When We Believed in Mermaids(16)

“Really?” I eat some cheese, break some flatbread, offer the plate to him again. “From where?”

“Madrid.”

“That’s a big change.”

He nods, smooths his hands together, palm to palm. “I’m weary of politics.”

I snort laugh and have to cover my mouth. “Yeah. It’s been a weird few years.”

“Decades.”

“Yeah.”

We watch the people walk by. Couples in love, old marrieds, the happy-hour crowd heading home. My body is soft and quiet for the first time in ages. Maybe I’d needed to get away more than I knew. My hand reaches automatically for the ghost of the phone that isn’t there, and I open my palm on the table instead. “What are you reading?”

He holds it up to show me. One Hundred Years of Solitude. It’s in Spanish, of course. “I’ve read it many times, but I love to read it again.”

I nod. Literary too, which isn’t on my No Way list, but it speaks to a great mind, and that is.

“Have you read it?” he asks.

“No.” I surprise myself by adding, “My sister was the literary one.”

“You don’t like to read?”

“I do. I just don’t read important books. That was her thing—all the great poets and writers and playwrights.”

“I see.” A little quirk of his lips. “You could not share?”

The wine is loosening me now. “No. I’m the scientific one. She was the creative one.”

“Was?”

“She died,” I say, even if I don’t know if that’s true anymore.

“I’m sorry.”

The waiter brings my gnocchi then, delicately arranged and tossed with parsley and Parmesan. I feel my father sit down across the table and fold his arms. His wrists are hairy beneath his shirtsleeves, the cuff links he always wore. I take a small bite. “Oh, that’s very good,” I say, and my father nods.

“Good, good,” the waiter says.

“Will you bring me another glass of wine?”

“Oh, no, no,” Javier protests, his hands illustrating his words, flying into the air. “Allow me to share. I will never drink it all myself.”

“Never?” I say.

“Well, perhaps. I’d rather share.”

I nod. The waiter smiles, as if it’s his doing. “I will be right back with your dinner, sir.”

The fragrance of garlic rises from the plate, and I take another bite. “This was one of my father’s specialties,” I offer, and it’s out before I realize I’m going to say it. “Gnocchi with peas and mushrooms. I used to roll them out for him.”

“Was he Italian, your father?” He leans over to pour wine into my now empty glass.

“Sicilian.”

“Your mother too?”

I glance at him. “You’re quite forward.”

“Not ordinarily.”

“Why now?”

He leans closer, and I see by the glitter in his eye that he’s going to say something bold. “Because my heart stopped when I saw you sitting here.”

I laugh, pleased by this extravagance.

“You think I am joking,” he says. “But I swear it is true.”

“I am not the type of woman who stops men’s hearts, but thank you.”

“You have not met the right men.”

I pause, fork hanging from my hand, elbow on the table. Behind him, the sky is nearly dark, and the laughter around us has grown more robust. The shape of his mouth makes my skin rustle, and he has that elusive air that makes me think he will be very good in bed. “Maybe I haven’t.”

He grins at this, and an outrageous dimple breaks in his cheek. He has to lean back to allow the waiter to deliver his food. It’s a steaming plate of prawns and crayfish in risotto. A good eater’s choice, as my father would have said. He had no patience with picky eaters, the vegetarians who were already dotting the landscape, the ones who didn’t eat fish or beef or particular vegetables. Eat it as it is, he would say with a sniff, or don’t eat. Only Dylan was allowed to be choosy. He hated capers and pickles and olives, avocado with a passion, and would rather have starved than eat egg whites or clams. In some way, he filled my father’s desire for a son, and for a long time he doted on Dylan.

Until he didn’t.

“Did your father cook for you often?” my companion asks.

“Not for me, exactly. He cooked for his restaurant. We grew up in there, eating whatever the special of the day was.”

“That seems like an interesting childhood. Did you like it?”

“Sometimes.” It’s easy to talk to this stranger, someone who will not remember a month from now what I said. I empty my glass and hold it out to him. He splashes in a heavy measure of wine. “Not always. It could be a little exhausting, and my parents were always wrapped up in that rather than their children.” Delicately, I balance a perfectly shaped gnocchi on my fork. “How did you grow up?”

He touches his lips with his napkin. “In the city. My mother taught school, and my father was a . . .” He frowns, his fingers rubbing together as if to pull the word from the air. “A clerk, you know, for the government.” His face brightens. “Bureaucrat.”