Chapter Four
Friday and the weekend rolled on by almost as usual.There was, of course, the event of me calling Pedro andinforming him that I would be delighted to take theposition. I celebrated that by having a bit of brandy inmy coffee. Vera was at work, terribly hung over,otherwise she would have partaken in the moment.
Saturday we picked up Chloe Ann and took her toan outdoor children’s concert. She was a bit moodierthan normal, perhaps because the heat never relented, butshe seemed to enjoy herself by the end of it. Cottoncandy fixes all of life’s problems when you’re a child.
Sunday was a day of lazing around, reading thepaper and drinking drunken lemonade. It was easy tofool ourselves into thinking everything was fine.
But today, I know things aren’t fine. I feel it when Iwake up, that gnawing sensation of something eatingaway at me. I should be happy, on cloud nine—I’mabout to get dressed and head into the office at thestadium, to start my first official day at a job I’d evendreamed of when I was back on the team.
And yet my gut is a ball of nerves.
Even Vera senses it as we shower together; herbrows knit together in a mix of discomfort and concern.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “You seem distant.”
“Like I’m in another galaxy?” I answer, turning heraround to rub soap on her back.
She lifts her hair off her shoulders to give meaccess. “Something like that.”
“I guess I’m nervous about my first day,” I tell her.
She nods. “I’m nervous this will be my last.”
I pause, and she shoots me an apologetic look overher shoulder. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not about me.”
“Maybe it’s always about you,” I whisper. “I can’tpretend that I’m not afraid for us.”
Her face falls slightly. “Don’t worry,” she says, andI almost believe that she doesn’t. “I worked my ass offon Friday. They won’t let me go. I won’t let them.”
I lean down and kiss her shoulders, tasting the soapand the freshness of her skin. “You can do anything youput your mind to. But it doesn’t mean I won’t worry.”
She turns around, her eyes determined. “You knowthat we’ll be okay, don’t you? This will all work out. It’sjust a hiccup, that’s all.”
I try and give her a smile but it fails to form on mylips. “I’m just tired of the universe giving me somethingand taking something else away.”
“Well, the universe can go fuck itself for all I care,”she says. “You deserve this job. I deserve mine. There’sno reason why we can’t have both.”
She’s right. There is no reason. But maybe I’m stillafraid that we got off too easy, that there is stillpunishment for our actions. Bon reminded me thatthough the ink on the divorce papers is dry, the woundsare still fresh for everyone involved.
I still have that thought on my mind as I drive towork, to the stadium by the river. I haven’t been backhere in years, not even to watch a game. It feels strangebut still right at the same time.
As most first days are, this one is easy. I don’t evenmeet the team, just the administrative staff, plus Diegoand Warren. Even though I expected contempt fromWarren for taking over what should have been his job,he’s friendly enough, and Diego is as cordial as the firsttime I met him, if not a little defensive over the team. Idon’t blame him. Even though his eyes and heart are seton Argentina, he is the guy that helped bring this teamback. It’s personal to him so I treat him and his viewswith respect.
At the end of the day, after I am shown a small deskin the same room as Warren’s where I am to temporarilywork, Pedro calls me into his office. He’s sitting behinda Lucite table with a wooden cigar box in his hands. Hiswalls are white and covered with rich black and whitephotographs of the team; his windows are large and wideand look out onto the grassy field and the rows of seatsin the stadium.
“Sit down,” he commands, and I do so in a plasticchair that is so modern it’s uncomfortable. He opens thecigar box, sticks one in his mouth, and then tilts ittoward me in offering.
I raise my hand, shaking it off. I make a point of notsmoking cigars with people I don’t know that well—Ihate the idea of being stuck with someone while you’rewaiting for the paper to burn.
“Suit yourself,” he mumbles out of the corner of hismouth, then lights one up. He puffs on it for a fewmoments, his grey brows furrowed in concentration untilhe has it burning just the right way. “How was your first day?” he asks when he’sfinally satisfied.
“Very good,” I said. “Diego has been verywelcoming and Warren seems to be easy to get alongwith.”
“He is, he is,” he says with a nod. “Just too bad he’snot a Spaniard. Though what’s too bad for him is greatfor you.”
I smile placidly at him, feeling like there is a moreserious undertone to this conversation other thanchecking in on me.
He continues, “This, of course, will be a slow startfor you. But I think that is for the best. It’s good for youto just observe for the next few months. I believe youcan learn a lot more by watching and listening than bydoing.”
“I agree.”
“Good,” he says, leaning forward slightly. “Buteven though we will ease you into things, the momentyou signed the contracts this morning is the moment youbecame part of the team, part of this administration¸ thisinternational symbol of Spain.”
I nod. Uh-huh.
“And as part of this team, you have a certainreputation to uphold. Now, your personal life is none ofmy business. In fact, if it weren’t for your face showingup in the tabloids late last year, we might have forgottenall about you. Though I am sure it was not intentional, itdid help. But now that you are here, I do think thereneeds to be an air of . . . respect and class when it comesto representing Atlético. Do you agree?”
I think I say yes. I can barely tell, the blood iswhooshing so loudly in my head. I am braced forsomething horrible and I don’t know what it is.
“As I said,” he goes on, “your personal life is noneof my business. But if you could, I would prefer it not toappear in the papers anymore.”
I frown. “It hasn’t.”
He gives me a sharp smile. “Oh, but it has. Don’tyou read them, Mateo? Perhaps you should.”
Pedro reaches into his drawer and pulls out a copyof Diez Minutos, my most hated magazine. Cheap,tawdry, and tacky, it was the first one to spread liesabout me and Vera, and I immediately think back to thephotographer I saw taking my picture outside of Fiorisover a week ago. But how could a picture of me, leavingthe restaurant alone, spark any sort of concern fromPedro?
He shows me. He flips a few pages, and there I seea fuzzy photograph of Vera. She is wearing the samesexy clothes she was wearing on Thursday night. She isdancing close with a man that is not me, and laughing.
I think I’m going to be sick. I do what I can to keepmy face as neutral as possible, and I look up to him as Isay, “So, that is Vera. What about it?”
But I know what the problem is because it’s aproblem for me too. I don’t want to examine the photosany closer, not with him watching me, waiting for areaction that I refuse to give him.
“Have you read the headline?” he asks, jabbing afinger at it. I hadn’t. I glance at it now, quickly.
Mateo Casalles Has New Competition.
I swallow and look up at Pedro. “All lies,” I say.
“If you read it,” Pedro says, “it goes on to say thatyour girlfriend was seen partying at a local hotspot lastThursday night and getting close with a young man. Itthen goes on to say that there are rumors of you joiningAtlético in a managerial position. How could one be trueand the other not?”
I shift my jaw back and forth for a moment, tryingto quell the embarrassment and rage that threatens toshatter me. “Do you not remember the photographerstanding outside of the restaurant after our last meeting?It would be easy for him to deduce that I am involved inAtlético again.”
“Stupid paparazzi,” he mutters, though I’m temptedto point out that it was him who waved for the camera.
“Yes,” I say, making a motion to get up and leave,“they are stupid. They made assumptions about mewhich turn out to be half true—coaching is not exactly amanagerial position. They make assumptions aboutVera, that this boy she is dancing with is someone morethan a friend. Their whole business is based on sellingassumptions. Everyone knows that.”
“It looks bad, Mateo,” Pedro says as I stand up.“This was normal when you were younger, and it’snormal for the players, especially a few particular ones,but I don’t want to see this from their coach. You mightneed to put your girlfriend on a leash if she can’tbehave.”
I raise my brows. “Excuse me?” My voice is hardand cold.
Pedro looks mildly apologetic. “Sorry. I don’t meanto insult her, or you, but I just want you to be aware ofyour image now going forward. You don’t work foryourself anymore. The restaurant is long gone. You work for me, for Atlético, forMadrid. You have a face to show the public. Preserveit.”
I can only nod in response before I turn and leavethe room. Somehow I manage to keep it together until Ican’t handle it anymore. I pull over beside a newsstandto quickly snap up a copy. I read it over when I’m in mybuilding’s parking garage.
Up close, the pictures are worse. There are two ofthem. In both they are dancing; in one Vera is laughingand the boy leans in close. In the other, he has his handsaround her waist. From the fuzzy details I can make outthat he is one of Ricardo’s friends—spiked hair, leather,studs, and tattoos. He looks like someone that Verawould be with. He looks like the opposite of me.
I fight the urge to rip the magazine in half, to poundmy head against the steering wheel, to find Claudia thenfind Ricardo, and punch his face in just by association. Izero in on his hands, the possessive way he is holdingher, and I think I may just lose my mind.
She is mine, not his. Why is she letting this happen?
I swallow hard and try to breathe through my anger.It’s an uphill battle. I tell myself that the photos don’tmean anything. It doesn’t mean Vera is having an affair.It doesn’t mean that she’s sleeping with this guy, thatshe’s in love with him. It doesn’t mean they are a bettermatch. For all I know, he may have made her laugh, puthis hands on her, and in the next moment got a drink inhis face. Vera is feisty like that, too. The photographsdon’t tell the whole story.
There is only one way to find out. I have toconfront her, immediately, before I make this bigger thanit actually is. My mind is always eager to make thingsworse. I shove the magazine in my suit jacket pocket andtake the excruciatingly slow elevator up to our floor. It’sfour in the afternoon and she should be home.
At the door, I pause, trying to go over how I’llapproach her. Vera can get very defensive over things,whether she’s guilty of them or not, and the last thing Ineed is a fight because she’s mad that I’m mad. Funnyhow it usually works out that way.
I suck in my breath and open the door. She is on thebalcony, stirring a large iced coffee from Starbucks,reading a hardcover book in the shade. For a moment Ithink I should leave her alone in peace, but then I know Iwon’t get any peace that way.
“Hey, handsome,” she says, pulling her oversizedsunglasses away from her eyes and glancing up at me asI stand in the doorway. “How was your first day?”
When I don’t come any closer, her eyes trail to themagazine poking out from my jacket. I can tell shehasn’t seen it before. She looks curious but not ashamed.
“It was fine,” I say. I try to smile, but from the wayher brows knit together, I can tell that it reads false.
“Are you doing some light reading?” she asks, eyesback to the magazine.
“Tell me again about Thursday night.”
She pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head.There is a smattering of new freckles across her nose.She must have gotten some sun during her lunch hour.It’s cute, but I push aside my affections for now.
“Thursday night?”
“Yes, Vera. You went out with Claudia. You cameback drunk. Where did you go? Who was there? Whatdid you do?”
She blinks and then rubs at her forehead. “I toldyou. I don’t know, it was the usual. We went to someplace near the university, I don’t remember the name.Something Spanish, obviously. We drank and dancedand did shots.”
“Who was there?”
She frowns. “Claudia. Ricardo. His friends.”
“Are his friends your friends?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Any of them stand out to you in particular?”
“Mateo . . . what are you talking about? What’sgoing on?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, Vera. I would like someanswers though.” I take the magazine and toss it on thetable. “Flip a few pages in and give them to me.”
She stares at me for a few moments, and now she’sworried. She bites her lip and turns the magazine over,flipping through it. The page is already worn andwrinkled from my hands and comes. She gasps, her hand shaking near her mouth. “Whatthe fuck?” she whispers as she stares down at it with thesame kind of horror that I had.
“Yes. What the fuck.”
She slowly looks at me. “Mateo, you can’t . . . thisis Paulo, one of Ricardo’s good friends. You’ve methim. I don’t . . . I was just dancing with him.”
I stay silent. It has the most power.
Her expression has turned from confused topleading. “Are you mad over this?”
My eyes burn into hers. “Am I mad? I’m a bit mad,Vera. A bit upset. A bit confused. And a lot embarrassed.Do you know how I found this out? Because my newboss, Pedro del Torro, owner of Atlético, showed it tome, telling me that my girlfriend was going after othermen, and it was making the news.”
She stands up, her face growing red, and throws herarms out to the side. “Well, what the hell am I supposedto do? Not go out, ever? Not dance, ever?”
“Why is he touching you like this? Why are youwith him like this?”
She shakes her head frantically. “No, no, no. Mateo,it’s not what you think.”
I wish my heart would stop beating so fast, so loud,like it’s teetering on the edge. “Then tell me what I thinkand tell me how I’m wrong. Please.”
She walks around to me and reaches out for myarm. Her grip is tight and desperate. I want so badly tobelieve whatever will come out of her mouth. “I was justdancing with Ricardo’s friend. He’s my friend too, Iguess. He’s touchy-feely, but then again, so are you.”
That was the wrong thing to say and she knows it.Her lips clamp shut for a moment and she lookspanicked.
“I am this touchy-feely with you because you aremine to touch,” I say, trying to keep my voice measuredand steady. “Not his. Not anyone else’s.”
Her eyes widen momentarily. “Mateo, you can’t getmad because someone touches me.”
I match her look. I’m not sure I can believe whatshe’s saying. “Of course I can get mad. I have the rightto.”
“Well, where I come from, things like that don’tmean anything.”
“Where you come from is very different from here,with people different from me. You made me look like afucking fool, Vera.”
The ferocity in my words catch both of us off-guard. “I didn’t know someone would take my picture,”she says.
“So the only problem,” I say, “is that you gotcaught?”
“I didn’t do anything!” she cries out, angry now, allcurled fists and blazing eyes. “It was just a fuckingdance. What the hell are you so bothered about then, is itthat everyone is reading this shit and believing it, or thatI go out and have fun without you, that other menhappen to find me attractive?”
I blink and raise my hands, stunned. “Whoa, whoa,what are you talking about? Why is this somethingyou’re angry about?”
“I’m angry,” she says, “because you treat me likeproperty sometimes.”
I am aghast. My heart lurches uncomfortably in mychest, and I only now realize we are having a very loudargument outside on the balcony.
“You are my property,” I tell her, completelygenuine. It’s not exactly what I mean to say – it’s herheart and soul I wish to own – but it’s the closest word intranslation to me. It doesn’t go over well with her.
“You’re a caveman.”
I smile coldly. “Cavemen fall in love, too.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” she sneers, folding her arms.
“And I don’t like that you don’t seem to have anyrespect for me,” I retort, then remember to lower myvoice. It doesn’t matter, it looks like I’ve slapped heracross the face.
“No respect?” she whispers raggedly.
“Hanging off of other men, going out, gettingdrunk,” I go on.
“First of all, I am not hanging off of other men,”she says, pointing her finger in the air. “That was apicture taken at the wrong time.”
I both bite my tongue and raise my brow.
“Second of all, going out, getting drunk? That’s justwhat I do. That has nothing to do with respect for you,Mateo. I find those things fun. Jesus Christ, you thinkyou can just lock me up in your apartment and swill scotch all night, or maybe take me to your parents or to some of your so-called friends who look at me like I’m nothing but a slutty homewrecker, and who are boring as fuck? It’s not my fault that I’m still young and you’re not anymore.”
Now it feels like I’m the one who has been hit. Not a slap, but a wrecking ball right into my chest.
Vera sees it. Her face falls slightly, torn between wanting to battle and wanting to sympathize. “I’m sorry,” she says quickly, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You meant it enough to say it,” I say quietly, tearing my eyes away from her. The irony is that Vera is always the one telling me that I’m not old, that I’m still in my thirties, that when I hit forty the forties are the new thirties. But how could she even know that? It’ll be another six years before she’s even thirty. We’re on totally different wavelengths.
I thought she’d found herself when she found me. Now I am not so sure.
“We both say things we don’t mean when we’re angry,” she explains.
I still avoid her eyes. “And why again are you angry?”
“Because I don’t like having to defend myself against something I shouldn’t. I don’t like feeling guilty for trying to live my life the only way I know how. It’s like the only time we’re really together, really a couple is when we’re both here. Other than that, our lives don’t mesh at all, and whatever way I’m living it is all completely wrong to you.”
I don’t like the tone her voice is taking, full of regret and resignation, of months of things unsaid. It makes me bleed, undoes me, to think that all this time she’s been suffering her days in some way or another, keeping her true feelings to herself.
“So what are you saying?” I ask her, my voice surprisingly level. “That you’re only mine when you’re here?” I glance at her, and she’s flicking her fingers against each other, leaning from one foot to the other. “And out there you’re free to belong to whoever?”
She stares at me for a few moments, still fidgeting. “I always belong to myself.”
“And to me second . . .” I rub my hand along the back of my neck and feel only sweat and heat. It’s getting too hard to breathe anywhere. The month is suffocating us.
“I can belong to both of us at the same time,” she says, though it sounds like she’s conceding. I watch her carefully. Her shoulders seem to relax a touch.
“Just promise me you’ll watch yourself,” I say warily.
She shoots daggers at me, back on the defensive. “I’m not fucking twelve years old.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not saying you are a child, Vera. I’m saying just have some respect for me when you’re out there, and this will all be over. We won’t have to discuss this again.”
“No, it won’t be over,” she says. “Because I do have respect for you. I’m fucking in love with you, you big idiot.”
Her words don’t have their intended effect. I turn suddenly and snatch the magazine up from the table, shoving it in her face. “This is not a picture of woman who is in love with me. This is a picture of . . .” And she is right in that we say things we don’t mean when we are angry. I at least manage to hold my words in. But she can see right through me in that uncanny way of hers.
Her pupils are shocked into pinpricks. “A drunken whore, that’s what you were going to say.”
I was not going to say that, not exactly. My thoughts had been more polite, but that was close.
“There is a difference,” I say carefully, “between being something and acting like something.”
“Is there?” she asks. “Because you’re being a chauvinistic asshole right now and acting like it, too.”
“Why don’t you call me old again, or is there no venom left in you?”
“Oh, there is plenty of venom.”
I step over to her until she’s backed against the table. She looks unnerved for a moment until I grab her hand and press it to my heart. I peer down at her, my gaze unwavering.
“This is me. This is who I am. You knew that when you met me.” I lean in closer until I feel submerged in the gold flecks of her eyes. “You know the things I care about. Pride, yes. Respect. For me. For family. For relationships. If these things cause me to be, what did you say, a chauvinistic asshole, then it can’t be of any surprise to you.”
There’s something about the way she’s staring up at me—feral and subtly violent, like a cornered wolf—that’s turning me on. The heat is no longer just the thick dusty air or the sweat on my skin, or the anger simmering in my heart—it’s a warm tidal wave pushing through the center of me. Before I know it, I’m hard and my breathing has become heavier.
It does nothing to temper the wildness in her eyes. It doesn’t have to.
“You surprise me each day,” she says, voice flinty but drawn-out. Her gaze drops to my mouth.
The pressure inside me builds, my eyelids becoming leaden. I put my hand to the back of her neck and grip her there. She’s infuriating me, this inability of hers to understand how I feel. Sometimes I feel she has less at stake in our relationship than I do, though I know that’s not always true.
“You need to understand that you’re mine,” I tell her. It comes out more as a hiss now, and my lips are at her ear, inches away from the moisture of her skin. “Only I can do this to you. No one else. Not anyone else.”
I reach down and unzip my fly. She stiffens slightly at the action, and I pause, letting her reactions cue me. She relaxes, and that’s all I need to lift her up and place her ass on the edge of the wrought iron table. It teeters a bit under her weight, but it holds.
Her eyes are now a mix of lust and fight. She’s still angry, still ready to battle. So am I. But it’s coming out in a different way now. I don’t normally associate anger with sex, so this is new to me. As I stare into her eyes, slipping my hand between her skirt and legs to push her underwear aside, I can see it surprises her too. I guess I do surprise her every day.
“This doesn’t fix things,” she says defiantly, but she’s wrapping her legs around me as she says it, tugging me toward her. The table wobbles.
“How do you know?” I whisper, and simultaneously guide my cock toward her while laying my lips and teeth on the side of her neck. At the moment, I feel like it might fix things for me. I feel like I could drive all other men out of her, make myself permanent in her temporary world. We are outside, within earshot of neighbors who just need to peek around the partition to see us; we are in plain view of any apartments across the street.
I wish the photographer was there, taking a photo of this. I’d show them who she really belonged with. I’d show them I am up to the task.
I push myself into her. She gasps, her face laced with pain. She is not wet enough for me, and though the pleasure that radiates through me from my balls to my neck feels like nothing else, I hesitate, about to pull out. I want this rough and fast and hard, but I will not make her suffer.
But she tightens her legs around my hips and holds me to her possessively. I go in slower this time, my lips back at her neck, wanting to make a mark. I bite and nibble and suck the blood to the surface. My thrusts now are sharp and deliberate. The table rocks noisily, and her breathless gasps turn to breathless moans.
It feels impossible to shed the fire burning inside me yet I try, faster, harder, more desperate, more angry, more lost. In the heat of day, I am wet to the touch, and she is tight around me, and the air feels like a damp wool blanket; it only fuels the madness.
She is mine, she is mine, she is mine.
I am hers.
Even in this simmering frustration, I remember to be a gentleman. I slide my fingers between her legs with one hand while I hold the back of her neck with the other. The minute that I feel her tense, her breath catching in her throat, I let myself go inside her. I am straining, holding on to her, not caring that my own cries are soaring over the busy street below.
We are both breathing heavily, and I pull back to look at her. She’s drowsy with sex, but there is something still rebellious in her eyes. Though my body is relieved from coming, my heart is not. I pull out of her, zip up my fly, and help her off the edge of the table. Then I turn away, confused. She was right—it didn’t fix anything.
I leave her there on the balcony and walk into the house. Out of habit, I check to make sure my wallet is in my pants, and grab my keys.
“Where are you going?” she asks after me. She sounds hardened but slightly panicked.
“I need to clear my head,” I tell her, and leave, shutting the door behind me.
Of course, there is no place for me to go. Vera has Claudia and the people she works with. I don’t have anyone. Maybe my parents, my sister. Every other friend I had I lost when I left Isabel. Even the great friends turned out not to be so great, and subtly distanced themselves from me, perhaps afraid of being sucked into a scandal, perhaps worried that my behavior would rub off on them. I’m sure many of their wives had been behind it, threatening their husbands that if they should ever hang out with a man who would toss aside his wife for a younger girl, they might do the same.
I had so many friends that I’d lost just because they didn’t want to understand what it was like to fall in love with someone you’re not supposed to. So many friends who chose to judge me than to love me.
I go out into the streets instead, walking and walking until the sun sets, and I find a small, quiet bar to have a drink at. I order a gin and tonic to deal with the heat, extra gin to deal with my heart. Everything weighs so heavy right now, I can feel it pressing down on my shoulders. There is Vera, and then there is loneliness. Sometimes I have both but now it only feels like I have the latter.
I want so badly to read over my letter, but that is back at the apartment with her, and I am here. She hasn’t texted me—there are no “where are yous?” and “when are you coming backs?” or “we need to talks,” or even “chauvinistic assholes”—so I feel no urge to return. I want to stay out on the streets of Madrid until the sun comes up. I want to drink and walk down narrow streets filled with dubious people until I feel like I have an answer to the buried question that is plaguing me.
Can you adapt to something without changing? Can you give without losing all of yourself?
I am not sure.
Eventually though, my feet hurt—my work shoes are brand new and not meant to broken in in one go—and my bones are tired. It must come with old age.
I trek back to the apartment and enter as quietly as possible. It is dark and silent excerpt for the hum of the fridge.
Vera is in bed but she is not asleep. She is sitting up, her shoulders slumped forward, and wearing one of my t-shirts. The curtain is open and the light spills in, illuminating one side of her and leaving the rest in shadow. Her cheeks glisten. She has been crying.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as I stand in the doorway. All at once, my anger is gone, replaced with nothing but love for this scared little girl.
I come over to the bed and pull her into my arms. I kiss the top of her head as hard as I can. “I am sorry.”
“I’m just being stubborn,” she sniffles into me. “I don’t know why. I guess I’m afraid, and I’m frustrated, and I feel so, so trapped.”
I stiffen. “Trapped?”
“Not by you,” she says adamantly. “Never you. It’s . . . I don’t know my place here yet and I feel like everywhere I turn there is just something trying to push me away. I don’t belong in Vancouver, and yet I don’t feel like I belong here either.”
“You belong with me,” I tell her, my voice raw with passion, with longing.
“I know,” she says, nodding, “I know I do. But sometimes that isn’t enough. I need more than just you, Mateo. I need you, and I need a life of my own that I feel secure in. I need a place to plant my roots.”
“Can’t that be here?”
“I hope so. I’m just afraid that Spain doesn’t want me to stay.”
I run my hand down the back of her head. “I will talk to your boss. You will be able to stay.”
“Mateo, that’s okay.” She says even though it’s not, even though I will do whatever I can.
Yet as I kiss her, bury myself inside her, fall asleep with her, I’m only left with more questions.