Page 65 of One Year Ago in Spain
You should not even be thinking about work right now. But of course, I would never prescribe advice that I could not follow myself; I understand how work can sometimes be a comforting distraction. But just remember that at the end of the day, it is only stacks of paper, not life.
Do take care, and I will keep your boyfriend in my prayers.
—Mitch
Matías
One Month Ago
As soon asMatías walked into his apartment, Claire popped her head out of his bedroom.
“There you are!” She was dressed impeccably in a black sheath dress with her hair up in a sleek bun. “Where have you been?”
“I was playing volleyball on the sand courts.” He tried to dart in for a kiss, but she dodged.
“Matías! Your shoes!”
He looked down. “What?”
“You’re tracking sand all over the place. I thought we were taking our shoes off at the door.”
“Oh, right.” He backtracked to the entrance and kicked off his shoes. More sand flew out. Claire sighed, even though this washisapartment and he didn’t care about the sand. But she wanted things to be nice for him, and he understood and actually appreciated it. It was just that she had so many little rules about everything, and it was hard to remember them all.
“Volleyball wasn’t on your calendar,” Claire was saying.
“I know, but as I was leaving my studio, Lawrence called and asked if I wanted to play, so I thought, why not?”
“Why not?” Claire threw her arms in the air. “Because my firm is hosting its big summer welcome dinner for the law school interns at Le Bernadin tonight, and it starts in half an hour!”
“Coño,” Matías cursed. “I forgot. I’m so sorry. I’ll change quickly and—”
“No, you can’t go like that. You’re covered in sunscreen and your hair is all sweaty. Matías…” Claire’s voice shifted then from angry to desperate. “I’m up for partner soon. I can’t…You can’t…” Her whole body trembled.
“Hey, hey, churri, shhh. It’s okay. I know. I messed up, and I’m sorry.” He stepped toward her to hug her, but then remembered he was in his sandy workout clothes.
Claire hung her head, still shaking. “I have to go. Just…please shower and look nice and come as soon as you can, okay?”
Matías tilted her chin up so she was looking at him. “I will. And I’ll make this up to you, I promise.”
—
Hot water cascadedover Matías’s body as he shampooed his hair as fast as he could. He had to rein himself in. At the start of their relationship, Claire had been patient with his impulsiveness and tendency to forget appointments, but now that they’d been together for ten months, he knew that that part of his personality was beginning to wear on her.
He didn’t want Claire to get annoyed at him, like his sister did when he was still living in Madrid and she would have to check up on him to make sure he hadn’t disappeared into his work and abandoned his other responsibilities. It was one thing for Aracely to feel that way, because she was related to him by blood and couldn’t leave him. It was another thing entirely if he was starting to irritate Claire.
Because he wanted to spend his life with her. He’d known it early on, but as time passed, he’d only grown more sure. Theywere opposites, but they were beautiful together, like the moon and its reflection in a lake.
Unlike Vega, who’d been much more like Matías but amplified a thousandfold.
In retrospect, he never should have stayed with Vega that long. But after being engaged for well over a decade, Matías had just accepted that that was how his life looked. Vega was tempestuous and self-absorbed, but that was also what made her sculptures unique. A lot of artists were egocentric and prone to excess.
But when Matías was invited to come to the United States, and Vega reacted not by finally committing to marry him, but by sliding the black onyx engagement ring off her finger, Matías finally saw her clearly. Vega did not support his career. Vega would never sacrifice her own wants for his. And Vega’s penchant for burning things down in an outburst of melodrama was the opposite of what Matías needed, because he, too, could sometimes become so absorbed in the art coming to life in his head that he disconnected from reality. He needed someone with two feet on the ground, and Vega wasn’t it.
“Keep it,” she’d said of the onyx ring. “Maybe you can reuse it for a nice American girl.”
Matías’s heart had been broken and stomped on, but he’d known he would never hold on to that ring, that he’d never give it to someone else. He asked Carlos to sell it for him, and Carlos had taken care of it the next day. Then Matías and his friends went out and spent all of Vega’s ring money on enough beer to drown his sorrows for a week.
But that was then, when Matías had felt his entire life in flux. Now he had Claire, who was like a steady clock keeping time,helping Matías from getting too lost as he flitted around in the world.
