“Books and Roses” opens with a young girl whose mother left her at a chapel in Catalonia when she was an infant. She is named Montserrat at her mother’s request (because the chapel is named Santa Maria de Montserrat), and she wears a key around her neck that her mother gave her. She was left with a note that read:

1. You have a Black Madonna here, so you will know how to love this child as much as I do. Please call her Montserrat.
2. Wait for me. (2)

The monks raise her and give her the last name Fosc, which in Catalan means “obscure.”

When she is old enough, she gets a job at a building known as the Casa Mila as a laundry worker. The Casa Mila is an ugly, old mansion filled with colorful and interesting residents, including Señora Lucy, a pretty artist who lies about being 50 years old though she is really 35. Montserrat finds reasons to deliver Lucy’s laundry and becomes enamored with her. They bond over Lucy’s paintings, and Montserrat soon discovers that Lucy also wears a key around her neck because she is waiting for someone.

Lucy recounts the story of how she met a woman named Safiye at the five-year reunion for graduates of the University of Seville, though neither of them ever attended the school.