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She was still thinking about the flamenco group when she got to the hotel and wanted to tell Nana about them. She poked her head through the door that separated their rooms to see if she was awake. Nana’s bed was empty, and the sheets hadn’t been touched.
She should have made sure she got back safely. She should have taken better care of her. Oh shit.Where the fuck is Nana?
5.
“YOU WERE ON FIRE tonight, Aisha.” Nicolás grinned, and his eyes sparkled with fire.
He was as passionate now as he had been at the start of the evening. Sweat darkened his white shirt under his armpits and across his chest, and his black hair shone. He had been pretty good tonight too. He always worked hard, and she always gave heart and soul to every performance, and tonight had been no exception. Music was the lifeblood that pumped through their veins. It was one thing they had in common. The only other good thing they had shared was their love for Esme. He didn’t know about that and would never understand.
He handed Aisha a glass of wine. She watched flames lick the sides of the logs on the fire and the small red sparks that rose and then disappeared into the night. The smell of food created an aura around the street, though it didn’t stir her appetite. A neighbour sang while others danced. She thought about Esme. They would have danced side by side here, never together, and Esme would have enjoyed the celebrations for Aisha’s sister’s engagement into the early hours.
“Someone dropped us five thousand pesetas, Aisha.”
She knew who that someone was—the woman stood out from the crowd, a beacon in a storm. Aisha had spotted her staring as she’d danced. She could tell the woman was moved. She’d been transfixed, and she’d walked away slowly, looking dazed. Tourists came and went, of course. They watched many dancers around the city and listened to their music, and they enjoyed those moments as one of many on their long list of things to do here. But their hearts weren’t open as this woman’s had been, and so they would never feel the music touch their souls as she was sure this woman had. Aisha knew that feeling well, and she could see and feel it in others. There was more that had captured Aisha’s attention. She had razor-short hair at the back, and it was spikey on top. Her jeans were baggy around her legs and tight at her waist, and her leather brogues completed the outfit. There was something in the way she stood, the way she looked at Aisha, and the way she walked. Small things that, when taken together, defined her as being like Aisha, a woman attracted to other women. Aisha could be wrong but was convinced she wasn’t.
“Five thousand.” He started to dance in front of her and held out his hand for her to take.
Aisha didn’t get to enjoy the money because she had a duty to her family, and it was passed to her mama. Her family would be pleased. She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling she’d returned home with since she’d watched the woman leave the square. She couldn’t explain how or why one person could affect her without a word being spoken between them any more than she could explain why or how music inspired the soul. Such reasoning was known only by the gods and spoken of by the poets. Her sense of restlessness was like a wedge trying to prise open her heart. She couldn’t let it do that, not again.
She took his hand and he lifted her to her feet, though she kept a physical distance from him.
“Aisha. Nicolás.”
Conchita approached with García at her side and smiled at them. “It is good to see you two dancing together.” She turned her face from the men and winked at Aisha.
Aisha had no desire to conspire with her over any fantasies that she might follow in her sister’s footsteps. The men started talking, and Nicolás put his arm over García’s shoulder as they wandered towards the hub of the celebrations.
“You are happy for me, Aisha?” Conchita’s eyes were bright and alive with the love that oozed from her, and yet she was still a child.
“Of course I am.”
Conchita adopted a dreamy expression, undoubtedly aided by wine. She was going to marry the man she loved. The joy Aisha felt for her sister couldn’t quash the ache in her heart.
Conchita took her hand and squeezed it. “Being engaged is more exciting than anything you could imagine.” She twirled around and laughed. “I feel like I’m floating up high where nothing bad can reach me. It’s soft and cosy and warm. And I have the comfort of knowing he will be there for me and always protect me.”
That wasn’t Aisha’s appreciation of the most important qualities that defined what it was like to be in love. Love was being at one with her, whether she was at your side or not. It was about cherishing her ideas even when they weren’t the same as yours. It was touching her, and being touched by her without any physical contact, and knowing the essence of her in every cell in your body and in every breath that you took. It was your laughter in tune with hers. It was exploring, sharing, giving, and receiving, and feeling that you were the luckiest person alive to have known something so precious. She hadn’t needed to read poetry to know what love was. “They become the fire in your veins and your reason for being, and when they’re not with you, you’re reduced to nothing more than the dust beneath your feet. Love is everything and without it, we are mere shadows of what we might otherwise become.”
Conchita stared at Aisha, her mouth open and her eyes wide. “Are you happy, Aisha?”
Conchita’s response clawed at her throat, but she held back. What would be the point? Surely Conchita knew the answer. Everyone in her family knew she wasn’t happy. How could they not see that? But they would never ask her why because they wouldn’t be able to entertain a conversation about what would make her heart sing like Conchita’s did now. It was better that problems such as hers remained unspoken. They would continue to make excuses as to why she remained single until that situation was no longer tenable. Conchita’s marriage would be that turning point. She’d always known her time would come and had been lucky her parents hadn’t forced her to marry sooner. Denial never changed the truth, but what other choice did she have? She couldn’t leave her family and the group, because she had nothing and would be nothing without them.
“Nicolás loves you.”
She pulled away from Conchita and turned her back to her. “He’s like an older brother to me.”
“He’s kind, and he cares about you. I’ve watched you perform. You are good together.”
Aisha’s heart hollowed at the thought of him in that way, and her sister’s claims of his affection towards her widened the void. “We’re good friends, and that’s all we can ever be.”
Conchita linked her arm through Aisha’s and leaned into her. The sunset was a great distraction for the eye, but it wasn’t enough to calm the building rage inside Aisha. “I don’t want to talk about it tonight,” she said.
“Is it because he was married before?”
Aisha closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Esme’s face appeared, hauntingly, and the emptiness in her chest expanded.
Esme was laughing with the young children they were teaching over something so insignificant she couldn’t remember what. The browns and reds that tinted her hair were always more vibrant in the midday sun, but the children had run coloured beads through the narrow braids that shaped her face in a perfect oval, and she looked amazing. Her older cousin had given her the black skirt she wore, and it was two sizes too big, but she’d tied it with a red scarf around the waist, and it looked as if it had been designed that way. Her white laced blouse hung open at the neck, baring the top of her breasts and the rose quartz charm on a chain that Aisha had bought for her sixteenth birthday. No, her reasons for not wishing to marry Nicolás had nothing to do with the fact that he had married her first love. Esme, her best friend, who had died from embolism almost two years ago, the baby too. It had left them both bereft.
Nicolás had the community to console him in his grief while she had wept silently in the privacy of her room at night and come up with excuses to justify why she needed to dry her pillows every day in the sun.
