Page 31 of Cava with My Colleague

Jade rolls her eyes. “Oh my god. I knew as soon as it was out of my mouth that you’d zero in on that.”

“I’m too proud of my brother to not . . . ah. Drop names?”

I look between the two women, who are now laughing. “What is so funny?”

Jade bites down on a cheese-covered cracker and hastily chews, covering her mouth with her hand. Once she swallows, she tells me, “My friend Sara is dating Chris Rächer.”

“And my brother is Alwin,” Lisa adds.

I pause with a dried apricot halfway to my mouth. Alwin is the lead singer of Verduistering, and Chris is the guitarist.

Was. Last year they won the European Music Awards, this year the band announced their breakup.

Both women giggle, and I try to wipe the stunned look off my face. Jade spends time, apparently, with one of the biggest music stars in Europe. And Lisa is his sister. “I thought Alwin wasn’t in touch with his family?” The words are out before I can censor myself. It’s a rude thing to bring up, probably. I sound not only star struck, but like I’m fishing for gossip.

Lisa shrugs. “Our parents are assholes. It took longer for me to realize it, but the joke is on them now; they’ve lost both their children to their ‘sexual deviances.’”

Alwin is pansexual and open about having been kicked out of the house as a teenager, a thought that sends rage through me. The idea of tossing Fernando out on the street is beyond comprehension.

“Speaking of which,” Jade says. “There’s a woman at my two o’clock that’s been checking you out.”

“I’m not interested,” I grumble, without even looking.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

I glance up and Jade looks at me with reproach.

Lisa glances to her left, behind me, and then turns back, raising an eyebrow. Jade bends her knees, curling her torso over her legs to reach for the fruit and lean toward Lisa.

“I must go,” Lisa says dramatically. “The femme, she calls to me.” She laughs as she stands and saunters over to the woman, leaving Jade and me alone.

12

Jade

I watch Lisa saunter across the grass and feel the warm, easy looseness of the afternoon sitting in my chest. This is one of those afternoons I’ll remember—the river, the borrowed picnic, a new friend and her dramatic exit. My Polaroid is in my bag, and I need to remember to take a picture of Lisa and me when she gets back—sun-kissed and happy.

“I’m sorry,” Carlos blurts out once Lisa’s out of earshot.

I glance at him quizzically. It’s hard to look at him right now. We’re alone, and he’s mostly naked, and the silver chest hair and the happy trail down into his bañador is very distracting. The first time I had described him to my friends, I’d picked a flattering nickname—Superman, because of the dark hair and chin dimple. But after a few months at work, I realized it didn’t fit. He stopped feeling like a comic book character and started feeling like a person who didn’t like me.

Under normal circumstances—meaning, any other man in any other context—I would have at least three things to say to tease him in this moment. I keep all of them to myself. We’re in new territory, the two of us, and I don’t know yet if it will hold my weight.

“For what?”

“For this morning. I apologize for not being helpful or understanding.”

“Oh, that.” I wave the apology away. “I’d already forgotten about it.”

Not entirely true, but I am trying not to think about my stage fright or the next presentation I have to give. Vienna had been so much better, and I’d hoped I was rounding a corner. Better than Berlin isn’t a high bar, but it was something.

Having my friends there had given me a confidence boost, but they couldn’t be at every presentation. And the picture Luc took last week—the four of us at the Schönbrunn Palace, which I placed on the podium with me for moral support—was a poor substitute.

At least we have a one-week break before we present in Paris.

“Is there something I could do for you? To help you with the presentations?” He’s sitting close enough that I could reach out and touch the silver at his temple. I don’t, obviously. I redirect instead, the way I always do when something feels too close to something real.

This is something I’ve asked myself many times. I chuckle, but it’s bitter. “Do you think if memories get erased, we still have the trauma from them?”