Queens of All the Earth (6 page)

Around the central clot of fans, the rest of Plaça Catalunya was crowded as well, a more mobile crowd, and Olivia tried to skirt the worst of it, getting jostled even more violently when she tried to break from the current. Frustratingly, the backs of her shoes were stepped on, twice. When she saw open space toward the fountain in the center of Plaça Catalunya, she elbowed her way toward it.

She was nearly out when a hand on her shoulder stopped her, and she turned around. A grinning, unfamiliar face stared into hers. “Sorry, wrong person,” the man said, almost inaudibly, in a thick Scottish accent. Olivia shrugged nervously, and while her head was turned, her bags were ripped out of her hand—her souvenir bags complete with postcards and booklet and the mask she had bought with music on it. She was so squeezed and
tumbled by the crowd she couldn’t turn back to glimpse who had her things, and when she shouted, no one paid any attention to another noisy carouser in the crowd. Two footballers who saw her grinned, thinking it was some kind of joke.

Holding her purse to her breast (and feeling, with relief, her wallet still secure in the hidden zippered pocket inside, and her book), Olivia tried to elbow her way out of the crowd, tripping and stomping on her own share of innocent bystanders, finding that no matter where she spun, she seemed to be pointing directly toward the center of the fray. She saw an empty space ahead, like the eye of a storm, and made an open break for it.

Just as suddenly, she stopped. The clearing was formed by a circle of people standing on the pavement around a man with a bloody grin, a crimson pool around his head. Several people on their knees pushed him back down every time he tried to get up, laughing, though Olivia had no idea what was so funny. A crew of medics cracked through the storm of people with a stretcher to whisk away the drunk.

For a moment, the circle of people opened and the man on the ground looked directly at Olivia. His front tooth was missing.

Mesmerized and disgusted, she felt the same claustrophobic dread creep over her she thought she’d banished that day in August she’d finally clawed her way out of the chasm of her mind. She felt the paralysis creeping up her legs.

But then a voice by her side broke through and, like a summer mist, dispelled the anxiety.

“He’ll be okay. The guy’s really sorry for hitting him. I heard him,” said Greg Brown. “Come on, we can get out this way.”

She felt his hand around her shoulder. From the spot where he touched her spread a warmth that thawed her immobility, and when they were far enough away that the circle closed again and the bloody man was out of sight, it spread to a weak, relieved smile. She saw that he too was relieved.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

“Same way as you. Unless you swam or flew.”

Olivia smiled, and from the tautness of her face, she realized that a few tears had rolled down her cheek a few moments earlier. Sometimes she felt like a sink on the verge of overflowing. She tried to pretend to yawn so she could cover her face and wipe the tears away, but it turned into a real yawn. Greg laughed a little.

“Wanna go back?” he asked her.

“No, actually,” Olivia said, surprising herself. “Not anymore. Miranda’s going to give me an earful, so I might as well put it off as long as I can.”

“Let’s get a snack, then.”

“Where’s your dad?”

“He went back ahead of me,” said Greg. “I wanted to stay out.”

“The day is almost over.”

“Only the afternoon.”

“I like the sun here,” said Olivia.

“Sit down and I’ll get us some coffee.”

Olivia sat on the edge of the fountain. An old woman and an adolescent walked by. After a few minutes, Greg came back with coffee and pretzels from a touristy stall in the corner of the square. He gave one of each to Olivia, his hand touching hers casually.

“Spanish pretzels?” she asked.

“I guess.”

“Whatever.”

In the late afternoon light, Greg Brown looked happy, and that looked good on him. Olivia looked away quickly.

They ate quietly. Olivia looked at her hands, the food, the inside of the coffee cup, the ground under her feet. When she was done, she looked at the crumpled napkin in her hand, and then she looked up. She wanted to ask him what was wrong.

“Someone took my stuff,” she said with a sigh.

“What?”

“I was in the crowd and someone grabbed my bags right out of my hands,” Olivia said.

“What did you have?”

“Some stuff I bought. Some postcards. And a mask.”

“A mask? Why’d you buy a mask?”

“It was pretty.”

“Oh,” said Greg. “That’s too bad.”

“I really liked the mask,” Olivia said.

“Well, it’s gone now,” he said, standing. “So just let it go.” He stood awkwardly for a few beats. “Anyway, I found you,” he said finally. He offered her his hand. She stood without grabbing it.

The singing in the square had continued all that time, but it didn’t grate on Olivia anymore. Instead, she let it wash over her, like the afternoon light, as the crowd moved and blurred. She and Greg walked slowly, but she felt as if she was walking in place, and the scene was slowly revolving toward her. Their rhythm was gentle and gradual, and Olivia noticed, looking down, that her feet had fallen into step with Greg’s, unless his had adjusted to hers first.

They stopped at a crossing and waited for the light.

Olivia stared at the building opposite, geometric and mesmerizing, until she became self-aware again. Something warm pricked on her neck. She looked up at Greg. Greg was looking at her.

The light changed, but Olivia couldn’t move. She didn’t want to move. Greg met her gaze steadily, with warmth, like the warmth she felt on her neck—not unpleasant, but new. She wanted to ask him why he had been there. She wanted to ask him why he had smiled and walked toward her, when earlier he had seen her and strode away.

The green man disappeared from the pedestrian light, Greg snatched
her hand, and they ran clean across just as the next wave of cars began to move.

I
t was Miranda who had been more thoroughly lost that day. She had had no bells to guide her.

That morning, she and Lenny had dashed into the Plaça del Rei just in time to attach themselves to the rear end of the Gothic Quarter walking tour—at least they thought it was the Gothic Quarter walking tour, until twenty minutes and many winding alleys later, the group descended into a sandwich bar, and they realized it was just a large family party with a vociferous and well-researched matriarch. Lenny laughed.

“That was fucking brilliant!” she screamed to Miranda. “I can’t believe we just did that!”

“Now I have to go back and check everything in my guidebook,” Miranda said. “What if what she said wasn’t right? Let’s just go back and catch the next real tour.”

“Don’t worry, I know everything,” Lenny said. “We’ll just wander around here, where the Jensons dropped us—hey, Paolo!”

Lenny promptly left Miranda to join a man leaning against a wall down the way. Miranda kept her distance at first, but eventually she strode briskly to join Lenny when it became obvious her companion had
no idea she was fuming.

She might as well have waited. Lenny and Paolo were talking in Catalan, a regional language slightly different from Spanish, and despite a quick nod to acknowledge Miranda’s arrival, Lenny didn’t switch to English or make any attempt to involve Miranda in the conversation. Even Paolo seemed slightly uncomfortable, darting quick curious looks at Lenny’s unintroduced friend.

Lenny spoke with the speed of fluency, but with an unapologetically bold Anglicized accent. Paolo’s answers were, to Miranda’s ears, brief and gruff. His eyes sparkled a little, slyly, as if with amusement, but he made no move to invite the ladies somewhere more comfortable than the slightly garbage-smelling alley.

After about ten minutes, the conversation ended, Lenny slapping Paolo on the rear in a gesture that made both Miranda and Paolo visibly uncomfortable. The women walked away, Lenny taking the lead; behind them, a shuffle and a snap signaled Paolo lighting a cigarette.

“That was my buddy Paolo,” said Lenny. “He owns a bar just around the corner. Met him on my last visit here. Pure Barcelona, all the way back to medieval fishermen. But I’m glad I know where we are now, ’cause now I know where we have to go to get lost.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Miranda said, and when Lenny didn’t reply, she optimistically believed she
was
kidding, until, sixteen blocks later, they were well and undeniably lost.

“I love this city,” Lenny said as they strode along. Lenny was a strong walker and Miranda had to jog to keep up. “It’s so real. The locals here are so laid-back. Not as tight-assed as the French, way sexier than the English, bathe more than the Italians. If I could bring myself to settle in any one place, it would be Barcelona. Or Tibet.”

Miranda believed that any place not filled with tourists must be even more dangerous than the places filled with tourists. Miranda did not like
danger. The belt-bag and sweater-tied crowds thinned, and at length they found themselves in a grim alley of boarded-up shops, two bars, and a dumpster. Instead of being surrounded by blushing stone, it was gritty brick and concrete. Miranda protested that they were now in the part of the city where Spanish people actually lived.

“Great. Check it out—this is where they go to work, go to school, buy their groceries. I love finding the real city. And I bet there isn’t another American for blocks. I hate traveling Americans. They’re so fucking loud all the time.” Lenny turned to Miranda and noticed a hurt look on her face. “I know. It gets to you, too. But you’re better than that—you’re from Virginia. You understand history.”

“Maybe we should look for a Metro station,” Miranda said.

“No, I wanna make a few friends. Look at that sandwich bar there. Cute. They have a neon sign.”

“I don’t speak Spanish,” Miranda said. “Well, I mean, I did, a little, once, but I let it go.”

“Well, I’m going if you’re not.”

Miranda was not, though Lenny didn’t wait long to find out. Instead, Miranda at last whipped out her map without shame, found the closest main street, and then the nearest Metro station. Six stops later, she emerged from the Plaça Catalunya Metro.

Outside, in the plaza, a seething crowd was growing, and Miranda walked briskly past it and up the street, slipped into the hostel, and felt, for the first time that day, that her money or virtue wasn’t about to be snatched by the dirty, desperate men who inhabit every darkened doorframe in every large city outside Virginia.

She was slightly relieved to find that her sister wasn’t waiting, or watching. She would have to make sure Olivia never went out with Lenny alone.

Retiring to their private room for the first time, Miranda was taken
aback to find, pinned to the wall, a thin sheet of notebook paper. On it was written only a question mark.
It had to have been left by that mopey-looking son of Mr. Brown, Greg. Who else had been in the room and could have left it?
Miranda couldn’t imagine Hugo doing something so strange it would frighten customers, and for the same reason she didn’t suspect the blond girl.

It had to be Greg. He probably thought he was some kind of tortured soul. He probably had a tattoo, or some weird piercing she couldn’t see.

Miranda was overtaken by her protective instinct once again. A month ago, Olivia had found an old toy buried in the backyard and wouldn’t talk to anyone for a week. What if Greg had left more question marks hidden in their room? What if Olivia discovered one, and found it so strange and unexpected that it set her off again?

Irritated, Miranda rushed toward the paper and tore it down, crumpled it, and let it drop from her hands to the floor. How much weirder could Greg Brown get—or his dad, for that matter? She couldn’t believe she was staying in
their
old room.

Miranda left the room, telling herself she simply wanted to browse the pamphlets and bulletin board in the common area. After glancing over the material there, she settled on a couch to look at her own guidebook. As she leafed through it, a short, bright-looking man clambered in the door with a cheerful nod to Hugo. He looked like he could be in his late twenties, and was dressed with a warm practicality and unobtrusive hints of fashion. Miranda approved. What she noticed particularly was his scarf—plaid, knotted around his neck—even though he didn’t wear a jacket.

He spotted her, leaned forward, squinted, and came toward her.

“Are you Olivia’s sister?” he said. “Your faces have the same shape.”

“Yes. I’m Miranda.”

“Marc. I met Olivia this morning. She’s very sweet.” He sat down
beside her and slipped out of his bag’s strap.

“Oh,” said Miranda. She was taken aback slightly. “She’s the sweetest girl in the world.”

“You sound like her mom.”

“There’s an age difference.”

“Oh, well,” Marc said. “So you’re from Virginia, I hear.”

“That’s true.”

“I come from Lima.” He ended with a tight smile.

Miranda nodded and tried to figure out what could give this person such an air of being interesting before he managed to say anything interesting about himself.

“So. What do you do there?” she asked.

“I’m preparing to take religious orders,” he said.

“Oh,” she squeaked, drawing it out longer than she’d intended. That
was
interesting. Priests interested her, especially young ones—she couldn’t figure out why. It was something old-fashioned, or comforting, non-threatening. But conversationally, she remained at a loss.

“Do you know the Browns?” she asked.

“The Browns? Everyone wants to know about the Browns today. Your sister already asked.”

Miranda was not happy about that. Why would Olivia be interested in the Browns? She didn’t want Olivia to be interested in anyone who forced them to change rooms in the morning or left creepy question marks all over like a weird emo calling card.

“What do you know about them?” she asked.