Spanish Surrender, page 13
She didn’t make a habit of running after women, but she also didn’t get to where she was in life without chasing a few unorthodox opportunities. When her pride butted up against her drive, she’d always chosen the latter. Setting her jaw and stealing her reserve, she stepped out into the sunlight.
Scanning the now-busy courtyard, it took her a few seconds to notice Loreto sitting on the ground. Something about the sight of her slouched shoulders and crooked knee held tight to her chest made her look smaller and younger. Simone’s heart tightened in a way completely different from the tension in her jaw, and for a second, she questioned whether the entirety of her motivation to reconnect stemmed from a desire to seal a business deal. She shook away the silly thought. Loreto was an attractive but maddening means to an end.
Still, that little flash of affection had the power to make her job a little easier, or more enjoyable, and she clung to it as she approached her guide.
“I’m done with the mosque, or cathedral,” she declared as she drew close, seeming to startle Loreto out of a daydream.
Loreto blinked up at her a few times, then slowly got to her feet without saying anything.
“What else is on the agenda for today?”
Loreto glanced up at the sun now shining high overhead, then back at Simone. “If you’re ready to go, we should probably get on the road.”
Simone shook her head. “I know I said you could set the schedule, but . . .”
“You retained veto power over me,” Loreto finished.
“Right.” Veto and power were two of the exact words she’d used a few days ago, and Loreto recounted them without any apparent judgment, but somehow the terms sounded more oppressive than balanced now, and a power imbalance seemed to play into their argument. “I didn’t mean to overrule your judgement in this case, so much as defer to it.”
Loreto raised her eyebrows.
“Yeah, I thought that might get your attention,” Simone said wryly. “I only thought, perhaps, we should break up the schedule a little bit so it’s more, well, Spanish.”
“I’m listening.”
“Perhaps we should try eating a later lunch, then take in the tradition of the siesta.”
“You want to take a nap?”
“No,” she answered quickly, then caught herself. “I only meant that if I intended to join you for dinner at nine o’clock—”
“Ten o’clock,” Loreto interjected.
“Fine, ten o’clock,” she said, with minimal wariness, “then perhaps we should spend this afternoon resting instead of traveling.”
Loreto shrugged. Not quite the response she’d expected for such a concession.
“I just get the sense that there’s more here for me to learn today, and perhaps if we stay a little longer, do some more exploring, maybe try to spend this evening the way you suggested I spend last night . . .”
“It’s a long way until dinner,” Loreto said.
Simone blew out a frustrated breath. Why did Loreto have to disagree with her even when she was trying to be agreeable? “So you don’t think we should stay?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“How far would you go?”
Loreto’s eyes turned infinitely dark as she seemed to ponder the question. As the silence stretched between them, Simone started to fear she’d once again stepped across another invisible line. She was about to retract the question entirely and tell Loreto to forget she’d said anything, when she offered an unexpected answer.
“Sangria.”
“The drink?”
“Yes,” Loreto said. “You asked how far I’d go in reference to our afternoon plans?”
Still unable to make sense of the non-sequitur, she asked, “And you’d go as far as sangria?”
“Yes,” Loreto said emphatically, as if that offered some sort of resolution.
Simone stared at her, waiting to see if this was some sort of joke, but when Loreto didn’t crack a smile, she began to suspect it might instead be a test. Not wanting to fail or shrink from a challenge, she bit back every other instinct for control and said, “Lead the way.”
“This is quite good.” Simone sipped from the large glass of ruby liquid in her hand.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Loreto said drolly.
Simone rolled her eyes. “I didn’t expect turpentine or anything, but this is more fruit than alcohol.”
“Practically juice,” Loreto said, the wariness she’d felt over the last hour slowly being undercut by amusement.
“Technically, all wine is grape juice,” Simone said, holding her glass up to the light streaming through the window next to their table, “but this has actual fruit in it.”
“I suppose that’s better than fake fruit.”
Simone shook her head and pursed her lips, but instead of offering some sharp retort, she merely took another healthy sip of the sangria before saying, “It’s refreshing.”
“Maybe too refreshing.” Loreto tipped her glass slightly toward Simone, then took a swig without taking her eyes off the woman across from her. She didn’t know what had come over Simone back in the mosque. After the way Loreto had blown her top, she’d merely wanted to escape. Then she’d spent her first moments in the courtyard trying not to examine why Simone pushed her buttons in ways no one had in years. But as time went on, she’d started to consider that she might have the same effect on her employer. She’d seen the color rise in Simone’s cheeks and the spark of indignation in her eyes. She suspected few people had the nerve or stupidity to talk to Simone so frankly, and few of them ever got the chance to do so more than once.
She’d fully expected to be fired the moment Simone had stepped into the courtyard. Part of her had even welcomed the ax, but it had never dropped. Instead, for the second time in as many hours, Simone displayed a considerable amount of restraint in her response. Both times, Loreto had clearly lit her fuse and then waited in certainty of the impending explosion, but both times, she’d underestimated Simone’s ability to maintain composure. Something about that kind of control scared her, and she had tread carefully on their walk back through the oldest part of town to their hotel bar.
“I can hardly taste the alcohol.”
“Which makes it dangerous,” Loreto explained. “It’s meant for sipping instead of guzzling.”
“I’m not guzzling,” Simone said, then added, “I’m trying, okay?”
The flash of earnestness lowered Loreto’s defenses another notch. It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen other little hints of something genuine in Simone, but it had been a while, and she still had no idea what had sparked this most recent bout. As much as Loreto wanted to believe some of what she’d said about Simone’s insular worldview had gotten through to her, she doubted it had. More likely, the points she’d made about her impending business deal had struck a chord. Still, whatever string she’d tugged had had some mood-altering effects, and perhaps instead of overthinking, she could just be grateful, or at least take advantage of Simone’s agreeability while she had it.
“You’re right. I’ve got you day-drinking.” Loreto cracked a little grin. “I think that constitutes a breakthrough.”
“Are you saying all I need to do is get sloshed at noon and I’ll unlock the key to Spanish culture?”
“Not at all. And you have to stop associating laid-back with lazy. You have to stop associating taking breaks with doing nothing. You have to stop thinking of different schedules as being the same as no schedule.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Simone said, almost apologetically. “And I want to buy into what you’re talking about with the different-is-good pitch, but I can’t buy something I don’t see, and I don’t see anything in your busy schedule of churros and sangria that suggests some profound level of productivity.”
“Spain’s GDP is thirteenth in the world,” Loreto said flatly, “almost dead even with Russia. I don’t hear anyone calling the Russians slackers. Why should the Spanish get slapped with that label just because they aren’t working themselves into an early grave? In fact, Spaniards have one of the highest life expectancies in the world.”
“Wait, back up. Spain has the same domestic output as Russia?”
“Roughly, and they do it without freezing their asses off or dying young.”
“What’s the primary export?”
Loreto shook her head.
“You don’t know?” Simone asked, a bit of her incredulity creeping back into her tone. You’ve memorized the numbers on international rankings of gross domestic products, but you don’t know what those products are?”
“I do know, but—”
“Then what are they?”
“A lot of cars and auto parts. Also, Spain is one of the world’s frontrunners in renewable energy technologies, but the main issue is the way they manage to compete globally without succumbing to the rat race. We beat them without joining them.”
Simone pulled out her phone and began to tap the screen rapidly. “Does Spain export the power itself, or the tech used to harness it?”
“Both actually, but—”
“What type of renewables?”
“Wind mostly, but also solar, but—”
“And I assume the production of turbines and panels falls under a manufacturing boon?”
“Simone.” Loreto raised her voice enough to break through the barrage of questions. “You’re missing it!”
“No, I’m getting this,” she said without looking up from her phone. “The focus on renewables is—”
“Wrong.” Loreto cut back in. “It’s the wrong angle. You went down the wrong wormhole. You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Missing the point. Forcing your own worldview on a set of statistics you completely misread. You’re assuming everyone thinks like you when they don’t.”
Simone pursed her lips, and Loreto worried she’d once again overstepped the bounds of her employ, but she hadn’t gotten fired yet, so she decided to push on.
“The production numbers aren’t anything impressive when you look at them on their own. Honestly, they’re similar to France and Italy, but what sets Spain apart is how they arrive at those figures.”
“Which is why I asked about the specific exports,” Simone said exasperatedly.
“And I’m trying to tell you you’re confusing the ‘what’ with the ‘how,’” Loreto shot back, her own frustration matching Simone’s now. “The key to their economic rankings is only seen when you compare it to things like general life expectancy, worker satisfaction, mental health, and standard of living.”
Simone sat back and set down the phone. “Go on.”
“Spain doesn’t sacrifice quality of life for financial gain, not on a national level, and not generally on a personal level. So many countries that have happy populations have low output, while countries with relatively high output end up with poor health and satisfaction ratings. We manage to fall into the top twenty or higher in almost every category. We’re running the table.”
Simone seemed to think for a moment. Reaching for her glass and taking a slower sip of sangria, she nodded. “Okay, how?”
“Balance,” Loreto answered.
“Balance?” Simone scoffed. “All that entire economic spiel you just dropped like it’s hot, and your one-word conclusion is ‘balance?’”
Loreto laughed. “Sorry, it’s not rocket science. If you value work and life equally, if you find ways to combine the two with something you feel good about, then mix in passion and productivity in equal measures, you end up both happy and successful.”
Simone sat forward again. “Who are you?”
“What?”
“I’m serious. You don’t make sense.”
Loreto’s laugh felt a little more strangled now. “I think you’re going off track again.”
“No,” Simone said. “Your original point is well taken, and one I’ll have to give a good deal of consideration over the next few days, but in the meantime, I want to know where you studied.”
“I haven’t,” she said defiantly.
“No,” Simone said quickly. “You just gave me a mini-thesis on GDP and world happiness rankings. What was your former life? Economist? Sociologist?”
Loreto laughed again. “I think you need to lay off the sangria.”
“You’re deflecting again. Don’t think I don’t notice.”
“I read a lot. Okay?”
Simone eyed her skeptically. “Of course you do.”
“Yeah, I don’t expect you to believe me, and I don’t care. You asked, I answered.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just that you answered in the vaguest way imaginable, which does nothing to explain where you come from or why someone with your skills and knowledge is content to bum around in shorts and sandals picking up odd jobs for under-the-table payments. It also doesn’t account for your glaring national pronoun problem.”
Loreto gritted her teeth against her urge to run. Any other time, she would’ve been out the door by now, but the last item of Simone’s list caught her off guard. “Pronoun problem?”
“Sometimes when you refer to Spaniards, you use they/them pronouns, and sometimes, you use we/us. You even switch them up within the same comments. And your little rant earlier about your people and my people didn’t seem to include Spain or America, and you weren’t aligning yourself with Columbus, either. It’s not like you’re only transient in the physical sense, but at some deeper level of identity, too.”
Loreto rose from the table and took one last drink, hoping Simone didn’t see the slight tremor in her hand as she set the glass back on the table between them. “It’s time for the siesta.”
Simone stared at her as if waiting for more, and Loreto held her eyes for as long as she dared before turning to go. She made it the four steps to the door and pulled it open, feeling a dry blast of scalding, midday sun, before Simone called out. “Wait.”
She stopped, hand still on the handle, but didn’t turn around.
“Please,” Simone said, something softer in her voice Loreto hadn’t heard there before. “I didn’t mean to pry. I honestly wanted to know what’s made you who you are.”
She closed her eyes and tilted her chin toward the burning sky. She could withstand temper and privilege, anger and entitlement, power and prowess, but the miniscule hint of pleading in Simone’s voice took a sizable chink out of her armor. To turn around now would expose both of them to a firestorm she suspected neither of them would recover from.
Maybe it was noble, or maybe it was cowardly, but instead of looking back, she said, “Go take a nap, Simone. Trust me. This kind of heat is nothing to mess with.”
Simone tried to sleep. She tried to hear the low rumbling in Loreto’s voice as she warned against the dangers of the heat, though she wasn’t sure if she’d been speaking of the temperature or the slow simmering between them all day. After Loreto had left, Simone had gone back to her room. She’d kicked off her shoes and lain down on the king-size bed. She’d closed her eyes and felt the cool air from the vent overhead wash over her body. She’d waited to drift off, for relaxation to take hold, for relief that didn’t come.
No matter how still she forced herself to lie or how long she forced herself to try to sleep, she was still forcing herself, which seemed counterintuitive to napping. She didn’t miss the irony that she couldn’t do something that should take zero effort. She’d seen plenty of colleagues doze off without even meaning to, and in the worst possible moments or positions, like sitting up in a board meeting. She excelled at everything she’d ever set her mind to. Why couldn’t she take a nap on sheets of Egyptian cotton in lush surroundings in the heat of the day when an entire region drifted off into dreams?
She hadn’t thought of napping as a skill, much less one that took practice. Then again, maybe napping was just one of the many things she’d underestimated on this trip so far. Loreto’s image came immediately to her mind, so sharp and clear she flashed her eyes open as if expecting to find her standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the sun the way she’d last seen her.
“Damn it,” she muttered, realizing she wasn’t just being silly, she’d also interrupted her nap, and now she’d have to start over again.
She closed her eyes once more, but this time, instead of seeing the back of her own lids, she saw Loreto again. The memory placed her in the doorway between mosque and cathedral. Her dark, expressive eyes flicked from one space to the other, while her feet remained planted squarely on the line dividing the two. Simone watched her, teetering on the threshold, as if unwilling to go forward and unable to go back. The thought surprised her. She hadn’t quite thought of it that way in the moment. In retrospect, it occurred to her that Loreto might literally be trapped between two cultures.
She stood and walked to the window. Drawing back the sheer, linen drapes and unlatching the wooden shutters, she pulled them apart and let her eyes adjust to the influx of light. Below her, the city of Cordoba spread out, squat and whitewashed, the roofs little terra-cotta hats in a crowd surging toward the river. She didn’t have the full view of the cathedral Loreto had shown her from the roof that morning, but she could certainly see the outer walls of the mosque rising above the surrounding buildings, and she could just make out the shadows cast by the much taller structure rising from the center. She’d viewed them both with the same detached lens of a tourist, the way someone might look at a picture drawn by someone else’s child, two buildings built on the same spot she held no connection with, two cultures she’d never before given any thought to, two religions that had no effect on her own value system.
