Dear Wigleaf, We arrived at the motel after dark, two women in a red pickup wearing long earrings under the patches shaved into our hair. I think they made us for people in love. My friend is small, and elaborately pretty, like a bird carved from bone. When she listens to me talk I feel pulled back together. Swaddled in lambswool, hung in the clean white sun from the big window. I tell stories all the time, endless interrupted tales with soft middles and dribbly ends. I expect people to be bored, joke about it, but I am always secretly hurt by their boredom. That's the kind of nightmare I am. At the only restaurant in town, I told her a story. And my friend smiled and there I was again, in the woolly sun. When she left in her red truck I went back to my cottage and wrote it for her. That night I slept as if my mother was holding me. But wait. I was telling you about Blanes, before. I went back to Blanes for the Festa Major. The streets were full of Russians and Dutch, the nights crackling hot. On the beach I saw a young man's heart covered half by tattoo, half by hair. On the Tren La Bruixa, teenage boys in witch masks scared passengers with brooms, mops, and an empty bucket. On the last night of the Festa I was tired and hot and I stayed inside. The next day my friends told me that I had missed the correfoc, the ancient closing ceremony, in which locals put on devil masks and bring fire down into the streets. This is not the end. Let me try to remember. Love, Lisa Locascio - - -
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