Chapter 8
"What's wrong? You seem odd," Maite asks her daughter as soon as they return to their house.
"What?" Violeta responds, trying to buy time.
"Is it that you didn't like Olga?"
Violeta turns to her mother with a frightened face, as if what she just said was something completely impossible. How could she not like Olga when she likes her so much?
"No, I mean, yes, of course I like her."
"Then why have you been acting like that the whole time?" her mother takes off her coat and looks at her with uncertainty.
"Acting like what?"
"I don't know, honey, like you wanted to run away from the moment you walked in."
"That's not true."
"Well, that's what it seemed like," says Maite, a little upset.
"Really? I'm sorry, Mom, I really didn't mean that, it's just that I have a headache. I'll apologize to Olga tomorrow if I offended her."
"Don't worry, she was a little odd too."
Violeta doesn't know where to look.
"You mean you're not exaggerating? I didn't notice anything."
"Of course you didn't. Come on, I'll give you a painkiller and see if your headache goes away."
"No, I'd better take a walk around town. I just need some fresh air."
In reality, all Violeta wants is to run away, she needs to get away from her mother and be alone to think about what just happened.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
"No need, it's been a long time since I walked these streets alone and I feel like doing it. I'll be back before dinner, I promise."
Violeta hasn't taken off her coat, so she kisses her mother and goes back out into the street. As soon as she sets foot outside, the first thing she does is turn towards her neighbor's house, wondering if she is near a window and is watching her.
"Oh my God," she says, suffocated, and starts walking down the street.
She doesn't take a fixed route, but her steps are accelerated, as if she is running away from something or someone, until without realizing it, she reaches the top of the Vero River walkways and sits on a wall, letting her gaze get lost in the blackness of the landscape.
Mechanically, she takes out her phone and calls Teresa. The ringing until she hears her voice on the other end seems endless.
"Thank God," she says hastily when Teresa greets her.
"Thank God? What's going on?" her friend worries at her tone of voice.
"I have a very serious problem, Tere, one of the big ones," she says, aware of how dramatic she sounds.
"What problem? Did something happen to your mother?"
"No, no, she's fine, but I..."
"You? Damn, Violeta, what happened?" Teresa gets desperate, dying of curiosity.
"Olga, my mother's neighbor."
"Don't tell me, in the end I was right and she's a gold digger," her friend tries.
"No, it's much worse than that."
"Oh, yeah?" Teresa is surprised, more and more intrigued.
"Olga is the woman from the hostel."
The following seconds are followed by a deathly silence in which Violeta looks at the phone screen in case the call has been cut off.
"What did you say?" Teresa asks with her eyes wide open.
"Well, that, Olga, my mother's neighbor," Violeta gets a tingling in her lips when she pronounces her name that leaves her motionless.
"Are you serious?" Teresa can hardly contain her laughter.
"I don't find it funny, you know the look on my face when I saw her? I almost had a stroke."
"And what did she say?"
Teresa can't contain her excitement, she would pay anything to have witnessed the moment.
"Nothing, what was she going to say? We pretended we didn't know each other, I wasn't going to tell my mother that we had slept together. Damn, Teresa, I don't know what to do," she says, overwhelmed.
"I don't understand, what do you mean?"
"What do you mean, what do I mean? I'm going to be here for more than two weeks and I'm going to see her every day, Tere. I won't be able to pretend that nothing happened if when I see her even my eyelashes tremble."
"Your eyelashes tremble? You didn't tell me that," she teases maliciously.
"Well, it's much worse," Violeta confesses. "We were in her kitchen, my mother wouldn't stop talking and I couldn't stop remembering that night. Damn, I felt so bad."
"Wanting to do it again," her friend deduces.
"Damn, of course. You don't know how beautiful she is, and her laugh, her way of gesturing when she talks, she's so elegant and at the same time so down-to-earth."
Teresa's laughter makes Violeta cut her string of praise towards Olga.
"Well, you're going to have a problem if you don't control yourself."
"And what do I do?"
"Well, you have two options; either you keep pretending that nothing happened and behave yourself, or you talk to her and tell her what happens to you when you have her in front of you."
"You want me to tell her that she turns me on?" Violeta's voice comes out louder than she would have liked, causing some people walking in front of her to turn around curiously to look at her.
"Is it not true?"
"Yes, of course, but I'm not going to tell her."
"Well, I don't know what else to tell you, Violeta, but you'll have to do something, because if that woman turns you on the way she does, you're going to have a very bad time if you have to be with her every day. I would tell her, maybe she doesn't feel like you do and when she tells you that nothing is going to happen between you, your horniness will go down at once."
"And why wouldn't she want anything to happen?"
Violeta immediately realizes how much it would bother her, but she also quickly understands how inappropriate it would be to have an affair with her mother's friend. It would all be complications, and if something goes wrong, it could end up affecting the relationship between them, and she can't do that to her mother.
"Look, Violeta, I don't know what that woman wants, but the daughter of her boss drooling like a child next to her, surely not."
"You're right, but I don't need to tell her anything, just behave myself the days I'm here. I can't jeopardize her relationship with my mother, then I'll leave and they'll stay here with the problem."
"That's also true, and your mother can't take any more upsets," her friend concludes.
"Well, no more talking, I'll take a cold shower every day if necessary, but Olga won't even notice. I'll keep pretending that nothing happened, it's the best thing for everyone."
"Okay. If you get overwhelmed, call me and we'll rant about that asshole Hernán, that will surely relieve you."
The two friends laugh and when they hang up, Violeta still sits alone on that wall for a while, thoughtful, remembering that night while thinking anxiously that only a wall separates them.