Chapter 14 This Party Is So Fantastic
This Party Is So Fantastic
Coco
“Are you guys gonna sleep here?” Aroa asks.
We’re walking back to our site wrapped in damp towels.
Blanca seems awkward. She keeps sneaking glances at Aroa, who…
Guess who she’s walking with. I’d like to be clinging to Marín or riding on his back, joking and chatting about Noa’s accident, but Aroa is like his shadow, and I don’t feel like being a third wheel.
“No, no way. We wouldn’t all fit in here. We’re going to find a motel in town. And if we can’t, we’ll sleep in the car tonight.”
“And what are you going to do now? What are your plans?” Loren asks, seeming to have lost his wine buzz in the past ten minutes.
I shift a little uncomfortably. Shouldn’t it be a given that they’re going to hang out with us? Our plans are their plans…
“Well, we’re up for whatever. We’ll go with the flow. Whatever you all feel like. We don’t wanna just show up and…take over the plans.”
That answer obviously comes from Marín. Gus just shrugs and says something through gritted teeth about drinking wine.
* * *
We take turns taking showers. Aroa asks to go last, I guess because she wants to keep talking to Marín, and I don’t look back when I head to the campsite bathrooms, lugging my towel, my clothes, and my toiletry bag.
I concentrate on the sound of my flip-flops slapping against the gravel of the (very few) empty sites I’m cutting across as a shortcut.
I don’t want to think about anything else and start spiraling about “How could he ever love me when she’s his ex?
” or “Get it into your head that you’re about to destroy one of the best friendships you’ve ever had in your life. ” Fucking love; it stains everything.
Blanca runs to catch up with me and plasters on a fake smile. We go into the bathrooms in silence and choose cubicles opposite each other. We turn on the taps at the same time. My shower gel has a note in its aroma that reminds me too much of Gus’s cologne.
“Blanqui…are you okay?” I raise my voice over the running water and the piped music so she can hear me.
“Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know. You made a really weird face when they showed up.”
“Right… Do you think it was really obvious?”
“Kind of.”
“Well…it’s just, you know how I am. I got used to the idea that it was going to be the four of us, and it shook up my mental plan a little. But the more the merrier.”
“Marín seems really happy to be here.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
There’s a playful touch to her tone that gives the impression that maybe Marín was moved more by the urge to be with Aroa than to spend a few days of vacation all together.
This is the feeling I’m getting, but I admit I’ve been more paranoid than usual for the past few days.
Really, I’m happy. Marín is addictive; when you spend a lot of time with him, it starts feeling weird not to.
But I’m special only because I’m Sardine and he’s Anchovy. We’re a team. Besties.
I can’t let this ruin Blanca’s bachelorette trip.
* * *
We run into Aroa on our way back to the RV. We’re fully dressed now, wet hair dripping onto our shoulders. We’re joking about making Gus cook dinner. From now on, any plan is not just our thing; it’s the whole group.
“Are the showers crowded?” Aroa smiles, still giddy over Marín being here.
“Not at all. Empty.”
“Cool! I’ll be quick, and then I’ll help with dinner.”
Loren must have gone ahead of Aroa to take a shower because when we get there, Marín and Gus are the only ones at the site.
Gus is sitting in one of the plastic patio chairs with his legs crossed ankle over knee.
I’ve always liked his ankles. They’re slender but masculine, finishing off legs covered in dark-brown hair.
Unlike Marín, Gus is very proud of his body hair.
His chest has a thick layer of fur that I loved when we were together.
Marín’s not hiding it… He just has practically no chest hair.
Gus gazes at both of us with a pretty neutral expression, like when he’s a little drunk; eyelids half drooping, lips between his teeth, hands fidgeting, tapping his thigh.
Marín pokes his head out the door when he sees us coming. He’s holding a bottle of chilled wine and a stack of plastic cups.
“That was quick! Listen, for wine, do you use these or the bigger ones?”
“These.” Blanca points with a smile. “Are you making an aperitif?”
“Of course. On top of everything else, we showed up empty-handed…”
“But with full mouths,” Gus points out, apparently very satisfied with his turn of phrase, taking his phone out of his bag. I watch him open his Notes app and start writing.
“You.” I give his chair a little kick. “Are you gonna pitch in at all, or are you planning on us serving you like a king?”
“You.” He grabs my waist, spins me around, and then plops me down on his knees. He’s still holding his phone. “You always treat me like a king. And I treat you like a queen. My queen.”
“Ay, Gus.” I go to stand up, but he grabs me.
“Coco Puff,” he purrs close to my body.
I spring up when my eyes meet Marín’s. No. I don’t want him to think I’m about to get back together with Gus. I don’t want whatever chance there is, however tiny it is, to disappear.
“You’re acting like Angelito…so handsy. Hey!” I remember the party on Friday, and I turn back to Marín, who is pretending to be really focused on opening the bottle of wine. “The other day you seemed really cold with Angel. Did something happen?”
“She doesn’t know?” Gus asks Marín with a kind of dopey grin on his face.
“No,” Marín says crisply, right as he pulls the cork out and busies himself with that.
“What do I need to know?”
“Angel and Marín got in a fight, like in the playground at school.”
“Did you throw down?” Blanca’s suddenly interested, and she leans against the RV as she lights a cigarette.
“No. Blood didn’t flow in the streets,” Marín clarifies, seeming uncomfortable.
“Spill, spill.” Blanca smiles at him, excited.
“It’s nothing. It’s just that…he made a comment that didn’t sit well with me. I asked him politely to apologize, he didn’t want to, I stuck to my guns, he did too, and we ended up…”
“Shoving each other,” Gus teases, filling a plastic glass with wine and handing it over to me. “They were fighting over you.”
He lifts his chin toward me and raises his eyebrows.
My heart speeds up. It’s sick how much princess stories, patriarchal language, and tradition have rotted our brains…
As much as we’re ashamed of it, we still like men to fight over us.
I want to know everything, all the gory details, but I don’t want to admit it.
I sit on the steps of the RV and bite my tongue, putting space between Gus and me.
“Coco?” Blanca yelps. “You’re not gonna ask?”
“I mean, I don’t know if I wanna know,” I confess. “It’s kinda cringe picturing them like two gorillas, shoving each other.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Marín leans on the table and crosses his legs at the ankle. “He got on my nerves, and he got up in my face like he wanted to scare me, so I moved away.”
“He threw him through the air.” Gus laughs.
“And how do you know?” I ask him.
“Because it was at soccer.” He shrugs. “After the game.”
“Is that why you didn’t play soccer this weekend?” I ask Marín.
“Don’t lecture me, please.” Marín’s looking at the ground. “It’s not like I’m proud of it, but you weren’t there to defend yourself. If you had been, you would’ve kicked him in the nuts yourself.”
“I don’t think so. I’m not violent.”
Marín and Gus exchange a glance.
“What did he say?” I give in.
“That you probably meow like a cat when you take it up the ass,” Gus declared easily.
I screw up my eyes and grimace. What the hell? “What the fuck were you talking about where a comment like that would come up?”
“That’s the thing; it didn’t come up,” Marín pipes up.
“Men are so disgusting sometimes,” Blanca says, looking mortified, before she turns to Gus to reprimand him. “Are you going to pour me some wine? Or do I have to do it myself?”
“We were just talking our exes and everyone else’s exes whether we have good taste in women, that kinda shit.” Gus seems to remember something, and he swivels in his chair. “But without objectifying you!”
“Wine, Gus!” Blanca exclaims.
Gus grabs the bottle and shoves it at Blanca absentmindedly, not pouring it for her or even giving her a glass.
“He took it way too far,” Marín assures us. “It wasn’t the first time he’s said stuff like that, and…I’d had it.”
I pat him on the cheek.
“What’s for dinner?” Gus asks.
“If you keep being so rude, you’ll be lucky if you can forage something to eat around here.
” Blanca flips him the bird to back up her answer, and he imitates her but adding his index finger and making a movement that looks suspiciously like something he knows how to do very well with his hands… He side-eyes me before he stands up.
“I’m going to make dinner.”
“Leave it. I’ll do it,” I say.
“Well, I’ll help you.”
* * *
I don’t miss the fact that the bottles of wine are flying especially fast tonight and that, for the most part, it’s Blanca’s fault.
She keeps filling her glass over and over.
And I get it because she’s never had a great relationship with Gus and he’s being a real asshole tonight.
It’s not like they’re not friends; everyone in the group is, but…
if she had to choose someone to save in a nuclear disaster, it wouldn’t be Gus, and he knows it.
Under normal circumstances, they have a pretty similar sense of humor, but they’ve never gotten very close.
They’re…acquaintances. Except when he gets stupid, like he is now.
I think Blanca’s drinking to make herself feel better about how Loren looks like he’s about to jump up from the table, grab Gus by the collar, and choke him with his bare hands.
If I really were still in love with him, I’d be miserable, to be honest.