Page 31 of One Year Ago in Spain
“I can help with that. I’ll just take another big bite…” He pretended to come in again.
“No!” Claire stuffed the ice cream into her mouth to save it from him, vanilla everywhere as she laughed and tried to eat at the same time.
She was a mess.
She was beautiful.
And he wanted her, perfect imperfections and all.
Claire
After five hoursin the hospital, Claire needed a break. The family was going back to Aracely’s for lunch—Spaniards ate late, around two o’clock—and they invited Claire to come along, but she begged off, wanting fresh air and some quiet for a bit before she returned to Matías’s bedside.
Outside the hospital, life in Madrid continued without notice that Claire’s life had been put on pause. The sun beamed cheerfully on the poplar and juniper trees. Office workers took casual lunches with colleagues in sidewalk cafés. Grandmothers pushed strollers under the shaded arcades of the buildings, and everywhere birds chirped garrulously as if it were their midafternoon gossip break.
Claire knew she ought to eat—she’d promised the paramedics yesterday that she would—but she had no appetite. Whocouldeat in such circumstances? But with the heat the way it was in July in Spain, she at least had to hydrate or risk another ambulance visit, and the medics probably wouldn’t let her out of a hospital stay the second time around.
There was a drink kiosk in the nearby park—Madrid was full of wide-open green spaces in the middle of all the hustle and bustle of the city—and Claire got in line to buy a Coke. The man working the kiosk had a kind smile, and his skin was lined andbrowned from hours each day in the sun. He greeted several of the other people in line by name. At least, that’s what Claire could gather with her limited Spanish.
When it was her turn, he smiled and said something rapidly that she didn’t catch.
Flustered, she resorted to pointing and a broken attempt that wasn’t even a complete sentence. “Um.UnoCoke?” At the last second, she remembered to add, “por favor.”
“Una Coca-Cola para la señorita,” the man said. “Será un euro veinticinco.”
Claire fumbled in her purse and grabbed a few coins. But on top of not knowing what the Coke cost because she couldn’t understand numbers in Spanish that fast, she was also unfamiliar with the denominations of euro coins, and she just stood there like an idiot with a handful of money, uncomprehending. Here, they made coins not only for cents, but for one and two euros. Why would you mix things like dollars and change? What god of discord was in charge of that decision?
“¿Eres estadounidense? ¿Quieres hielo?” the man asked.
She looked at him blankly, her heartbeat speeding up in her throat. If only Matías were here to translate for her, to take care of this thing that should be so easy but somehow, at this moment, seemed too hard.
“Um…”
“He’s curious if you’re American,” a man said behind her. “And if you want ice with your Coke, since that’s something Americans are known for.”
Claire couldn’t move. Because she knew that voice. It had whispered to her many nights while kissing the length of her skin. Greeted her in the mornings with strong coffee and toast.Echoed through museums when showing her his favorite paintings.
Matías.
When she didn’t answer either himorthe man holding her Coke, Matías said, “If you’d like ice, you can say,Con hielo, por favor.”
“Con hielo, por favor,” Claire repeated robotically.
The man nodded and filled a paper cup with ice.
Claire was still unable—unwilling—to turn around to look at the ghost or whatever it was of Matías’s voice, lest he disappear like he had yesterday. So instead, she asked the man at the kiosk, “Er, how much was the Coke again?” while helplessly holding out the coins in her hand.
“I can help, if you don’t mind?” Matías stepped forward into her line of sight, and Claire let out a small cry. He was so beautiful. So alive. Nothing like the comatose man she’d just left in the hospital.
This Matías had his full head of hair, none of it shaved off so the brain monitor diodes could measure activity. His bones were intact, his skin was tanned and free of bruises, and his eyes…oh god, those golden eyes…
“Oh!” he said, seeing her face. “It’s you again. From the hotel. You seem to be feeling better.”
Claire wasn’t sure that was true. She was hallucinating again.Didshe have a concussion? And did concussions make you imagine things?
But yesterday she had seen the vision of Matíasbeforeshe’d fainted and hit her head.
“Let me help you with those coins,” he said, “and then maybe we could go for a walk through the park?”
