Later that evening, Carla smiled when she found the kind-of-shiny orange cheese she loved in the fridge. She changed into a casual black sleeveless dress and sat down on her bed to eat it. A badly sung version of “Sweet Caroline” blasted out from downstairs so loudly her windowpane rattled. There was lots of raucous laughter and shouting and she imagined Babs and Fran singing cheek to cheek.
Carla lay on her front, sucking the end of her pen as she looked through her travel journal once more. She had just two weeks overseas to find the man who was allegedly supposed to hold the key to her happiness, which meant she’d only get to spend a few days in each place.
She scanned all the mementos she’d pasted in her journal, and a business card hung at an angle, as if asking to be seen. Although she didn’t believe in such omens, Carla reluctantly peeled it away from the page anyway, examining the faded writing.
“Okay, then, you first,” she said aloud.
Tomorrow she’d try to find Pedro the hairdresser. Aka Mr. Passionate.
Ten
Spider
Carla fell asleep to the sound of a woman downstairs murdering an Adele song. When she woke the next morning, it was nine thirty and her bedroom seemed suspiciously quiet.
She stared up at a stain on the ceiling. It felt lonely waking up in a single bed without Tom, and she began to wish she’d gone to America instead. The quicker she could trace, meet and discount the men from her past, the sooner she could return home to choose blankets for her wedding reception.
She hoped Tom’s hotel wasn’t very glamorous, either. A beige hotel bedroom with brown carpets and a hairdryer bolted to the bathroom wall might make him regret leaving her behind. She hadn’t yet told him all her reasons for coming to Spain and wasn’t sure how much to disclose.
Carla heard the toilet flushing and heavy footsteps on the landing. While she was waiting for the building to fall quiet again, she took the tarot cards out from under her pillow and opened the box. Six of them had yellow sticky notes attached and she separated them out—The King of Cups, The Magician, The Knight of Wands, The Hierophant, Death and The Lovers. If she remembered correctly, they were the ones Myrtle had used in her reading.
Carla liked the illustration of The Knight of Wands the most. A handsome man rode a horse while brandishing a stick. Trying to recall the fortune teller’s words, she thought the card might represent someone bold, passionate and charismatic. Could it possibly relate to Pedro? She shook her head at her own gullibility and tossed the cards back onto her bedside table.
Traveling had left her feeling tired and her skin dehydrated, so Carla cleaned her teeth, showered quickly and smeared moisturizer with a high SPF over her face. When she exited the bathroom, she almost collided with Fran on the landing. He wore a very small towel around his waist and nothing else, not leaving much to the imagination. She tried not to stare at the large wolf tattoo spanning his torso.
“Oops, apologies.” He grinned, not looking sorry at all. “If you’re looking for Babs, she doesn’t get up until noon.”
Carla shifted her eyes and mumbled “Thanks” as she hurried toward the kitchen.
Babs had left a note propped against the toaster. Help yourself to anything in the cupboard. There might be some tea bags if you’re lucky. Next to it was a timetable for buses to Barcelona.
Carla folded it up and pushed it into her pocket. She placed the list of Logical Love questions in her handbag and, not wanting to risk seeing Fran half-naked again, she decided to grab some food in the city.
There was a bus stop at the bottom of a hill, a few hundred yards away from Babs’s Place, and Carla stood there waiting, watching as Blanca del Mar sprang to life. Waiters bustled around the cafés, sporting black shorts and white shirts as they served up coffee and pastries. Crockery clinked and chatter hummed. The air was already hot and hazy, and she sported her sleeveless black dress again, her toes feeling naked in her sandals.
The bus took her directly into Barcelona and arrived in the late morning. The sight of La Sagrada Familia, with its four main towers fluted like the pipes of a church organ, turned her head. Standing one hundred meters tall, the towers were topped with mosaics that glistened in the sunshine. The unfinished church appeared to be constructed out of stalactites and stalagmites, or even melted candle wax. On closer inspection, Carla could identify thousands of intricate carvings made of sandstone, concrete and granite. There were religious figures, flowers and even a turtle holding up one of the entrance pillars. Building work was ongoing and the church was surrounded by cranes that looked like strange mechanical appendages to the structure.
After getting off the bus at a large square, Plaça de Catalunya, she decided to explore the city on foot. She wanted to do some sightseeing but was also procrastinating before trying to find the first of her old flames.
It was eighty degrees in the city, and the hot air caught the back of her throat. Carla bought a bottle of water and a sandwich from a street vendor on La Rambla, nibbling and drinking as she walked. Groups of tourists gathered on street corners, their necks straining as they gazed up at the glorious Gothic Spanish architecture all around them. Businesspeople rushed to work, while tattooed locals carried or rode their skateboards. She paused to watch a street artist whose hand flew across his paper as he sketched a caricature of a couple who dissolved into giggles at the result. Cafés showed off oversaturated photos of their paella dishes, making the vegetables look Day-Glo fluorescent and the king prawns overly red. Birds sang, cars tooted and Carla overheard many different languages all around her.
Her phone battery was running low—mustn’t have charged properly overnight—and she bought a street map to help her negotiate the maze of narrow streets in the Gothic Quarter. She hummed tunelessly to herself, to try to stop questions from whizzing around her head. Would Pedro still be working in the hair salon? Would he remember her? Would she feel a buzz of excitement when she saw him? Her innards became a tight knot and she threw half of her sandwich into a bin.
She soon lost track of her orientation, her route taking her along narrow side streets, past vintage shops selling clothes by the kilo and walls covered in graffiti. The air was cooler here, her surroundings cast in shadow, and goosebumps popped up along her forearms.
Eventually, she arrived at the address on Pedro’s business card and looked all around her with a growing sense of unease, not recognizing this place at all.
The hair salons she frequented these days had sleek signage, fresh flowers and marble floor tiles. This one looked grungy with a handwritten price list taped to the window.
Carla smoothed down her dress and paused in the passageway. Her fight-or-flight mechanism kicked in and a voice in her head urged her to run. Leave now, while you have the chance. You know in your heart that Tom is the man you’re supposed to marry.
A man appeared in the doorway and called out to her. “Bon dia. You are looking for a haircut?”
Carla froze on the spot. With only seconds to decide whether to stay or leave, the options flickered in her mind. She gave him a strained smile and eyed him from behind the anonymity of her sunglasses. He wore tight black jeans, a faded T-shirt and a belt with a silver eagle buckle. His hair was streaked black and gray, and silver stubble covered his chin and upper lip. He looked like lots of other men she’d seen around the city and, with no photos of Pedro in her travel journal, she wasn’t sure if it was him or not.
“Lady?” he prompted.
It was then Carla spotted something she recognized, a small spider tattoo on the side of his neck. An image flashed in her head of her brushing her lips across it, and heat rose in her cheeks. Oh god, it was him. “Yes, sí,” she whispered, and her words hung in the air.
“Okay. Good.” Pedro’s expression didn’t change. He swept an arm to indicate she should follow him inside.
Carla’s legs were like liquid as she entered the salon. A radio played in the background, Euro disco and two men speaking excitedly in Spanish. Pedro gestured for her to sit down and he draped a towel around her shoulders. When his fingers touched the nape of her neck, a tingle ran down her backbone.
She looked at herself in the mirror and saw the vivacious young girl who’d traveled across Europe had been replaced by a rather tired-looking woman. Why did it always come as a shock to spot gray hairs among the copper, and laugh lines around her mouth?
Where has your sense of adventure gone? Jess’s voice nagged in her head.
Well, I’m here now, aren’t I? Carla silently answered it. She mimed snipping a little off the ends of her hair to Pedro.
He washed her hair, his strong fingers expertly massaging her scalp. “Are you on holiday?” he asked in a silky, strong Catalan accent.
“Yes, I’m staying with a friend in Blanca del Mar for a few days.” Her jaw hurt from thinking of what else to say. “I think you cut my hair once before. A long time ago...”
“Ah? It is good you came back.” Pedro gently towel dried her hair and led her back to her seat.
Carla didn’t usually find having a haircut to be a sensuous experience, but there was something about the way he moved around her, his body gently brushing against hers, that made her nerve endings feel alive. “You and I actually went out together a few times,” she nervously added. “You knew all the best places to go in the city.”
Pedro stopped cutting with his scissors held midair. He looked at her reflection in the mirror, his eyes sweeping over her. “Ah, yes? I think I remember this.”
