Page 34 of Cava with My Colleague

“My parents were . . . not that bad, but . . .” He shakes his head. “We disagreed on many things. Or, I should say, I disagreed with the church. My parents were too scared to even attempt to understand me.”

I smile grimly. “So we’re both in the religious trauma club. Are your parents still around?”

Carlos shakes his head, and then we’ve arrived and Carlos guides me to the entrance of the church.

Inside, it takes my eyes a moment to adjust—not to darkness, because the Basílica is surprisingly bright, but to the sheer density of it. Baroque, all of it, every surface gilded or painted or both, the dome overhead swimming with figures. It’s ornate in the way that feels less like decoration and more like insistence, like the building itself is arguing a point.

I take a phone picture of the dome. Then another of the nave, which is elliptical, smaller than I expected, more intimate. There’s a queue of people along the left side—not tourists, not mostly—moving slowly toward a glass case at the front. Women, mostly, some with children. A few reach out and touch the glass when they get close enough.

I don’t join the queue.

My parents, already religious before I got sick, became even more so after. Their prayer healed me, not the chemotherapy. I had believed it, for a while.

When I went to college, my eyes were opened. Not only did I learn so much about science and medicine, but I also learned so many of the other things my parents didn’t teach me.

Mainly, sex.

I take another picture.

Carlos is standing a few feet away, watching me.

I lower my phone. It’s quiet except for the murmurs of the woman whose fingertips are on the glass.

Wordlessly, we stroll back to the entrance. He’s quiet as he holds the door open for me, and we walk back into the heat. When we get far enough away, I stop and turn to Carlos. “Will you take my picture?”

He looks at me, then at the phone in my hand. I shake my head and reach into my bag.

The Polaroid is heavier than it looks. I hold it out to him and something shifts in his expression when he takes it—recognition, not puzzlement. He turns it over and runs a thumb over the logo.

“My mother had one of these,” he says. “An older version, anyway. I doubt many of those models exist anymore. She’d pull it out at family parties. You’d have to hold the picture and wave it around.”

“You’re not supposed to do that actually. It can damage the image.”

He looks at me. “We didn’t know that.”

“Nobody knew that. OutKast lied,” I tease.

Carlos’s brows draw together. “OutKast?”

If I was with my friends, I would bust out some dance moves, but after the church and learning about our mutual religious trauma, it feels too heavy for that. Instead, I shake my head. “Never mind. It’s not important.”

I walk back a bit, just enough that Carlos can get the church and most of me in the picture. I turn to face him.

Carlos raises the camera. Looks at me through the viewfinder for a long moment, and then counts down.

“Uno, dos y . . . ¡Tres!”

The shutter clicks. The film slides out, and he holds it carefully by the edge, watching it develop with the focused attention he gives to everything.

“How’d it come out?” I ask, walking back to him.

He tilts it toward me. The image has come up clean—me in the bright sun, a smile, my hair cascading down from my ponytail over one shoulder.

“Good job,” I say.

He hands it back, then offers me back the camera. “You take these everywhere?”

“The camera, yes. The film I use—” I consider. “Carefully. I only take photos that are really important with it. They’re mementos that travel well.”