Restwincs
I dutifully page through guidebook photos of white towns, Moorish vaults, fortresses and vineyards, but I find myself thinking that tourism might be just another way of fleeing time. I read up on the local art of flamenco-that dance of passionate restraint. But Seville is the city of Don Juan as well, restraint's apotheosis, dragged for his sins and excesses into hell. There's a lesson here. I remind myself that the land of the Alhambra is also the home of Don Quixote, Prince of Fools. In spite of the handbook's glossy fakeries, I'm feeling the nip of travel again, that fist-clenching, sensory excitement. My partner can only afford two weeks off work, but I'm ravenous for more. Hill towns. Mountains. Cliff-lined coasts. Places away from tour guides and itineraries. I find a Benedictine convent in Lebrija that takes single women guests for six dollars a night. It could be a perfect place for me just now. My finger lands on the calendar's May first, Day of Misrule. "How about I go to Spain a few weeks early and you join me there?" He's barely listening, wedded to his laptop, mesmerized by its blue glow. He has deadlines bearing down on him and has begun bringing work home evenings. "Maybe. Can we talk about it this weekend?" I envision so clearly the convent yard, the sunny town square just outside the gates, a fountain burbling in languid noon heat. Me crossing the plaza gracefully in a sheer, strapless dress and heels. 0 Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners. Why is it a man in black I see leaning against a wall, looking up at me from under the brim of a sombrero? I reach over and play my fingers over the back of my lover's hand, competing with the keyboard. "How about I go upstairs. And you join me there?" "In a bit. I have some elevations to finish." I refrain from the obvious double entendre and head up to bed. By the time he comes up it's past midnight and I'm asleep, dreaming of white porticoes and windmills. I surface just long enough to hear him hit the pillow, my loyal Sancho, and begin to snore. THERE'S NO PHONE call, but as Nadja guessed, an e-mail arrives from the
novelist, asking me out for a drink. He says something clever about writing and hunting, something obliquely flirtatious with a Latin inflection. I'm not sure how to respond, either to the witticism or the invitation. I sit for a long time doodling with the keyboard, staring at the screen. What do I imagine might happen? I certainly don't want to get involved with this man. For a moment it occurs to me that I don't even really want to have sex with him. What I'd really like is for him to read to me in Spanish, naked, his black hair draped like a mane, while I sip on an enticing, full-bodied Rioja and smoke a cigarette right down to my Summer 2005
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