Chapter 10
Being the day that it is, the bakery closes at two o'clock sharp for the public and at four for all those who work there. As if Violeta hadn't had enough serving customers and then cleaning and tidying up with Olga, when they leave, her mother waits for her as she usually does and the three of them walk back home together.
Violeta decides to stay in the background, takes out her cell phone and, pretending to answer some messages, lags behind a little, letting the two women walk ahead. Olga glances at her from time to time, the situation makes her feel very uncomfortable because she doesn't intend to steal the spotlight with her mother at any time, but she also doesn't know how to get out of the way without drawing Maite's attention.
"Young people and their cell phones," Maite says suddenly, catching Olga watching her daughter.
A strange heat rises through Olga's body and her heart races so fast that it almost comes out of her mouth.
"Well, you're pretty young too, what am I saying," Maite corrects herself, "although I don't see you much with that gadget."
"I'm not much of a phone person," she says to get by.
"Violeta isn't either, although well, the truth is I don't know, I see her so little that I no longer know what her hobbies are, you know?" she says melancholically.
"Maite, maybe it would be better if these days I leave you alone with your daughter, you barely see her and you should take advantage of the time with her."
Olga takes another quick look back, making sure Violeta doesn't hear her.
"Don't be silly, woman. Violeta likes you, and I already have my moments alone with her, you also need to distract yourself, because in this town one gets very bored if one doesn't know anyone."
Maite hangs on her arm and keeps walking without expecting any further response from her. After a few minutes, Violeta joins them, placing herself on the other side of her mother, in silence, although it doesn't feel uncomfortable because no one speaks and, despite the cold, the rest of the walk is pleasant.
"Well," says Maite when they reach her door, "rest and do what you have to do and whenever you feel like it, come over to the house," she tells Olga.
"Okay, but remember not to make too much food because I'll bring a meat pie," says the neighbor.
Violeta looks at them both in silence, suddenly she imagines Olga in the kitchen preparing the stew and discovers that she wouldn't mind being there with her, helping her while they drink a glass of wine and do other things. The thought makes her shudder and she turns to open the gate door.
"Yes, yes, I remember," says Maite.
The women say goodbye and Violeta can finally enter her house and stop feeling that tightness in her chest that Olga's presence produces.
"I didn't know you had invited her to dinner," she says as soon as they enter.
Maite turns to her and looks at her in horror.
"Didn't I tell you?"
Violeta shakes her head.
"Does it bother you that she's coming?" her mother asks, getting more and more nervous at her daughter's strange expression, "because if so, I'll tell her the dinner is canceled."
"Don't talk nonsense, Mom. It doesn't bother me at all."
"Then why do you have that face?"
"What face?"
"I don't know, you're a little weird," she repeats just like the day before.
"I'm not weird, it's just that it had been a long time since I stayed here overnight and I'm a little disoriented, I miss my bed and my things, but in a couple of days it will pass, don't worry," her daughter lies. "What are we having for dinner? Besides the meat pie..."
Violeta changes the subject and her mother's expression immediately goes from concern to instant relief.
"I bought prawns to bake in the oven and with that, the pie, and a good appetizer, I think it's enough for the three of us. And dessert, of course."
Maite opens the fridge and shows her a cheesecake with raspberry that looks delicious.
"You bet," says Violeta, salivating.
"Now don't touch it. Come on, wash your hands and help me prepare the food."
Maite puts a tray of cannelloni in the oven and, while she prepares a salad, Violeta cuts some slices of bread.
"You really don't mind that I invited Olga?" her mother insists again, "she's alone and it seems like the right thing to do."
"I don't mind, Mom," Violeta replies. "How come she moved here?" she asks, increasingly interested in her neighbor's life.
"I think I already told you that she inherited the house," her mother begins to speak distractedly as she cuts the tomatoes. "Don't say a peep about this in front of her, if she wants to tell you someday, let her tell you, otherwise, you don't know anything."
"I won't say anything," Violeta assures, increasingly intrigued.
"Olga divorced her husband a couple of years ago. A normal divorce, it's not like she has problems with him, but they had a flat jointly owned that there was no way to sell, and the mortgage had to be paid, the usual. The thing is that even being rented, it didn't reach them to cover the expenses and the poor woman was suffocating because she also had to pay the one she had rented to live in."
"And why didn't she stay in hers?"
"Because the mortgage was too high for her to take on alone. If I say that buying jointly is the worst thing there is, never do it, daughter," her mother says suddenly.
Violeta is not surprised by this fact, because the house where her mother lives is her own, inherited from her parents, and at least in that aspect, she won't have to worry when she divorces her father.
"Anyway, they just sold it very recently and it coincided with the inheritance of this house, I think I told you."
"Yes, you mentioned something to me."
"Well, Olga was tired of everything, she had reached that point in life where one needs to cut everything off and start from scratch somewhere else, and since nothing tied her down in her town, she came to an agreement with her sister, bought her part of the house and moved here. She's brave, she decided everything in a matter of days, I don't know if I would be capable, I guess it's a youth thing."
"Well, she's not that young," Violeta comments.
Her mother fixes her gaze on her and laughs heartily.
"You say that now, that in your early thirties, those in their forties already seem old to you, but when you reach her age, you'll see how you think differently."
Maite can't stop laughing and her daughter looks at her amused. She knows her mother is right, besides, she doesn't consider Olga old, just mature, but she doesn't know how to talk about her in front of her mother without revealing that attraction she feels for her neighbor and friend.
"I don't consider her old, it's just that..."
Violeta falls silent, she doesn't know what to say and it's better not to put her foot in it.
"Did you know that besides men, she also likes women?"
The bread basket slips from Violeta's hands from the impression, luckily it doesn't go very far and falls on the table. She feels a current running through her whole body and looks at her mother trying to act normally.
"She told you?"
"Of course, silly," her mother laughs again at her daughter's attitude. "Who do you want to tell me?"
"Well, I don't know, it's just that it's weird."
"Weird, why? We're friends."
"And how did she tell you?"
Violeta feels a tingling in her fingertips, something she had never experienced before and begins to wonder if blood is not reaching everywhere.
"Hey, don't say anything about this to her, okay?" her mother asks again.
Her daughter shakes her head negatively, her eyes wide open and the air held in her lungs. If her neighbor already intrigues her on her own, knowing these kinds of details about her life has her on edge.
"One afternoon we were here chatting and we got a little carried away with the wine. I told her how I met your father, she told me how she met her husband, and that gave me the opportunity to ask her why they had broken up. Then she explained to me that she had long felt attraction to women and that one day, at a work dinner, she ended up sleeping with one."
Violeta swallows, her mother has sat in front of her and looks at her as she speaks, waiting for the oven alarm to indicate that their food is ready.
"She says that despite not being in love with that woman, that night she felt things she had never felt with her husband."
Her mother lowers her voice and explains it to her as if it were a confidence.
"Daughter, I don't know what you do," she suddenly says and Violeta feels her ears explode from the shame she feels, "but there she decided that she didn't want to continue with her husband and got divorced."
"At least she was honest with him and with herself," she says, trying to prevent her mother from asking her things that she is not willing to explain.
"Yes, she's a very sensible woman, you'll get to know her."
"And now she's not with anyone?"
The question comes out of her mouth without her being able to contain it. Violeta lowers her gaze to the table and moves the bread basket around as if she cared very little about the answer and had asked out of pure curiosity.
"No, not at all, although a few days ago she told me that in Huesca she had had an affair with a woman that she couldn't get out of her head."
Violeta's mouth dries up in such a way that she feels her tongue has turned into a piece of cork.
"I really don't understand you young people."
"Why?" she asks with a trembling voice.
"Oh, daughter, because you are very weird. It turns out that she meets this girl, they have an affair and when I ask her why she doesn't call her and meet up with her again, she goes and tells me that she doesn't even know her name. Do you think that's normal? Tell me you don't do those things, Violeta."
Violeta doesn't answer because her ears are buzzing until they turn her mother's words into a sound that is difficult to understand.
"Violeta..."
"What?"
"Are you listening to me? Do you also do those things? Do you hook up with a girl without even asking her name?"
"No, no," she lies, feeling petty, "that's the first thing I ask."
"Well, so you can see what one of those hot flashes can do. Now the poor thing can't find her because she doesn't know her name, or her phone number, or anything."
Maite shakes her head in such a way that Violeta thinks she just needs to cross herself. The oven bell rings and her mother gets up, she turns around and looks at the wall that leads to her neighbor's house, aware of how much she would like to be on the other side of that wall right now.