Spirit Desire

After about a week of helping Natalie plan for New York and telling her all of Salvador’s favorite restaurants from when he was studying at NYU’s law school she was off in New York leaving me extremely bored and alone in San Diego. I had been working non-stop all week since a nurse had been laid off after not disposing of some medical equipment properly and getting some of the other staff sick.

She had been fired, but that didn’t mean I was given any sort of consideration for the job. I was sort of expecting it and I had been dropping hints to all the doctors but I was brushed off and I knew I wasn’t in the running when different people were coming into the clinic for interviews. I had even complained about it to Amy and she was on my side. Whether that was because she thought I was capable or because some sort of friendship had started between I didn’t know.

She had said she was going to try and hint about me being capable of being a nurse in the clinic to Dr. Brown, who was still somewhat hitting on me while at work. Amy had told me to try and get a bit closer with Dr. Brown, and I thought about it. Nothing serious, I was with Javier, but maybe forging a friendship with the young doctor would be beneficial.

As it turned out when I tried to get on his good side he proved to be not the kind of person I would enjoy becoming friends with and so it ended then and there. I decided if I would get the position as a nurse at the clinic then it would be based on my qualifications and not some pretentious young doctor putting in a good word for me.

Anyway, Isabel, Salvador’s wife, had already told me the Children’s Hospital was looking for some new nurses since they were expanding their childbirth and pediatrics wings and she suggested I apply for the job. She said there would be no favoritism, the job wouldn’t just be given to me, but she’d make sure that I did get considered for the position that was going to open in a few months. It was more than I could ask for.

Javier true to his word was on his way over to my house and afterwards we would drive up to Los Angeles to spend a couple of days together. It was going to be a good weekend I told myself, despite us going to the city that figuratively broke us apart. There would never be a day that I wouldn’t enjoy myself in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, to me, is better than New York City and I had spent hours telling Natalie that fact but she said I was only saying that because I was jealous of her upcoming trip. Los Angeles had everything New York had to offer—better restaurants and Mexican food—without all the tourists asking for directions at every corner.

“Are you ready to go?” Javier asked as he appeared outside my bedroom door. I think my mom had let him in without telling me and he had come straight up to my room since he and my mom don’t get along at all. I smiled as he came into the room and sat down on my bed with his back reclining on my headboard and the tiniest sliver of skin above his jeans showing.

“Not quite,” I said as I folded up a shirt and stuffed into a bag. As always I had left off packing to the last minute and even though I only needed to changes of clothes it was still hard to narrow down the options.

He rolled his eyes, “we’re only going up there for two days Adri; you only need two shirts and a pair of jeans.”

“I know that Javi, but I need a backup outfit and I need to prepare for the weather,” I replied.

“We’re going to LA,” he said laughing, “it’s always like 75 degrees. Plan for hot weather and hot weather only. Look at me, I’m just bringing two shirts and another pair of jeans, that’s all I need.”

I nodded my head but still grabbed another blouse and stuffed it into my large purse. “I need to be prepared Javier, plus what if I run into someone from school while there and they invite us out or something. What will I look like if I see them wearing the same outfit twice? I need to be prepared.”

“We’re going to a city with like a million people in it and we’re going nowhere near USC, I highly doubt we’ll see anyone from your old school. Don’t worry about it Adri,” he grabbed the grabbed the bag out of my hands before I could stuff another shirt in it and I pouted as he extended his hand out to me. “Now come on, let’s go. If we leave any later than now there’ll be horrible traffic going up the five.”

“Alright, alright,” I said and grabbed my other purse and shoved my cell phone into the side pocket. Javier smiled and grabbed my hand before we walked down the stairs.

“Bye ma,” I smiled and kissed her cheek, “we’ll be back in two days.”

“No hagas nada malo Adriana,” she said sternly and I smiled and nodded my head.

“We will do nothing bad ma, we will be perfect angels,” I replied.

She raised her eyebrows and looked at both of us, Javier nodded enthusiastically and so did I. She shook her head before telling us to have fun and ushering us out the house. Javier quickly popped the trunk of the car small Honda and put my purse next to his backpack before we started to drive up towards Los Angeles.

After almost three hours of driving we had made it up to Los Angeles. Only stopping twice, once when Javier needed to fill up the tank with more gas, and then a second time when I complained about being hungry and we grabbed some burgers at Jack in the Box. It was a habit that we had gotten into when I was still a student at USC and ever since I couldn’t go to Los Angeles without stopping and getting a chicken sandwich for the road.

“Do you want to get out and wander around the pier?” Javier asked as we drove by Santa Monica Pier.

I smiled and nodded my head before he drove into the parking lot and we tried to find an empty parking spot for about ten minutes until a small Acura pulled out and Javier slammed down on the brakes and we parked. My hand was in Javier’s as we walked around the pier amongst all the families that were enjoying the weekend.

“Do you know what today is?” Javier asked as we stood at the end of the boardwalk and looked into the ocean.

I shook my head and craned my head to look at his that was above mine. “September 13th?” I answered and squeezed his hands that were resting on my stomach, keeping me pressed up against him.

“That’s the date Adri,” he said and kissed the top of my head and I wondered why he was being so sweet and affectionate. “But do you know why it’s an important date?”

“Oh,” I exclaimed as I remembered why Javier felt today was important, “but that doesn’t really apply to us now does it?”

“It does,” he answered, “we took a long break between then and now. Five years ago I asked you to be my girlfriend Adriana,” he squeezed me between his arms and kissed my temple.

“I guess it counts, even though we only got back together about two months ago,” I said.

He laughed before speaking, “yeah, alright I guess you can say that and ruin the moment I was trying to create. I asked you to be my girlfriend five years ago and now here we are years later.”

I nodded my head, “you were such a mess when you asked me,” I laughed and squeezed his hand, “you were all blubbering and couldn’t even get the words out. You just had to ask me when I was getting ready to leave to go back up to school.”

I laughed and remembered the day six years ago that Javier, who I had had a crush on since I was seventeen less than smoothly as me if I wanted to be his girlfriend. I had come back from living in France for about two years when I found out I had been accepted to USC and into their nursing program and I was picking up things I needed for a tiny apartment I had managed to rent.

I had only been in San Diego before that for a week and I had spent the majority of the time hiding out in my room and trying to avoid Javier and anyone else who would undoubtedly ask me over and over again what I was going to do with my life. I had ignored basically everyone in the city and so I was surprised when I was thrown on the floor by Natalie who hugged me tightly and welcomed me back while also yelling at me for not having called her or visited her in the time I was home.

I had seen her about sixth months before when she and Javier decided to visit me in Paris and spent two weeks in my and cramped fifth-floor apartment eating pain au chocolats and baguettes all day. She had made me promise to tell her whenever I got back to San Diego to call her immediately so we could hang out and I had purposely been avoiding her because I knew Javier would most likely come along with her.

I had confessed all of my pent-up feelings a couple of days before I moved away and when he visited me in Paris we had fooled around after a couple of bottles of cheap red wine and beer. Needless to say I had woken up with a horrible hangover and I had ignored Javier the next few days—which is incredibly hard when the person you are avoiding is one of three in the apartment. Luckily it had gone my way and Javier and I never had a minute alone to talk even though he had asked me a couple of times to talk. I had always made up some excuse and I was extremely happy when the day that the two sibling would fly back to California came.

“I’m still so angry with you,” Natalie had said as she helped me zip up a suitcase, “but I can’t stay mad when you’re going to leave me again for the next few years.”

“It’s only three hours away Natalie, I can drive down for the weekends or you can come up there to visit me,” I answered and looked around my room to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything important behind again.

“I know,” she pouted, “but it’s just that you were gone completely for like two years and now you’re moving to another city again. I need my best friend here in the same city as me,” she said.

“I’m telling you, you’ll be seeing a lot of me now that we’re living in the same country, and same time zone!” I told her as I grabbed my suitcase and we headed towards the door.

“I know,” she smiled knowingly and before I could ask her anything she continued speaking, “now come on there’s a surprise downstairs.”

She pulled me along with her as I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder and tried not to make too much noise as we walked down the stairs. Of course the surprise waiting for me was her brother, who was sitting uncomfortably on the couch with my mom who kept on glancing at him from the corner of her eyes.

“Javier,” I mumbled as I stood in the hall with Natalie smiling widely at my side.

“Come on nina,” Natalie said as she hopped into the living room and grabbed my mom’s hand, “let’s go put away Adriana’s backpack and check that she has everything. You know she always forgets something, she forgot her laptop charger the last time she left. We had to mail it to another continent last time.”

My mom followed behind her and she grabbed my backpack as I went to sit at the opposite end of the couch. He twisted around in his seat and wiped his hands on his black jeans before speaking.

“Listen Adriana, about what happened when Natalie and I were visiting you in Paris,” he started and I grimaced.

“Don’t worry about it Javi, we were both drunk and it doesn’t have to mean anything,” I shrugged my shoulders and tried to shake it off.

He shook his head, “no not like that,” he said before scooting closer to me on the couch and I moved away from him. “Listen, about what you told me before you left a couple of years ago…”

“Please don’t, I don’t want to talk about this. I’m living in Los Angeles and I just started school and I don’t want to talk about this before I have to go to lectures, labs, meet people and try to make friends. Let’s just leave it be,” I smiled and stood up from the couch.

“Listen,” he said again, “do you still feel the same way?”

I ran my hand through my hair which didn’t work out too well since I had been packing and sweating and my fingers got stuck between knotted strands of hair, “does it matter Javier? I’m moving away again and I started school. I don’t have time to think about this and if you like me or not. I’m just going to push it to the back of my head.”

“I don’t want you to do that Adri,” he said and stood up, not moving near me but resting his hand on the armrest of the couch, “if you still like me, then I’d like to…”

“Please don’t Javier,” I mumbled.

“When you left two years ago and told me you liked me you didn’t even give me a chance to say anything to you. Nadamas te fuiste Adriana,” he mumbled the last part, “and then when Natalie and I visited you in Paris you didn’t even let me talk to you.”

“because it was awkward Javier, and I know that neither one of us felt the same way about what happened,” I interrupted him.

“because you never even let me talk to you Adriana, you didn’t let me tell you anything before you left and then you didn’t talk to me for three days when we were staying in your apartment. For fuck sakes Adriana, what did you expect me to do? You didn’t even give me time to tell you that I liked you and wanted to be with you.”

“Oh.”

“yeah,” he said shakily and stepped closer to me. He placed his hand on my shoulder awkwardly and patted it three times. Looking back at it now I don’t know how I didn’t laugh at his action and how he didn’t completely run away from me when I patted his hand. “I mean, that is if you’d like to be with me.”

I sighed and squeezed his hand before removing it from my shoulder and placing it on the couch’s armrest, “I’m moving to Los Angeles for school Javier.”

“It’s three hours from here Adriana. I like you and if still like me then we can make it work. Plus, we’ll always have summers and Christmases.”

“To be completely honest, I don’t think we’ll have summers together. I’m going to have to spend summers at school if I want to graduate on time.”

“Then I’ll go up to Los Angeles during the summertime, we can make it work.”

“I don’t know Javi,” I sighed and bit my lip.

“Come on Adriana, I’m asking you to give it a shot. I like you and you like me, or at least you liked me since you were sixteen and you still liked me at least a bit six months ago,” he sighed, “and I’ve thinking about doing this for a while.”

“Javi…” I trailed off not really knowing what to say since I desperately wanted to say yes but I wasn’t so sure that it would be the same with me living in another city and him down in San Diego and I wasn’t so sure it was the best thing for my studies either.

“Come on just say yes.”

“Do you want to drive me up to Los Angeles?” I asked as I grabbed my purse from the loveseat.

He jumped up from the sofa before pulling me behind him and towards his small car. By the end of the night when he asked me again if I wanted to be his girlfriend there was no way I could’ve said no and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

“You patted my shoulder!” I laughed and he patted it again affectionately. “It was so awkward.”

“I was so nervous to tell you Adriana,” he mumbled into my hair, “I really thought you were going to say no and that the next time I saw you, you would be dating some guy from Chicago or New York or whatever. Also, I hadn’t actually asked a girl to be my girlfriend since I was like eighteen, and Natalie told me I had to actually ask you to be girlfriend or else she was going to kill me for not asking her best friend properly.”

“Whatever,” I twisted in his arms to face him, “I should’ve said no back then if I knew what a pain my ass you would be.”

“You know you love me Adriana,” he said and I laughed as he kissed all over my face and mussed my hair, “besides, you know you wouldn’t be able to resist me.”

“You’re so full of yourself Javi, it’s a wonder you managed to keep me interested this long.”

He shook his head, “It’s a gift, tu me quieres,” he laughed.

The rest of the day passed by uneventfully. After seeing all the men drawing the ocean and playing some dumb video games in the arcades, we found ourselves on sitting on the sand near the beach. Javier had threatened to run with me into the beach, but he thought better of it after we had walked up to it and let the sand touch our toes. Like most beaches in California the water was extremely cold and full of seaweed, which is why I preferred to go to pools or to a more tropical destination.

Afterwards, Javier decided he was hungry—since it was five thirty in the evening anyway and we decided to drive to the hotel where we would be spending the night and just get some room service.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said happily as he cut into his steak.

“Oh, what it is?” I asked as I set down my plate of half-eaten chicken parmesan.

“Tom, you remember Tom right? Well, he’s having a show on Sunset and he invited me seeing as we were going to come up here. So I have tickets for us to go. It’s near us so I thought why not,” he shrugged his shoulder and smiled.

I frowned slightly, I had been looking forward to doing nothing but laying around the rest of the night. I nodded my head, “that sounds nice.”

And so we found ourselves at a small club off Sunset Boulevard watching his friend’s band play some music that I was definitely not into and regardless of how many times Javier pointed out that all the guys were extremely talented I couldn’t believe it. Not to mention that his friend who is in the band, Tom, is also the first guy I ever saw naked and he always felt the need to torment me about it.

“Adri, you remember Tom right?” Javier asked as we sat in a secluded booth which I’m guessing was reserved for the band.

“Of course she does,” he smiled and grabbed me in a tight hug, “how have you been? The last time I saw you I think you were graduating from high school. You’re in the same grade as Nat yeah?”

“Yeah, we graduated in 2008 that was before you moved up here right?” I asked him and sat down next to Javier, his arm going around my shoulder and pulling me to his side. Tom sat down next to me and continued the conversation.

“Yeah, yeah. I moved up here in 2009 I think. What are you two doing in LA?” he asked and pushed his brown hair from his forehead.

“We just wanted to get away from San Diego for a bit and I love LA. I used to live here but now I’m back down there,” I answered.

“San Diego’s nice, but it gets boring. There’s so much more to do here even though the air is shit,” he answered, “but what about you two? Did you two ever get together?” he asked and I blushed remembering that at the time Tom and Javier were the best of friends and the possibility of Javier having told him about my embarrassing confession was more than likely.

Javier grabbed my hand and shows our entwined fingers to him before speaking up, “yeah, we got together about five years ago,” I smiled.

“Well,” Tom started and grinned widely, “I thought you would have never looked at any other guy after you saw me,” he winked and Javier hit his shoulder.

“God, don’t remind me about that,” I cringed, “I didn’t look at any other guy after seeing you naked--”

“I knew it,” he interrupted and took a sip of his beer.”

“I was scarred for life, you almost made me go celibate and join a convent,” I stuck my tongue out at him and he pinched my cheek.

Javier laughed loudly and pulled me closer to his side, “we got together when she started school up here in LA for nursing,” he kissed my check and I smiled at Tom.

“UCLA?” he asked and grabbed another bottled beer from the small table in front of us.

“USC,” I replied, “for nursing. Just graduated in May.”

“That’s nice,” he started, “now listen. I have this weird pain in my abdomen. I got it checked out by my doctor but he says there’s just too much muscle and he can’t get through to the source of the pain. Would you mind taking a look at it?” he grabbed the bottom of his shirt and made a motion as if he was going to lift it before he started laughing loudly.

“You’re the worst Tom,” I laughed and took a sip of a screwdriver. “You’re still like you were in high school, or worse. I can’t tell yet.”

“So when are we getting our wedding invitations, you’ve been together five years, right? It’s about time you ask her to get married or something,” he smiled.

“We’re not like that,” Javier said and I furrowed my eyebrows and he paused, “plus I’ve told you that I don’t really want to ever get married. That whole life is not appealing in the slightest.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Well then it’s all the better,” Tom raised his eyebrows towards me and then shrugged his shoulders, “I doubt any girl would want to get stuck with you for the rest of their life.”

I laughed and Javier rolled his eyes, “you say that cause no one even wants to get near to you. You’d be lucky if someone got stuck to you for even one night.”

“What are you talking about Javier?” he laughed.

“That you’re stuck alone and no girl in her right mind would even get near you,” Javier rolled his eyes.

“You say that but wait a couple of minutes,” he wiggled his eyebrows.

Almost as if on cue a small brunette came up to the table and plopped herself down onto Tom’s lap. She kissed his cheek, took the beer from his hand and made his arms wrap around her shoulders. “I just got off my shift, you were good down there,” she smiled sweetly and gave him another kiss. “Are these your friends from San Diego? You didn’t tell me they were going to come for sure tonight,” she turned to us and asked enthusiastically, “did you guys like the show? Tommy’s amazing, I keep on telling him that he’s going to do really good things.”

“Javier and Adriana,” he said and kissed the brunette’s temple, “this is my wife Laura, she works here at the club and is my biggest fan.”

“Oh hi,” I smiled and extended my hand out to her but instead of giving me her hand she pulled me into an awkward hug and then grabbed Javier’s hand shook it enthusiastically. “You have really pretty eyes,” I told her and I stared into her blue eyes that were almost crystal clear.

“That’s what attracted me to her,” Tom tickled her and she giggled.

“When did you two get married?” I asked her and she slid off his lap and squeezed herself between Tom and I on the small booth.

“My husband,” she giggled again and kissed Tom’s cheek, “he came in here one night to play a show and we started talking and I fell in love and he fell in love and the next morning we got a marriage license and here we are.”

“Oh wow, after knowing each other one day?” I asked.

“Mmhhh,” she nodded her head and he nuzzled his face into her neck and she swatted his away, “well, like twelve hours. We went to city hall and we got married. I wore this weird lacy dress I had in the back of my closet and Tommy wore my way thinner and shorter roommate’s suit. He wanted to be traditional and so he insisted we wore those clothes.”

“That’s why there was no invitation?” Javier quipped.

“It was a spur of the moment kind of thing,” Tom shook off his question, “when you meet the one you know you’ve met the one,” He looked at Laura adoringly and she smiled.

Javier nodded his head, “how long have you two been married?”

“Almost four years in a few months. We got married on November 22nd 2010”. It was a really awkward Thanksgiving that year, isn’t that right Lulu?” Tom said and she nodded happily.

“We haven’t been back to my parents for a holiday since,” she laughed and kissed his check again.

I smiled at her Javier and Tom continued talking to one another. It wasn’t often they saw each other—they hadn’t seen one another in more than four years since Tom had lived on the other side of the county whenever Javier came up to visit me. Laura and I kept on rolling our eyes when they would say some dumb joke and whenever they started talking about high school.

“All guys revert back to their high school selves when they’re with old friends,” Laura smiled as we sat away from the boys and talked.

“They were the worst in high school, I met Tom when I was in freshman year and he’s even worse now,” I laughed.

“How was he in high school?” she asked excitedly, “I love listening to other people describe what he was like before we met.”

I smiled before I launched into a long speech about how he had been for some years the bane of my existence—all in good fun. Especially when I told her about a summer camping trip when we went up to the mountains and Tom got way too drunk and got lost. We had to look for him for hours and we found him near the small lake extremely drunk and very naked—the second time I saw him nude.

Javier and Tom ended up joining the conversation halfway and Tom got progressively drunker as the night went on and it felt just like it had when we were all in high school. Javier and Tom joking around and teasing me and Tom teasing Laura the whole night.

“Javier,” I mumbled as I slid into the booth next to him and grabbed his hand, “I’m sleepy, it’s like 2 am already.”

“Do you want to head out?” he asked and rubbed my shoulder, “I think we’re going to get going Tom,” Javier said.

“Thank God,” Laura laughed, “I hate being here after I finish working, I’m just pouring my hard earned money back into this place.”

“Alright man,” Tom said as he stood up and pulled Laura up with him, “when are you going to be back in Los Angeles?” he asked as we shuffled out of the small club.

“I don’t really know, maybe we’ll just come up another weekend, but It won’t be planned,” Javier answered, “Adriana has an actual job and responsibilities, she can’t just come up with me.”

“We should go down there,” Laura said excitedly, “we haven’t visited your family or been down there in like 4 months. We should go, before summer’s over and the weather’s nice to go to the beach? What’s that beach you took me to with the seals?”

“La Jolla,” Tom answered, “and the weather’s nice all the time, we can go in the middle of December and hang around on the beach if we really wanted to.”

“I’ll see you soon Tommy,” I smiled as I hugged the short boy and his girlfriend, “next time we come up we’ll call you so we don’t have to suffer through your shitty guitar playing and we can actually do something fun.”

“You always stroked my ego Adriana, I still remember your wide eyes when you saw me naked,” he winked and before I could retort Laura spoke.

“You too?” she asked and hit Tom with her hip, “I saw him naked after we got married and I almost served him divorce papers. Better yet, an annulment since we hadn’t consummated the marriage yet” she laughed loudly and Tom picked her and twirled her around.

“We’re leaving now before you keep on corrupting my little Lulu,” Laura giggled and Tom pulled her to his side and they walked away from us.

“Tom’s still the same,” I smiled as Javier drove us to the hotel.

“Still has the biggest ego. I can’t believe he got married,” he shook his head and focused on driving, ending the conversation and I stared out at the LA traffic that seemed to be the same at almost three in the morning as it is at five in the afternoon.

“Javi,” I muttered as I curled up onto his side.

“Hmm,” he mumbled into my neck and yawned sleepily.

“Do you really never want to get married?” I asked and stroked his hair, his hand curled around my waist and drew me nearer to his body.

“God no,” his warm breath fawned over my neck, “why would anyone want that? Look at your parents and mine, that’s hardly something I want. I just forget the whole thing, it’s useless. I don’t even want kids so what’s the point.”

“Go to sleep Javi,” I continued to stroke his hair until I fell asleep too.