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Mask By Mask

Balboa Press

The mirror reflected books alone. Books of every size and color filled the ceiling-height bookcase, which ran the length of the stone wall. More books spilled out from underneath the bed. She counted the reflection of the bookshelves over and over, stopping when she reached seven only to begin again, the countless, nameless pages a mystery. All the books had been placed backward on the shelves, their titles hidden from view. The white, cream, yellow, and brown pages spoke nothing to the counting young woman, whose long blonde hair was streaked with dried blood.

She held her throbbing head, sat up in the bed to lean back against the warm leather headboard, and counted the shelves once more. Haunting chords of a guitar penetrated the bedroom through the closed door. One, two, three, four — a small bouquet of orange roses in a squatty earthen vase. Five, six, seven — the deep brown monogram on the crisp white sheets. The music of the guitar stopped suddenly, and she realized she had no idea what the letters on the pillowcase stood for.

Ada washed her face with cold water before looking up into the mirror. She coerced a loose curl over the faint, jagged scar that ran the length of her temple at her hairline. She forced her practiced smile as she stared into her blue eyes. It was nothing she could not handle now, only a dream — a dream she had not dreamed for several years, yet a dream no less. Ada was still right to have come. She settled back into the oversize bed and pulled the orange satin quilt up over her chest before clicking off the glass lamp. One, two, three — an orange petal — four, five, six, seven. Ada sat up again to turn the lamp back on. The large diamond on her finger snagged the sheets as she leaned against the cold, dark wood of the headboard. She ran her finger down the orange satin stripe of the pillowcase to finally trace her own initials onto the crisp white sheets. It was only the jet lag. She was right to have come.

The apartment was luxurious, calculated in its location and excessive dimensions to remind Ada of all that she had become in the last ten years. Having passed the sleepless night staring down at Las Ramblas from her top-story window, Ada now unpacked her large Louis Vuitton suitcases, sipping a café con leche between hanging up dresses. She organized her rows of sandals and stilettos by color in the large, cedar-paneled closet before finally falling back on the stark white coverlet of the king-size bed. Ada lit a cigarette and sighed. She had changed rooms after the dream the night before. This grand bedroom, with its dark, exposed wooden beams overhead and lonely orange leather chair, was not quite as pretty as her first choice but provided large windows that overlooked the street below nonetheless. Ada knew she would switch back in a night or so anyway, the two bedrooms in reality unnecessary since she was traveling alone. Though that was precisely the point. All the beds in the apartment were hers. She had paid for them herself.

Ada stood and walked over to the window. She pushed a curl out of her face and then untied her thin robe. She stared down at the serpentine green of trees along the street below. Barcelona. It had been ten years. She never imagined she would dare to come back, and yet she felt somehow she owed it to herself. This was the only way to convince herself of who she was — that it was not just an illusion. For now the paper-wrapped journal remained hidden safely inside the drawer of the nightstand in the other bedroom. Ada would never really open it, of course, and she now had the stark white bedroom to sleep in when she wanted to be free of all traces of the journal's contents.

"I'm here to do whatever I please," Ada told herself aloud with a huge smile. Her self-assured laugh serenaded the room. She finished her cigarette in silence.

Ada showered in the orange-tiled bathroom. Hot water flowed over her lean, curvy, fatigued body like a waterfall from the ceiling, all orange safely hidden from view as she squeezed her eyes closed. Ada felt strong, powerful, and alive, aside from the vexing orange. She distracted herself with thoughts of citrus groves and Mediterranean sunshine as she slipped on her short skirt. She sought to forget the color orange outside of these contexts. She adjusted her black tank and put on a large, oval onyx ring before deciding to ready herself in the brown-tiled bathroom instead. She had already thrown away the bouquet of orange roses she had found on the sink basin the night before. Of all the apartments to rent in Barcelona, how could she have known that hers would be freshly remodeled in orange? She did her makeup simply — long, dark lashes, a touch of bronzer, and a hint of color on her lips.

After finally tying up her black wedge espadrilles in the living room, Ada grabbed her woven satchel and locked up the apartment. She walked down the five flights of stairs. She had no plans, no commitments for four weeks. Still, there were places she would not dare to go. She willed that her wandering feet be bound by restraint. Deadened memories existed that she would not risk awakening, no matter how confident she had become. She was in Barcelona to prove her strength, not kill herself.

"You would like some company today, miss?" A man on a bicycle rode up alongside her on the sidewalk. He was young, tan, his easy curls blowing as he pedaled to match Ada's long stride.

"No," Ada said. She kept walking. He continued to ride alongside her. She glanced sideways to see her candor had drained the energy of his large grin into slouched shoulders. She sighed impatiently and added, "But thank you."

"Why you are alone?" He spoke in French. He looked her straight in the eyes.

"Because I want to be," Ada answered, annoyed not with the question but with herself for answering it. "I am here to fulfill my grandmother's death wish. I need to focus, please."

"I am very sorry, mademoiselle," he said, "but you are very beautiful. I will help you. I can."

"Good-bye," Ada said as she turned sharply to her right and took an outdoor seat in a café without hesitation. She winked at the waiter who was about to seat the table with an American couple and then promptly ordered an espresso. No one asked her not to smoke. She inhaled as she stared, not seeing the passing tourists. Why the fuck was she explaining herself to anyone? She was here for herself. Period. Not even Paulo had her address. And why the fuck had she said that about her grandmother? Could that be true? After half an hour, Ada got up to stroll down Las Ramblas toward the Mediterranean. She diverted herself with the colorful flower stalls and the warmth of sunshine on her skin until she came to the towering monument to Christopher Columbus at the end. She had intentionally left her camera in the apartment, not admitting to herself that she knew exactly where she was going on her first day back. She turned left to follow Paseo Colon toward Port Vell. Ada stared out across the sea at the collection of boats, following the sidewalk with her shoulders pushed back and her head held high. She refused to look ahead. White boats gleamed in the sunlight, and Ada's eyes smiled behind her large, dark sunglasses. She lost herself for one moment in the impression she'd had the first time she stared out over the port. One, two, three — stumbling on the sidewalk, Ada then had the opportunity to genuinely profess shock. She recovered to find herself staring up across the street at a seven-story apartment building. She gasped, looking every which way about her before laughing. She struggled to see if she could make anything out inside the windows of the upper stories.

"What are you doing here, Ada?" she whispered. Suddenly she had lost her nerve. A man in a suit passed by and stared. "I have every right to be here. It's just for fun. Come on, Ada. Remember who you are."

She turned and thought a moment. She picked up her pace and spent the rest of the afternoon pretending to explore the Gothic Quarter as a tourist, as if she did not know every passageway by heart. She wandered slowly through the streets, running her fingers along the cool stone walls, wishing she had not left her camera behind. Over the last ten years, Ada's camera had become an extension of herself — her eyes by the manner in which she saw life, and her mind by the way she recorded her perspectives. Ada owed her success to her ability to translate motionless images into breathless meaning — life encapsulated in a single frame. As the most sought-after wedding photographer in Northern California, Ada had planned this vacation over a year in advance, nearly ten years to the day of her last visit to Barcelona. That Ada made such a good living from photographing weddings for magazines and for couples across the globe was a great joke among her friends. Ada's left hand was conspicuously bare now as she walked along the half-shaded, half-sunny Calle del Obispo Irurita. She had made herself happy off of other people's love. After a wedding or shoot, she would take a wine or cooking class, meet someone for the weekend, and content herself that love was for other people.

Late in the afternoon, Ada came upon the Cathedral of Saint Eulalia. Its imposing, gothic façade towered against the blue-tinged sky. She searched her satchel in vain for her camera once again. The cathedral was immense, impenetrable, unmoving, as though the soiled gray stone of the apparent fortress ran as deep as the earth's core. Grandma. Ada knew her clothes would not allow her to enter, so she stopped halfway up the stone steps to stare upward again. The intricate spires pierced the sky above, and she felt the heaviness of the solemn base. Her eyes danced as she studied the façade more carefully, saints and symbols, Grandma's lullabies sounding through the crowds on the wind. Without her camera, Ada was losing her accomplished control.

She turned suddenly and stepped on someone's foot. An elderly woman shouted at her in Catalan. Ada rushed down the steps.

"To the office, Ada," Mrs. Dwight said. Her thin lips were taut, her brow deeply wrinkled, yet her hand somehow white and smooth as she handed a pink slip to Ada.

"But," Ada began to plead. She stopped herself. Ada stood up straighter and fell silent to watch Mrs. Dwight take the thick pink pad from her pocket. She wrote the words "disrespectful and argumentative" along the dark, straight line.

"Now you can explain your attitude to Mr. Butler, as well."

Ada walked down the brick walkway, her head held high as she passed the window of her sixth-grade English classroom. She knew she was being watched and started to dance. Her classmates laughed and cheered. Ada bent over and slapped her ass. Mr. Miller came to the window too, but Ada knew he would not do anything. He just watched.

Ada opened the glass door to the office at the front of the tree-lined school. The secretary did not greet her. She never did. She merely held out her hand for the pink slips. Ada sat down on the hard wooden bench and watched the second hand go round and round above on the noisy old clock.

"Come in, Ada," Mr. Butler said. He stared down at her.

Ada stood up and smoothed her plaid skirt out as she walked past him. He closed the heavy oak door behind her. She did not sit in either of the tufted leather chairs in front of his desk. She knew the drill by now.

"Another dress code violation, Ada?" Mr. Butler asked, taking out his ruler from the top drawer of his desk. "Do you have no respect for chapel day?"

"I'm tall, Mr. Butler," Ada said. She stared up into his bearded face. "And why would God create legs if he's so ashamed of them?"

"Insolent girl." Mr. Butler's eyes lit up as he ran his finger along the side of the ruler. "Kneel down."

Ada decided to get it over quickly this time. She wanted to be back in class to meet the new students from Australia. She knelt down, her knees tender on the hard wood planks beneath her. She stared at a spider spinning a web in the corner behind the desk. Why didn't Mr. Butler clean his office? He stood directly in front of her, close enough for her to smell his breath as he bent over. He slid the ruler down her thigh until it touched the floor. He pressed it against her skin and then put his finger on the hem of her skirt. He left it there as Ada waited.

"Ada, do you feel my finger?" Mr. Butler asked. "Your skirt is clearly too short."

Several hours later, after having shopped the Plaza Catalunya, Ada smiled as she set her new black python clutch on the white coverlet of the bed and lit a cigarette. The silence was at first peaceful, then haunting. Ada searched for the phone she had hidden away in the closet and then walked into the living room to lean against the window frame. Her eye followed the winding river of green leaves as the phone rang on the other end.

"Hello."

Ada squeezed her eyes closed and hesitated. She walked over to fall back into a dark, curved chaise lounge before smashing her cigarette into the clear glass ashtray. She cleared her throat. "Hi, it's me."

"I know it's you, and to what do I owe this great, unexpected pleasure?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ada asked. She blew the curls out of her eyes before leaning back and staring up at the crystal chandelier.

"You weren't going to call, remember?"

"Well, I just thought you might like to know I got here safely." Ada ran her finger down the chrome leg of the chair.

"I'm glad you're safe, Ada. I only wish you had called last night. I was hoping you would."

"I'm a big girl, Paulo. Worrying is useless."

The prolonged silence was followed by a muffled sigh. "So, how's the apartment?"

"Gorgeous. Huge."

"Well, if it gets too big, I can get out of here. You'd like the family apartment in Madrid."

"I'll be home in a month. I don't know if I'll call again though. I just need a little time alone to think. You know, we're always so busy. Being here makes me realize I haven't stopped to think much in the past ten years."

"Well, I'll miss you, Ada, but as long as you're still wearing your ring, I can wait."

Ada stared at the glass oval coffee table. The five-karat diamond ring glimmered in the light that flooded the room through the large, ceiling-height windows. She breathed deeply as she sat up on the edge of the chair to examine the huge, multifaceted stone.

"Ada? Ada? Ada, you are wearing your ring, aren't you?"

"What kind of a question is that?" Ada laughed. She struggled to slip on the ring as she stood up and walked back over to the windows. "Of course I'm wearing my ring, Paulo. It's amazing, and everyone I know is jealous. What woman wouldn't love having this diamond on her finger? Listen, I need to go get some dinner now. I haven't had much to eat all day."

"It was good hearing your voice, Ada. I love you. Take care of yourself."

"I'll be home soon. Kisses."

Ada turned off her phone. She would not lose her nerve. She locked the phone away in one of her suitcases in the closet and then ventured back out into the hallway to stand in front of the closed door. Ada leaned her head forward onto the dark wood and slipped the diamond off her finger. She opened the door and walked over to sit down on the orange silk coverlet of the unmade bed. She slid open the top drawer of the nightstand and saw the brown paper before looking away. She dropped the ring on top of her journal and hid it away in the darkness.

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Excerpted from Mask By Mask by Tyler Kyle. Copyright © 2017 Tyler Kyle. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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