54 pages • 1 hour read
Elena ArmasA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“Rosie tucked a curl behind her ear, her eyes jumping very briefly to Aaron and then returning to me. ‘I think he’s referring to the moment he offered to be your date to your sister’s wedding,’ she explained in a soft voice. ‘You know, right after you told me that things had changed and that now you needed to find someone—or anyone, I think you said—to go to Spain with you and attend that wedding because, otherwise, you die a slow, painful death and—’”
Before the actual narrative begins, Elena Armas lets the reader know that Aaron overheard Lina expressing the need for a wedding date. Aaron immediately volunteers, and Lina immediately rejects him. Throughout this strained conversation, Lina and Aaron use Rosie as a sort of translator, with Lina repeatedly refusing Aaron’s request as she doesn’t think he’s being serious. The essence of their relationship for the majority of the novel is captured in this exchange: Lina cannot believe Aaron feels affection for her, and Aaron wants to make his affection known.
“There it was. The truth. The real reason why I, among the four other people sitting in this room, had been hand-picked to do this damn thing. I was a woman—the only woman in the division, leading a team—and I had the goods, no matter how generous my curves were or not. Perky, cute, female. I was the attractive option apparently. I was being showcased to our clients as the golden token that prove that InTech was not stuck in the past.”
One of Armas’s themes deals with the continued prevalence of male bias against women in the workplace. While any professional woman would feel insulted in being handed a sudden assignment simply because she was attractive, this is even more problematic for Lina, who left Spain because she was falsely accused of achieving excellence through “feminine wiles” rather than her intellect.
“I was over him; I truly was. But, man, all that had happened had...messed me up. I realized that now—not because it’d suddenly hit me that I had been single for years, but because I had lied—and what was worse was, I had just made up my mind not to go back on my lie.”
Lina’s escape from Spain had less to do with her and Daniel’s breakup and more to do with three other factors: the cruel rumors regarding the relationship, the insensitive manner in which Daniel broke off the relationship, and her family’s inability to grasp what was truly troubling her. Though Lina experiences self-loathing in lying to her family about having an American boyfriend, she believes she must perpetuate the lie to avoid their pity.
“‘Anyone but her, Jeff. Just not her. I don’t think I could take it. Is she even capable of taking on this project? She looks young and inexperienced.’
Aaron had told that to our boss on the phone. I had happened to walk past his office. I had accidentally overheard, and I hadn’t forgotten. It was all etched in my memory.”
Despite Lina being attracted to Aaron at their first meeting, there were a series of missteps that prevented them from getting acquainted and discovering their true feelings. The worst of these events is Lina recalling Aaron asking their boss not to work together on a project. She is doubly offended by his rationale; he demeans her abilities and personality, a replay of her experience in Spain. Lina later learns that Aaron’s real reason for refusing to work with her was his fear that his attraction would interfere with his work.
“‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this,’ I told him with what I was sure was the most sincerity I’d ever spoken to him.
He sighed […] ‘And I don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to believe that I would.’
‘Aaron […] we don’t like each other. And it’s okay because we couldn’t be more... different. Incompatible. If we barely manage to share a space for more than a handful of minutes without bickering or wanting to bite each other’s heads off, why in the world would you believe this is a good idea?’”
While Lina and Aaron constantly cross paths, the former withholds her innermost thoughts and emotions from the latter. For his part, Aaron shows no emotions apart from a grim, unchanging focus on work. Lina’s questioning is her first attempt at anything like an authentic exchange of feelings. Aaron doesn’t reveal his innermost thoughts and emotions, likely because he knows Lina would not believe any expression of his affection.
“I hadn’t gone on a date in what felt like an eternity. Not that I considered myself unworthy or unattractive enough not to pique someone’s interest. I had gone on a few dates here and there shortly after moving to New York. But at some point, I had stopped trying. What was the point when it was clear there was something wrong with me? I might have left Spain, but somehow, I had managed to leave my trust—my willingness to fall in love ever again—somewhere across the ocean.”
Chapter 6 displays the depths of Lina’s fragility and insecurity. In escaping Spain, she left behind cruel, jealous liars and an undependable lover. Unfortunately, she also left behind her ability to open up to love.
“I continued, ‘I mean, this is not like bidding for a boat or a Porsche. I guess you cannot take the bachelor for a ride.’ Okay, that sounded...wrong. One could technically take someone for a ride. A certain sort of ride. ‘Not that kind of ride,’ I rushed out, watching Aaron’s expression change. ‘Not like a ride in a yeehaw kind of way. I said that because one takes cars for a ride. Like, for a spin. But not men, not in that way. At least I have never taken a man for a spin.’ I shook my head. I was making it worse, and the more I talked, the more Aaron’s lips paled.”
There are several humorous instances like this where Lina grows anxious and overexplains herself, as others listen in confused silence. This quote is her reaction to being put on the spot. Armas turns these instances into moments of comic relief, with Lina unintentionally providing awkward laughs.
“‘I heard about Coach, and I’m sorry man. I know you guys don’t talk, but he is still your—
‘It’s okay,’ Aaron cut his friend off. […] Thanks, but there’s nothing you have to be sorry for. […]
‘All right,’ TJ complied. ‘I’m sure I don’t need to tell you because you have lived through it yourself, but time doesn’t wait for you to make amends, man. Time waits for nobody.’”
Armas depicts Aaron as a quiet, private individual whose background is a mystery. In this quote, Aaron’s former teammate, TJ, hints at something that Lina will learn later on. As foreshadowed here, the “Coach” is Aaron’s father, Richard Blackford. The phrase “you have lived through it” refers to Aaron’s mother’s death from cancer, a disease which now afflicts Richard. Aaron’s attempt to change the subject reveals the degree to which he avoids being in touch with his feelings.
“‘You are right.’ His voice was unspeakably flat. ‘Being your friend has always been the last thing on my mind.’
His words, together with mine, felt like hail falling unrelentingly on me. On us, as we stood there in front of each other. Poking holes in the little bubble we have been in for the past few hours. The one we had been in while we danced. Right before the truce that had been silently established blew up in our faces.”
Feeling good about the successful auction, Lina uses the word “friend.” Aaron stills and asks if this is what she wants him to be. When she is unable to answer, Aaron’s affect changes and he makes this statement. This is the first of several occasions in which Lina refuses to grasp Aaron’s overt romantic feelings for her. The reader immediately recognizes Aaron’s desire to be her lover, not just a friend. However, Lina’s inability to perceive this stems from trust issues following her disastrous affair with Daniel, her physics professor in Spain.
“‘No, everything is fine.’ Aaron’s baritone texture reverberated through my ears, and I found a weird comfort in recognizing it. ‘Okay, I will tell Catalina to call you back.’ A pause. Followed by a chuckle. ‘No, I’m not one of those. I love meat. Roasted lamb in particular. […] Okay. Thank you, and likewise, Isabel. Bye.’
Wait. Wait.
Isabel?
Isabel as in my sister, Isabel?”
Though Lina perceives herself as completely self-reliant, she continually ends up in compromising situations. Aaron demonstrates an uncanny ability to show up whenever she needs help. In Chapter 11, he saves her twice. First, he finds her unconscious from hunger in the hallway at work, gets her food, and drives her home. Secondly, as Lina sleeps in Aaron’s car, he answers her cellphone after a multitude of calls from her sister—assuring her family that she is fine and reiterating his own existence in the process.
“Contingency plan: triple-chocolate brownie. A truckload of it.
If yesterday had told me anything, it was that I had been a total idiot with my health. And while I knew that stuffing my mouth with chocolate was a far stretch from that, I guess I was a woman of extremes.
And that was exactly what brought me to Madison Avenue. More specifically, to the only place in New York City that held the power to sooth the raging beast that was my anxiety right now.”
Lina and Rosie share a ritual of meeting at their favorite coffee shop, Around the Corner, for drinks and pastries whenever they feel overwhelmed or want to gossip. While Lina is surprised to see Aaron show up, it is not a surprise to the reader, who recognizes that he will ultimately appear wherever Lina goes—regardless of her inability or reluctance to grasp his feelings. Armas’s description of Lina in this quote is typical of heroines in traditional romance novels: Even when overwhelmed by anxiety, the heroine will be found by her love interest.
“What almost knocked me on my ass, if not for the seat belt, was Aaron parting those lips that were so often pressed in an unamused line, and licking the chocolate clean off his thumb.
Chocolate that he had just retrieved from the corner of my mouth. […]
I should have been appalled. But I wasn’t. My brown eyes were now fixed on Aaron’s mouth, noticing how all the heat that I’d felt in my face traveled around my body to all kinds of interesting places, all the while keeping my eyes where they were. On his lips.”
Aaron’s appearance and demeanor change the moment he arrives at the airport to accompany Lina to Spain. Lina expresses surprise at his “uncharacteristic” behavior. These changes all serve to intensify her physical attraction to him—an attraction she continues to ignore. As the novel progresses, she finds herself unable to resist her romantic feelings. Ultimately, Aaron becomes the one with the ability to resist physical intimacy.
“‘I can’t do this. I just can’t go out there and lie to my whole family. I can’t. It won’t work out. They’ll know. I’ll make a fool of myself. The fool that I am because—’
Aaron’s fingers found my chin, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. ‘Hey.’ The blue in his eyes shone under the fluorescent light illuminating the terminal, snatching all my attention. ‘There you are.’”
Upon arriving in Spain, the magnitude of the “Spanish love deception” (215) hits Lina and she panics. Aaron restores Lina’s composure by touching her face and making her look into his eyes, rescuing her again. This incident foreshadows the final scene of the novel in which they express that, together, they can deal with any challenge. Armas depicts the reality of this throughout the novel, as the pair do overcome their obstacles when they work together.
“Where my sis was this puzzle piece that fit anywhere at the first try, I had always seemed to struggle with finding my place. Somehow, I had always managed to be missing a little corner or have an extra edge that pushed me to keep trying somewhere I might fit better. That piece pushed me to keep looking for that place to call home. Because that was no longer Spain for me. But neither was New York, as much as I had Rosie and a career I was proud of. It had always felt...a little lonely. Incomplete.”
Lina describes the psychological term “family standard bearer” in this quote. In many families with multiple children, one of the offspring leaves their original home and becomes a high achiever in a different place. While families admire and brag about the achievements of these high achievers, the children themselves are often unaware of how highly their families esteem them. They perceive themselves as “emotionally ejected” from the family and—as Lina says— often never feel fully at home in any location.
“Daniel, as the best man, took off his shirt next. Almost reluctantly, from the way he shook his head. My gaze involuntarily took him in. It wasn’t a shock, seeing how, despite not being anywhere close to being buff—which he had never been—he was still in really good shape. And yet... I felt nothing. No stirring anywhere in my body.”
One of the major reasons why Lina felt compelled to bring a boyfriend to her sister’s wedding was knowing Daniel, her former lover and brother of the groom, would be there. Along with everyone in her family, Lina was concerned about how she might feel and react upon seeing Daniel again. This passage describes the men in the wedding party taking off their shirts to play soccer, and Lina notes her lack of physical interest in Daniel. Aaron’s physical presence, on the other hand, unfailingly causes physical and emotional reactions in Lina.
“‘Just like the big jerk I had advertised myself to be, I ran her out. And to this day, I regret it every time it crosses my mind. Every time I look at her.’ He didn’t even blink as he talked, looking straight into my eyes. And I didn’t think I did either. I didn’t think I was even breathing. ‘All the time I wasted so foolishly. All the time I could have had with her.’
If I hadn’t been leaning on the tall table of the sidrería, I would have fallen to the floor.”
Lina’s sister Isabel and others in the wedding party find Lina’s explanation of how she and Aaron fell in love to be unconvincing. This is primarily a result of Lina being a poor liar and perceiving Aaron’s affection as an act. As always, Aaron rescues her. Here, he describes their actual first meeting and the regret he feels at brushing her off to maintain a professional distance. Lina is stunned and torn as to whether he is telling the truth or simply carrying on their deception.
“Aaron didn’t say anything for a long moment. I used that time to come to terms with the fact that he’d never open up to me. Not that I’d blame him. I hadn’t been completely honest with him about my past either. But as much as I tried to tell myself otherwise, the falling sensation in my chest made it hard to ignore how I really felt. I wanted to know. I wanted to unearth and learn everything about his past because I knew deep inside me that was the key to finally understanding the man he was today. And him not letting me in only reminded me that I wasn’t different from anybody else.”
Many of Lina’s internal monologues contain denial or misunderstanding. This quote features an ironic misjudgment: No sooner does she express the belief that Aaron will never be fully open with her is when he pours his heart out.
“I had already been involved with someone where a supervisory relationship between us had existed, where I had not been the one in the position of authority. And where had that led me? To being the only one having to deal with the dirty and poisonous tongues that hadn’t thought twice before stigmatizing me and everything I had worked so hard for. Just for what? For a few laughs? For pointing a few fingers? For bringing me down, so they’d feel a little better?”
The longer Lina remains in Aaron’s company, the more she worries about the consequences of genuinely falling in love with him. She reflects on two other sources of anxiety that also center on Aaron. First, she fears that her deception will be discovered by her family. Secondly, having endured criticism and rumors because she dated a former professor, she fears that dating a coworker—soon to be supervisor—has the potential to disrupt her personal and work lives again.
“‘Had I been a child when we were together, Daniel? When you dated me? And made me feel special? Told me you loved me?’ I watched his jaw set in a tight line. ‘Is that all I was to you when you dropped me like a hot potato after you so much as sniffed a little trouble coming your way? I guess that would explain everything. I’m only getting an apology now that you deem me worthy of one, having finally turned into an adult.”
Lina is forced into an awkward encounter with her former lover Daniel, in which he claims she is not completely happy. Daniel’s responses reveal how shallow and condescending his “concern” truly is. Armas allows Lina to take the revenge she was long due with anger and eloquence that reduce Daniel to mortified silence.
“Aaron offered his arm, and I struggled not to launch myself at him right then and there. ‘May I have the honor?’ He asked slowly.
A deep belly laugh left my lips. Slowly, I took it. ‘Now, you’re just pushing it.’
His palm fell on top of the one that was resting on the crook of his arm. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Only romance heroes say stuff like that. And we are talking about the ones in a Jane Austen novel. Not even your run of the mill romance hero would butter up a woman that much,’ I explained….”
As discussed in the Literary Devices section, Armas frames her characters as modernized versions of those from traditional romance novels by authors like Jane Austen. Lina’s mention of Austen is the only overt reference to such novels. This reference follows Aaron conducting himself as a model male lead, uttering the classic phrase “May I have the honor?”
“I felt Aaron move beside me. Turning in his direction, my gaze hopelessly fastened onto his lips again. His mouth. That speck of disappointment grew, obliterating everything else and turning into something thick and heavy that promised a rich taste on my tongue. One that made my heart speed up.
Want, I realize. What I felt was need. I wanted him, needed him to get me in his arms and kiss me like he had promised.”
The progression of Lina and Aaron’s love story is slow, with more than three-quarters of the novel completed before their first kiss. Ironically, once Lina realizes how badly she wants to kiss Aaron—that he promised would cement his love for her—the experience is almost spoiled by Isabel’s kiss cam, which would have forced them to kiss in front of the entire wedding party. They instead sneak out to share their long-awaited kiss.
“Ignited. That was exactly how I felt.
[…] Everything riding deep inside me hadn’t been shaped out of just a few moments […] What caused this uprising had already been there, buried. I kept it submerged under the weight of buts, fears, and doubts. Pushed down by my own stubbornness too. But now it had burst out, resurfacing and streaming out of me, mixed with need and want and something that was exhilarating and absolutely terrifying, I knew that I had reached the point of no return. I wouldn’t be able to push it down, shove it aside, or ignore it any longer.”
From the first page of the novel, Armas portrays Lina as an emotional person. Every decision she makes is driven by powerful emotions. Yet, this quote reveals that she has been holding her most powerful feeling—desire—at bay.
“‘Your family loves you, and that’s a kind of bond you can’t force. It’s a kind of love one doesn’t find anywhere else. It can be overwhelming, but that’s only because it’s always honest. And being part of that, even if only for a few days, meant... the world. More than you could ever know.’”
Having overcome their barriers together, Lina and Aaron reflect on their physical and emotional journey. Lina expresses concern that her family may have intruded too much. However, Aaron is an only child who notes the novelty of experiencing life with a large, close family.
“One didn’t need to be young for their life to change in the span of an hour, a handful of minutes, or nothing more than a few seconds. Life changed constantly, wickedly fast and terribly slow, when one least expected it to or after a long time of chasing that change. Life could be turned around, inside out, backward and forward, or it could even transform into something else entirely. And it happened regardless of age, but most importantly, it didn’t care for time.”
Lina’s observations on life’s unpredictable changes stem from her experiences throughout the novel. Finding someone to be her faux boyfriend for a weekend is her original motive. Instead, she finds an ideal lover, discovers how fortunate she was to not end up with Daniel, overcomes her fear of commitment, and finds many strong supporters among her colleagues. The Seattle trip finds her emulating Aaron—flying to her ideal lover, determined to show the depth of her affection.
“He pushed back the chair and stood up, gifting me with a view of his whole torso.
I sighed internally. Happily. All mine. All of that was just for me and for my taking, and what was even better, that strong and resilient heart beating inside his chest with loyalty, selflessness, and integrity was all mine too.”
Harkening back to Aaron’s comment prior to their first intercourse, the terms “all mine” and “just for me” come to mean physical and emotional devotion with no holding back. Lina’s thoughts reflect those of Chapter 2—during the first directors’ meeting—in which she was equally preoccupied (irritated) with Aaron and his proposal to be her wedding date in Spain.
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