Chapter 5
ALEJANDRA
Bien Bonito - Marta Santos
A flash blinded her as she stepped into the garden, hair air-drying after a well-deserved shower in which, when she exited, Sofia had reminded her that she could cut it shorter to save the planet.
“Papá, ?por favor! Turn off the flash,” Alejandra groaned, closing her eyes and seeing stars behind her eyelids.
“Perdón. I didn’t think the flash was going to pop,” her father laughed.
That booming big laughter that was so similar to hers.
So unladylike, she knew it, but she was fond of it because of the way both of them laughed with their whole bodies.
She couldn’t even be too mad at him. He had found a new hobby and he was now pestering everyone with pictures.
“Didn’t Carlos teach you how to use it?”
She finally opened her eyes, making her way to the external couch under the patio where her mother was lounging next to María, Sofia’s mother, and Gabriella, Sofia’s sister.
“He’s still learning,” her mother excused him, as she always did. Like he was another of her children. “Give him some grace.”
Her mother caressed her cheek, as she melted on the couch.
“Where are the twins?” Alejandra asked Gabriella, who was texting on her phone, definitely focused on something more important than their presence.
Since she had arrived in Tarifa, Alejandra had noticed Gabriella more distracted than usual.
After her divorce with Roberto, Sofia had told her her sister had gone through a rough path, and somehow Alejandra refrained from asking just because she didn’t want to hurt her more.
But Gabriella definitely needed some time off from her life, because it was draining her.
Her hair was still short; she must have cut it again recently, and somehow it added years instead of taking them off.
They had been friends since childhood, but not at the same level as with Sofia.
It was easy to understand her best friend, to read her mind after more than twenty years of friendship.
But Gabriella, she had a personality Alejandra couldn’t quite grasp, too analytic, and somehow, she didn’t do well with analytical stuff. Ever.
“They are with Carlos and Ilias down at the beach. They wanted to learn to surf after they saw you risk your life in the water today,” Gabriella sighed.
“?Venga ya! The waves today were pretty normal. Nobody was risking their life there,” Alejandra reminded her.
Gabriella just scoffed, her eyes still trained on her phone.
“Who’s she talking with?” Alejandra shared a gaze with Gabriella’s mother, María.
“Probably a new boyfriend,” María smirked.
“?MAMá!” Gabriella screeched. “I don’t have a new boyfriend.”
Alejandra tilted her head, studying Gabriella. “Do you?”
“I don’t, and I wouldn’t share with you all because you are all a bunch of nosy people.”
“Always so dramatic,” Alejandra’s father said, as he placed himself in front of them and took another picture, this time—gracias a dios—without a blinding flash.
“You definitely need a retreat. You are always so tense,” Alejandra suggested, which was definitely a bad thing to say since Gabriella almost bit her head off.
Her phone ringing saved her from dying of her childhood friend’s hand.
But when she saw the name on the screen, Alejandra groaned in annoyance.
Maybe dying by Gabriella’s hand would have been better than dealing with her tenants.
Renting out her house in Conil during the summer months had been a good financial idea. But in hindsight, those tenants have become her worst nightmare.
Standing up, she moved toward the exit of the garden, on the path leading toward the beach, still pretty full of people enjoying the last rays of sunshine before the sun dipped beyond the horizon.
“Cayetana, díme,” she answered the call as her feet sank into the familiar feeling of the sand. It grounded her and reminded her that there were more important things than whatever problem Cayetana would raise.
“Hello, Alejandra. I hope you are amazing. I just wanted to reach out to warn you that the shower upstairs isn’t draining properly anymore, and one of the furniture cracked, but honestly it was already fragile.”
“Did you rinse the sand before taking a shower?” Alejandra asked, cracking her neck in an attempt to ease the headache that was starting to form.
She had called the plumber twice already, and all the times he told her that it was clogged by sand.
It wouldn’t surprise her if the menace that was Cayetana’ son had played with sand in the shower or jumped on the garden furniture and broke it.
Fernando was a six-year-old menace whose parents didn’t bother controlling him, and he had already destroyed so many things in her house just in those three months of summer that she would gladly put his parents into debt if she ever decided to be a mean homeowner.
Which usually she wasn’t, but that day, she felt utterly annoyed by that call even more because her mind started thinking: “Is this the future that’s awaiting me after retirement? No fucking thanks.”
“We sure did.”
“I called the plumber twice already. I lived in that house with my parents for months and never had any problems.”
“Houses deteriorate, Alejandra.”
Oh, she wanted to punch her in the face for that condescending tone.
“I’m not going to call the plumber. Any more damage, it will be taken away from the deposit and not refounded. And about the furniture, I assume it’s something in the garden—”
“It’s one of the deck chairs…”
“If on Monday I’ll notice signs of mistreatment, I will take the price of the deck chair out of the deposit. It cost me a lot of money to find that piece of furniture.”
“But—”
“Are you leaving in four days, right?” Alejandra confirmed, her eyes trained on the ocean.
“Yes.”
“Good. When I’m there at 11 a.m. on Monday, I don’t want to see you.
I’ll count the damage that has been made to the rental—as per contract—and I’ll make you pay the difference if the deposit doesn’t cover it.
I think I’ve been too good to you during these three months, and you’ve just annoyed my neighbors, broken furniture, and mistreated the house.
So, Cayetana, either you fix these problems, or you won’t see the deposit, and you will probably find a surcharge by the end of the following month from my lawyer. Understood?”
“I—”
“No more excuses. If you could afford the house for three months, you can afford to fix it or pay the damages. I hope you’ll have a nice weekend. I won’t be available until Monday,” and without saying goodbye, she hung up the call.
Being an adult was horrible. Owning a house.
Having tenants, that was even worse. She had to behave like someone she wasn’t, someone who loved rules, when in reality she used to break them.
Her day job was to ride waves and earn trophies for it, well far off what people consider normal, and yet, adult life had been creeping on her.
Who was she when she wasn’t a surfer winning medals?
Who was she when she wasn’t traveling the world chasing waves for a job?
But most importantly, how would life be when inevitably she would have to leave that lifestyle, like Ilias was going to do, and just think about Cayetana from Madrid not being able to educate her son and having to deal with tenants?
“Are you alright?” Ilias appeared by her side, a foamy board under his armpit and disheveled hair. Carlos followed with both Francesca and Ginevra on a piggyback ride.
“How can you be okay with retiring?” she blurted out.
“Retiring doesn’t mean not surfing anymore, Ale. It just means recalibrating everything in a way that you can still surf, but it’s not your full-time job.”
“What if I want it to be my full-time job forever?” she asked, biting her lower lip.
“Then you’ll have to find a way to make a living out of it even when your body won’t cooperate anymore.” Ilias clapped her shoulder and squeezed it. “You still have many years of career in front of you, Ale. Don’t sulk in thoughts that drag you down.”
“I was just overthinking. I’m fine.”
Ilias studied her, not convinced at all. “Let’s go back home,” he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Apparently you’ve been granted the possibility of fucking a very hot nerd by our bride. You should prepare accordingly.”
“I don’t need fancy dresses to get to him,” she smirked.
“There she is!” he laughed. “Keep that confidence, Ale, that’s always been your strength.”
Confidence. But what was confidence when she couldn’t control the future looming over her?
At least, she could control that night. She could control that wedding.
She could control that season. And even though surfing should have taught her to let control go, she never did.
In the water, she never lost confidence, not even in the face of a big wave looming over her.
Ilias was right, confidence was her strength, she had to keep that going.