advice hilarious,” he smiles. “I hope so.”
Alba catches her father’s eye and this time she doesn’t blink or glance away. They look at each other, two pairs of matching blue eyes, for a long time. And as they do, something deep inside Alba, some torn little piece of her, heals.
—
Carmen stumbles down the stairs, heading for the bathrooms and hoping she makes it in time. It’s been a really busy shift at the bar and she hasn’t had a chance until now. All night she’s been avoiding Blake, who’s been trying to catch her attention, and sneaking sips of vodka to give herself courage. When she reaches the last step she stops to steady herself against the wall. The door to the Men’s opens and Blake walks out. He sees her and grins. “Hey, sugar.”
“Ola.” Carmen swallows a sigh.
Blake moves toward her. “You look especially stunning tonight.”
“No.” Carmen steps back against the wall. But it’s too late; before she can say anything else he’s pressing up against her, his lips on her neck.
When Greer opens the door at the top of the stairs, she doesn’t immediately realize whom she’s looking at. She’d popped into the bar to surprise Blake, to take him out to dinner and sit him down for a proper talk about their future. And then, she sees Blake’s face buried in Carmen’s black hair. Greer screams.
For a moment Blake’s paralyzed, then he springs away from Carmen and starts to sprint up the stairs. Greer turns, pushing through the small crowd that has collected, and disappears. Carmen gazes after them before she suddenly understands what’s happening. Huge brown eyes wide with fury, she shouts after him. “Foda! Foda! Tu mais que foda estas a fazer? Tu e a Greer, e ele esta apaixonada por ti? Mais que foda que fizes-te?!”
Blake runs through the bar after Greer. He finds her slumped against the wall outside, staring at the pavement. Blake hurries to her.
“Fuck you.” Greer looks up. “And fuck off.”
“She didn’t know,” Blake says. “So you shouldn’t hate her, only me.”
“Oh, I will,” Greer snaps, “don’t worry about that. Now fuck off.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. And he’s shocked to discover he actually means it. Seeing her here like this, on a public pavement with her heart exposed again, makes Blake wish he were a different man, one capable of taking care of someone other than himself. But he isn’t. So the kindest thing he can do now, after all his cruelty, is remove himself from her sight and her life.
“I’m sorry.”
After he’s gone Greer sits for a long time. She rests her head on her knees and weeps— not because she loved Blake and not because she’s lost him. But because she didn’t take care of herself. She knew Blake’s nature the moment she met him, just as she knew the philandering fiancé. She knew them and she knew herself. Greer thinks of the story of the scorpion and the frog, and she knows that she cannot blame these men for her messy life; they only did what she always knew they would do. No, this is not about crushed hopes and broken dreams. This is about trusting her own heart. Hope doesn’t even enter into it.
—
Two days after their café meeting, Alba and Albert meet again at the Fitzwilliam Museum. For the last two nights Elizabeth hasn’t visited her daughter’s dreams, and Alba, feeling a little guilty that she hasn’t yet passed on her mother’s message, hasn’t slept much anyway. Now they’re at the Vermeer exhibition, squeezing between the crowds. Alba is babbling incoherently about Dutch painters and Albert is trying to make sense of what she’s saying while also wondering what’s wrong with her.
When they’re standing in front of Girl with a Pearl Earring, Alba, quoting passages from the book with the same title, starts fiddling with her frayed sleeves and chewing the ends of her fingernails. When he notices her missing her fingers and biting the air instead, he has to ask.
“Are you all right?”
She studies the painting. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
Alba nods. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” She wanders over to The Milkmaid and feigns absorption in it too. An hour later, in front of The Music Lesson, Alba turns to face her father.
“Okay. I have to tell you something.” Conscious of the crowds, she whispers. “It’s going to sound a little strange, you might not believe me, but—”
“If you tell me,” he says, “I’ll believe you.”
“I had a dream about my mother,” Alba says. “That’s to