Red Clay Summer

RED CLAY SUMMER

In 1998, Declan was twenty-eight and teaching tennis at the Conde Monsanto Country Club in Viña del Mar, Chile. A year earlier he had been doing engineering work in the Bolivian salt flats, a quick but well-paying job for the Inter-American Foundation. A friend suggested they do a quick tour of Chile before heading back to Missouri and he gladly tagged along. The others left after a week, as scheduled. Declan postponed. Then he made friends at the beach and postponed further. He had nothing pulling him home, not by his standards of “urgent”. He wanted to squeeze the orange dry before leaving, but he’d find out on a weekly basis that the thing remained juicy.

The Conde was not the biggest or the fanciest club in the city, as it was tennis-centered and lacked a golf course. Clients were folks who didn’t go as far as to require the opulence of the Granadilla or the Club Naval, but upper middle class nonetheless, some with company-assigned personal drivers, or European foreigners with high-ranking jobs. A friend of a friend knew a member, so for Declan it became a hub for tennis matches and drinks early on. He heard about the coaching job through the grapevine. He never imagined that his ranking in the Kansas City Tennis League would ever come in handier in finding a job than his engineering degree, but he wanted something that he could leave quickly. As such, it fit, as the Spanish adage said, “like a ring on a finger”. He got paid by the hour, handsomely by national standards. Two hours in the mornings and afternoons three days a week, a full day on Saturdays and any one-on-ones that he could fit in between. Lots of sweat and baked-red necks, and traces of red clay dirt on everything he owned. But the staff was young and fun, and they would throw clandestine pool mini-parties every other Sunday night after it closed down for members. It got rather glorious when it wanted to.

The flings came steadily Declan’s way. He knew that his being a 6-foot green-eyed American was a big part of it. Beefy within the ranges of fit. Stocked eyebrows the shape of long bricks and close-cropped brown hair that would be curly if he let it grow out. But he could get laughs, too. He found himself to be a competent teacher, patient with kids, effective even with the big groups. In short, he enjoyed it. And the college-aged women that paid for personal lessons enjoyed him in return. The hook-ups with trainees started piling up, often followed by drop-outs. Who would want an awkward lesson with the guy they had driven to the nearest motel with? Eventually, Mr. Espinosa approached him to inquire why three of his trainees had left weeks’ worth of classes unused. The thought of his dad ever finding out that he couldn’t keep a tennis-coaching job hurt like a whip. So he cooled it.

He took higher-level Spanish lessons. He tried out the church in his block. He bought a bike just in time for summer. Every passing day, his plans to return home drifted further away like an abandoned floatable in the club’s pool.

Bianca was introduced to Declan the first day of Summer Tennis Camp, not so much the person or even the face, as he initially remained a token character in the background, but as the reason the twins were bubbly on the drive home, a big contrast to the grumbling they’d given her in the morning. Tennis camp had been her idea, a patch-up replacement for the swimming lessons they’d had to abort due to Julián’s eardrum infection, which had warranted a major pout-fest from Karina. On the second day, she became friends with a young mom, who watched over her six-year-old’s practice with hawk-like attention even as she talked to Bianca about schools, sun block brands and the weather. The girl was surprised to learn that Bianca wasn’t the kids’ mom, but their grandmother. It was a common mistake, as Bianca had become not their full-time caretaker, but close enough. She assured Bianca that she’d keep an eye on the twins, so why not stretch her legs a little? So Bianca did. She found the walkways around the grounds powerfully soothing and loved the young mom for it. The place’s pine trees provided a cool shade that past year’s anxieties seemed unable to penetrate. On subsequent strolls she would start humming without realizing it.

Tennis Camp wasn’t just tennis, which stayed true to what had been advertised. The children had swimming time on Wednesdays and Fridays, meals, a group game time in the common room and – the twins were only five, so they would be skipping that one – an overnight camping trip. The American coach was funny. He fooled around often and made the kids laugh. With the little mistakes peppered into his Spanish, he made the moms laugh too. On Wednesday, he lined up the kids in front of the parents in the stands and simulated a military drill. He asked them questions about sun safety and gently pulled their hats down over their eyes if they didn’t know the answer. Bianca felt her young mom friend clenching up on her left, but she chuckled.

“At the end of camp, I’ll be making every kid play a match against their mom or dad,” the coach said in Spanish. “I’d start my yoga now if I were you.” From that point on, he was easy to love.

The next day, Bianca shoved her wavy black hair into a swim cap and finally tried out the pool. In her plain black one-piece and self-conscious over being the only solo swimmer, as the other the occupants were either parents with kids or noisy teens playing ball. She found it less of an issue in the deeper end and made that her turf. She covered the length twice doing the breaststroke, then thought to hell with it and dived fully, getting her hair wet. It would be frizzy all day after that, but the summer humidity had been pushing it there anyway. Between that and the walking, she began, with some guilt, to see tennis camp as a treat more for her own benefit than for the kids’.

The first time Bianca talked to Declan was over Karina’s attitude. He came to her discreetly during the first break to ask if Bianca knew what was up. Karina didn’t want to run, didn’t want to play, and the one friend she’d made said she had given her the cold shoulder all day. Had she fought with her brother? Julián swore she hadn’t. Karina kept it up for the rest of the day, but Declan was gentle and didn’t push. The next morning, Declan came up to Bianca during the same break with an answer.

“I don’t think she’s mad at Julián, or you,” he theorized. “I think Julián’s made so many friends, and he’s loving every day, and he’s having all the fun. I think she can’t help but feel ignored. She’s a little, um…”

“Jealous?”

“Yes!”

Bianca found out he was right on the money. She asked Natasha, her daughter, for permission, cancelled Julián’s scheduled hangout with his next-door buddy and took the two of them out for burgers and to the movies. The family time improved the chemistry between the twins, and her short talk with Karina afterwards sealed the deal.

Declan had mentally pinpointed Bianca as “the pretty lady with the Italian face”, placing her somewhere between forty-three and fifty. It was difficult to say with the sunglasses on, worn by all parents at all times. He knew he was making a good impression with the whole group. He had been ending every single class conducting private talks with the parents, less about tennis and more about their kids’ personal qualities. If he talked long enough, he managed to hit on exactly what either the parent or the kid was hoping to hear.

He somehow found himself having dinner at little Esteban’s hyper-posh apartment at the end of the second week. His dad, Manuel, was a fellow Kansas City Chiefs superfan, having lived for a number of years in the Midwest states. He did have a better knowledge of the Broncos’ current line-up, and Declan suspected his Chiefs love had been a front to facilitate the invite. Manuel was a VP for a multinational that imported lysine into Chile. He and his wife were a hip young couple, brilliant conversationalists, religious but open-minded, and for whatever reason had found Declan impressive enough for an invite – which made them intimidating. Once the subject of his being an engineer was broached, the conversation seemed to be headed somewhere fast. They asked when he was planning on returning home. He gave his same old line.

“My ticket’s booked for March!”

Before the evening was over, Manuel had offered to connect Declan to acquaintances in Texas. Folks who might hire him for something. Declan put on a show of gratitude and of having every intention of pursuing the opportunity, but left their apartment deflated and with a good deal of self-hatred.

………………………………………

Bianca let Rodolfo pay, held his hand on the way to the parking lot and said goodbye to his two grown daughters, who wished her a happy trip, as they wouldn’t be seeing her for the rest of the month. In the car, she and Rodolfo discussed travel arrangements. He wouldn’t be going on the Florida trip, but his problem-solving side, hyperactive to put it mildly, kicked in full gear regarding Bianca’s choices for hotel and car rental company. He was critical of both and recommended his favorites. She could have let it turn into another small tiff, or reminded him that booking things for people is what she used to do for a living. But she chose not to, said she’d think of changing it.

She had met Rodolfo sometime around Christmas the previous year, a golfing buddy of her daughter’s husband who showed interest early on. Natasha encouraged Bianca to go along with the flowers and the wine-tasting dates, and there was sweetness in her concern, as she felt her mother had been single long enough. He was fifty-three, almost a full decade on Bianca’s forty-four, but had charm to spare and seemed to have read all the books on what’s expected of classy older gentlemen, possibly even written one himself. They saw only little of each other every month, as his company kept him flying back and forth between Chile and Argentina. Did she miss him? She did at times. The past couple of visits, however, had been dampened by the recent drama in her family. He could have supported her. Instead, he took their side and made himself into one more voice to fight against. She still resented him.

Right after getting dropped off, she got in her own car and headed straight to the club. These weren’t Tennis Camp hours and she wasn’t a member, but the guard saw no problem and let her right on in. With a few hours to go until the 8 PM closing time and the sky the color of peach, she changed into her one-piece, took a shower and dove into the mostly-vacant pool. Her daughter had the kids that night, so a pleasantly empty apartment awaited Bianca after this. She loved the idea of finishing her book in bed over a mug of tea while her skin still smelled of chlorine. As usual, her anxieties seemed to dissolve into the water.

“Hey!”

She looked up. The kids’ tennis coach had a fresh-off-the-shower look. She guessed he had just finished using the pool himself.

“You’re the twins’ mom, correct?”

“Yeah. Uh, Daniel?” she asked.

“Declan!”

“Declan! American, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Where from?”

“Missouri,” he said, pronouncing it as a Spanish speaker would.

“Oooh,” she said.

“Yeah. Kansas City.”

“The capital of Kansas the state?”

“Yes and no,” he chuckled. “It’s a long story.”

By then, she had reached the edge of the pool. He sat on a lounge chair. Thus, they obligated one another to stay for conversation.

“Do you come to the pool often?” she asked him.

“Oh, all the time. All the time. Half the pool’s chlorine… spent only on me.”

She laughed. “I’ve been coming almost every day. While the kids have their class. I can’t tell you how much I’m loving it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, it’s extremely relaxing. I don’t have a lot of access to pools, so I’ve appropriated this one completely. It makes me wish I could float on a buoy with a drink in hand all day.”

“Oh, they do bring you drinks to the pool,” he said enthusiastically. “Do you want me to get you a waiter?”

“No, I’m fine,” she chuckled.

“Are Kari and Juli here somewhere?” he asked.

“They’re at home with their mom. It’s just me right now.”

“Their mom?”

“I’m not actually the kids’ mom,” she said on autopilot. “I’m their grandmother.”

“What?” he asked, outraged, and his look made her laugh again. She explained, selectively, the family history, yet another recurring script. She’d had Natasha at twenty-one. Brought her up on her own. Then Natasha had her twins at eighteen, right out of high school. She was currently twenty-three, and one year into a job as a photographer, which kept her busy most of the day. She didn’t mention Natasha’s new husband. It would’ve ruined her mood.

Bianca had a gentle voice, a little hoarse, a little nasal, thick with patience and naturally low-pitched, much like an introvert’s. Her tone got sing-songy whenever she was her own topic for too long, a way of making it clear she didn’t take herself too seriously. Her laughter was discreet, but it dragged out when strong, with little silences in between. Declan noticed the exact same graceful design of Mediterranean eyes the twins had and was surprised yet again to know there was a whole descendant between them. He asked her about their last name, which was Italian, and got to hear all about “selective immigration” from Europe into Chile during the 19th century.

“I don’t speak any Italian, no,” she said. “It got lost in the generations. Maybe I should learn.”

“I bet you it’s easy.”

“Did you feel learning Spanish was easy?”

“I’ll tell you when I learn it,” Declan replied. He got that laugh again.

………………………………………

In Viña, summer landed right between the beginning and end of the year. At its hottest, it went over seventy degrees, with constant wafts of hot air blowing in from the sea. Consistently clear skies, too. Declan got used to the smell and feeling of wearing layers of sunblock from head to toe, with particular care paid to the “behind” spots – knees and ears. He eventually began using a moisturizer gifted to him by his matronly landlord, who liked him for always being on time with rent. He had spent Christmas by himself watching TV in the hostel’s common room, but did take up an invitation to a New Year’s Eve beach party at the Malecón Vergara to greet 1999. While the fireworks boomed overhead, he had pushed away scary questions of what the year had in store for him. On the previous one he had done the same and good stuff had come. Maybe the key was expecting nothing.

Meanwhile, his self-imposed March deadline loomed ever closer. Then, after the morning class one Friday, he got summoned to the staff office. They were happy with him and felt a contract was due. No more getting paid by the hour. The workload would increase, as he’d be in charge of inventory and administrative planning, but that was not an issue. The recent conversation with his father, that was. A lot had been said and Declan had come close to agreeing that it was time for him to head home. With just one phone call, March had been made to feel like a tangible reality. And with just a signature, it turned into smoke again, this time permanently. He would have to worry about it again in exactly twelve months.

That afternoon, Bianca played with the kids in the club’s pool. For Karina’s sake, who was still extra-possessive towards her brother, she made sure it was just the three of them. Natasha came through with her promise to join them for lunch and it was certainly nice to have her help with the kids at the table. Natasha was more snappy and hadn’t yet mastered the little tricks for how to get them to sit up straight or eat the veggies that came with the burgers. But when she committed to spending the afternoon with them, Bianca did a good job of hiding their joy. She waved them goodbye in the parking lot, then swam from 4 to 6 PM, to the point where the water felt heated and the air freezing. She read an ¡Hola! magazine with her arms folded over the pool deck, further accumulating sun freckles on her shoulders and back. She had a virgin daiquiri and ate the fruit.

As she pulled her car out of the parking lot, hair still wet from the shower, she saw Declan lugging his heavy tennis bag. Her mind being cleared and light as it was, saying hi felt like the thing to do. He returned the greeting with a wide smile.

“That looks heavy,” she said. “Do you carry that all the way to the bus stop?”

“Ehm,” he said, hoisting it with one arm as he pondered.

“Where are you headed?” she asked.

“Agua Santa.”

“I’m headed to the market, that’s on the way for me. I can take you no problem.”

Declan considered it for a beat, then threw his bag into the back and took the passenger’s seat. He made no mention of the fact that, in reality, he didn’t take the bus home and had just been steps away from his bike when she offered him the lift. He would have to leave it at the club overnight and come to work the next morning by bus.

“Can I slide the seat backwards?” he asked. “I look like I’m riding a go-kart. Do you have go-karts here?”

True to habit, Declan started the chatter early, feeling his job was to kill all lulls so as to earn his spot in the car. He asked about Julián’s nosebleeds, of which he had seen two. Bianca told him he had always been the more frail one. He got them at school on occasion, although the first one to panic was always his sister.

“You’re a nurse, right?” Declan asked.

“Nurse? No. Why?”

“I thought so because of your shoes. A nurse friend of mine back home had the exact same model.”

“Funny you should ask,” Bianca said. “I did get them when I was helping a nurse friend of mine do some shopping. That’s a good eye.” She turned right at Bartolomé Vivar and shifted to third gear. “I’m actually a manager at a supermarket.”

“What? No way.”

“Yeah.”

“I never would’ve guessed.”

“Because I look more like a nurse, you say.”

“Oh, you look like a manager too,” Declan said cheerfully. “I just had the sun in my eyes.”

“I worked as a secretary for years. Many, many years, for the assistant manager.”

“And you learned the job that way.”

“Exactly. Then he got promoted…”

“… and you got his job,” Declan finished. He was a good audience.

“Correct,” she said with a wistful smile. “Then last year I got the manager job.”

“That’s amazing,” he said. “I can’t even call it the American Dream. The Chilean Dream?” His next question was inevitable. “So you’re on vacation now?”

“No. I’m in the process of quitting the job.” Lying was never a first option for her, however tempting. “We’re moving to Santiago, me and my daughter’s family. By the time the school year starts. But before that, my daughter’s husband is taking us to Orlando, so the kids can enjoy the parks and all that.”

“Oh,” he replied. Then, “Do you have the option to transfer to the same supermarket chain over in Santiago?”

“No,” she answered. “Even if I had, I’m going to be helping my daughter more. With the kids. You see how it is for her… they keep her very busy at her work. And she’s living her dream, she’s doing a lot of the things she’s always wanted to do, meeting all the right people. She needs the help.”

“So that’s the plan.”

“That’s the plan.”

Declan caressed his sunburnt knees for a moment. The first real lull of the ride.

“While you were secretary,” he finally asked, “did you ever feel you could do your bosses’ jobs better than them?”

“No comment,” she said after laughing. “But I’ll write my book about it one day.”

“I would read that.”

………………………………………

Bianca had asked Natasha for two days of alone time so she could get ahead on packing. She did most of it on Day One. Small as her apartment was, she had made it a point over the years to fill up the walls with family pictures and affordable art. It was sad now to see them bare. Day Two was being used to arrange the boxes in order of fragility, when her phone rang. It was Natasha. In choked tones, she told him that Julián had fainted during pool time at Tennis Camp. Bianca was at the clinic in under thirty minutes, pampering a perfectly OK Julián, who had simply suffered heat stroke; holding a panicked Karina on her lap; and dissuading Natasha from letting the incident pulverize her maternal self-confidence. She did feel an MRI was due, as the kid had hit his head on the way down. Felipe, Natasha’s husband, arrived soon thereafter. It was no surprise that he needed to be convinced regarding the scan.

The Radiology Room allowed only parents as company, so Bianca headed down to the cafeteria, ready for the long evening ahead. She’d be going home with them after this to spend the night. As she took the first sip of her espresso, someone made her look up. It was Declan, in his red clay-stained tennis shorts and wide stubbled smile, having come straight from the club. He had seen her walk past the lobby and followed her into the cafeteria, eager to hear about Julián. Bianca offered him the seat to her left.

………………………………………

Bianca reminded Declan of a classic Greek or Roman painting, something out of a vase or a fresco. Eyebrows drawn like an elegant brushstroke, thick and perfectly horizontal, before splitting downwards into wing-like spikes. Heart-shaped lips flanked by puffy cheeks and smile lines. Wavy black hair down to the base of her neck, skin the color of peanuts. There were curves under her swimsuit, uneven around the waist and hips, and a heavy bosom that she tried to hide by slouching on the short walk from the lounge chair to the pool.

They were swimming together. On Thursdays, the pool crowds usually cleared out right after lunch. Two older women dipped their feet while they watched over a kid playing in the shallow end. A middle-aged gentleman splashed around, noisily focused on swimming laps. Pedrito the caretaker fished out leaves. The next day was pool day for the army of Tennis Camp kids, usually set to constant yelling by Declan and his fellow coaches to keep the younger ones on the safe side of the rope. This was the calm before the storm.

For several minutes, Bianca and Declan talked only casual. About Viña. Missouri. The rules of American Football. All the while gravitating towards and away from each other in the water, like balls on a billiards table. Whether they meant it that way or not, it worked as a palate cleanser. On the day of Julián’s incident, the talk in the hospital cafeteria had stretched out for over an hour. As a way of repaying Declan his interest in her supermarket career, she displayed genuine interest about his, not knowing that his mess had stayed private for a long while by that point, so unwrapping it for others to watch was deeply counterintuitive. Bianca poked and prodded skillfully. When he talked about choosing Water Resource Engineering, she asked why. When he told her about the “dream job” that he’d had for years, she asked to hear about it.

In truth, Declan had been fired. He had worked for four years at a company in charge of channel improvement at Kansas City’s Blue River. It was an outdoor roughneck job that seemed to be teaching him everything vital about sliding into adulthood. In return, he had given it his all, aiming for a management job early on. It was also fertile ground for friends, where evening beers were a sacred ritual. Through a friend of a friend, he met Gabby. Within months they were living together. All very grown up.

When his project manager got rotated out, they saw it as the end of an era. It was actually the beginning of a bigger kind of end. Several members of the team got the shaft under the new leadership, but Declan was among “the lucky ones” initially kept on. He only had one quarter to feel lucky before he got the boot too. There was never a sit-down, just a letter, and he was left to speculate as to the reason for dismissal. It might have been a lack of kissing up to new management. Or they might have gotten wind of the fact that he had interviewed elsewhere. Or simply, and flatly, performance. He had never asked; therefore, he would never know. He hadn’t imagined just how much worse that would make it for the years after. In his attempt at Life, he had made the leap, missed and fallen hard. The paralysis had yet to lift.

Bianca seemed to put two and two together on her own regarding the Gabby heartbreak. In turn, when it was his turn to be nosy, Declan didn’t ask about Natasha’s father. He still got more than he expected. Bianca told him she was a recovering alcoholic, sober for eight years since her last and only relapse. It was the kind of information that seemed to lift a veil on a person, adjusting their details and colors in an eyeblink. Without offering every detail herself, it became evident just how much of her life had needed to be built from scratch, and how much of it she had done entirely alone. For a long moment in that cafeteria, Declan had felt unworthy of her story. But Bianca, in all her modesty and softness and low-key approach to everything she said and did, was fiercely proud of it all.

Then she touched on her imminent departure from Viña and her voice raised an octave. She didn’t want to go, no. She had just gotten the job of a lifetime a year prior, how could she? She was going because Natasha had asked her to. Begged her to. Partly because she found it unthinkable to separate Karina and Julián from their grandmother, and Bianca had to agree. If there was a reason to not want to stay in Viña by herself, they were it, and it was only after carefully considering a scenario where she would have to watch her grandchildren grow up from afar that Bianca agreed to go. But Natasha’s loss of cool came in large part, Bianca knew, from Natasha’s husband, who had somehow convinced her that her mother would suffer another relapse if left alone. It had triggered a bitter argument with her daughter reigned in only by Bianca’s mastery at biting her tongue, made all the more suffocating by having both Felipe and Rodolfo arguing against her case. Maybe her son-in-law didn’t want to bother finding a full-time nanny. Maybe he just wanted his wife happy and working unencumbered. Maybe his fears were genuine, however idiotic. In any case, he and Natasha were getting what they wanted.

In the water, however, none of it seemed to matter much.

“I hate six o’clock, it’s when the cold starts,” Bianca said, holding onto the edge of the pool to rearrange her swimming cap. The sun had mostly disappeared on the horizon, although there was still daylight for another hour. “It makes me a little sad. Makes me think I should have come earlier.”

“There’s always tomorrow,” said Declan, doing a backstroke. “Although I don’t recommend it. Not after forty little kids have used it.”

“Oh, let them. They look forward to pool time all week.”

“I love that you don’t mind sharing.”

“I don’t,” she laughed.

The red in Declan’s chlorine-affected eyes somehow made the green in them shine brighter. He had a pleasant suntanned face, stuck in a semi-permanent superhero smile of big white teeth and a sharp chin covered in stubble. It hid so much so well, Bianca thought. He had stopped by the pool for a quick hello during her swim and she had suggested that he jump in, not really expecting him to want to. There was too much self-consciousness attached to having a pool companion and she initially counted this one as a “lost” afternoon in terms of relaxation. But as she heard him share enthusiastically about X, Y and Z and she became endeared to him all over again, she was reminded that there was a lot she had left unasked during their talk at the clinic. A lot she felt she could recommend. She wasn’t going to bring it up at the pool, but what she had noticed about Declan was that he had a lot to share, and that he needed to. He was only waiting to be asked.

Declan leapt out of the pool and sat on the edge, creating a big puddle.

“Is it cold out there?” Bianca asked.

“Hmm, I’ll wait three seconds and see.” He thrust a hairy chest outwards. “One, two, three. Oof. Very.”

“I really don’t want to get out,” she said dramatically, dipping herself back in up to her ears.

“I don’t either,” said Declan. “But I’m doing it in stages. I’ve wanted to go to the bathroom for an hour now. I’ve been holding it in just to stay warm.”

She laughed hard at that one as she spun around slowly, creating delicious watery murmurs with her elbows. Declan leaned back on his arms, his bent knee protruding outwards. They stayed silent for a moment.

“All that the twins talk about is Disneyworld,” Bianca said, joining Declan on the edge. She folded her arms on the stone and rested her face on them, as if taking a nap. Sun freckles covering her arms and shoulders from elbow to elbow. “I’m hoping they don’t panic on the plane. It’s their first time flying.”

“When is it you’re leaving?” he asked.

“Monday after next. Natasha, the twins and me.”

“Not her husband?”

“No. Just us four.” They would return to Viña only briefly before heading down to Santiago. The upcoming week was set to be the twins’ last in Tennis Camp.

“Ok, bathroom time,” Declan said, getting to his feet. “When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go.”

“Good!” said Bianca. “It’s not OK what you’re doing! Hurting your bladder.”

“By the way,” Declan began, throwing the towel around his neck, “how long are you staying in Viña after you come back from Orlando?”

“Not long. Two days, I think…”

“Then would you like to have dinner with me before you leave?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

“I’m thinking next Thursday? I assume Friday is a little heavy, it seems like a family night. And I have to do inventory.” He removed his swim cap and began drying off his short hair. “But I’ll wait for you to tell me what works best.”

“I think Thursday’s fine.”

“Perfect! And don’t worry, it’s my treat.”

………………………………………

On Wednesday evening, Bianca made pizza with the kids. They spent the night tripping over her boxes and brainstorming the toppings they’d use. After much insistence on their part, Bianca let them experiment with gummy bears and Froot Loops. They ate their slices that way and liked them, proving her wrong.

She had them until four o’clock on Thursday. She used the morning to take them shopping for clothes for the trip, as Natasha had asked. It was all conducted on autopilot, as her mind was elsewhere. She had been turning Declan’s invitation around in her head like a Tetris piece, testing the many ways in which it could fit. Having no one to discuss it with, she was stuck with her own conclusions.

Once enough t-shirts and shorts were bought and bagged, she stopped by Zara and got herself a loose denim shirt to wear that night. She would be matching it with dark jeans and a grey top. Plain colors for what she envisioned as a short evening. She got them lunch at the mall’s food court, dropped them off at Natasha’s afterwards and headed home to get ready.

She saw the evening ahead as a message that had to be sent gently, in doses. Declan had to have seen or heard enough to make him think she was open for invites, and she had to acknowledge her role in feeding that fire, however unintentionally. She hadn’t felt, at the pool, that he deserved a flat no. During the week, however, she strongly considered making an explanatory call. The alarmist thoughts piled up in her head to the point where she had to consciously kick them out. For the first few days. Then she decided to postpone all thinking and make it a Thursday problem.

Declan arrived at the restaurant at 6:30, half an hour ahead of the date, in dress shoes, pressed jeans and a navy blue shirt, worried about his chosen amount of cologne. If pressed, he would have told Bianca that he wasn’t expecting the world. He came from a habit of expressing interest without high stakes, like a kid making friends at the playground. No’s had stopped hurting some time around high school. But if he felt things moving his way, his strategy would be, simply, the truth. He would admit he could guess younger men might not be her thing – but he wanted more. To talk a little more, get to know her more before she left. He would say he wished he had asked earlier in the summer. The truth was, he liked her a good deal more than he planned to reveal. He wanted a chance to tell her she looked ike an amalgam of all the Italian movie bombshells from the 1960s. And that he hoped to be able to see more of her even after she moved to Santiago.

Come 7:00, Bianca still hadn’t arrived. 7:15 came and went and he thought nothing of it, killing time by playing Snake on his cellphone. By quarter to 8 he had broken his record, yet still no sign of Bianca. He had her home number, so he called once. No answer. He left at 8:15.

………………………………………

A rule-breaker Bianca was not. She had little trouble following them. In her experience, roles and lines that were set and drawn from the start needed no extra explanation – so watching someone plow right through them felt transgressive and left her puzzled, like watching a friend shoplift, then not knowing whether to stay in the store or tag along.

On Thursday afternoon, she arrived home from the mall ready to cancel on Declan, having made the decision in the car. She would make it up to him by buying him lunch at the club – an appropriate send-off for the young coach with the scarred past and the heart of gold. They would talk and she would get to dish out the life advice she had been sitting on.

Her phone started ringing just as she opened the front door, so she never got to make the call. It was Liliana from the supermarket. In anxious tones she told Bianca that the payroll system had crashed just as checks were being drawn… could she come help? Bianca gave an immediate Yes, as she had hoped to hear her help was wanted much earlier than this. Liliana asked if she was indeed free. Bianca said that she was.

She left her Fiat in a random spot in the parking lot, as her old one was now taken, and headed straight to the office on the second landing. Strangely, all the lights were off. A second later, they came back on just as a small crowd of employees startled her with a chorus of “¡Sorpresa!” Mari carried a cake with a goodbye message. Viviana hugged her from behind, Berta from the front. Saying hi to all the old faces kept Bianca busy and masked her urge to cry.

They were hours away from closing, but her old employees rotated themselves out so everyone could get a little cake and a goodbye hug. Even before leaving her apartment, Bianca tried calling Declan’s number several times, and she kept doing so at the party in between the laughs and chatter, but there was no answer. It occurred to her that she might have made a mistake in transferring the number from her hand, where Declan had written it, into her book. Nines that looked like fours, threes that looked like fives. The thought of standing someone up gave her serious anxiety that kept her from fully enjoying her sendoff. Then Berta came for a chat, and everything else took a backseat. The topics pinballed around fast – from the twins to Natasha to Santiago – and Bianca knew where it would land, because they’d had this conversation before. This time around, it all packed a different punch, even as it built up to the exact same question as last time: “Why? Why are you leaving?” At that point, the only honest answer was that she had already said she would.

She left the party with a smile on her face, but a feigned one, feeling as if she was tearing herself away from the place and that every new step towards the car ripped more and more of that invisible binding tissue. As she pulled out of her parking spot, she wondered how long it would be, once they all moved to Santiago, until a decision felt entirely her own again.

On Friday morning, she arrived with the twins to the club earlier than usual, hoping to talk to Declan before he got swimming day going. She found him right away by the pool with an armload of styrofoam noodles. He gave her the same old huge smile when he saw her, not a microsecond of delay. Bianca explained how things had played out on her end. Declan nodded along to the details. Then Bianca brought up lunch. Would he want to, after coaching? He answered that he had inventory to do and he usually worked right through lunch on Fridays to get it all done before six. She laid a genuinely apologetic hand on his shoulder. “Schedules just don’t match sometimes,” he said, she agreed, and they smiled at each other before heading back to their respective spots. It all happened very courteously.

Bianca didn’t swim that morning, despite wearing her bathing suit underneath. She walked to the club’s restaurant and, while the twins did their pool games with Declan, began writing him a letter. Just like the ones her aunt would write to her during those first few years as a single mother. Then again during rehab. Subconsciously, she even employed the same structure. Her personal impression of him, as flattering as she could make it. Bits of personal experience peppered throughout, in the context of his struggles. Finding spots to fit the terms “promising” and “potential”. It was all sincere, and surprisingly easy. She was done with it by noon.

She went back to the lounge chair area, currently loaded with parents, and waited for the swimming to be over. The letter in her hands, folded elegantly into its own envelope, excited her, as did any work that depended on the reaction and approval of the recipient. She hoped strongly, as she watched Declan merrily direct a Waterpolo game, that she had said the right things, even through the condescension. That her words did him good.

As usual, the swarm of wet kids chaotically invaded the lounge chairs the second they were dismissed. Karina and Julián stayed in the water with friends while Declan came up to the stands to have a word with a parent. As soon as he was free, Bianca beckoned him closer.

“Hi,” he said, happily soaked, his towel around his neck.

“Hi,” she said, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. “A good lesson?”

“A really good one. They made me work out for real. I’m sorry, am I dripping on you?”

“Oh, you’re fine. The kids are gonna splash all over me when they come anyway.”

“They were really great today,” he said, drying his face. “Did you see Karina, finally playing with everyone? I’m really gonna miss them.”

“You’ve been incredible with them, I guarantee it’s reciprocal.” She got to her feet, her heart beating fast. “I wanted to apologize again for yesterday. And to give you this.”

She extended him the letter. Declan did a strange thing. Smiling widely still, he kept his eyes on her face, never looking down at the letter. His head tilted sideways, as if studying her. Strong flirting vibes. She laughed at that.

“A little goodbye message,” she added, explanatorily. “Declan, I think you have enormous potential. And you’re going to find success, whether it’s…”

He held her hand with cold wet fingers and gently pushed the letter back towards her.

“I really want to read that,” he said firmly. She hadn’t heard that from him before. “I really want to. But I’m going to the storage room now. I would like to read it there.”

She smiled at what she thought was a joke.

“I’m going to the storage room,” he repeated seriously. “And I want you to give it to me there.”

Bianca stood on the spot for a long moment after he walked away. Karina and Julián snapped her out of her trance. They came over with another set of siblings their age, Daniel and Soraya, begging to be allowed to have lunch with them. Rebeca, their mom, joined in on the begging. She and Bianca had had good talks on the stands and Bianca vaguely remembered them talking about doing lunch together some time.

It was on the doorstep of the restaurant that Bianca stopped on her tracks. She had suddenly remembered, she told Rebeca, that she had to discuss the reimbursement for a deposit with Front Desk. The twins won’t be partaking in next week’s barbecue, you see, because we’re leaving for the States on Monday. No trouble at all, Rebeca said, I’ll eat with all the littles and you’ll join us when you’re done. Bianca asked once, twice, three times if she was sure, then thanked her profusely.