Heartbreak for Dinner: It's Kind of a Long Story (7 page)

Once her theatrics were over, I convinced her to go to a nightclub
down the street called
Cameo
for some major stress release in the form of
booty shaking. Olivia was determined to forget about Bar Boy, so she kept buying
shot after shot for us. After a while, I couldn’t feel my feet or my face, but I
kept on dancing anyway.

Sometime around 1:00 a.m., my friend Penelope joined us, taking
it upon herself to give Olivia shots of vodka, which were actually chilled water.
I vaguely recall walking around the huge nightclub and bumping into a tall guy.
He grabbed my hand and asked me my name. I think it took me a full minute before
I responded, “Annah?”

“Annah,” he said almost to himself. “I’m Paolo. What happened to your
face?”

“I was in a bar brawl last night.”

He laughed at this. “So you’re a fighter, eh?”

“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly. “I fight walls.”

Paolo immediately gave me a strange look but grabbed my hand anyway
and led me to a table, where he drank vodka and I sipped water as I tried sobering
up to no avail. One hour later, I was on my way to attempt my very first (and last)
one night stand with Paolo, wine connoisseur and really cute Brazilian with honest
gray eyes. I don’t remember much except Penelope taking Paolo’s wallet and telling
him she’d give it back after he returned me to her the following morning. The rest
is a little fuzzy but I’m assured I didn’t say or do anything stupid. On the way
to his place, I dozed off in his car (a BMW, ironically) and woke up to a partially
dressed Paolo sleeping beside me the next morning.

On a positive note, Paolo lived in a beautiful apartment fit
for a man, no rumpled underwear on the floor or dirty dishes anywhere, thank-you-very-much.
On a negative one, I didn’t remember much of my walk on the wild side. The multiple
Trojan wrappers told me we’d been responsible adults, but the rest is a bit of a
mystery to this very day. I quietly grabbed my shoes after dressing and tip-toed
out the door, leaving a sleeping Paolo along with my shame behind forever. Olivia
and Penelope picked me up a half hour later as I sat on a sidewalk bench, looking
like a beat up prostitute in my dress and deformed face as their car pulled up.

“I’ll give you two dollars for your services,” Olivia yelled from
the car.

“Does that include brunch?” I laughed and grabbed my purse.

“Yes it does,” she whistled, “and a couple of mimosas too if you behave,
hooker.”

Update: People sometimes request proof of my face on the night
I lost my dignity along with some of my innocence. It seems these are the only pictures
that remain undeleted from that awful night and this makes me very happy. I zoomed
in as much as possible but you can’t really see my wounds that well, which of course
is a testament to the power of great foundation.

Good job, Estee Lauder. Good job.

We’d just entered La Kapital in its massive entirety
and I caught myself wondering if they had Taco Bell in Spain, the hopes of inhaling
a burrito somewhere around six in the morning clearly alive in the depths of my
tired brain. Olivia was furiously asking a bouncer something in Spanish as I looked
around and dejectedly surveyed the space. From what I could tell, asking the concierge
of an expensive hotel for nightlife suggestions in Madrid was like asking a Russian
to make you a margarita on Cinco de Mayo.

“Come,” Olivia grabbed my hand and led me toward the elevators. A
few people were already gathered there waiting impatiently, three girls to my left
laughing wildly about some pour soul I assumed wasn’t around.

“Holy-shit-look-at-this-kid-in-front-of-us,” Olivia gushed. “He is
sexy with a capital S.”

I looked up to find James Dean three feet from me to my right and
almost fainted. No doubt he was good looking in a rugged sort of way, his body up
against the wall and a brooding expression darkening his features as he stood there
facing up with his hands in his pockets. Something about the way he waited, so indifferent
to his surroundings it almost erred on boredom, made me feel like we’d known each
other from another life. “Sure,” I shrugged my bare shoulders and gave Olivia a
half smile. “He is sexy. But maybe a little too much, which clearly means he’s an
asshole.”

“Totally,” my friend agreed and started pressing the elevator button
again impatiently.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him fix his stare on me as he stood
up straight, a look of amused outrage on his face. “You know,” he said to me in
an unmistakable Southern accent as he bore holes through my soul with his blue eyes.
“I’ve been called a lot of things to my face but never an asshole by a complete
stranger.”

I cringed as Olivia immediately tripped over her apologies, explaining
we thought he was Spanish and couldn’t understand us. “We’ll buy you a drink upstairs,”
she continued and introduced herself, kissing him on the cheek twice in the customary
manner of Europe. James Dean turned to me and moved forward for a kiss but I extended
my hand. “Annah,” I offered while doing my best to feign apathy.

“I’m Jonah,” he gripped my hand firmly. “It’s good to meet you.”

I pulled my hand away slowly and involuntarily rolled my eyes. “It
can’t possibly be any good considering the circumstances, can it?”

He cocked his head and smirked, but before he could respond the elevator
doors opened and he gestured me inside.

In spite of my best efforts to sometimes blend in, we
Cubans are infamous for doing exactly the opposite in the most unabashed of manners.

Regular people:

Cuban people:

Sometimes it’s embarrassing to have to explain why prostitution
is five dollars or communism still reigns supreme in my mother land. Other times,
I have to warn my American friends of the entire pig we’ve fried and will place
on the dinner table with an apple in its mouth, hoping they don’t faint from disgust.
Mostly though, being from Cuba is like finding a 20-dollar bill inside the pocket
of jeans you haven’t worn in three months right before lunch. Also, being really
good in the kitchen/dance floor/bedroom never hurt anyone.

One obscure fact that’s often overlooked most about Cubans is our
ability to come up with incoherent sayings, which instantly become hit phrases among
our people and spread like wildfire. The following are my favorites with their literal
translation and actual meaning:

Saying:   
Cuando el mal es de cagar, no valen
guayabas verdes.

Translation:   
When you have to take a shit, green
guavas won’t save you.

Meaning:   
If something bad is meant to happen,
nothing can stop it.

Saying:   
Me importa tres pepinos.

Translation:   
I care three cucumbers.

Meaning:   
I don’t care at all.

Saying:   
Me sacaron el higado.

Translation:   
They took my liver out.

Meaning:   
They worked me like a slave.

Saying:   
Te la comiste!

Translation:   
You ate it!

Meaning:   
You did a kick-ass job, buddy.

Saying:  
 Eramos poco y pario la abuela.

Translation:   
We were few and then the grandmother
gave birth.

Meaning:   
There were a lot of people there, then
more people showed up.

Saying:   
Tremendo arroz con mango!

Translation:   
Tremendous rice with mango!

Meaning:   
It’s a very complicated situation!

Saying:           
Camina con los codos.

Translation:   
He/she walks with the elbows.

Meaning:   
He/she is a cheap ass.

My favorite Cuban saying has always been,
un clavo saca a
otro
. The literal translation to this phrase is,
one nail takes out the other
,
but really means in order to forget about someone you love, you must find someone
new to love (or at least screw). In an effort to release the memory of a nail I’d
recently encountered in Spain out of my system, I set my sights on a new shiny one
called Adam. As you might deduce, it isn’t the easiest of ventures to take something
out that’s been drilled so deep within you it hurts, but I tried until I bled. Literally.

Adam and I met through a friend at a holiday party I didn’t want to
attend in the first place. Not one to mope, I’d already decided to spend my holidays
bundled up on the couch with my decrepit one-eyed dog, Paco. Seeing my parents had
gone off to Cuba for the holidays, I had come to terms with my Christmas consisting
of a sea of microwaveable pizza and replays of
Love Actually,
when my friend
Vera called to invite me to this shindig. “There’ll be cute guys there, Annie,”
she insisted after my initial decline, “and those vanilla cream puffs you love so
much.”

Damn. I did like those cream puffs.

Three hours later, there I was in a gold dress with my party hat on.
No dead pigs or hookers in sight, seeing as these people were from Ecuador. Vera
was huddled in a corner with a dark stranger I’d never seen, so I was fresh out
of people to talk to, when I made my way over to the buffet and bee-lined my ass
to those cream puffs. Ten minutes later, Vera had introduced me to Adam and I was
thrilled to have left my couch and pajamas behind as I took in his tall frame and
broad shoulders for the very first time.

There’s something to be said about the effects of alcohol on conversations
that might’ve otherwise never begun. Maybe that’s why it’s called the social lubricant.
Or maybe we’re just not as social as car and toothpaste commercials would have us
believe. The point is, my usual awkwardness laced with liquor had me hitting it
off with Adam sooner than you could say
Cheers!
at an Irish pub. With brown
eyes that I’m certain brought many a girl to her knees and charm for days, I found
this nail to be precisely what I needed.

Not yet jaded by years of romantic disappointments and a firm believer
in love conquering all (fuck you, Ivanhoe*), I somehow thought Adam could permanently
remove the memory of Jonah and Madrid from my being. We went on three dates after
meeting, the third being a New Year’s bash we attended at the very same home in
which we first met. That night, I was determined to give Adam a New Year’s he’d
remember (of course by that I mean I’d kiss him passionately at midnight, you pervert).
As you can deduce, I really wanted to like this guy, and it is a well-known fact
that when a girl really likes someone, the cookie jar remains shut longer than usual.**

*Ivanhoe (or Ivanwhore, as I prefer to call it) is a historical
novel written by Sir Walter Scott published in the 1820s. In short, the main character
falls in love with two women, Lady Rowena and Lady Rebecca, and spends the remainder
of the book trying to choose who he wants to be with, while also engaging in sword
battles with other men and shit. The main message that I remember my professor trying
to convey about this book is whether true love does, indeed, conquer all. I recall
being confused because if you truly love someone you shouldn’t be in love with someone
else, right? Oh, to be young and innocent. You should read it one of these days
if you’re into that sort of stuff, then come back and tell me your thoughts on the
conquers of love and men falling in love with multiple women at once. Assholes.

**My apologies to those guys that slept with a girl on the first date
and labeled her a slut. She wasn’t a slut. She just didn’t like you enough to wait.
Also, she really wanted to get laid. It happens.

In true Cuban fashion, Adam and I got to the party late at a
little past 10:00 p.m. We headed straight to the bar for some of that social lubrication
I mentioned earlier and succeeded in being more than tipsy before 2006 arrived.
I felt the sudden urge to “break the seal” right before everyone gathered around
the television to watch the ball drop and headed to the bathroom, relieving myself
for the required minute of liquid dehydration it entails. Upon wiping, it became
evident my monthly companion had dropped by earlier than expected, sending me on
a wild goose chase for a tampon. I spotted Vera by the bar and pleaded for her rescue.

“I don’t wear tampons, babe,” she shrugged while distractedly making
a martini. “I could give you a pad. It’s the thin types with the wings.”

“That won’t work,” I sighed.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not wearing any underwear,” I confessed, “and you kind
of need those to attach the wings of a pad to.”

She gave me a
You’re-a-prostitute-for-not-wearing-underwear-so-you’re-shit-outta-luck
look and walked over to the TV with her martini, leaving me in a state of frantic
desperation to fend for myself. I looked around for a familiar face but only saw
Adam in the crowd talking to a fake-breasted redhead dripping in a sequined atrocity.
In my current state of agony, I returned to the bathroom and neatly built myself
a temporary solution made of folded toilet paper. After placing a third of a toilet
roll between my lady bits, I rushed back to the festivities, only to find the countdown
over and 2006 already in full swing.

I halfway expected to find my date embraced by Sequins in a lip lock
somewhere, but instead caught sight of him looking indifferent on the couch with
a full glass of cider in hand. It was at that moment I felt he deserved a little
more than midnight kisses and made my way to his lips for a furious preview of what
was coming much later.

After what I’d declare the most successful of New Year’s parties
ever, a few of us went to Vera’s house for more alcohol and reruns of the ball drop.
Vera’s parents didn’t mind the debauchery as long as we kept quiet and no one had
sex on their furniture. I can’t say for certain when we all fell asleep, but at
nine the next morning I woke up next to Vera with a vague recollection of the previous
night’s shenanigans. I noticed I was wearing underwear and a long t-shirt as Vera’s
tiny dog whimpered miserably at my feet.

Sidenote: This is an accurate portrait of Vera’s dog, Teeko
(RIP).

I ventured out of the room to the most obvious place a person
will go when they are suffering from insomnia and starvation. Once in the kitchen,
I was surprised to find the most delightful of spreads on the counter all for my
taking.

Teeko and I were in the process of eating our third cupcake
when Adam walked into the kitchen with a sleepy smile on his face. “What exactly
is happening here?” he petted the dog and grabbed my waist, giving me a kiss on
the cheek.

“It’s cupcake and mimosa time,” I said. “Obviously.”

“It’s like nine thirty in the morning, Annah.”

“Yes. But it’s New Year’s Day and as such,” I kindly pointed out.
“Everyone gets a free drink-all-day-without-going-to-jail card.”

He stood there momentarily with a perplexed look in his eyes, then
asked me to make him a drink. “If anyone comes out, I’ll say it belongs to you.”

We walked to the living room with mimosas and cupcakes, plopping on
the couch for some TV and cuddling while covering ourselves with a throw we found
on the loveseat. I’d just turned on the cable to order a show when Teeko came running
and jumped up on my lap, a dirty napkin of some sort in his mouth. I tried to grab
it but he growled at me and ran off, playing a little game of hide-and-seek with
Adam and me. I sipped my champagne and watched Teeko toss the paper high up then
catch it in the air while Adam, much to my annoyance, seemed rather amused.