Lessons in Gravity (Study Abroad #2) (9 page)

“I’m not mad.” He looks away. “Well. Perhaps a bit put off. I’ve never had someone run out on me like that.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat.

“I was concerned,” he says. “Maddie, you were crying.
In my bed
. And then you just took off. I called Rafa and had him call Vivian to make sure you got home okay. I understand you may not want to talk about it, but you can’t disappear on me like that. It’s rude, for one thing, and worrisome for another.”

I swallow. “I’m really sorry. I acted like such a shit last weekend, and you—you’re being so cool, letting me tag along like this today. I’m sorry, Javier, I am. But I can’t—I really can’t talk about it right now. The
why,
I mean—why I was crying. And even if I could, you wouldn’t want to hear it. So much bullshit…” I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left like that.”

“It’s all right,” he says, gruffly. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

I’m not. I’m so not okay. And I think he knows that.

But I’m not about to spill my guts to Javier on the way to a super cool monastery that may save my thesis.

“Thank you,” I say. “I mean that, Javier.”

Javier shifts again, weaving our way toward city center. I keep the focus on him as the streets get narrower, a zigzag of what were once ancient footpaths and medieval alleys. He navigates his truck through them with knowledgeable ease.

Where did you study, I ask. Oxford, he says, Music Theory and Political Science (how cool is that?). He tells me he plays guitar in his band. Who taught you to play it? I say. I taught myself, he replies, until I was a bit older, and my parents got me lessons.

Around us the city is close and beautiful, bathed in strident afternoon light. We pass Puerta del Sol, one of my favorite squares in the city, its picturesque inner courtyard teeming with well dressed Madrileños
out for a Saturday stroll. Its famous bell tower presides over the pretty buildings that line the square, each one painted a warm Mediterranean shade: dusty red, taupe, yellow, white. The tiled roofs—terra cotta, total Spanish perfection—burn orange beneath a wide open winter sky.

Back home in Atlanta, I’d drive past ugly strip malls, big-box stories, and gas stations on my regular routes through the city. Not all of America is a suburban wasteland, of course, but very rarely do you get to pass a place as lovely or inspiring as Puerta del Sol while you’re out and about on a Saturday afternoon.

“We’re passing into the old city now,” Javier says, making a turn. “ ‘Puerta del Sol’ translates into the ‘door of the sun’. It used to be the old city gate.”

“So cool,” I say. “I did a little research on it myself when I first got to Madrid. I haven’t explored much of the old city, though, to be honest. I’m glad we’re heading that way.”

I ask more questions, Javier gives me more answers. He’s so easy to talk to, the flow of our conversation natural, unhurried. For the first time in forever, I don’t think about my parents, their heartache, my own. It’s like a breath of fresh air after spending months underwater.
 

It doesn’t hurt that he’s freaking
adorable.
He loves olives, his mom, and
Pirates of the Caribbean
; the only type of music he doesn’t like is country.
 

“Whoa,” I say. “Wait a minute. Wait a
minute
. You don’t like country music?”

“I can appreciate it as…um. As someone who’s into music,” he replies, guiding the truck down a street so narrow the side mirrors nearly touch buildings we pass. “But listening to it? I’d rather not. Why? Are you a country fan?”

“Big time. In high school, it was all I’d listen to. I may or may not have gone through a phase where I’d only date guys who drove pick-up trucks. Seriously, Javier, you’re missing out.”

“We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one,” he says, glancing at me. “How’d you end up liking that twangy cack so much?”

“I don’t know what cack is, but I’m assuming it’s not a compliment?”

“Definitely not. Como se dice en los Estados Unidos…”

Hearing him talk in easy, languid Spanish—
how would you say it in the United States?
—makes my pulse hiccup.

“Crap, maybe?”

“Vale, that would probably work. That twangy
crap
.”

“I happen to like that twangy crap, thank you very much, and I bet I could get you to like it, too.”

“You want to bet?” he says, grinning.

“I do. I have, like, twenty euro in my bank account right now, but I’m willing to part with it in the name of Kenny Chesney.”

Javier laughs, a rumbling, masculine sound that makes me want to laugh, too.
 

“I won’t take your money,” he says. “But perhaps we can think of something else to wager.”

I know he’s not trying to be suggestive, but when you’re Javier—scruffy, sexy, hipster-athlete-with-a-deep-voice Madrileño
Javier—it’s hard not to be.

His voice has me thinking of all those saucy Spanish nothings he whispered in my ear last weekend. God he was good at the dirty talk. He was good at other things, too. He was good at
all
the things, actually. All the things a guy can do to a girl in bed.
 

I’m just beginning to fantasize about how fun it would be to turn this bet into a sort of strip-poker situation when Javier guides the Range Rover into the tiniest alley ever and pulls up the parking brake.

“We’re here,” he says, pointing out the windshield.

I duck my head to get a better look, sliding my sunglasses into my hair.

Immediately to our right, a hulking brick and stone square of a building rises into the clear blue sky. I’ve never seen it before. It looks old—really old—its façade a disjointed collage of Romanesque and baroque and even renaissance styles. Its square windows, poked through stone walls three feet thick, dot the façade at uneven intervals. On the ground floor, several pairs of massive doors stand attention, the weathered wood dotted with iron bolts. It could be a castle, or a convent, or a small museum; tough to tell.

I’m intrigued. You only see this kind of thing in the old world: hundreds of years of history writ right before your eyes. I’m already impatient to get a better look up close, to suss out details that tell stories from generations ago. A fading coat of arms, perhaps, or medieval fingerprints left in plaster. There’s brickwork and stonework and even some sculptural elements tucked into eaves, set on spires on the roof.

Forget strip poker. This is way cooler. My inner architecture nerd is going apeshit.

“El Monasterio de las Humildes Reales,” Javier says, the words rolling off his tongue.

“The Monastery of the Humble Royals,” I say. “Am I translating it right?”

“Sí.”

“Doesn’t look too humble to me.”

Javier scoffs. “It was built as a palace for the Spanish royals. Sometime around the Renaissance, I believe. When the king’s daughter decided she’d rather become a nun than marry her cousin, he gave her the palace as a gift to found her monastery. She built a church—just over there, in the southwest corner—that was famous for its lovely acoustics. Eventually, when the nuns ran out of money, someone had the bright idea to turn it into theater.”

I stare at him, disbelievingly. “And that’s the theater you and your band practice in?”

“Brilliant, isn’t it?” He leans toward me, taking off his sunglasses. “C’mon, I’ll show you around.”

His eyes are even lovelier up close; the color is startlingly vibrant, like a light shone through a brown glass bottle. His eyelashes are thick and very dark, boyish.
 

Even though there’s a hint of playfulness in those eyes, I see something else there, something I hadn’t seen before.

Kindness.

I look away, my heart fluttering inside my chest. His person, his ridiculous shoulders and scruff and leather jacket—none of that has made my pulse race any faster today.

But that look in his eyes—the softness—that did.
 

And I don’t know how I feel about that.

Javier grabs a guitar case from “the boot”, as he calls it, and together we cross the street and walk alongside the monastery’s front façade. Now that we’re close, I can appreciate the building’s enormous scale. The whitewashed cornerstones are as long and wide as a person; the doors must be twelve, fifteen feet high, and so heavy it probably takes several people to open them.
 

“It’s not the prettiest building in Madrid,” Javier says, “but I’d like to think it’s one of the more interesting ones. It’s more of a local spot—like Rafa said, we don’t get many tourists coming to visit.”

“I can only imagine what sort of shenanigans those humble royal nuns got up to at a place like this.” I crane my neck to get a better look at the series of three crosses that dot the roofline of the main entrance façade. “Do we know when it was first built?”

“I’m not sure, actually,” Javier replies. “But there is someone who might be able to answer that for you.”

“Your special someone?” I say, grinning.

He rolls his eyes. “This way, please.”

Chapter 7

Maddie

Javier leads me around the corner and taps the knuckle of his first finger on a (much) smaller side door. I trail my eyes over a maze of medieval brickwork while we wait, the bricks washed in a sooty, dripping ash leftover from centuries of rain, humidity, and pollution. It forms a sort of ancient tie-dye, tinged at the edges with green moss. This place is
old
. On my family’s beach trip to Charleston last year, I remember marveling at a pink row house that was built in 1723.

The monastery came into being hundreds and hundreds of years before that, during a time when the plague was a real thing and architects were mathematical badasses, working to rediscover the theorems and equations of the Ancient Romans, the Ancient Greeks. I wonder how many architects and artisans worked on the place. Every brick, every stone and cross and column was designed and made by hand, constructed using methods unchanged since the middle ages.

The door swings open, revealing a woman who greets us with a dazzling smile. She’s the kind of gorgeous that stops traffic. Tall, tan, with rambunctious, caramel-colored curls, she’s got a wide mouth and big eyes.

So this is the girl
, I think. Javier’s girl.

He’s got good taste. Expensive taste—I look down to see a Cartier Tank watch on her wrist—but good taste nonetheless.

Like most Madrileñas, she is dressed to the nines: dark jeans, flowy silk top, a pair of sassy heeled boots. I’ve always wondered where Spanish women find the time to always look so damn good. Being a college student, I practically live in yoga pants; I bet Javier’s girl would rather shave her head than wear yoga pants, even while doing yoga.

“María Carmen.” Javier steps through the door, offering her a quick, awkward kiss on each cheek. He’s jumpy all of the sudden; nervous. It’s kinda cute. “Como estás?”
How are you?

Javier
, she says. I notice she keeps her hand on his shoulder.
It’s been a while! I am glad to see you. How was the tour?

I blink. Tour?

It was great. But long.
He smiles, shyly.
You look beautiful, Carmen.

She offers him a blinding smile in return.
Thanks. You look well, too.

He looks at her for a minute, still smiling, then turns to me. “Carmen, I’d like you to meet Maddie. She is a friend of Rafa’s, studying at San Pedro for the semester.”

I hold out my hand. “Mucho gusto, Carmen.”

“It is lovely to meet you too, Maddie,” she replies in stilted, formal English. Her eyes sweep over me, so quickly I almost don’t see it.

“Maddie is putting together a thesis in historical preservation,” Javier continues, waving me inside. “I thought she might enjoy seeing the monastery, and perhaps talk to you about the foundation’s work? Carmen is one of the curators here. She specializes in Renaissance art.”

“Really?” I say. “That’s so cool!”

Carmen’s smile broadens. “Welcome, Maddie, I have no doubt you will love what you see. Please, come in, some of Javier’s band mates have already arrived.”

“Have they introduced themselves, I hope?” Javier says.

“Oh, yes,” Carmen says. “I already knew Leo, of course—“

“Sorry about that.” Javier smiles.

“But the others said hello. Very friendly band mates you have.”

A familiar, musty smell—
old
—hits me the second I step inside the door. The floorboards creak beneath my feet as I follow Javier and Carmen through the tiny entrance hall.

It’s all I can do not to gasp, or jump up and down like the crazy person that I am, when we come out on a wide gallery. Ardent afternoon light streams through the wavy, hand-blown glass of the windows, turning the terra cotta floor tiles into a shining pool of red. Every inch of wall space is covered in ornate frescoes, flowers and animals and a
lot
of Jesus, drawing the eye upward to a ceiling of dark wooden beams. At the end of the galley, there’s another entrance hall, this one huge and ornate, with ceilings covered in angels that soar three, even four stories high. There is so much to look at it’s making me dizzy.