavens. It took her breath away, although she couldn’t be sure how much of that was due to Cosima’s pace.
The crypt chapel was likewise a jewel, with rounded ceilings and artworks that would take decades to appreciate. “Where would the offices be? I haven’t seen a door or an ordinary hallway in this place. I guess it’s so we won’t think of mortal life and mundane concerns when we’re here. I’d probably have a better idea if my guess is correct if you hadn’t made us leave the tour group.” Edie was struggling to keep up now.
“Don’t get distracted,” Cosima said.
“I’m not.” She was. She’d never been so distracted in her life. Her fatigue, her ecstatic bliss, the tender shoots of love bursting into bloom in her heart every time Cosima did something mundane like cut her breakfast sandwich in half before she ate it—all of it smashing into the visual feast of what was the single most beautiful edifice Edie had ever seen, an artwork so vast that it still wasn’t complete nearly two hundred years sinceconstruction began—meant that she could not attend to anything in particular because she was trying to feel every feeling she’d ever had.
Then, Cosima lifted her arm for the second time in five minutes andhailedsomeone. A priest. Oh, god, she’d hailed a priest. “Padre, if you could spare a moment.”
Other than the day they’d met, when Edie recognized her familiar eyes, this was the first time Cosima had reminded Edie of Phoebe Frank. Acutely. Killingly. Edie was willing to bet that Phoebe Frank would hail a priestjust like that, and probably had, and Cosima had learned it from her.
