I let out a small laugh. Well, I did just have sex with a Portuguese guy in a dorm room in London. In terms of new, I was already on my way.

* * *

“Metro. I need to take the metro. You know, the train, goes underground?” I made a digging motion like I was stuck in an awful game of charades, a game I’d been playing since I stepped out of the Madrid airport.

The man stared at me blankly.

This just in: A lot of Spaniards don’t speak English.

I gave up and waved at him, smiling even though I was frustrated. It wasn’t his fault I was so ill-prepared.

He said something to me, sorry, I think, and with a shrug he turned and left. I brushed my hair off of my sticky forehead and sighed, trying to look like I didn’t need help while taking in my surroundings at the same time.

You see, I thought I’d written down the instructions on how to get to the Las Palabras office on my notepad on my phone but it turns out I wrote down all the songs I wanted to download before the plane ride instead. Now I was totally lost, somewhere in Madrid, with only an address and sweat stains. My god it was fucking hot here. At least I had good music.

I wasn’t normally this shy but I hated asking for directions in general and I’d never been in the situation of being around people and totally unable to communicate with them. There was a whole city bustling around me in the sunshine, heading in and out of the metro, and yet I felt completely invisible.

I sighed and adjusted the heavy backpack on my shoulders before fishing out my phone again. It was time for me to bite the bullet and Google Map the shit out of this place, insanely high data roaming charges be damned.

Turns out the Casa de las Palabras office was on the other side of the city and that meant more sweaty negotiating while I tried to ride various Metro lines, one of which was packed to the doors, with me pressed against the wall and an old man groping my ass. I turned to snarl at him but he merely looked away like he was innocent.

By the time I got to my stop and back out into the blinding sunshine, my first impressions of Madrid were tanking and one glance at the clock tied my stomach in knots. Thank god I could actually spot the blue and white sign of Palabras close by. I hurried across the square, hoping, swearing internally, that I wasn’t too late. Here was another problem with my planning (and my cheapness)—I was supposed to check in with the company and just hop on the bus. I didn’t want to spend money on a hotel room if I didn’t have to. Little did I know the plane leaving Gatwick would be a late, which, when combined with the fact that I didn’t have directions and I didn’t speak Spanish, put a major damper on my plans.

What made my heart lurch around worse than trying to run in the oppressive heat with a heavy backpack on, was the fact that there was no bus waiting outside.

But…it couldn’t have left without me. Could it?

I fished out my phone. It was 2:16PM.

I didn’t like the way the time looked, staring at me with those cold digital numbers.

I thought the orientation had started at two. There was no way they could go through everyone in sixteen minutes.

I flung open the glass doors to the office and stumbled into it, my hair flying around my face.

“Am I too late!?” I screeched, looking around wildly.

There was no one in the office. It had neat wood desks with glass tops, sterile filling cabinets with baby pictures pinned up with cheap magnets, and blue walls with posters about Spain, featuring white people with cheesy smiles talking to Spanish men with nineties Ross Gellar hair. One the end of one desk, one of those perpetual motion birds dipped its wooden beak up and down, as if someone had just set it off.

“Hola?” I heard someone say from beyond a door at the back of the office. It was open a crack and I could hear shuffling. I made a quick prayer that this person spoke English.

To my surprise a young woman with brown hair piled on top of her head poked her head through the door. The minute she saw me, her eyes widened and she came hustling out, a stack of papers in her skinny hands.

“Miss Miles!” she exclaimed in a British accent.

I frowned. “Yes?” As if I didn’t know who I was.

“Oh my god,” she went on, her forehead furrowing with concern. “The bus just left.”

“What?!” I threw my head back and groaned loudly. It was actually quite loud. I probably sounded like a lion in heat. “Fuck.”

“Don’t worry,” the woman said, throwing the papers on the desk and picking up the phone. “I’ll call the bus, I can stop him for you.”

Oh god. This was just what I needed. Everyone is already on the bus, getting to know each other and making friends and small talk and whatever the fuck, then I show up and slow everything down. Vera Miles with her tattoos and crazy hair, here to make things more difficult.

The woman held the receiver to her ear and continued to talk to me. She was pale with big round eyes, a gaunt face and some freckles. “Don’t worry, they haven’t gotten far.”

“I though the orientation was at two,” I said, trying vainly to defend myself. God damn it my backpack was heavy. I took it off and placed it on the floor with a thunk. My shoulders screamed with the freedom.

“The orientation is at the resort,” the woman said, her eyes seeking the ceiling as the phone rang audibly on the other end. “The bus pick-up was at two.”

“And you boarded the bus that fast?” I asked, as if they were the ones at fault. “What about waiting around for me? I mean, didn’t you know you were missing someone?”

She nodded, mouth open. “We did. We called your cell. There was no answer.”

“I was in the metro,” I said feebly. “You see, my flight was late and then I didn’t have the right directions because I downloaded the new Nine Inch Nails instead and then it was really hot and I got confused…”

She wasn’t listening to me. “Yes, Manolo, hola, hello. We have Vera Miles here, she just showed up.” I could barely hear Manolo’s Peanuts-type squawking on the other end. The woman nodded. “Yes, but she’s here. Hold the bus and I’ll come meet you.”

Oh god, this was even worse than I thought.

She hung up the phone and snatched her keys off of her desk. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said breezily, as if she was just dropping me off at my house when I normally walked instead. Suddenly I felt like maybe this whole thing was a bad idea after all. Maybe instead of spending a month at an all-paid for resort, I could just slum it in Madrid, hiding my tail between my legs until I got home. Of course, I’d probably end up working the streets…

“Forget it, it’s fine,” the girl said. It was only then that I realized she never smiled. It wasn’t that she was angry but that her skinny face seemed always frozen in a state of perpetual shock—eyes wide, mouth open. She reminded me of Shelly Duvall in The Shining.

“How did you know my name?” I asked, bending down to pick up my backpack. I looked at my chest and realized I was giving her quite the cleavage shot. I wiped my hair out of my face before I swung it up on my shoulders. “You know, when I first came in.”

“I recognized the profile picture you submitted,” she said, marching over to the front door. “And you were the only person who didn’t show up. So, there’s that.”

Ugh. What a fucking start.

I cleared my throat. “So what’s your name?”

“Gabby,” she said as we exited the building back into the sweltering sunshine. She locked the door and motioned for me to follow her over to a two-door vehicle.

“Gabby, the person I’ve been in contact with for the last three months?” I asked as I tossed my bag on the backseat. Gabby the person I kept bugging in email after email about mundane stupid shit?

“That’s me,” she said, though from her default surprised expression she looked like she was unsure of that herself. Just gestured for me to get in the passenger side while she trotted around to hers and hopped in.

Inside the car it was sauna hot and I immediately started questioning if I had put on enough deodorant. While Gabby peeled the vehicle out onto a busy road, nearly taking out a few sightseers, she threw a stack of papers on my lap. “You better fill those out now.”

Before I had a chance to ask for a pen, she thrust one in my hands. I’d been annoying Gabby remotely for so long, it was strange to finally annoy her in person.

I looked over the papers. Most of them were photocopies of stuff I had already filled out online months ago but some were accident waivers and the like. I was grateful for something to do, to both keep our talk to a minimum and prevent me from watching the scene of impending doom as our car rushed through the traffic, nearly sideswiping, well, everything in our direction.

“So, Vera Miles?” Gabby questioned, between blaring the horn. “Are you named after the actress? I’m a big Hitchcock fan.”

I got this question all the time, usually from film buffs or old people. “No, my great-grandmother’s name was Vera. My mother said she never cared for the actress anyway, so she thought she could do better, I guess. Of course, she was totally wrong.” Even though I hadn’t been named after the fifties screen star, having her name definitely got me into a love of classic films. I even had an appreciation for the often overlooked actress, maybe because it pissed my mom off. Lord knows she probably thought I’d turn out to be a well-behaved beauty queen instead of a, well, me. Me and other Vera, we were underdogs.

With that thought in mind, I paused at the last question I had to fill out on the form: who was my emergency contact if something should happen to me. That was a bit of a tough one. I’d put my dad over my mother, just because we got along better, but my parents divorced when I was thirteen and he was a pilot, which meant he was more in the air than he was on the ground. Both my mother and Mercy seemed too busy with their own lives to give me much thought, which left Joshua. My dear brother was the only one who truly had my back. Unfortunately, he was high all the time, which was also kind of my fault.

I sighed and wrote down my mother’s information.

“There’s the bus,” Gabby said.

I looked up to see the bus pulled over to the side of the road, the engine running. We were on the outskirts of the city center where the tall business buildings started to peter out into wide boulevards framed by flowering trees.

“Thank you so much,” I said to her as she pulled up right behind it. “I am so sorry I was late.”

She finally smiled. It was quick but it was there. “It happens every program, don’t worry about it.”

I opened the door and got out. As I reached into the back to retrieve my pack I asked, “Any last minute advice?”

She raised a brow. “Try not to fall in love with anyone,” she said dryly.

I slowly closed the door and she sped off, honking at the bus as she drove past it.

Phfff, I thought to myself. Try not to fall in love with anyone? She obviously doesn’t know me at all.

I shrugged on my heavy bag and hauled it over to the bus in time to see a short and rotund looking driver come hoping out of it. Though I was afraid he was going to reprimand me, his mustache and smile were miles wide.

“So you’re Vera!” he said in a thick accent. He went for my shoulders. “I’m Manolo. Come, come, give me your bag.”

I awkwardly spun around so he could take it off. He then said, “Go, go on board and take an empty seat.” He started to lift up the compartment at the side of the bus.

I thanked him and shrugged, adjusted my purse on my shoulder as I walked up to the bus. I knew people were looking down at me from their window seats and already making their judgements. But fuck it.

I took in a deep breath and climbed up the stairwell.

Everyone was staring at me as I stood in the middle of the aisle, quickly scanning the rows for an empty seat. I thought I saw one at the back.

Luckily, no one looked mad or upset at the interruption. Most were smiling. Some of the grey-haired folk eyed my tattoos and even my tiny nose ring stud with disdain, but that was normal.

Well, might as well introduce myself.

I raised my hand and waved it. “I’m Vera Miles,” I announced sheepishly. “And I’m the one who was late. Lo siento,” I added, the only Spanish I knew.