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“That’s Collserola,” Alex explained as she slipped her hand in Charlotte’s and rested them on her lap.
Charlotte followed the trajectory of her finger. “It’s so small for a mountain.”
Alex laughed. “You’ve never tried to run up the peak on a hot day.”
“And you have?”
Alex smiled, so wide, so easy. “There’s a pretty impressive basilica at the top. A huge bronze Jesus on top of that.”
“Impressive,” she decided.
“Don’t let her trick you,” Eloi said in Spanish. “I picked her up at the top more than once.”
Laughing, Alex poked his arm playfully. “Don’t air my dirty laundry, tío!”
Charlotte relaxed into her seat. If this was going to be the last of her days with Alex, she was happy to see her so at ease. So comfortable in her surroundings. She didn’t have to wear the Alexandra Leon mask here.
“Joder,” Eloi cursed when tra c slowed on the highway and then stopped.
Around them, people on small scooters weaved around the parked cars. If people did that in Miami gridlock, it would be abject chaos. But Eloi wasn’t bothered. When the jam cleared, he moved on.
“If you want, we can take a nap when we get there. Jet lag takes some getting used to.” Alex squeezed her hand.
Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t want to miss anything.”
The lonely highway took them to a residential area.
Instead of driving them straight home, Eloi went o course to give Charlotte a taste of the city. He was a big fan of the architect Gaudí, who Charlotte was too embarrassed to admit she didn’t know.
Despite her ignorance, Charlotte’s eyes were glued to the window taking in the mix of modern apartment buildings and centuries old Gothic structures. Her favorite was Casa Batllo . It was like
nothing she’d ever seen before. Its facade was covered with a colorful mosaic of tiles, and the curved roof reminded her of a dragon’s tail.
She would have loved to see more, but Alex reminded him that they hadn’t eaten and that her parents would be waiting. It was o to Pedralbes.
Negotiating narrow, curvy, tree-lined streets that Charlotte wasn’t sure they’d fit down, they came to an even tighter road that could barely qualify as an alley. To keep from panicking, Charlotte tipped her head back and closed her eyes.
“You’ll never appreciate south Florida’s nice wide grid system until you’ve driven around a city that was updated in the eighteen hundreds,” Alex joked.
When they stopped, Charlotte dared to peek out of one eye. A large gate lumbered open. It was so huge and solid that it made the one at Alex’s house look like a toy.
The gate had been partially concealing a hulking estate, a French style mansion painted white with a dark blue concave roof. There were more windows than Charlotte could count and all of them were framed by gray bricks. The long windows on the middle floor were outfitted with ornate iron railings which she guessed made them all balconies. The one in the center was much larger and doubled as a covered entry for the elaborate black and gold double doors. Charlotte forced herself to stop gawking.
Eloi stopped the car on the cobblestoned drive in front of the door, but Charlotte caught a glimpse of the garage at the end of the sloping drive. Considering the intricate marble floor meant for nothing but parking cars, she couldn’t imagine what the inside of the house was like.
Before they unloaded the first bag, a woman with curly hair dyed too uniformly black to be natural swung open the door.
“Alejandra!” The woman who looked like an older and shorter version of Alex burst from the house.
“Hola, Mamá!” Alex dropped her bag and rushed toward her. Her strong arms wrapped around the petite woman before swinging her around.
Lingering by the car, Charlotte was unsure what to do with herself when Eloi took the luggage from her and swept it inside.
“Mamá,” Alex looked in Charlotte’s direction, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Instead of the Carlota she was expecting, Alex’s mom greeted her with an accented Charlotte. The rest of their
conversation proceeded in Spanish as she tried her best to keep up.
