“And what about me? Let me remind you that it was me who ended up making dinner! See? They always punish me when it’s your fault.” Marta is right, but being older it’s the cross she has to bear.
“The most dramatic punishment was the one two years ago.” Raquel is laughing, and Paula knows why, but Ana and Ángel don’t know the story and Marta doesn’t find it funny to recall it. This time the punishment was to be loaded down with her sister forever!
“What happened?” asks Ángel.
“Nothing, it’s just that my mother isn’t very precise with her vocabulary.” Laughter.
“What do you mean ‘precise’?”
“I asked her what time I should return on Saturday, back when she still let me go out without her.” She points to Marta. “And she said: ‘When there’s enough light to see’.”
“And?” says Ana.
“So I got back at 7am! When there was enough light to see, because the sun had already risen. It’s not my fault if my mom didn’t think of that!”
“What I think is that you’ve got some nerve, princess.”
Everyone laughs, and Raquel blushes a little. Ángel is so charming. If he weren’t smitten by Paula, and if it weren’t for the fact that she has no chance, she would definitely try to get with him.
* * *
The girls meet early the next day. They’re going to the opening of a promising place, and want to be dressed for the occasion. They spend more than two hours in Paula’s room deciding what to wear, and when they consider themselves ready, they leave in search of their friends. They arrive at Ángel’s house ten minutes sooner than planned, but they don’t have to wait for their friend. He even seems a little impatient, as if he’s been ready since nine thirty in the morning.
Javier is there too. Before Ángel could suggest otherwise, he’d already arrived at his house and invited himself to eat something, unfortunately for the twins who feel hostility for him occasionally bordering on hate. But Javier gets along really well with his friend’s mother, and she is always willing to receive him. Javier asks Ángel if he can borrow clothing, swearing that it will be the last time, although both of them know it’s a lie. Today it’s a coat that he needs.
“Finally I’m going to meet this girl! And I’ll be in the same car with her!”
“What a great friend you are. Don’t remind me! I didn’t dare ask her to come in my car.”
“Do you think I’ll manage to get with her?” asks Javier, messing around.
“Don’t even think about it! There’s no chance anyway, you’re such a disaster. Not even arranged dates go well for you.”
“By the way, I went to get paid. Pili told me that they might have something else for me, so I’m thinking of staying on with the agency. Maybe the new girl I get won’t be so crazy. Anyway, I’m sure she’ll be better than the girl the other day.” He doesn’t believe what he’s saying, but he has to pretend.
The telephone rings and Ángel goes to answer it, relieved that something has interrupted his friend’s teasing. His happiness lasts briefly. When he returns he’s pale.
“What’s going on? Has it been called off?” Javier is afraid when he sees the upset face.
“No, we’re going. But we have to take a dimwit with us!”
“Get out! You’re not saying we have to take annoying Luis with us?” Luis is the name of an old friend they’ve finally freed themselves from, by not seeking him out, not calling him, not answering his SMS...
“Worse! We have to take a girl with us that nobody can put up with. She’s the other sister of the other sisters of my brothers.”
“What?” To Javier, rather than an explanation, it seems like a tongue twister.
“It doesn’t matter! The fact is that the girl is insufferable! The father of the twins just called. This girl’s alone, because her mother, who owns a modeling agency, has gone on tour, and the father of my brothers is taking them and the little girls to dinner. And she’s afraid of being home alone. They’ve forced her on us! And it will be me who has to take her, and afterward she’ll want to stay to sleep here! The girls can’t put up with her, and I don’t think they’ll offer to give her a ride back.”
“I think they’re here, I heard the bell. If it’s not the dimwit...” says Javier. It doesn’t matter to him if she comes with them. Word is that the bar they’re going to tonight is full to the brim with women, like a harem where one can feel like sultan for a few hours. Maybe his luck will change and he’ll find a way not to think of Paula any more.
When Ángel lets drop that Susana is going to go with them, Paula freezes. It’s a possibility that nobody until that moment could have anticipated.
“Are you out of your mind? Would you like to let me know why you said yes?” She lashes out at him.
“And what did I do? She didn’t ask me in person, it was her father. Even if my mother and your father divorced, he’s the only father I’ve ever known, and he still has authority over me. And my mother threatened not to let me go if I didn’t agree! I’m sorry! She pities ‘poor little Susana’ like everyone else.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” says Paula. “Apologize to everyone, because we’re all going to have to put up with her. And wait for her, because the girl is the most unpunctual person I know. She says that it’s within the norms of good conduct for a lady.”
They still haven’t met Javier. He’s standing in front of the mirror in Ángel’s room, trying on his new sunglasses with a wool cap bought on sale in a sports store clearance sale.
“Let me introduce you to the girls.”
Javier nearly falls over in surprise. That girl is the one his friend is always talking about? It’s her! But why? He wishes a hole in the floor of the room would open so the earth could swallow him up this very second. He could appear in the inferno itself and experience less torture than he does now.
“Hi!” he says, trying to change his voice a little. The possibility that she’ll recognize him and they’ll burst into one of their arguments terrifies him. Luckily, the hat and sunglasses act as a disguise.
“This is Paula.” Javier already knows. “She’s the twins’ sister. This is Ana, Marta, Raquel.” The four greet the guy in turn. Ana is the only one Javier hasn’t been introduced to before, but he recognizes her as the other girl from his classes in the Complutense. Just what he needed! Another girl from his class who will be able to spill the beans about the rental agency. The bell rings again.
“That must be Susana,” says Paula, sighing. Javier is taken aback yet again. That must be the cheesy girl from the wedding! It fits perfectly with the description that Ángel has given of her. And her name was Susana! He thinks that his friend hasn’t been in any way objective with Paula. She’s not as beautiful as he always says. At the same time he admits that he likes her too. Inwardly he recognizes that it’s much more than that. He’s in love with her, although it seems that it’s an impossible story, now more than ever.
“I’ll get it,” says Ángel.
“I bet that she’ll bring two backpacks at least. She must think they’re essential every time she goes out, along with her pyjamas and half the cosmetics section of the Corte Inglés,” smiles Raquel.
“What are you willing to bet?” asks Marta.
“The cologne I bought the other day.”
“Deal,” says Marta. “But I bet it will be one backpack and a bag. And I’ll bid the new powder compacts.”
“But there are two of them!”
“Well, then... the bracelet from Ibiza.”
“I like that more anyway. It’s on!”
“I’m not going to lose.”
The two leave the room followed by Ana, who wants to know which of the two will be right, and to see in person a girl she’s heard talked about so many times. Marta wins. She gets the cologne and won’t have to lose her bracelet. Susana must think she’s leaving her house forever. She carries a ton of stuff, but the only comments made are a few poorly hidden snickers.
> Javier and Paula are left alone for a few minutes in the room. She tries to see what he looks like, but Javier turns away “casually” each time she comes near. She thinks that he seems really familiar, but associates him immediately with Ángel. She knows that the two have been friends for years, and she’s probably seen him at some occasion she can’t remember. What cologne does he use? It reminds her of some familiar scent. She tries to get him to take off the glasses.
“Will you let me try them?” she asks.
“Try what?” he knows what she’s referring to, but tries to buy time while the rest arrive. He’s not willing to hear her shrieks before they go out.
“The glasses. If you’ll let me try them.”
“Ah! No,” he answers, his voice faint. “They’re prescription lenses and I’m at six diopters in each eye. It would damage your sight.”
“Those lenses are prescription?” They don’t look it at all. Their design doesn’t fit with the style of glasses people with serious vision problems use. What’s more, Ángel had told them the day they’d met in the bar that his friend had gone to buy some simple sunglasses.
“They don’t seem like it, but it’s because they’re special.” Luckily, Ángel comes back in just then and announces that it’s time to go. Both of them had been praying for someone to interrupt that idiotic conversation.
“You come with us,” Paula says to Javier when they all go out into the street. Javier lags behind, trying to slip into his friend’s car, but finally gives in and accepts the previous arrangement.
Once everyone’s in the cars, Ángel starts driving and Ana follows him. They’ve hardly gone a few blocks when Ana realizes that despite the heat in the car, Javier is still wearing the scarf wrapped up to his ears, the one he’d put on before stepping foot outside Ángel’s house, and his coat’s been buttoned to the top button. Neither has he taken off the hat and sunglasses he’d been wearing at his friend’s house, and it’s been night for a while. Ana, after observing him in the rearview mirror, starts to question him.
“You’re going to roast! And afterward you’ll get used to it, and be cold when we go out into the street. That is, if we get a parking spot, because they told me that a lot of people are coming to this opening.”
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m fine like this.”
Paula, whose thoughts are far from their conversation, turns around suddenly. The voice she’s just heard is familiar to her, and when she looks again she recognizes him immediately. In the end it wasn’t very difficult. He may have hidden himself a little, but he’s wearing the same jacket as always, and has the same good smell. That smell is his. It’s not any perfume.
“What are you doing here?” she yells. Ana, who hadn’t expected such a reaction from her friend, is startled.
“What’s going on?” she says. “Paula, don’t yell like that while I’m driving! I almost crashed into the car on my right.”
“Yell? What I’m going to do is kill him! Do you know who this guy is?”
“Ángel’s friend?” ventures Ana.
“That too!”
“Wait, I can explain,” he says.
“Don’t say a word, you look better with your mouth shut!” Paula is shrieking like a madwoman, as she does every time she gets angry.
“If you don’t give me a hint, I won’t know who it is!” Ana waits for them to answer.
“It’s the smart aleck from class! The idiot that always has to have the last joke.”
“Now you’re going overboard!” he says.
“The guy you accidentally punched the other day?” Ana is amazed. “And you didn’t know that he’s Ángel’s best friend?”
“I had no idea! But it’s not just that. This idiot is the guy the agency sent me. He’s the one I went out with!” Paula is furious. And not only about that day. She’s been angry ever since the date in the park.
“The one you kissed?” Ana sums it up with a simple comment.
“You got it!” shouts Javier, who would rather be anywhere else.
Paula is extremely angry. She unbuttons the seatbelt and turns around, ready to do she doesn’t know what, but suddenly she realizes that her friends in the other car have seen her and picked up that something strange is happening. It won’t be convenient if her friends realize that she’s rented a boy, much less Susana, who will take fewer than two minutes to tell her father.
“Damn! We have to do something. They can’t realize. You have to pretend that you’re David!”
“To hell with that! Ángel would kill me.”
“Do you want to explain what’s going on?” Ana is beginning to get irritated, because she still can’t manage to fit together the pieces of the jigsaw completely.
“Look, it doesn’t matter what Ángel thinks! The situation is that none of the three girls in the other car know who you are, and it needs to stay that way.” Paula is out of control. “If they catch onto the deception it will be really bad, but if it reaches the ears of my father... I’d prefer not to think about that.”
“But Ángel is just who worries me! You don’t want the girls to catch on, but I’m even more concerned for him not to. Haven’t you realized that the guy is crazy about you?”
Paula grows pensive. She knows all too well. What’s more, she’s always wanted to free herself from that cross she’s carried since childhood. The fact that she’s been with his best friend might make that obsession that’s taken hold of him since he was a boy pass once and for all. But neither is it her intention to hurt Ángel. Not now that she knows what it feels like to fall in love with someone and be disappointed. There is Javier, yelling just like she is, and a breach is opening between the two. If this keeps up, there won’t be any more kisses, or outings on motorbike, or ice creams in December. Everything is going badly because she’s too silly to recognize that this imperfect guy is the one she’s always been waiting for. Nor does she realize that once you find the right guy, you can’t let him escape.
“It’s okay! I have an idea. When we go into the bar you’ll be Javier. As soon as I arrive, I’ll say that I’ve agreed to meet David there. You won’t take off the coat or glasses. Then you’ll find an excuse to step outside. After a while, you’ll appear without the coat and glasses, pretending to be David. We’ll fight about something and I’ll go home alone. Then Javier will return.” Paula tells them the story she’s whipped up in a few seconds.
“Sounds good to me.” Javier wants to get out of the mess too. “But after that I’ll leave too. I don’t want even the most remote suspicion to cross Ángel’s mind that I’ve gone home with you. I don’t want him to be angry with me.”
“I don’t think it’s going to work.” Ana, despite being at the margin of the story, realizes that some details remain unclear.
“And why not? If we do it well they’ll believe it. Not even I realized it was him until a little while ago.”
“The problem isn’t the girls, it’s Ángel. He knows Javier with or without coat, with or without sunglasses. And it will get really hot if Javier doesn’t take off his coat and glasses all night. Ángel might catch on at any moment.”
“You have to distract him!” Paula and Javier say at the same time. Neither of the two want Ángel to know anything, although each has different reasons.
“Me?” Ana hadn’t imagined that she might play a role. She had intended to be a simple spectator, and had already begun to think that the night would be, at the very least, amusing.
“You can’t say no, Ana. You got me into this mess.”
“I know. But Ángel really likes you, and I don’t think I’ll be able to distract him while you’re around.”
“I don’t know why not!” says Javier. “You’re a beautiful girl, and any guy would be happy if you paid him attention.”
That comment doesn’t make Paula feel too good, although she knows her reaction isn’t reasonable. Now she doesn’t have the absurd justification that she had with Susana, which is that she doesn’t like the gi
rl he’s flirting with. Just the opposite. Ana is practically her best friend. Suddenly she knows that she must be going crazy, because she feels terrible jealousy every time Javier is friendly with another girl. It isn’t logical. In her eyes, Javier is an idiot, in addition to being a person with few scruples, who shows no misgivings about renting himself out for a little cash. What’s more, he’s much less attractive than Ángel, for whom she doesn’t feel anything. Maybe she hasn’t been sleeping enough in the last few days.
They arrive at the bar soon after. Just like any Saturday night, it’s difficult to find a parking space, but nobody gives it too much importance. In the end, it’s all part of a night out in Madrid, whatever weekend of the year. The bar where they’ve landed up is trendy, with decorations inspired by a city in the 1950s United States, along with the celebrities of that period. There are two large caricatures on the wall, one of Marilyn and another of Elvis. The ambience suggests that all night they’ll hear old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll.
A lot of people have shown up at the opening. It’s a place like any other, but since it’s new, and since the December cold discourages drinking outside, it’s attracted many curious people. They seek out a new environment in order to make themselves believe the weekend has been different. As if changing the place makes one act differently. Of course it doesn’t. In the end they’ll have some drinks, just like any Saturday. They’ll yell in a vain attempt to speak over the music, which always has its volume set too high. And they’ll attempt to get with whoever’s around in order to have something to talk about on Monday, at work or during class. It’s always the same story, but the scene and the name of the characters have to change so that it doesn’t feel exactly the same. It would be terrible if an entire generation were to suddenly realize that all it’s done is waste time.
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