Love in English

Part One
Acantilado


Chapter One
___
“Aí, assim meu amor!”
I had no idea what the hell the guy (was it Cristiano? Cristo?) was grunting loudly in my ear but given that my head was inches from smashing into the dorm room wall, I didn’t really care. He obviously liked what I was giving him and I couldn’t complain.
Smash. He thrust into me just a tad too hard and my head smacked into the greasy stucco.
Okay, I couldn’t complain much.
I shifted back a bit, careful not to interrupt his flow all while not losing my balance and toppling over the side of the bunk. It was bad enough that I kept glancing over at the door every five seconds, afraid that the other backpackers would come back at any moment. I was a bit of an exhibitionist but I still didn’t want the people I was sharing a room with to see me naked with my ass up in the air and some sexy Portuguese guy doing me doggy-style. Cristo, Cristiano, whatever his name was, was staying in the room next door and wouldn’t have to put up with them.
Unfortunately, though he was one sexy beast and we’d spent the night flirting with each other over greasy pub food, that didn’t translate so well into sexual prowess. His dick was big but he didn’t really know what to do with it except try and brain me into the wall, so I finished myself off as he came.
He pulled out and I heard the squishy snap as he unrolled the condom off of him, followed by a smack as he hit me across my ass.
“You Canadian girls are good, yes?” he said with the smirk that made me get naked in the first place. Well that, and copious amounts of Newcastle Brown Ale.
I rolled over, careful not to send us both to the floor. “Well,” I said, trying vainly to cover up my breasts and failing, the bunk shuddering beneath us. “I can’t speak for all of us. But yeah, I’m pretty good.”
“Eh!” he said, his smile looking more idiotic. “Right? Eh?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes. I’m pretty good…eh.”
“I knew you all said that,” he said gleefully. I tried to move past him, knowing I couldn’t but hoping that he’d at least go down the bunk bed ladder, but he just sat there, his rapidly deflating penis in full view. They were certainly right about the Europeans being relaxed about sex and nudity. It’s like the mothership had finally called me home.
He nodded at my body. “Why so many tattoos? Is that a Canadian thing?”
I smiled and looked down at my chest, arms and legs where my ink was display. “It’s a fun person thing.”
“I don’t have any tattoos.”
“I can tell. You’re naked.”
“How many do you have?”
“Ten,” I said off the bat. “No, wait. Eleven.” I had gotten one from my favorite artist on Main Street right before I left Vancouver for London. I turned over the inside of my right arm, the ink still vibrant. It was yet another constellation, this one of the archer, or the symbol for Sagittarius. Now, I was actually an Aquarius but I loved the stars that made up the bow, the idea of shooting for something. Instead of plain stars like so many of my tats were, I incorporated skulls into them. My arm looked like skeletons flying through space. I was super proud of it.
“So many stars,” he commented, his eyes lingering all over my body.
“I study astronomy.”
He turned wide-eyed. “You’re joking? You study? In school?”
And here we go—I couldn’t possibly have eleven tattoos, multiple earrings and a nose ring and tongue ring and go to university, earning a science degree. I heard it all the damn time, I just thought Europe was more progressive in that area, too. I guess you could find morons in every country.
“Does it surprise you that I’m smart?” I asked pointedly while I considered pushing him off the bunk.
He nodded. “Of course. Usually, uh, girls who are…who…” I narrowed my eyes as he fumbled to continue, “have tattoos and, um, like the sex. Usually they aren’t so smart.”
I breathed in and put on a stiff smile. “I can tell that the girls who sleep with you have to be stupid. I’m starting to feel a bit stupid myself. I’ll blame London, though.” I motioned for him to move. “Now are you going to get off the bunk bed or do I have to make you?”
His eyes grew round yet again. If he thought my tats made me hard-core, I wasn’t going to convince him otherwise. He got down off the ladder and quickly slipped on his clothes while I did the awkward climb of shame. I had a healthy body image but getting my curvy ass down a narrow ladder couldn’t be a pretty sight.
He headed for the door while I fastened on my bra, then paused and shot me an anxious glance over his shoulder. “Did you want to go back out? I think people are still drinking.”
I shook my head. “No thanks, you go.”
He looked relieved. “Okay. Well thank you for…have a nice night Vilma.”
He shut the door after him and I yelled, “It’s Vera!” after him. I sighed and shrugged. I guess it was only fair. I couldn’t remember his name properly either.
I quickly slipped on my matching underwear and stared at the dress that Portuguese boy had taken off me earlier. It was my last night in London and incredibly tempting to head back out to the pubs and have some more fun but that’s all I’d been doing for the last week. Sure, I took in a lot of the sights—the natural history museum, the London eye, Tate Modern, Tower of London. I rode the cute cabs and the underground and double decker buses and ate food that ranged from awesome (deep fried Mars bars!) to nasty (don’t order fish and chips from a Chinese restaurant).
But even though I came to the UK by myself, I hadn’t had a moment alone. That was something I hadn’t realized about the backpacking culture, especially when you’re in your early twenties and can speak English—it’s so easy to meet people. I’d never been so social in my entire life and never had so much fun.
And seeing for the next month I’d be in Spain, being nothing but social, I had to take advantage of some “me” time.
I slipped on my dress and a pair of leggings, thinking that the constant cold drizzle hadn’t let up yet, and quickly ran a brush through my unruly hair that I had just dyed strawberry blonde before I left. The rain was going to make it even wavier but I didn’t care. What was London without rain, even though the temperatures were slightly below average for it being almost June.
I grabbed my sweater coat and leather purse and headed out of the dorm room, stopping by the bathroom on the way outside. I ran into a few familiar faces in the hallways and could hear a raucous game of pool going on in the common room but I kept my head down and headed out into the grey night.
Even though the sun had gone down a few hours ago, I was relieved to see there were still crowds milling along the Thames. I kept to the well-lit parts—I wasn’t about to get mugged my first week traveling overseas—as I scuttled across the Victoria Embankment, stopping at Cleopatra’s Needle. The rain had tapered off and there was a spring freshness in the air. I leaned against one of the bronze sphinxes and stared at the lights of the nearest bridge as it sparkled on the dark river.
I let my mind wander. That’s what it did best.
I still couldn’t really grasp that I was here. It took a few days to get over my horrendous jet lag, then after that I was on the go, taking a million photos and drinking a lot of beer. Now, it still didn’t feel real, even with the lights of London all around me. Maybe I just couldn’t believe that something that I planned actually went through and happened. I know that the minute I saw the travel blog post about the language program (help Spaniards with their conversational English and stay in Spain for free!) and told my family I was doing it this summer, forgoing my astronomy internship, none of them believed I’d actually follow through.
Well, my brother Josh believed me, as he always did, and my dad thought it was fine as long as I was careful. It was my sister Mercy and my mother who thought it was another harebrained and totally irresponsible scheme of mine that would never ever happen and I was better off hunkered down in an observation station deep in the BC Rockies, charting the heavens.
In hindsight, I should have made a few bets with them and won some travel money. After all, London wasn’t cheap and if it wasn’t for the fact that I’d be heading to Madrid tomorrow and embarking on a program that would take care of all my expenses until July 1st, I’d be shit out of luck in the money department. Working at a coffee shop part-time while I studied only let me save up so much. F*cking hipsters were terrible tippers.
There was a niggling feeling in the back of my head about the next month. I couldn’t tell if it was fear, excitement or nerves. Or all three combined. In some ways, the program “Casa de las Palabras” sounded too good to be true; I would be spending a month in an exclusive resort at the base of a mountain just a few hours outside of Madrid. During that month I would have all my food and lodging and excursion expenses taken care of. The catch? I have to speak English with a bunch of Spaniards. Not teach—just speak. Apparently that’s the beauty of the program. The “students” are usually business men and women who have a basic understanding of the language and just need to brush up on their conversational skills. My job as one of the twenty English-speakers was to be paired with different people throughout the day and just…talk. The only rule was there was no Spanish allowed for the entire time.
Which was fine with me since I didn’t know a word of Spanish. I just hoped that wouldn’t be a problem once I arrived in Madrid.
I watched the boats putter up and down the Thames, lost in my thoughts and dreams and the possibilities that the next month held. I didn’t even know what I wanted or expected. I just wanted the next month to give me something new.
I let out a small laugh. Well, I did just have sex with a Portuguese guy in a dorm room in London. In terms of new, I was already on my way.
* * *
“Metro. I need to take the metro. You know, the train, goes underground?” I made a digging motion like I was stuck in an awful game of charades, a game I’d been playing since I stepped out of the Madrid airport.
The man stared at me blankly.
This just in: A lot of Spaniards don’t speak English.
I gave up and waved at him, smiling even though I was frustrated. It wasn’t his fault I was so ill-prepared.
He said something to me, sorry, I think, and with a shrug he turned and left. I brushed my hair off of my sticky forehead and sighed, trying to look like I didn’t need help while taking in my surroundings at the same time.
You see, I thought I’d written down the instructions on how to get to the Las Palabras office on my notepad on my phone but it turns out I wrote down all the songs I wanted to download before the plane ride instead. Now I was totally lost, somewhere in Madrid, with only an address and sweat stains. My god it was f*cking hot here. At least I had good music.
I wasn’t normally this shy but I hated asking for directions in general and I’d never been in the situation of being around people and totally unable to communicate with them. There was a whole city bustling around me in the sunshine, heading in and out of the metro, and yet I felt completely invisible.
I sighed and adjusted the heavy backpack on my shoulders before fishing out my phone again. It was time for me to bite the bullet and Google Map the shit out of this place, insanely high data roaming charges be damned.
Turns out the Casa de las Palabras office was on the other side of the city and that meant more sweaty negotiating while I tried to ride various Metro lines, one of which was packed to the doors, with me pressed against the wall and an old man groping my ass. I turned to snarl at him but he merely looked away like he was innocent.
By the time I got to my stop and back out into the blinding sunshine, my first impressions of Madrid were tanking and one glance at the clock tied my stomach in knots. Thank god I could actually spot the blue and white sign of Palabras close by. I hurried across the square, hoping, swearing internally, that I wasn’t too late. Here was another problem with my planning (and my cheapness)—I was supposed to check in with the company and just hop on the bus. I didn’t want to spend money on a hotel room if I didn’t have to. Little did I know the plane leaving Gatwick would be a late, which, when combined with the fact that I didn’t have directions and I didn’t speak Spanish, put a major damper on my plans.
What made my heart lurch around worse than trying to run in the oppressive heat with a heavy backpack on, was the fact that there was no bus waiting outside.
But…it couldn’t have left without me. Could it?
I fished out my phone. It was 2:16PM.
I didn’t like the way the time looked, staring at me with those cold digital numbers.
I thought the orientation had started at two. There was no way they could go through everyone in sixteen minutes.
I flung open the glass doors to the office and stumbled into it, my hair flying around my face.
“Am I too late!?” I screeched, looking around wildly.
There was no one in the office. It had neat wood desks with glass tops, sterile filling cabinets with baby pictures pinned up with cheap magnets, and blue walls with posters about Spain, featuring white people with cheesy smiles talking to Spanish men with nineties Ross Gellar hair. One the end of one desk, one of those perpetual motion birds dipped its wooden beak up and down, as if someone had just set it off.
“Hola?” I heard someone say from beyond a door at the back of the office. It was open a crack and I could hear shuffling. I made a quick prayer that this person spoke English.
To my surprise a young woman with brown hair piled on top of her head poked her head through the door. The minute she saw me, her eyes widened and she came hustling out, a stack of papers in her skinny hands.
“Miss Miles!” she exclaimed in a British accent.
I frowned. “Yes?” As if I didn’t know who I was.
“Oh my god,” she went on, her forehead furrowing with concern. “The bus just left.”
“What?!” I threw my head back and groaned loudly. It was actually quite loud. I probably sounded like a lion in heat. “F*ck.”
“Don’t worry,” the woman said, throwing the papers on the desk and picking up the phone. “I’ll call the bus, I can stop him for you.”
Oh god. This was just what I needed. Everyone is already on the bus, getting to know each other and making friends and small talk and whatever the f*ck, then I show up and slow everything down. Vera Miles with her tattoos and crazy hair, here to make things more difficult.
The woman held the receiver to her ear and continued to talk to me. She was pale with big round eyes, a gaunt face and some freckles. “Don’t worry, they haven’t gotten far.”
“I though the orientation was at two,” I said, trying vainly to defend myself. God damn it my backpack was heavy. I took it off and placed it on the floor with a thunk. My shoulders screamed with the freedom.
“The orientation is at the resort,” the woman said, her eyes seeking the ceiling as the phone rang audibly on the other end. “The bus pick-up was at two.”
“And you boarded the bus that fast?” I asked, as if they were the ones at fault. “What about waiting around for me? I mean, didn’t you know you were missing someone?”
She nodded, mouth open. “We did. We called your cell. There was no answer.”
“I was in the metro,” I said feebly. “You see, my flight was late and then I didn’t have the right directions because I downloaded the new Nine Inch Nails instead and then it was really hot and I got confused…”
She wasn’t listening to me. “Yes, Manolo, hola, hello. We have Vera Miles here, she just showed up.” I could barely hear Manolo’s Peanuts-type squawking on the other end. The woman nodded. “Yes, but she’s here. Hold the bus and I’ll come meet you.”
Oh god, this was even worse than I thought.
She hung up the phone and snatched her keys off of her desk. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” I said breezily, as if she was just dropping me off at my house when I normally walked instead. Suddenly I felt like maybe this whole thing was a bad idea after all. Maybe instead of spending a month at an all-paid for resort, I could just slum it in Madrid, hiding my tail between my legs until I got home. Of course, I’d probably end up working the streets…
“Forget it, it’s fine,” the girl said. It was only then that I realized she never smiled. It wasn’t that she was angry but that her skinny face seemed always frozen in a state of perpetual shock—eyes wide, mouth open. She reminded me of Shelly Duvall in The Shining.
“How did you know my name?” I asked, bending down to pick up my backpack. I looked at my chest and realized I was giving her quite the cleavage shot. I wiped my hair out of my face before I swung it up on my shoulders. “You know, when I first came in.”
“I recognized the profile picture you submitted,” she said, marching over to the front door. “And you were the only person who didn’t show up. So, there’s that.”
Ugh. What a f*cking start.
I cleared my throat. “So what’s your name?”
“Gabby,” she said as we exited the building back into the sweltering sunshine. She locked the door and motioned for me to follow her over to a two-door vehicle.
“Gabby, the person I’ve been in contact with for the last three months?” I asked as I tossed my bag on the backseat. Gabby the person I kept bugging in email after email about mundane stupid shit?
“That’s me,” she said, though from her default surprised expression she looked like she was unsure of that herself. Just gestured for me to get in the passenger side while she trotted around to hers and hopped in.
Inside the car it was sauna hot and I immediately started questioning if I had put on enough deodorant. While Gabby peeled the vehicle out onto a busy road, nearly taking out a few sightseers, she threw a stack of papers on my lap. “You better fill those out now.”
Before I had a chance to ask for a pen, she thrust one in my hands. I’d been annoying Gabby remotely for so long, it was strange to finally annoy her in person.
I looked over the papers. Most of them were photocopies of stuff I had already filled out online months ago but some were accident waivers and the like. I was grateful for something to do, to both keep our talk to a minimum and prevent me from watching the scene of impending doom as our car rushed through the traffic, nearly sideswiping, well, everything in our direction.
“So, Vera Miles?” Gabby questioned, between blaring the horn. “Are you named after the actress? I’m a big Hitchcock fan.”
I got this question all the time, usually from film buffs or old people. “No, my great-grandmother’s name was Vera. My mother said she never cared for the actress anyway, so she thought she could do better, I guess. Of course, she was totally wrong.” Even though I hadn’t been named after the fifties screen star, having her name definitely got me into a love of classic films. I even had an appreciation for the often overlooked actress, maybe because it pissed my mom off. Lord knows she probably thought I’d turn out to be a well-behaved beauty queen instead of a, well, me. Me and other Vera, we were underdogs.
With that thought in mind, I paused at the last question I had to fill out on the form: who was my emergency contact if something should happen to me. That was a bit of a tough one. I’d put my dad over my mother, just because we got along better, but my parents divorced when I was thirteen and he was a pilot, which meant he was more in the air than he was on the ground. Both my mother and Mercy seemed too busy with their own lives to give me much thought, which left Joshua. My dear brother was the only one who truly had my back. Unfortunately, he was high all the time, which was also kind of my fault.
I sighed and wrote down my mother’s information.
“There’s the bus,” Gabby said.
I looked up to see the bus pulled over to the side of the road, the engine running. We were on the outskirts of the city center where the tall business buildings started to peter out into wide boulevards framed by flowering trees.
“Thank you so much,” I said to her as she pulled up right behind it. “I am so sorry I was late.”
She finally smiled. It was quick but it was there. “It happens every program, don’t worry about it.”
I opened the door and got out. As I reached into the back to retrieve my pack I asked, “Any last minute advice?”
She raised a brow. “Try not to fall in love with anyone,” she said dryly.
I slowly closed the door and she sped off, honking at the bus as she drove past it.
Phfff, I thought to myself. Try not to fall in love with anyone? She obviously doesn’t know me at all.
I shrugged on my heavy bag and hauled it over to the bus in time to see a short and rotund looking driver come hoping out of it. Though I was afraid he was going to reprimand me, his mustache and smile were miles wide.
“So you’re Vera!” he said in a thick accent. He went for my shoulders. “I’m Manolo. Come, come, give me your bag.”
I awkwardly spun around so he could take it off. He then said, “Go, go on board and take an empty seat.” He started to lift up the compartment at the side of the bus.
I thanked him and shrugged, adjusted my purse on my shoulder as I walked up to the bus. I knew people were looking down at me from their window seats and already making their judgements. But f*ck it.
I took in a deep breath and climbed up the stairwell.
Everyone was staring at me as I stood in the middle of the aisle, quickly scanning the rows for an empty seat. I thought I saw one at the back.
Luckily, no one looked mad or upset at the interruption. Most were smiling. Some of the grey-haired folk eyed my tattoos and even my tiny nose ring stud with disdain, but that was normal.
Well, might as well introduce myself.
I raised my hand and waved it. “I’m Vera Miles,” I announced sheepishly. “And I’m the one who was late. Lo siento,” I added, the only Spanish I knew.
Everyone laughed and a few people applauded.
A cheery middle-aged man in a cowboy hat and checkered shirt nodded at me. “No more Spanish for these folks, they said it’s English only from here on in,” he said in a boisterous drawl, shooting me an apple-cheeked grin. “Didn’t you get the memo?”
“No, I was late,” I joked just as Manolo came back on board.
“Vera, sit please,” he said. “There’s a seat down there.” He quickly pointed down the aisle then climbed back into the driver’s seat, closing the hydraulic door.
The bus lurched forward and I steadied myself on the backs of people’s chairs. I made my way down the aisle as he pulled out into the road, giving everyone the shy “hey, I’m sorry” smile as I walked past. There really were people from all walks of life here. Even though it was hard at first to tell who was a native English speaker and who was Spanish, I started to pick up on the fact that every English person was seated beside a Spaniard and making awkward small talk. The Texan was right—the program had already begun.
I kept going until the second to last row where I had seen an empty seat. Actually, it was the only empty seat on the bus.
It was beside a man who was staring out the window, chin resting thoughtfully on his fist. I only had a good moment to take him in unabashedly before I had to sit down. After that, staring at him would become really awkward.
And for some reason, I wanted to stare at him.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t some reason. He was handsome. Like, wow, that’s a handsome guy, and then you nudge your friend and get her to take a look as well. That kind of handsome. Though I couldn’t see him straight on, he had a nice, strong face, broad nose with a bump on the bridge, and just the right amount of stubble on his cheeks and jaw. His deep-set eyes looked rich brown, his longish, thick hair a shade darker than that and his brows even more so. I couldn’t tell how tall he was, he was at least a few inches taller than I was, but his body was fit and lean. His stomach looked washboard flat under his white dress shirt and his forearms that peeked out from the rolled up sleeves were muscular, the same color as wet sand, a beach in the afternoon light.
He was the stereotype of what I thought a Spanish man would look like, all dark looks and mysterious ways, and judging by his neatly pressed dark grey pants and the size of his Rolex on his wrist, he was a successful one at that.
Handsome business men were so not my type—I liked them roughed up and edgy and fun—but there was something about him that got me a little hot under the collar. I sat down as close to him as possible and, once again, hoped I didn’t stink.
He turned to look at me and offered me a smile that made me glad I was already sitting down, my joints feeling weak. It was stunning, genuine and charming all at once.
“Hello,” he said, in beautifully accented English. “I’m Mateo.”
He offered me his hand and that’s when I saw the wedding ring on his left hand, glinting from the sun that snuck in through the tinted window.
Married? Okay, definitely not my type.