Chapter 10
“What do you want for dinner?”, he asks as we head out of the DNA center
“Pizza”, I say, the word coming out instinctively although after the cone and the supersized cappuccino I am not even that hungry anymore
Lee smiles, entertained at the eagerness in my tone
“Ah, how good it is to be outside again!”, he says, stretching, head turned upwards to drink in the sunrays still pouring from the sky
“It is”, I say, and we walk in silence for a moment
“How did you meet Veronica?”, I then ask abruptly
“She came to watch a play one night. It was October, I still remember that day. When the play finished it was pouring, and she was trying to get a cab. For some reason nobody would stop, and when I walked out she was still out there, drenched and with a desolate look on her face. I couldn’t tell exactly what, but there was something touching about her. I was glad she was still there, wet and miserable, awful as this may sound”
I laugh
“She had been sitting in the front row, staring at me the full time the same way you did before”, Lee says
“You’re tall”, I reply incoherently, feeling the blood reddening my cheeks
And now it’s Lee who laughs
“I asked her if she needed a ride, and she said ‘Oh yes!’, her face so happy all of a sudden. It was odd, we didn’t know each other but there was this trust from the start. We spent hours talking that first night”, Lee says
The memories bring a smile to his face, brushed away at once by a wave of melancholy
“And then?”, I asked
“We became lovers”, he replied, as if that were the only logical conclusion
“Did she ever tell you that she suspected…”, I start, without getting myself to complete the sentence
“Yes, one day she went back home for the holidays and figured out that her parents weren’t really her parents. Deep down she had always known that something was missing from her life, she had nightmares”
“Which nightmares?”, I want to know
“Of being kidnapped”
I nod. Of course, how could she not know?
“Where was home for Veronica?”
“Montana”
“So why did she leave from San Fran? Do you know where she is now?”
“I don’t. When she found out that her family had lied to her she decided to find out the truth for herself, but she didn’t know where to start from. Then she recalled a detail, she knew that the day she was kidnapped it was sunny…”
“Yes! And we were in a park! This is my dream…”, I interrupt
“That’s what Veronica said. And she told me about the statue of a dragon”
“A lizard?”
“She called it a dragon, and she said it was yellow”
“Yes!”, I exclaim, my heart pounding
“And she remembered a building, it was ancient, she said, and she looked at hundreds of images from places around the world to get some inspiration. After all she found a dragon, or a lizard, that could be the one she saw in her dream”
“And…and where is the lizard?”, I ask, my voice hoarse and barely audible
“In Barcelona. She thinks the statue is a Gaudi”
“Really?!”, I exclaim, the voice springing out of my in a shriek
“Did you come to the same conclusion?”, Lee asks me
“No…but I am going to Barcelona”, I say, stunned at the coincidence
But is it a coincidence or did my subconscious make this happen?
Lee bugs his eyes
“I’m supposed to start a temporary job there in a month”, I say, and explain about my one year project there
Then, “Is she there now”, I ask again, although Lee already told me he is clueless about my sister’s whereabouts
“In one of her last emails Veronica told me she had found a good lead, and that she had found out something but that she couldn’t tell me about it. She sounded scared, she felt someone was monitoring her moves. She wrote again after a while to tell me she was leaving Spain, but when I asked where she was heading she replied that someone was probably keeping track of all her communications, and that giving me information would put both of us at risk. That’s the last thing I’ve heard from her. I wrote again, so many times, hoping for a line from her but all my emails went unanswered, and then I gave up”
“Did you really?”, I want to know
“No…not really. At a point I thought I’d call the embassies, the consulates, the police, the papers, but then I refrained. I don’t want to give her away, you understand…”, Lee starts, dropping the sentence in mid-air.
“No, not completely”
“Veronica believes that the authorities might be involved in what happened, although she never went into much detail. She was even planning on changing name, to be safe and to make a statement, you know. Veronica isn’t the name she was born with after all, and she wanted to rid herself of it”
“How did she want to call herself?”
“She never told me, and I don’t even know if she changed her name after all”
We are in front of the pizzeria now, and I figure at this moment that I have been following Lee without knowing where he was leading me.
“What do you think, is this place ok?”, Lee asks
“I like it”, I approve
“It’s one of my favorites. Ever been here before?”, he smiles
“Nope, and I want to try it”, I reply, and I realize the flirtatious twist in my tone just after speaking out the sentence
“It strikes me how similar you are to Veronica, and you two don’t even know each other…”
“Will I find her?”, I suddenly ask, with the hopefulness of kid who needs to believe in something
“We will find her”, Lee tells me, his eyes locked into mine, comforting and thrilling me at once
“The idea of testing Veronica’s DNA was your, wasn’t it?”, I ask him
“It was. She took the test right before leaving. I was hoping she could get her answers that way, because I wanted her happiness – of course - but also because I hated to see her leave to find her answers”
“You could have gone with her”, I say
It’s not a reproach, and not even a statement. It’s more a question than anything else.
Lee lowers his eyes and hunches his back, just lightly, as if trying to support a huge weight without showing the effort, and I hate myself for what I just said.
“I couldn’t afford it”, he admits after a pause
“I’m sorry…”, I say, bending just slightly, my posture mirroring Lee’s body
We order our pizzas and remain quiet for a moment.
“What about you? How did you come to realize you had been kidnapped?”
And so I tell Lee about my dream, and as I unravel details about myself I realize I want to know about him. When I ask he draws sketches of lines, leaving my curiosity unfulfilled. I sense I could fall for this man, the way my sister did.
By the time we finish our food I am tired to the point where it’s hard for me to speak, but I don’t want to go home.
“Where did Veronica live?”, I want to know
I’m thinking that I could go there now, just walk in front of her house, before heading to mine, or to Joshua’s if he’s there.
“She lived with me. If you have time I can show you what she has left behind”, Lee tells me
“And her picture”, he adds after a pause