Looking for Anita

1 I’m going to tell you something quirky about myself. I believe that there is a map of my life already drawn out in the stars; I just have to figure out how to read it. I’ve never told anyone about this because I know how insane it sounds, but there have been too many “coincidental” connections in my life for them to not mean something. Sure, many people can tell you how random life is and how coincidence is nothing more than that – pure chance. But I’ve always doubted that. Sometimes the strangest occurrences aren’t really so strange. We just make them out to be because we’re frightened by things that happen so perfectly. Randomness is more comforting. If we believe things are random and therefore out of our control, we don’t have to be disappointed if our hopes never come to fruition, because they were too “perfect” for the universe to have made them actually happen. But sometimes, perfect things do happen. And I believe they are all part of a grander plan. When I look back at the names of people who have come into my life, the lyrics of the songs that play alongside my memories as the soundtrack of my life, it all makes sense. And since you already know that I believe events are not as arbitrary as we make them out to be, I know that if I have the patience to piece it all together, I’ll soon be able to interpret the meanings behind my past stories and better understand what may lie ahead for me. All I need to do is decipher the map’s legend, figure out what it all means, and I am sure I won’t go through the rest of my days feeling so lost. If I can just learn to read the map. This all leads up to the decision I made last year, when Grandma Ida passed away and left me a chunk of money. I decided to ignore other people’s better judgment and instead listen to my heart, which is how I ended up here in Seville, Spain, in the spring of 1992 as the World Exposition turns this town upside down with the kind of energy you wish you could bottle and sell. New bridges have been erected, new boardwalks have been paved, and a new train station has even been built to properly receive the new high-speed train that will bring the tourists from Madrid to Seville in less than three hours’ time (a great improvement over the eight-hour bus ride I’ve heard others bemoan). As a result of this phenomenal event and the money that Seville has put in to bettering this already fantastic city, people from all over the world have come to work in the Expo, which is why I am now sitting on a barstool across from a Swedish bartender named Benny. As soon as the Expo is over in October, he will return to Stockholm to continue his studies in psychology. In the meantime, it is after hours, which in Seville means that the crowds have thinned out because they’re hungry…for breakfast. The sun will rise within the hour, but Benny and I don’t care. We sit around and talk as if we haven’t been out partying for the past six hours, as if we have all the energy left to discuss the world’s problems and possibly even offer up solutions. Benny and I have spent many nights sitting here at Pecata Mundi’s bar. He sees through my attempts to be a mystifying woman of few words and always manages to draw me into endless conversations about my childhood, though he often mocks what he calls my overly dramatic statements. Regarding musical tastes, I know about Benny’s love of the Irish band U2 and the Australian group INXS, and he knows about my obsession with his country’s most internationally well-known pop music group. Still, Benny likes me, despite the fact that he says I am the oddest woman he has ever met. And because he doesn’t make me feel foolish when I talk about ABBA, I am about to tell him how I ended up in Seville. “My best friend disappeared and broke my heart when I was thirteen years old.” Benny slaps a damp rag onto the bar’s counter and shakes his head in dismay. “Enough melodrama already.” He smiles and winks simultaneously, reminding me that he is my friend. “Okay,” I give in. “When I became an orphan at nine years old...” Benny turns his back on me, apparently having had enough, and he pretends to organize the glasses. “This is true, Benny. I swear it. My parents were killed in a car accident that my little brother and I survived. I wouldn’t make up stuff like this.” Turning around, Benny says, “Really? Well, that would explain a lot. You learned about drama at a young age, I see.” I smile, but I am sad. And Benny seems to understand this. “Go on,” he says. “When I became an orphan at nine years old, two significant people came into my life: Ida Roth and Bettina Sevilla.” “Bettina Sevilla?” Benny is skeptical. “Sevilla?” I nod as if to say, Can you believe it? Of all the places for me to end up. As if it is pure coincidence, which, of course, I know it is not.