I picked an orange dress, and remembered him sending me a picture of a painting of a girl with an orange dress over her head.

 

"You trying to find a grab."

​

At that moment my alarm went off. Shit. I had to leave soon if I wanted to make it all the way to the airport side of town. Some I.S. ilk had turned their parents' hangar into an al fresco venue, and there were drinks and a DJ and an antiques fair that day. "FYI I have a cold sore," he had texted, when we were figuring out schedules, "so let's resist temptation."

​

Before running out I spied a hand painted camp shirt hanging testily in my closet. Green with a vase of orange flowers, a bit complex but I thought, better to show my eccentricity now.

​

When I slid into a cramped parking spot at the venue - a restored bahay na puti - I still doubted my place when I opened my car door and clip-clopped out on the bermuda grass in my red thong sandals with the rings on them. But the doubts left me when I walked through a grand marble entrance, passing large oil paintings (figurative), velvet chairs (reupholstered), and tables with cloven feet that I made a mental note to check back on later for a client. Squinting, I found him at a table near a girl I’ve been avoiding. When I got closer I realized they were at the same table. He wore a black shirt, and what I guessed would be jeans and some type of vegan leather shoe.

 

"After we had lunch, she went around telling her friends I liked her," I could hear him saying when I got close. "Which was so awkward."

​

World music pumped in the background, of course.

​

Noticing me, he stood up and gave a tentative greeting, which resulted in us bumping our cheekbones a bit painfully.

 

"You made it." It was here that I got close enough to look down at the rest of the outfit and confirmed that I was right about the rest of it.

​

"So you know, I'm the kind of guy to take chances, and so I sawwww, or I thought I saw - " he continued, baring his teeth in kind of a creepy smile I hadn't noticed before, but which the girl, the one I was avoiding, was all there for.

​

"Nooooo way. No way! I know you, you only have two crushes on Instagram," she said.

​

"Yes." He kept flashing his creepy whites. "Azagury. So I went to her, and I go - Azagury?"

​

"NO. Noooo. Was it her?"

​

"No it wasn't. But I got her number."

​

"Show me."

​

At that moment an I.S. girl, princess over all the festivities, came over in a lemon-print dress.

​

"How are you enjoying?"

​

"We're good, we're enjoying. So what are you up to now? I thought you would be in Spain by now."

​

"Well, I'm busy with “ - she waved her fan around - “this. It's a LOT of work."

​

"Nice."

​

"But my flight back to Spain is in March. Aldo went ahead already, and is setting up our house, his business, you know."

​

"Nice."

​

"Yeah, I'm really excited," she sipped on her gin and tonic. "I'm planning to start my own store - online for now - where I'll carry wine, jewelry, antiques I found in Spain." I died a bit hearing this, because that had been my own idea, and to hear it described by someone with far less sophistication was deflating.

​

"Have you guys been to the bar?"

​

"Oh, we'll get to it."

​

"Ok, there's champagne."

​

I spoke up. "She works in PR right? Aren't they supposed to say it's just sparkling wine?"

​

"Yeah. But that's Mariella. I had lunch with her when I first got here, and it was a casual lunch, but after that she went around telling her friends, I think Marco likes me."

​

It was then that I realized he was the kind of guy who had five stories he told everyone, and wondered about the painting of the girl with an orange dress hooded over her head.

​

"I think that says more about you than it says about her," I said. "For example, I thought you liked me."

​

I stood up and wandered over to the antiques.