Boy for Rent
Mayte Esteban
Translated by Jessica Sequeira
“Boy for Rent”
Written By Mayte Esteban
Copyright © 2014 Mayte Esteban
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by Jessica Sequeira
Cover Design © 2014 Iván Hernández
“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
BOY FOR RENT | By Mayte Esteban | Translated by Jessica Sequeira
BOY FOR RENT
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BOY FOR RENT
By Mayte Esteban
Translated by Jessica Sequeira
BOY FOR RENT
The city shakes itself awake. The streets begin to fill with cars, headed for the same traffic jam as always. The tap of a shower opens. A coffee maker begins to brew. A dog demands his daily walk while his owner forgets the previous night’s dream. Life gets started behind each window, and the story of a new winter day in Madrid begins to be written. The lives of thousands of people intermingle as they pass one another, exchange glances, take the same bus, or buy the paper from the same newsstand, without taking a single second to acknowledge each other. In a big city it’s the most normal thing in the world. You only happen to have seen your next-door neighbor because you once ran into each other while taking out the trash or riding the elevator. Your friends are school classmates or work colleagues, or perhaps some relative you don’t get along with too badly. Life slips by between monotony and heartache, with nobody being quite what he’d like to be or what the rest expect of him. But occasionally the stories of two people, the kind seen every day, intersect to transform into something going beyond routine.
* * *
Paula wakes up with a start. In her opinion, the alarm clock is the most inhumane torture of modern times. She always associates it with some interesting part of her morning dream, and forgets to turn it off. But the insistence of the monstrosity ends up winning out over the last phase of her sleep cycle, and she gets up in a foul mood. Today’s alarm was especially jarring. The sound designed to get the victim moving, instead of a simple insistent ring, was an entire forest of wild animals in heat. Her friend Raquel downloaded the tone from the internet and finally went through with her long-standing plan to swap it out when Paula wasn’t paying attention. As soon as it went off, Paula realized. Raquel’s jokes can be funny, but they’re much funnier when the victim isn’t you.
It’s not that this day in particular is going to be especially hard, and that for that reason Paula doesn’t want to wake up. The idea of going to class even seems bearable. She spends the majority of her time there sleeping with her eyes open anyway, counting down the minutes until she can go home, and dreaming of doing something different. What makes it so difficult to get out of bed is the tedium of continuing with a degree that leads nowhere, and that bores her deeply.
A little after seven, her cell phone rings. It seems that everyone’s getting their Thursday started.
“Hello?” She’s still somewhat asleep, and tucks herself lazily back into the covers.
“Paula, is that you?” The male voice on the other end of the receiver is familiar, but sleepiness prevents her from recognizing it.
“Who is it?” she asks with apathy and a bit of irritation. Why would it occur to anyone to call so early?
“It’s Dad. Have you woken up?”
“No. Not you... it couldn’t have been! I thought it was Raquel.”
“What? You and your friends are already calling each other? I don’t know what genius invented cell phones... You’re the one who complains about everyone calling too early!”
“No no, Raquel didn’t call personally. She set me a really over-the-top alarm.”
“Sorry to hear it, love. You know my thoughts about your always having a telephone glued to one hand. Anyway, can you do me a favor?”
Her father’s tone of voice warns her that she’s not going to like it, and she hurries to think of an excuse just in case. She’s an expert in excuses, and has no doubt something will occur to her in the next fraction of a second.
“I don’t know. It depends how much time I have.”
“Okay.”
First question handled. It’s not a “no”, but neither is it an immediate “yes”.
“The thing is, your younger sisters have to buy clothes and I promised to take them, but I remembered that I have a meeting. Can they go with you?”
Paula has no absolutely no desire to go out with her sisters, who are a pain in the neck. And so she spurs her imagination to think of some excuse to avoid it. It’s difficult because she’s still half asleep.
“Why don’t you ask Susana to take them? Honestly Dad, I can’t. I have to go to class, and afterward I’m meeting with a boy.” It’s completely false, but anything is acceptable if it will help her avoid watching the two little angels.
“Susana has an exam. Who is this boy anyway?”
“Well...” Suddenly Paula thinks she can kill two birds with one stone. Her father’s been insisting on the necessity of stabilizing her emotional life for some time now. As if he preached by example! As if life had to stabilize by age 19! “I’m going out with a boy, Dad. I hadn’t told you yet...” She has no idea the mess she’s getting herself into.
“That makes me happy. You’ll have to introduce him to me.” Her father sounds enthusiastic. He always gets excited about beginnings.
“Later. Now we’re just starting to get to know each other.”
“Why don’t you bring him to the wedding?”
Paula wakes up with a start at her father’s words, which she hadn’t expected. She had forgotten about the wedding. Obviously! That’s why the girls had to buy clothes.
“No, no, Dad, what I just said! It’s still a little too early for you to meet him. Honestly. The story is just getting started. I don’t think it would be appropriate for him to come to the wedding. Anyway, I don’t think this boy is the one...”
“What is it? Does he embarrass you? Oh, I know what it is, he has hair down to his knees and you can’t be seen with him in public. Or worse yet, he doesn’t have hair...”
“No, it’s not that, it’s...” What has she done? Her father is already making a mess of things.
“Not another word. I want to see him at the wedding, no excuses! I’ll try and get my secretary to take the girls. Love you, princess.”
“Yes, get your secretary to go. Love you too, Dad! Bye!” She hangs up before he can change his mind.
Paula hides the telephone beneath her pillow. She’s still too stunned to calculate the consequences of not thinking straight. Inventing lies isn’t good, it goes nowhere, but sometimes when she doesn’t like something, she does it. It makes her feel like she can control the world. Although the majority of the time it only works for a while. In the end the lie ends up taking over, and she’s punished and can’t go out. She’s already old enough to start being more mature.
The alarm hasn’t been shut off completely, it’s only been snoozed, and the forest starts up once again. She pulls out the telephone from under her pillow and throws it on top of the mountain of clothes on the floor, left there from the previous night. Not a good idea. Now she has to get up to turn it off completely.
* * *
“La Facultad”, the bar where she always meets her friends for a beer, is full to bursting. Paula, frustrated, is complaining to them about her problems, many of which have to do with her les
s-than-satisfactory university life.
“Want to guess how many of us there are? At least 140 people crammed into a classroom of less than a hundred square meters! I have to study sociology, the option I ranked 37th, and get through classes packed with people just as frustrated as I am. The subject matters to us as much as the price of carrots in March. And to make things worse I never arrive early enough to get a spot. I don’t understand anything, and I spend the whole time just staring out the window.”
Paula complains unceasingly to her friends about how distressing her current life is. She’s not even sure if she should continue with the degree any longer. She’s already had it with having to repeat half the first-year courses in September! Paula isn’t much good with books. In fact she isn’t much good with anything. She’s like her father, beginning something and then not knowing how to finish.
“Don’t worry!” says Raquel, just before popping the last tapas olive into her mouth. She’s the youngest of the three. “Things will get better with time, you’ll see.” But Paula doesn’t share her friend’s optimism.
“You can always skip classes if you don’t like them!” says Marta. She’s Raquel’s older sister, although they don’t seem like each other at all. They’re still in high school, and when they cut class the head teacher reports it.
* * *
“It’s awesome, man! My class is packed full of girls. And they’re all really good-looking! There’s no way this year will pass without me scoring.”
Javier is chatting with Ángel, his best friend. He speaks enthusiastically about his class at the university. His philosophy of minimal effort won him a place in one of the only degrees his grade qualified him for, sociology, but it’s all the same to him. He couldn’t care less about studying. What appeals to him is enjoying himself while putting off as long as possible the definitive entrance into adult life. And the class the goddess Fortune has awarded him with is better luck than he could have dreamed: a paradise of females that might fall madly in love with him. He is within the calculation of probabilities. Statistics is the only course he’s good at.
“You’re crazy!” Ángel says. His skepticism can be read in his green eyes. “You haven’t scored since that party in high school, and that was because the victim was from another school and didn’t know better. You were completely drunk, and threw up on her skirt, and the poor girl was herself was doing so badly she thought she’d gone home with me! Later she couldn’t stop mentioning the time she’d spent with me, how handsome I’d seemed...”
“Shut up, man! Do you always have to remind me of that story?”
“You have to realize it’s the only story I can remind you of! That and your flirtations with Ms. Paz Torres in preschool. Your love life hasn’t been much to write home about.”
“You’re forgetting the twins in elementary school.”
“The twins? They only flattered you because they were trying to get somewhere with me!”
“Well, that’s going to change. I’ve decided to update my look to improve my reputation, so that the girls are interested.”
“And how are you going to do that, if you can’t change your face or your brain?” asks Ángel. “You’re 20 years old and sometimes you act like you’re still 12.”
“Hey, don’t be rude! It’s not going all badly for me with the new job, you know.”
“That thing with the books,” Ángel says sarcastically, referring to Javier’s part time work. “Be careful, they might actually give you one to read once in a while!”
“I don’t have to read them, just deliver them. And it’s called the ‘Friends of Literature Club’, not ‘that thing with the books’! By the way, I have to deliver some orders right now. Want to come?”
“I can’t. My mom asked me to drive her to the mall. See you later!”
Javier hops on his motorbike, a shabby little thing he’s had since age 16, and accelerates. They’re never going to give him a speeding ticket with this piece of junk. He’s saving up to buy a car, even if it’s sixth hand. Girls prefer cars to motorbikes, especially when it’s as cold as it is today.
* * *
“I’m not happy with the way you avoid your sisters, Paula.”
Eva, Paula’s mother, is irritated with her daughter. She knows that Loreto and Cayetana are not easy girls to babysit, but it doesn’t seem right that her daughter so openly avoids them. In the end they are her younger sisters.
“The only thing I know is that I’m not going to be the one who gets blamed. I don’t want to go to the wedding, especially if I’m left with those two. Isn’t Susana going?”
“Probably.”
“So she can take care of them! They’re her sisters too! If Dad wants, I’ll stay with the twin boys.”
Paula remains stubborn on the subject. She can’t put up with her sisters, because she always has problems with them. Susana has arranged it so that the little girls always complicate things when she has to take care of them.
“Isn’t the real reason you’re avoiding them that you want to spend time with your date?”
Paula is surprised. It seems very strange that what she made up for her father has already arrived at her mother’s ears. The two of them haven’t gotten along badly since their separation, but neither have they gotten along well. They ignore each other in a civilized way. The only thing that they still have in common is her, and now she’s an adult. The two of them don’t have to talk if they don’t want to. In their place, she wouldn’t. When a story is finished one has to put an end to it. Or a period. But only one. If one leaves it with ellipses, it becomes impossible to start anything new.
“Who told you that?”
“The same source that informed me you’d declined to take your sisters out. Why haven’t you told me you have a boyfriend?”
“Because...” She doesn’t know what to say. “Because I don’t have to tell you every single thing that happens to me! Leave me alone! You’re the worst! You always want to know everything!”
She leaves, slamming the door loudly, leaving Eva with her reply on the tip of her tongue. Eva smiles, giving no importance to her daughter’s outburst. Paula’s anger always dissolves as quickly as it appears.
* * *
Javier checks the address before entering. It’s not been easy to get to this place, and he wants to be certain so as not to meet with any surprises. More than once he’s confused the house number and had to endure the bad manners of some rude people. He presses the buzzer and it doesn’t take long for the door to open.
“Hello! I came...” The young girl standing in front of him doesn’t let him finish. She has a superficial look, and is chewing gum loudly.
“Sit there and wait your turn!”
He seats himself alongside another boy flipping through a magazine. Javier is incapable of not talking, so he asks the boy something to strike up a conversation.
“Did you come to deliver something too?”
“No. I have an appointment for a job interview.”
“Ah, maybe the girl at the door thought that’s what I came for. If it’s all the same to you, could I go in first? I just have to deliver these books, so that they can pay me and I can leave.”
“Sure, man! And after you try selling an encyclopedia and put the staff in a bad mood, I’ll be left without a job. No way! You wait!”
“Seriously! I’m from the ‘Friends of Literature Club’. They’ve already placed the order by internet. I just have to deliver the books, get paid, and get out. I’m in a hurry, and my motorbike is badly parked. Look! Here are the books.”
“Ah, I’m in the Club too. Last month I bought some really entertaining mystery novels. Fine, you go in first. But don’t take too long!”
“Promise!”
The girl with the gum enters from the neighboring room. Not only is she content now with chewing noisily, she also blows bubbles that pop like small explosions.
“First! Go in!”
Javier gets up. He thanks the other
guy for letting him cut in front and enters the office. A middle-aged woman waits behind an imposing table. She looks a lot like the girl from before, without the gum.
“Pili! Bring us coffee. And do me the favor of throwing out that gum, it makes me sick.”
“Yes boss! Your wish is my command!” She leaves with a slam of the door, a mocking smile on her lips.
“Sorry about that. She’s a little rebellious, but she’s my daughter, and she has to work doing something.”
“No, you don’t have to apologize to me about anyone. It’s the same to me if people want to chew gum. Look, I came...” Javier can’t finish, because Pili enters the room with two coffees. It’s strange. He’s never been invited to coffee before when delivering an order. He doesn’t know what to do, because the guy in the waiting room might get angry and his motorbike might get a fine.
“I don’t want anyone to annoy us for a while. Don’t put any calls through.”
“On your orders!” Pili makes another gesture, more mocking than respectful.
“Okay, where to begin...” The woman gets ready to start the interview.
“I’ve come...” He tries to keep it short, because he’s in a hurry.
“There’s no need to tell me, I already know. Let’s start with the form. Name?”
“Javier Muñoz. But...”
“Age? Young, good. There’s no need to know what age. Can you stand up?”
“Yes, of course.” Javier gets up, a bit amazed by the sudden interrogation. The woman circles the table and walks around him, analyzing him in detail.
“Do you have a photo?”
“Yes. The other day I had some taken for university paperwork and there are still a few left. They’re in my wallet, with my telephone number and everything written on the back. Want one?” He doesn’t understand anything, but decides to go along with it, if it helps him leave earlier. He gives it to her.
Boy For Rent Page 1