Will made coffee. He checked in with work. He reviewed his boss’s careful recommendations to the magazine now that his boss was back from his island and willing to do his job again. Will proposed changes to some new contracts. He sent a response to an agent. He read the next email slowly, without comprehension. He started on another and then, as though tied to the crack of thunder out the window, he realized that he might not ever be able to read another contract again. It seemed he might not be able to read and comprehend anything at all ever again, all those electronic words were so scrambled as they traveled from his eyes to his brain. There was zero sensemaking. There were rights and there was money and there was Will in the middle, with not a drop left in the tank. He couldn’t do it for even another day. It had started to pour outside. Where the hell was she? He was worried now. He was enraged.
It was cool inside the lobby. It was pink and purple, lit like a bachelorette party. She went to the bathroom to dry herself off with some paper towels. She admired her stomach and arms in the mirror—different, she was certain, from what she’d seen in the mirror when she woke up. Nine miles of sweat. Nine miles of compression. She needed a glass of water and took the elevator to the sky lounge. It was ten in the morning, but the place was half full. Because it was morning, because they were serving breakfast, she didn’t stick out as sorely in her workout clothes as she suspected she might have. The woman behind the bar filled a glass with her water gun and Whitney took a seat by the window. They were on the twenty-eighth floor. It felt like the same raw height as the terrace at the Miró. But the rain seemed to have brought the ashcloud closer. They were amidst it, inside the cloud, mixed up with the Icelandic ash that had traversed thousands of miles. She felt like she could reach out and touch it through the window. From her side of the lounge, it was water and cloud forever; but from the other side, she saw as she approached the glass, it was a look back toward the city. Through the black mist she could make out the Nouvel office building with its rainbow scales, the unfinished cathedral, the towers near the water that had been built for the Olympics, the ones she imagined Jack living in. Jack and Jenna probably weren’t so far away. She tried to guess which floor they were fucking on.
Will stretched out full-bodied on the leather couch in front of the television. The blackness from the storm pressed heavily against the windows. He felt unpleasant pricks on his skin each time a new email pinged his inbox. He needed something to airlift him from the corner he’d painted himself into. But he knew he wouldn’t solve it now. Now was a time for staying hidden, for huddling up beneath the ashcloud. Now was a time for watching the ten-year-old girls’ soccer game on the FC Barcelona channel. The game was slow, but they held their shape on the field. No swarming. Long lanes, diagonal balls, rapid one-touch passes in crowded space. He imagined little Whitney, dominating on the wing, and he loved her again. Precision crosses from the flank. Crunching tackles in open play. He imagined the long flat eternities in Euless and Richardson and Haney, running, lifting, training each day in pain and solitude for the opportunity to get out of Dallas. Barcelona scored twice in fifteen minutes and he flipped it off. He couldn’t do anything for longer than fifteen minutes anymore. He went to the bed and dialed into their streaming services, but none of them apparently worked in Spain. He tried to sleep but was wired from the coffee. He flipped out of bed and did three sets of push-ups and then connected to the Wi-Fi to text Whitney. A message popped up from a number he didn’t recognize. It was Jack. They were getting a bite in the early afternoon, if they wanted to meet up. Even after last night, even after all that. Still nothing from Whitney. He stared at their last text exchange, a packing list from before they left New York. Converters. Passports. Swimsuits. Shades. They hadn’t needed to text while they were here; they’d been together the whole time. He listened to the rain pound the window. He texted: You okay?
You okay? The text popped up on her screen as her water glass was refilled by the bartender. She was young and extra friendly and she looked a little like Jewel. Whitney was tapped into the hotel Wi-Fi, checking her email, composing a reply to a message she’d received overnight. “Would you like anything else?” the bartender said, lingering, and Whitney looked up a little flustered, and reflexively said no thank you. But before the bartender went back to chopping her limes, Whitney said, “Actually…” and ordered an Aperol spritz. It was voluminous, filled to the brim with ice, and bright in ways it seemed the outside never would be again. She was so thirsty still. She watched the waterline recede as she sucked her straw. Got caught in this rain and waiting it out in a hotel. Be home when I can. She watched his bubbles. They’d appear and then disappear and then appear and then disappear,
