“I don’t normally drink before noon, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s been a bad day.”
I told her I would listen if she wanted me to.
“Okay,” she said, and poured the vodka orange juice into her mouth, held it in her cheeks, then swallowed in one gulp. “But I have to warn you, it’s not a happy story.”
I told her I didn’t expect her to make me happy.
“I was on my way home from a warehouse that’s far south in the city. Santo André. We may use it for a play. I manage a theater company. Did I mention that?”
She sighed and asked the bartender for a splash more vodka, which she measured with two fingers.
“The bus I was on hit a boy. Actually, no. It wasn’t the bus. He was holding on to the back of the bus while riding his skateboard. He moved out to the side, maybe to let go or change his grip, I don’t know, and a car merged into the lane and drove over him.”
“Shit. Did the driver stop?”
“The car did but the bus didn’t. The driver mustn’t have seen. I banged on the bus door, Para! Para! The other passengers yelled with me until the bus stopped. I got out. A few others left too. Cars had piled up. People were leaning out their windows, they were wailing, blowing their horns. A pool of blood—thick, brown blood—was leaking onto the pavement.”
She dragged her fingers across the bar.
“Then the rain started. I didn’t stay long enough to see the ambulances. I walked until I saw this bar and decided I would have a drink and dry off.”
She examined my face for a reaction, then, perhaps in response to what she saw, eased off from the details.
“Maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he’s just hurt,” she said.
“How old was he?”
“Fifteen? Sixteen? I didn’t get a good look.”
We waited for the bartender to offer another drink before we spoke again. He brought a Brahma that I told her we could share.
Then a thought intruded—an inappropriate thought, an untimely one, a thought that felt more like a memory. I saw Celia standing in our kitchen in Hartford. It was snowing outside and she was mixing batter to make pancakes with star fruit in the middle. Then I saw her in our bathtub, reading from my tattered copy of Leaves of Grass. My fingers dipped into the surface of the water.
Celia twitched with a hiccup.
“Can I give you a hug?” I asked.
Without saying anything, she wrapped her arms around me. I could feel the cold silk jacket lining press against my skin.
“Tell me,” she said, letting go. “Why are you here?”
I looked at the raindrops collecting into shared streams on the window.
“To escape the rain,” I said.
“Oh, no. I meant, why are you here”—she waved her arms in big circles around her—“in São Paulo.”
“So you noticed I’m not from here.”
“I had an idea.”
“What gave it away?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you look a little lost.”
This made me smile. “My husband brought us here. He’s teaching at USP.”
“Ah. A professor.”
I nodded.
“Are you a professor too?”
“No. I used to be a reporter. Now I’m just me, I suppose. In Brazil, trying to figure out what that means.”
Celia stared into her drink for a moment and bobbed her head with recognition.
“I had always considered myself a writer. But is a writer still a writer if she doesn’t write?” I trailed off, unsure of what I was trying to say. Celia laughed and repeated what I’d said, as though it were a riddle.
“Can I tell you something terrible?” I said.
She glanced at the men gathered in the corner of the bar.
“Claro.”
“The day my husband, Dennis, told me he got this job in São Paulo, I was going to tell him I wanted to leave him.”
“Wow.” She pressed her hand against the bar. “You don’t love him anymore?”
“I love him very much. Sometimes I wish it were that easy.”
“Why isn’t it that easy?”
“Dennis and I are shaped very differently. He has known his whole life what he wants. He is driven and the whole universe opens up to that drive.”
“I see. I think I know Dennis. Not your Dennis. But I know who Dennis is.”
“He’s also loving, and loyal, and witty, and charming. When I met him, I didn’t think it was possible that he could want me. I was working at a mall in Boston. My rent was only three hundred dollars and I could barely keep up.” I took a sip of my drink. “I had never thought about what would make me happy. I thought constantly about how I was going to make money. Then Dennis appeared, and my life changed.”
“Dennis gave you money.”
“Yes. And he gave me love.”
“So you didn’t tell him you wanted to leave him?”
“No, I didn’t. I thought maybe São Paulo would be a cure. A chance to reset.”
She smiled. “Now you’re sitting in a bar in Jardins, wearing a wet suit, drinking with a stranger. I understand the shape you’ve taken.” She clinked her glass on mine. “I understand this shape.”
“Maybe I made a mistake. I think I’m going mad. Like actually mad.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know where to physically put myself here. I don’t know how to best use my time. I don’t even know how to behave around Marta, our maid. It’s like São Paulo is rejecting me, and so I’m rejecting myself.”
“I would say two things to that. Don’t give up on São Paulo. You’ve met me now. I’ll show you the São Paulo you should see—not this sad bar in a rich neighborhood. And two, don’t think madness can’t cure you. I go mad all the time. Sometimes it’s the only way out!”
I glanced over my shoulder and out the window. The rain had stopped.
“So you want to see me again?” I said.
She took out a pen from her purse and wrote her phone number on a cocktail napkin.
“Yes,” she said, and shoved it into my jacket pocket.
I followed her lead, took out a napkin, and gave her my number too.