In the morning I wake in perfect closeness to Nick, spooned into his embrace in the narrow hotel bed. He’s still asleep, a rhythmic breathing on the nape of my neck, exhalations warm, inhalations cool. I don’t dare move, hoping to prolong the moment, watching dawn heat the room and light up the garish red-and-black hexagonal tiles. My head is a thriving garden of thoughts — Guanajuato’s instant ascension to my favorite city in Mexico, another long-distance fight with my family, a newspaper article about a mescal shortage. And most of all, my resolution to quit reminding Nick that I might be pregnant, maybe.

A cacophony of honking erupts down in the street, echoing harshly through the open window, bouncing off the tile. Then silence again. Probably just a feral dog, loping across the cobbles in front of a fast-approaching bumper. Nothing I haven’t seen a million times in Mexico.

Behind me Nick stirs, tightening the arm draped over my naked hip. A stubbled cheek tickles my shoulderblade when he yawns. “I was just dreaming about you.”

“Yeah?” I say happily, snuggling backwards into him. “A good dream? Or a nightmare?”

Laughter rumbles into my hair. “A crazy dream.”

“Tell me before you forget.”

Nick nuzzles toward my ear and begins whispering, “We were in Paris, some luxury hotel or something. You were in the swimming pool, full of dolphins and fish and seaweed. Floating on an inflatable raft in the shape of a shell. Beneath this golden skylight. Naked.”

His hands are beginning to roam my body, and a silky hardness is forming in the cleft of my butt. But I’m way ahead of him, already molten, panting with desire, and I roll away to grope for the condoms. There’s one foil packet left. I tear it open with my teeth and straddle his knees and carefully unroll it over him. His abdominal muscles flex with laughter.

I glance up at him. “We can do the foreplay later. I need you inside me. Right now.”

“Nah, that’s not it. I was just thinking…” Nick laughs again, a noise that’s amused and groping and miserable, all at once. “Like, do we even need to use a condom anymore?”

I strangle my own nervous giggle. “Shhhhh!” Then I aim him into me and settle my hips, a spearing ecstasy.

The mirth lingers in his face. “Remember when you were too shy to be on top?” His palms are flat against my chest, stroking gently. He can’t cup my breasts because they’re too small. Just bumps, really. “Now look at you.”

Actually, I remember when I didn’t even know the girl could be on top. Saman and I only did it one way — missionary position — even though the Qur’an says your wives are your field and you can walk on that field any way you like. It was Nick who showed me this position, even though I was horribly embarrassed at first. What man would want to gaze up at bumps like these? But he says that’s why he loves them. Because they’re my bumps.

When I open my eyes, my long hair is a circular waterfall pooling around Nick’s heavy-lidded stare. “You make me…feel like…” I pant, but I can’t finish the thought. It’s lost in all the fireworks in my head, a fast rushing climax.

His arms reach around me, vise-strong, pulling me flat against him. Together we make a slippery afterglow of hot sweaty skin and fluids leaking out of me. Wetly. So much wetness that –

But when I roll off him and check the drooping condom, it’s not blood-streaked. I hover over him, my weight planted on a skinny arm, the elbow bending out a little wrong. I can’t decide which type of relief to feel, the happy kind or sad.

Nick is studying me from a distance greater than our proximity, trying to act casual, putting on his macho mask. “What the hell time is it, anyway?” He fumbles for my wrist, where the outsized digits of my runner’s watch have an answer. 8:42 AM. “Jesus. No wonder I’m starving!” The bed creaks and his pale body flashes toward the bathroom. “You taking a shower with me?”

Afterward we exit the hotel into Guanajuato, which is the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen in my life. Pastel-stuccoed buildings — puce, azure, goldenrod, mint, magenta — are stacked up the hills toward the valley rim. Elaborate balconies framed in wrought iron overlook the steep cobblestone roads, most too narrow for anything but pedestrians, meeting at impossible angles and diving into the converted mineshafts that run beneath the city. Centuries-old architecture is everywhere you look — silver mines from the 1600s, churches from the 1700s, theaters from the 1800s. Canopies of oak and slash pine and flowering tejocote trees rise majestically above the tile roofs.

Above us the sky is a hot indigo brilliantine that matches Nick’s eyes. He’s telling me about the history of this place, back in the colonial era when Guanajuato was a cramped valley of silver mines that became synonymous with unfathomable wealth. The Valenciana mine alone produced 2/3rds of the world’s silver in the 1800s, almost single-handedly funding the Spanish Empire during that century. No wonder so many ostentatious cathedrals and mansions crowd these hills, celebrating God and the holy blessing of riches.

But the silicious ore only became bullion at great cost. Generations of Indians toiled in the dangerous mines and noxious smelting plants, compelled by an exploitative labor system known as the cuatequil. Basically, every year the Spanish Crown required its Indian subjects to perform several months of labor for free — and forced that unpaid labor force into the silver mines, working in gigantic rotations that uprooted families and even entire villages. Everything I’m seeing was built from human misery. Suddenly Guanajuato doesn’t seem so beautiful anymore.

We keep walking uphill, past alleys so narrow that residents can lean across their balconies and kiss each other, mingling with all the other shutterbug tourists. Mexicans, vacationing or just visiting relatives. A surprising number of Germans, chatting in tones that sound harsh to my ears. And plenty of Americans, usually college kids my age, doing the semester-abroad thing.

Sounds of drunken revelry spill out of an open-fronted bar. Inside Americans clad in powder blue are crowded beneath a dangling TV, watching a basketball game and cheering loudly. A solitary Mexican bartender blinks into space like a reptile.

“Tarheels,” Nick says absentmindedly, following my gaze. “I wonder if it’s the ACC tournament already.”

“Tarheels?”

“The University of North Carolina, they’re called the Tarheels. Have you ever heard of March Madness? It’s the NCAA hoops tournament. The Tarheels might be a #1 seed.” He glances over at me. “Imagine if your parents had encouraged you to play basketball, instead of get married. You could’ve gotten an athletic scholarship. Just on your height alone.”

I smile uncomfortably. “I don’t really think about stuff like that. How my life could’ve been different. Because — well, you know. There’s so much I’d change, where would I even start?” I reach over to hold his hand. “Besides, if I went back and changed everything, then I never would’ve met you.”

“Hey. Let’s eat in here.” Nick pulls me toward a huge corrugated aluminum building with a section of siding punched out — the entrance/exit to a vast indoor shopping arcade, I realize as we draw closer. The bare concrete floor is crowded with booths selling almost anything imaginable, including breakfast. More booths fringe the balcony. It’s like a Mexican flea market, only with tourist prices.

Usually Nick is too impatient for browsing, chafing at my curiosity, an insistent tug at my elbow or beltloop. But today he does a walk-by of almost every booth in the mall, graciously enduring my protracted curiosity. I’m fascinated by comics in translation, Spiderman and X-Men and The Punisher with Spanish dialog balloons. I oooh and aaah over Day of the Dead figurines made from cut-up Budweiser cans. And I almost keel over in shock at Gloria Trevi beach towels — Gloria Trevi beach towels! She’s a pop star, the so-called “Mexican Madonna”, and a convicted lesbian sex offender — and the nearest beach is back in Mazatlan, some 1,000 miles away.

Many of the booths are actually mini-restaurants fronted with a short line of stools. We pick one with a hygienic countertop looking into refrigerated glass. A disinterested mexicana in an apron slides menus to us while gossiping into her cellphone. Behind her a cooktop awaits, and tap pulls for the Coke family of beverages — Coke, Diet Coke, Mountain Dew, Barq’s. I’m disappointed there’s no Jarritos, the Mexican soft drink brand with flavors like tamarind and guava.

Nick’s gaze is wandering between his menu and the display case, full of frozen delicacies. “I think I’ll just get the breakfast burrito. What about you?”

I’m astonished by how hungry I am. Even my laminated menu looks good. But the more I stare at it, the more my hunger sharpens into a particular craving. “I’m gonna have a chocolate malt!”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “A malt. For breakfast.”

“Yeah! A chocolate malt. Omigod that sounds delicious.” Unnerved by my craving and his raised eyebrows — both of them, now — I quickly add, “And I’ll have a breakfast burrito too.” Just for appearances, not really expecting that I’ll eat it.

But the result is humbling. First I hoover the chocolate malt using not one, not two, but three straws simultaneously. Then I shovel the breakfast burrito down my throat. Only a couple jalapenos survive. From zilch appetite to bottomless pit in the blink of an eye. Nick and the aproned mexicana behind the counter are considering me warily, as if I might devour them next.

Back on the sidewalk outside, we resume our ever-upward trek through the twisted mess of streets, frequently getting lost. Our tourist map is just as baffling. It’s a grid overlaid with crazy multiple branching lines in primary colors. The red, green and blue correspond to the three types of streets in Guanajuato — above-ground streets, below-ground streets, and abandoned mine shafts that are slated for conversion into below-ground streets.

We climb past a store with FARMACIA in neon letters, snaking like a lit fuse. I falter a little. “We need some more condoms.”

Next to me Nick grinds to a halt. “How long has it been?”

“Hmmm?” Suddenly I’m very interested in his hiking boots, which are scarred with harsh reminders of his travels — kerosene stains, ugly welting cracks, a bite missing from a sole.

“Come on, Nooshin. How long?”

“Well, about two months. I’m kinda missing my second period right now.” Then I remember my resolution not to bug him about it. “But I’ll get it any day now, I’m sure!” I reassure his hiking boots.

“So we need more condoms. And a pregnancy test.” On the cobbles his shadow is raising a hand to its head. He’s rubbing his bald spot, a nervous habit. “What the hell.”

The pharmacy is a claustrophobic riot of narrow shelves packed with drug boxes and pill bottles. Disaster looms at every turn — literally. We have to shrug out of our backpacks because we can’t turn around in the tiny aisles without causing a swath of destruction. Nick chooses a sample pack of condoms, all different kinds — ribbed, ultrathin, colored — while I consider the pregnancy tests. Mostly I stare at the illustrative diagrams on the back of the boxes, picturing myself bent over the toilet, trying to pee onto the stick for several seconds. It seems like the kind of thing I could screw up. Better buy two.

The matronly woman behind the cash register captures our entire relationship in a glance, eyes triangulating above her bifocals, from our items to me to Nick and back again. I try to imagine what she sees in our circumstances. One sampler pack of condoms, two pregnancy tests, and no wedding rings. My boyfriend hovering beside me, the sharp angles of his face misaligned in a slight daze. Me fumbling in my purse, so stupid with joy that I’ve forgotten how to count pesos. If she tried to predict our future, what would she say?

Eventually our destination looms into sight, the majestic University of Guanajuato, built by the Jesuits in 1732. If I didn’t know better I’d call it a castle, or maybe a cathedral. The silhouette of the massive building is lavished with towers and spires and crenelations. Stained glass windows break up the stonework of the walls. A coat of arms is carved high above the entrance and its scarred wooden doors. Some tourists nearby point and laugh, noticing a satellite dish that pokes anachronistically from the roofline.

We’re here to meet Nick’s friend Alberto — Beto, as he’s nicknamed — who teaches Spanish in Guanajuato, not at the university but in a private school for tourists. It’s one of those study-abroad places with a curriculum of Spanish classes and sightseeing. That sounds cool to me, but Nick is looking down his nose at it. Apparently this is the best job Beto could get after finishing his dissertation on colonial mining in Guanajuato.

“Can you imagine?” Nick sighs, parking himself on the awe-inspiring sheaf of stone stairs. “A Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, 10 fucking years of his life, and he winds up playing tour guide and teaching tourists how to ask ‘Where’s the bano?’ in Spanish.”

“But is Beto happy?” I settle next to his hip, folding a Nike beneath me. “Because if he’s happy, that’s all that matters, right?”

“Happy don’t pay the bills.” But Nick says it cheerfully, as if hoping it might.

We sit quietly and watch for Beto, squinting into the sunshine. At the foot of the stairs is a chica selling sprays of fresh flowers that are taller than she is. Nearby two elderly nuns are praying, heads bowed over their rosaries. Occasionally a camera rises and falls, memorializing Nick and I in someone else’s picture of the University of Guanajuato. I lay my head on his shoulder and bask in us, wondering if I have a predisposition to adore him, an idiot radio song about sex stuck in my head.