Paella Valenciana: A Love Story
by Claire Taylor
Shortly after Zinedine Zidane head-butts Marco Materazzi, I eat the best meal of my
life. We are a touch drunk on Guinness and olives, everywhere you go a bowl on the
table, a palmful of pits. We stutter across the plaza, evening light skipping and
shimmering like water and I realize how badly I need to pee. In the quiet restaurant,
waitstaff worry around us as if we’re marked by fame, prestige, anything other than
two silly tourists grown hungry hours before the locals would dare. Later we make
love in the hostel shower—and not just because the Pope is due in town the next
morning, though that’s part of it: a perversion of some belief neither of us holds.
Hunger still on our tongues, voracious teeth on our skin, lips pulsing red with wine
and heat, blue dawn painting the air.
At midday, we lie on the beach and pretend to avert our eyes from bare-breasted
women, skin shiny as honey, laughter like a noon-day bell. We get another order from
a seaside stand as sun pinks our bellies, kisses our shoulders and cheeks. We joke
about stripping down to our essences, bathing in the Mediterranean and returning
home as someone new, but all these years later we are still ourselves. Sun-worn and
time-weathered. Our mouths forever returning to that same delicious taste.
Claire Taylor is the author of multiple chapbooks, including Mother Nature and One Good Thing. She is the founding editor of Little Thoughts Press, a literary magazine for young readers. Claire lives with her family in Baltimore, Maryland, in an old stone house where birds love to roost. You can find her online at clairemtaylor.com.
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