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By Root 350 0

right. In my head I said no, my mom just died, and I laughed aloud and my laugh was aberrant. I said that I was fine, but as I said it, I realized for the first time that I was without my yellow pills; I couldn’t have brought my bag to such a restaurant and hadn’t thought to transfer the yellow pills to my jacket pocket because in the last week of my protracted neuropathy I hadn’t taken any. Still, I reached into the jacket pocket and felt the necklace in its case and began to panic; I was respiring no oxygen when I inhaled; it was like trying to drink through a straw with many holes. I said excuse me, stood on very weak legs, the floor uneven now, and walked to the bathroom, which was as lavish as everything else and smelled like roses. I splashed water on my face and told myself, aloud, to calm down, and for a second I felt better, that this would pass, and then I noticed for the first time that there was an attendant in the bathroom, which again made me feel crazy. The chemical taste I often experienced after panic was already in my mouth, an ominous sign; I spat in the sink despite the attendant, rinsed, but the taste intensified. I felt another wave of nausea and went into a stall and vomited. For a moment it occurred to me that I might be having a medical emergency; if I died, blood tests would reveal to my family that, as the saying goes, drugs were involved. The blood tests, the credit card bill, the notebooks filled with incomprehensible poems—had I tried to kill myself without my knowledge, were those so many suicide notes? I sat on the toilet with my head in my hands and cried as quietly as possible. Fortunately, the crying helped. Eventually I stopped heaving, left the stall, and again splashed water on my face. The attendant asked me if I was all right. I blinked at him, breathed deeply, mumbled something about my family, and deposited a handful of coins in the bowl beside him, which might have been for mints.

I felt much better now, that is, I felt next to nothing as I returned to the table where Isabel awaited me with genuine concern. I said I was sorry, that I’d had a dizzy spell, but it had passed, and I drank my wine and felt restored. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been gone but the table had been cleared and soon we were served lamb and something involving lobster along with a new bottle of red wine the waiter explained was related to the white. I wasn’t hungry but I was no longer repulsed by the food and as I ate a little I asked Isabel what she wanted to do after dinner. She said she didn’t know and I said that we could do anything she wanted. She thought for a while and smiled and said that she had never spent the night at a fancy hotel. I heard myself say we would stay in the Ritz–Carlton directly opposite the Prado. As I drank more I could eat more and as I grew drunker the money became increasingly unreal. This was accompanied by a wave of benevolence that I directed at Isabel, and I began to speak to her in a Spanish that sounded, at least to me, impeccable.

“I have been upset since we talked about Oscar. When you told me about him, I realized how much I cared about you, and it’s very hard to know that I won’t be able to see you again,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, without malice, “but what does it mean that you only realized how much you cared when you heard about Oscar?”

“I didn’t mean that exactly, but it’s difficult to express myself with subtlety in Spanish,” I said.

“You are fluent in Spanish, Adán,” she said, maybe sadly.

“I was angry and jealous and hurt and acting like a teenager,” I ignored her. “But now I just want to tell you how wonderful it’s been to spend time with you, how wonderful I think you are, and how, while it’s painful for me that you’ll be with someone else, I wish you only the best.” I started to reach for my glass to toast her but then thought that would be ridiculous.

She opened her mouth, but hesitated before speaking, and for some reason it suddenly occurred to me: there is no Oscar. Oscar was a test, it was revenge for my insisting on having a separate social life,