If This Gets Out(28)
The bus pulls to a stop and Erin lets us pile out. I’m surprised by how cool it is here in March. When I listened to the stories my abuela used to tell me when she was still alive about her life in Spain, I always pictured heat and humidity, an oppressive blanket of warmth. Not temperatures dipping to the low forties, woolen coats, and boots. But here we are.
I’ve heard people do things a little later in Spain, but if I’m honest I didn’t expect it to be this busy at eleven p.m. It’s practically bedtime for us, but the city’s sprung to life here like six in the evening does back home. The paved, narrow streets are filled with people heading out to eat or drink, and the restaurants and bars we pass are buzzing with people and warm light. Instead of heavy drinking like I’d expect to see this late, though, it’s much more casual. More groups of friends sitting at outdoor tables, sipping red wine and picking at tapas, fewer stumbling drunks knocking back beer after beer. The sound from inside the buildings isn’t thudding music or raucous laughter and shouts, but the hum of social chatter. In a weird way, it feels familiar. Like, down-to-my-bones familiar. Is it possible to inherit memories through your genes, or am I just overtired? Probably the latter. We’ve been awake for eighteen hours now.
The smells of garlic, oil, and tomatoes waft through the air as we enter a dimly lit restaurant. It’s crowded, and usually an extra group filing in past tables wouldn’t attract attention. But Pauline standing by the table with one of the Spanish Tungsten guards while the other guards station themselves closer to the entrance apparently gives us away. If that doesn’t, the growing crowd of fans gathering outside to gawk and scream at us through the windows sure does. It feels like every eye in the restaurant is fixed in our direction right now.
I move to slide into the seat at the back at the same moment as Zach. We both halt, and I give him an awkward smile. “You go,” I say.
He nods, and I realize too late it places me right next to him at the table. Despite myself, my stomach flips. Pathetic, to be exhilarated by the thought of my elbow bumping against his right now, but here I am.
He grabs his menu to study it the second I sit down. I’m way too engrossed to talk to you is the obvious message. But I try anyway. Despite his weirdness over the past few days, a hopeful part of me is still kidding myself that he’ll soften if I keep trying. “I’ll make sure no one orders any fish,” I try. Zach’s never been able to stand the stuff. The first night I met him at camp we had fish fingers for dinner and he dry retched so hard I gave him my fries out of pity so he wouldn’t go hungry.
His eyes flicker up. “Thanks,” he says. For a breathless moment I think he’s going to smile, or say something else. But he just goes back to his menu. When I look at mine, I’m struck to see familiar dish after familiar dish. The kind of food that I ate all the time growing up but have never seen on a restaurant menu before. There’s a sense of belonging in this. A shared experience with a country of strangers, whom I could’ve lived among in another life. An alternate timeline, when my grandparents never immigrated to the United States.
I look back up from the menu. “I can’t make any promises about shrimp, though. It’s in about every third—” I trail off as Zach gives me a tight smile. “Yup, okay, cool,” I murmur.
“Ruben, what should we order?” Jon asks as he sits on my other side.
“No idea. I don’t know what you feel like eating.”
“That’s okay. If it comes with a Spaniard’s recommendation, I trust it.”
From the way his eyes are sparkling, I can tell it’s a joke. Chorus Management jumped on the fact that my parents are from Spain as soon as they found out, convincing our songwriters to include a Spanish bridge for me to sing in our first single, “Guilty.” The problem being that I barely speak a word of Spanish. Mom and Dad spent weeks teaching me to pronounce the words correctly, and I still picture Mom’s look of despair at my pronunciation every time I perform it live. Tonight was particularly embarrassing, performing it in, you know, literal fucking Spain. The crowd loved it, though. Even if I do have a feeling they loved it the way people love watching dogs trying to walk on their hind legs.
I shake my head. “I probably haven’t ever eaten, like, ninety percent of the menu. Home cooking isn’t the same as restaurants.” I glance at the menu, then, grudgingly, add, “But if you want some suggestions, I’d go for the croquetas, the patatas bravas, and the gambas al ajillo.”
“You’re sexy when you speak Spanish,” Angel says, and I know what’s coming. “Don’t you think so, Zach?”
Angel thinks Zach’s jagged comment about my appearance the other day is the height of comedy. In fairness, he doesn’t know the full context—as far as he’s concerned, Zach’s comment was just a straight guy being insecure in his straightness, a concept that Angel obviously can’t personally relate to. So, because he’s Angel, the only reasonable response is to take every possible opportunity to make Zach squirm like that again.
From the pained look on Zach’s face, it’s obviously still working.
It’s made matters worse that the clip of Zach essentially calling me hideous has been making its rounds on the Internet under the hashtag #ICantReallySeeIt. Everyone has a hot take—Zach’s right, and I am hideous, and he should say it; Zach’s obviously better looking than me and he should’ve been on the list in my place; I’m obviously way better looking than Zach, and Zach’s got a jealousy issue; the whole band is full of eyeliner-wearing pretty boys and anyone who thinks any of us belong on a sexiest men list needs their vision checked, stat. And on and on and on.