Chapter 6
Iván’s door was open, so I walked in. “Hello?”
He came out of what had to have been his kitchen, holding a glass of water. “You must be thirsty after your climb.”
Mostly I was thinking about my feet. I had ditched the heels after the fourth floor but they were killing me. “Thank you.”
Iván’s apartment was beautiful. I limped into the living room and looked out at the view of the Bay Bridge. It was a huge space, too, and unlike the places I had lived myself, full of furniture that looked sturdy and expensive and did not consist of crates or other repurposed materials. “This is really nice,” I told him. “I like your apartment.”
“It’s just a little too high.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly, and sat down in a chair to rub my feet.
He sat across from me. “Can you tell me why you don’t want to go in the elevator? Or the parking garage, or the BART?”
“It’s just one of those silly things. Like you said your friend was afraid of flying.”
“No reason?”
I looked at my feet. “No reason.”
Iván was nodding. In the half-darkness, his brown eyes looked almost luminous. “You don’t have to tell me. Maybe someday.”
Maybe.
“Are you tired? Do you want to go to bed?” he asked.
“Um, sure.” I jumped up and my stomach flipped like I was on a roller coaster. “I mean, not really.”
“Good, because I have an idea.” He held out his hand, and as I always did, I took it without hesitating. He led me through his bedroom with a giant, giant bed into an equally giant bathroom. A gleaming bathroom with a shower with four heads and nozzle things and a bathtub that I could have slept in. Or probably lived in, pretty happily. There was enough space for me and a few roommates.
“You said you went under water in the bath, right?” He reached over and turned on a tap and the tub started to fill rapidly.
“Yes, a long time ago when I took baths. Wait. You want me to take a bath? Now?”
“I’ll get in with you.” He pulled his shirt over his head, and my jaw dropped.
“Wait a minute. Hold on!”
“I’ll put on a bathing suit,” he suggested.
“But I don’t have one!”
Iván strolled out, shirtless, and came back in with a t-shirt and a pair of old boxer shorts. I hadn’t pegged him as a boxer guy. “You can wear this. You’ll be totally covered.”
“Iván. No.”
“You have to learn to go under. This is a good way. Go ahead and change and call me when you’re ready.” He strolled out again, closing the door behind him.
For a moment I just looked at the door. I sat down on the edge of the tub and turned to look at the water. Then I opened the drain and washed off my dirty feet from the stairs climb. The water was just pouring out now, wasted. I picked up the clothes he had left for me.
I closed the drain so the tub began to fill again and carefully took off my dress, hanging it over a towel bar. I put my bra underneath the dress. Then I put on Iván’s clothes over my underwear. “Come in,” I called.
Iván was wearing another of those tiny bathing suits. He was completely comfortable—but really, he had no reason not to be. I found myself studying his butt when he bent to turn off the water. Just…wow.
“R-r-ready?” He trilled the R, just how I liked it. He knew that I did. “¿Lista? Venga, tía. Get in.”
Carefully I stepped into the tub and lowered myself into the water, then Iván did also, a lot less carefully. We faced each other.
“Slide down as far as you’re comfortable,” he instructed me.
I nodded and started to submerge, watching Iván the whole time. When the water reached my chin, I started coughing and pushed myself back up. I looked at Iván a little fearfully.
But he smiled. “Good! That was good.”
I pulled my lip with my teeth. “I didn’t go under.”
“Not yet.” He picked up my foot and started to rub it. My eyes nearly rolled back in pleasure. “Your shoes were bad?”
“They were fine until I came up the steps. I had no idea you lived on the top…” His thumbs dug in and I lost my train of thought. He rested that foot on his chest and picked up the other. I was putty in his lovely, massaging fingers. I would have done anything he asked.
Iván put my feet back onto the bottom of the tub. “Here. Try this.” He lay on his back in the water, ears under, with only his face above the surface. “I love floating like this,” he said. “It’s so quiet. This is how I like to think.”
I watched his face. He did seem totally at peace. Iván sat up and I took a deep breath. I tried to lean back rather than submerging, holding onto the edge of the tub. As soon as my hair got wet and heavy, dragging me down, I jerked myself back up. “No, that won’t work.”
“Here.” He scooted around the tub, squeaking against the bottom, until he was next to me. “I’ll hold you.” He put his hand up around the back of my head, cradling it. “Lean back.”
Slowly I leaned, letting his hand and strong arm take the weight of my head. I locked my eyes on his, and he smiled. “Good,” he said softly. “I have you.”
“Don’t hold me under,” I blurted out, and the look on his face was so horrified and stunned that I said, “I take it back. I know you won’t.” I leaned back more and my hair fanned out in the water. Iván touched it with his other hand, playing with the strands. My ears went under and I jolted a little.
“No, no, está bien,” he kind of crooned. He kept talking to me in Spanish. I closed my eyes and took a big breath and my face went under. It was quiet.
Almost immediately Iván raised me back up. “Maura, you did it. See?”
He was smiling hugely and I smiled back, and wiped the water off my eyes. “I did it,” I repeated. Then I laughed. “You must be the most patient man on the planet, to sit in a bathtub with me at two in the morning so I can put my face under the water.”
“No one who knows me would believe you if you said I was patient. What I am is stubborn. I don’t give up, if it’s something I want.” Iván looked at me steadily. Then his eyes dropped down and mine did too. I saw the wet t-shirt clinging to my breasts, and my nipples pebbled under it. I looked back up and his eyes were on my face.
“Iván—”
He stood up, water streaming off him. “I’ll put some dry clothes for you in the bedroom. You can shower in here if you want, dry off, get dressed. There are extra toothbrushes in this drawer.” He pulled it open. “Sleep in this bedroom. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Without looking at me again, he wrapped a towel around his waist and closed the bathroom door.
I woke up the next morning pretty confused. I was in a huge bed with crisp, clean sheets and a comfortable mattress, rather than on a lumpy couch covered in an old blanket where I usually slept to be closer to the door in case of emergency at Mikey’s apartment. There were faint noises of traffic, not the incessant blaring of horns and (sometimes, very scarily) gunshots. Plus, I could smell a faint aroma of coffee.
I sat up straight. I was in Iván’s bed. In Iván’s apartment, on the 16th floor above San Francisco. The night before, I had taken a shower and used some of the delicious smelling liquid from the many expensive-looking bottles of shampoo and conditioner and bodywash. I had put on another of his t-shirts and more boxer shorts to sleep in, washed out my underwear and hung it up to dry in the bathroom, and used one of his stash of new, wrapped toothbrushes. I had briefly wondered why he needed so many of them, but then had the unhappy realization that Iván had a lot of unplanned, overnight guests who wanted to brush their teeth.
I could hear water running somewhere in the apartment and assumed Iván was getting dressed. I did the best I could with myself, twisting my hair into a big bun which I secured with a pencil from the top of his dresser and splashing cold water on my face. I put on the still-damp underwear and my dress from last night, feeling grungy and gross. I needed to wear something over it, so I walked into Iván’s closet. It was bigger than the bedroom in my old apartment with Robin. The clothes were all neatly hung, sorted by color and type. I ran my hand across the sleeves, making them ripple. The whole room smelled like Iván. I took the plainest jacket-type thing I could find to wear over my dress. Oh, glory. It was by a designer I had only read about. I put it on and resolved to get nothing on it, not even a drop of water. Then I steeled myself and went out into the living room.
The apartment looked even nicer in the grey San Francisco morning light. Iván was at the table now, eating out of a big bowl with an enormous mug next to it. He smiled at me, looking fresh as a daisy. “La bella durmiente,” he commented. “You’re finally up.” He gestured at his food. “Breakfast? Coffee?”
I shook my head and slid into a chair.
“Are you quiet in the morning?”
I cleared my throat. “Not usually. I guess I’m tired.” And really, really uncomfortable.
Iván didn’t seem to feel the same way. “Ok, then are you ready to go? I need to get to the pool and I know you don’t like it when I drive fast.”
We both took the stairs down, with me carrying my high heels. Then I waited in the lobby for him to get the car. About a million people were out and about, walking to the elevators and checking their mailboxes and going God-knew-where at eight on a Saturday morning. I got a lot of stares with my fancy dress peeking out from under Iván’s massive jacket. Weren’t people supposed to be jaded and self-absorbed in the city? My cheeks burned and I looked straight ahead at the street.
Iván did drive somewhat slowly across the Bay Bridge. “Still quiet,” he said to me, touching my knee briefly.
“I was thinking about last night. I mean, about your friends at that dinner,” I quickly clarified.
“More like acquaintances.”
“Do you like them?” I asked. “Honestly, do you?”
He shrugged. “I suppose. Some of them are interesting. The guy who was sitting next to you created Blazer, that game everyone plays.”
“Are you serious? Benji loves Blazer! I wish I had known. Or I wish he hadn’t passed out so fast and I could have talked to him about it.” I tugged on the zipper of his jacket. “I saw you pick up the tab for everyone.”
He shrugged again.
“That didn’t seem fair. The Blazer guy must be rolling in it, and it doesn’t sound like Anya does too badly. Although most of her income seems to go to that poor dog.”
“Por Dios, I’ve heard about that dying dog since I met her.”
I remembered what she said about how they had been “friends” before. Three times in one night, she had mentioned. “You met her in Paris? She told me about it.” Then I wished I could have taken the words back. It was none of my business. My mind flashed to the image of all those toothbrushes in his bathroom cabinet.
He glanced at me. “I think it was Paris. I don’t remember. She’s been with Mauricio for a while now.”
I nodded and looked out the window. “Well, I don’t think it’s fair for you to have to pay for everybody. That’s not right. But thank you for paying for me.”
“I got the feeling that you didn’t really enjoy it.”
“Maybe they’re just not my crowd,” I suggested. I turned to look at him. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Are you flying home?” He had taken a few random weekends to do that, just jetting in and out of Spain, but it was a long way and he had come back exhausted.
“I can’t. I’m running the practices over the break so the head coach can be with family in Colorado. His daughter just had a baby.”
A baby. I touched my stomach. No. “That’s nice.” The words came out sounding funny and I coughed. “Do you want to come with me to Joana’s for the dinner? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.” In fact, I was sure she would love it. She had been trying to get more information about what might be happening between me and Iván since I told her and Benji a little about him over dinner one night. “It’s going to be a Brazilian Thanksgiving and she’s having a ton of people. It should be fun.”
“Sure, if you’re positive she wouldn’t mind.” His hand came over to my knee again, touching me lightly. “You and I are going swimming over the break.”
“I’m really looking forward to it.”
Iván laughed.
I decided to bring flowers after all to Joana’s daughter’s house on Thanksgiving. Mikey’s refrigerator was getting increasingly warmer no matter how far I turned down the temperature, which I did not consider a positive sign for food safety. Iván was picking me up, since I was on the way to her house. We had gone swimming the day before, and I had managed to (briefly) put my face in the water. He said he had never seen anyone progress so quickly, which was an absolute lie. Then the team had started to show up and stare and watch us and I had taken off like a shot.
Which, incidentally, I had heard again last night on the street, several of them. I was very ready to move out of Mikey’s apartment.
“Hi!” I said when I got in the car, and then I saw the back seat. There was a floral arrangement as large as Birnam Wood. I looked at the puny bouquet in my hand.
“I didn’t know what to bring,” Iván said. “I guess we both thought of flowers.”
“It looks like you thought of the whole store,” I told him. “They’re very nice. I’m glad you did.” I put my flowers on the floor by my feet and decided just to tack myself onto his.
Joana’s daughter, Ana Lívia, had a very cute house, with a yard perfectly maintained and flowering plants on the porch. “This is so nice!” I told Iván admiringly. “Don’t you think so?”
“Small,” he commented.
“Homey,” I corrected. “I love how she painted the door red. It invites you in.”
Joana was thrilled to see me and Iván got surrounded. It turned out he spoke some Portuguese, which immediately endeared him to the older crowd. His lovely smile and easygoing way did it for everyone else. He was a major hit. It wasn’t too long before he was heading up the street to the school field for a game of soccer.
“You’re all right here?” he asked before he left, tossing a ball from hand to hand. He palmed it and held it over my head.
“Fine,” I said. “Joana’s letting me help them in the kitchen but she’s watching me like a hawk.”
He laughed, drawing the eyes of about ten different women. “Até logo, minha flor,” he told me.
“Glory, Iván, I’m having a hard enough time with Spanish.”
He laughed again and tapped me on the head with the ball.
I wandered into the kitchen, avoiding the curious stares of the women who had been admiring Iván. Joana handed me an apron.
“Start cleaning the shrimp,” she directed, pointing at the sink. The kitchen was small and packed with people. And everything smelled absolutely delicious. My stomach growled.
I picked up the colander. Joana stood next to me, expertly dicing tomatoes. She nudged me with her hip. “He seems nice.”
“He is.”
“And handsome.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
She bumped me with her hip again. “So? Is he the one?”
“The one? Robin and I just broke up!”
She made a dismissive sound. “From everything you told me about that man, it was a lucky thing for you.”
“Joana! He wasn’t so bad.”
“‘Not so bad’ isn’t what you look for in a husband.”
I lowered my voice. “I thought I might be pregnant. By Robin.”
Her knife blade stopped flashing through the red tomatoes. “And?”
“No. I’m not. I took about twenty tests to make sure, and I got my period yesterday. I think it was just all the stress.”
“Another lucky thing for you.” She resumed chopping.
I shrugged. I had felt decidedly odd when I saw all the negative signs coming up on the pregnancy test sticks. I should have been totally relieved, but I wasn’t. “Sure.”
“Think if you had a baby with that man,” she scolded. “Maura! It would have been a disaster.”
“It’s good that I’m not,” I said firmly. “But…I would like to have a baby. Someday, I guess.” Someone who I could love as much as I wanted, and who would love me back the same way.
Joana stopped chopping again and put her arm around me. “You will. Like you said, someday. First, finish school and then meet the right person.”
I nodded. Someday.
“Do you know how to get the poop out?” she asked me, pointing to the shrimp.
“Please tell me that’s a joke.”
She shook her head. “Let me show you. And I just had a wonderful idea. Next week you and Benji are starting cooking lessons.”
The dinner was loud and crowded and fun. Iván had been right—the house was really small, especially with the large number of Thanksgiving guests. But I had also been right, because it was homey and cozy, too. Iván talked and laughed with everyone but I mostly just listened and enjoyed being there. I decided I would have a lot of babies. I would make my own huge, fun, loving family.
“What are you thinking about?” Iván asked me, bending close to my ear so I could hear him.
“Babies. I want to have a bunch of babies,” I answered without thinking. “At least four.”
He reeled back. “What?”
I laughed. “Not at this exact moment! But I want to have a lot of kids, I think. I’ll take really good care of them. Maybe we won’t have a ton of material stuff, depending on my job, but they’ll always have me.” I nodded.
“And your husband,” Iván added. “It usually takes two to make a baby.”
“Oh, yeah, maybe I’ll be married,” I said. “I don’t have to be. I just want to take care of my kids, not a husband too!” I laughed a little. Iván just nodded. “Your in-laws always hate you, though. And it seems like most marriages, or relationships or whatever, fail after a while. Blood is the tie that lasts forever. Like me and Mikey.”
Iván nodded again, slowly. “My parents have been married for almost forty years. My dad brings my mom a box of candy every Friday.”
“That’s sweet!”
“On Saturday mornings my brother and I were never supposed to disturb them. We had to go downstairs and turn up the TV very loud. It was a long time before we figured out what they were doing.”
“Still sweet, but less so.” I grimaced. “I guess.”
“I’m saying that something like that is possible.”
“Maybe. You haven’t found it,” I told him.
“I never looked for forever.”
I turned back to my plate and was reminded of the toothbrushes. In my mind, the quantity of toothbrushes in his drawer had grown to a massive number. A Mount Everest-size pile of toothbrushes.
“My friend Dylan is very happy. He and his wife are coming out here soon. You can meet them.” The guy on his other side said something, and Iván turned to answer him. That would be the Dylan he had raced, the one from all the videos online. It would be good to meet someone Iván considered a friend. I had been less than impressed with his acquaintances.
“You’re going to have to roll me out of here,” I told Iván as we helped clean up. “I ate too much.”
“As far as I can tell with my experience of American Thanksgivings, that’s the point. Good thing we’re swimming tomorrow,” he answered.
I groaned a little. The dance studio was closed for the week and Anouk had gone to greener gambling pastures in Nevada. I would go swimming, if only to get the exercise I was missing with the lack of dance.
Joana pushed a huge amount of leftovers on us, which I told Iván he would have to keep. “My refrigerator is going out,” I explained in the car on the way home. “It would be a shame for all this to go to waste.”
He signaled, a new thing for him, and made a right-hand turn. He hadn’t slowed or stopped but I considered the signaling to be progress. “Have you found a new place to go?” he asked me.
“I’ve looked at a million. Which, by the way, is just about what everything costs.” I sighed. Rent in the Bay Area was nuts. “I just need something for a few more months until I graduate. Then I’ll move away, to someplace cheaper.”
“Oh? I didn’t know this plan.” His hands moved on the wheel, gripping it.
“Well, if Mikey isn’t here, then…I guess I was thinking I’d try to move wherever he was. I’m betting he’ll end up in Los Angeles. It’s what’s most familiar to him.”
“If he doesn’t go back to prison.”
I shifted. “We’ll have to see.”
“I’m moving,” Iván announced.
“You are? Where?”
“I’m buying a house in the East Bay. Closer to the school, to work. An easier commute.”
“Wow, really?”
“Yes. Will you help me look at them?”
“Sure, that would be fun. It’s so exciting! You get to pick where you want to really put down roots. Like your parents.”
He nodded. “In the meantime, since you only need a place for a short time, why don’t you live with me?”
I was so taken aback that I couldn’t answer for a moment. “With you? In San Francisco?”
“Well, I hope to have a house soon, and then you can come live in the East Bay with me if you want. Anyway, I’m driving over here all the time, so we could go together. Maybe you could even get used to the elevator.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Consider it.”
“I’ll definitely consider it. Thank you, very much.” I paused. “I would want to help with the rent. Or the mortgage payment.”
“Maura! Don’t be silly.” He reached over and squeezed my knee, but he left his hand there. “I don’t expect anything from you. All right?”
His hand felt nice, warm and secure. I held still so he’d leave it where it was, but when we came to a left turn (again, he signaled), he picked it back up.
“I assume from what you said at dinner that you didn’t you get along with that man’s parents,” Iván said. He refused to say Robin’s name. “Why?”
I sighed. “A lot of reasons. They thought I had lured him—”
Iván swore loudly in Spanish. I didn’t understand the exact meaning, but I got the gist.
“Ok, I know what you think of how we got together. Anyway, his mom thought I had tricked him some way into being with me. I had cast some kind of spell over him.” I snorted. “She also thought I was, I guess, inferior to them. Robin told her about my background.” I studied the gas station prices on the corner as we waited at the light. “My dad was not in the picture. My mom had a lot of issues. Substance abuse issues. I don’t remember her too much, but Mikey does. He won’t talk about her. They took us away because she neglected us. There were other problems, too.” I played with my purse strap. “Anyway, Cynthia, Robin’s mom, didn’t like that. Then I had a little issue when they were visiting one time and that was the nail in the coffin.”
“An issue?”
“It wasn’t a big deal. I had a panic attack. Robin was just playing but he wouldn’t let me go, and my face was covered and I couldn’t breathe. He freaked out and called 911 and they took me to the hospital. Oh, glory, the bills from that.” I rubbed my forehead, remembering. “His parents thought I was unstable. As well as not good enough for their son.”
“Their perverted son,” Iván ground out.
“Iván, please.”
“So that’s why no elevators? No parking garages, no face under the water?”
“I’m doing that now.”
“You are.” He smiled a little at me. “That’s when you got frightened of things like that?”
“It was a little before.” I didn’t look at him.
“How about airplanes?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. Coming here to the Bay Area is the farthest I’ve ever traveled from Los Angeles, and we drove in Robin’s car. It died, though,” I sighed.
“My grandma never left Cáceres. She lived in the same house she was born in.”
“See? I’m like your grandma. Kind of.” I shrugged. “I’d like to travel. I’d like to be able to handle it.”
“Maybe you can. Maybe you just have to try it. Like the water.”
“Maybe I’ll end up back in the hospital with Cynthia screaming that I should be locked up.” I looked at him. “That was a joke.”
“It wasn’t funny,” he said grimly.
“I have to laugh at myself, Iván. Otherwise, I’ll just dwell. There’s no purpose in hanging onto the past and your problems. They only drag you back down. You always have to move forward. Let go and move on. Like I did with Robin, and my apartment.”
“And Mikey?”
My head whipped to stare at him. “I’ll never let go of him. He’s all I have. If anything, the whole Robin situation just made that clearer. He’ll come back, and we’ll move somewhere I can afford, or I’ll join him in LA. It will all work out and we’ll be together.” I nodded, very sure. “You don’t know how we operate. You’ll see.”
“I hope that’s true.”
“I know it’s true.” I looked back out the window as we got on the freeway. I shook off a little sliver of doubt.