Chapter 21 The Performance
The Performance
Coco
Once we’ve decided we don’t want to make dinner and that we’ll eat outside at the campsite’s bar to celebrate our last night here, we realize the evening will include a show.
Our plastic tables are groaning under the weight of trays full of fries doused in ketchup and mayonnaise, and each of us is holding a burger dripping sauce everywhere.
There aren’t enough napkins in the world for us to feel clean, especially because of how hard we’re laughing (kindheartedly, don’t get us wrong).
When we see how seriously the kids from the campsite are taking their musical performance, it’s impossible not to get the giggles.
Right now some girls who must have spent the last week rehearsing are giving it their all on the stage, dancing to a pop song. We’re blown away. I’m twenty-eight, and I still haven’t learned to move my hips like them.
“That’s dancing, queens,” Aroa says with a smile.
“When we dance, it looks more like that video of the dog doing the salsa,” Blanca points out.
“I’ve seen you girls twerking, and it was pretty disturbing.”
“Poetry,” Loren spits, answering Gus. “Stick to poetry…and not the kind…”
“Go on, what kind? This erudite guy here,” the accused teases. “The most poetry you’ve read is on the back of a sugar packet.”
“You’re an idiot. Neruda, Whitman, Baudelaire, Rimbaud…”
We all gape at Loren.
Suddenly, I jump up, throwing down my burger and clapping along to the music, like the retired ladies at the next table over.
“If the ladies at the next table start singing, tie Coco up because she’ll be onstage next,” Gus laughs.
“There’s a better chance you’ll start reciting poetry,” I retort.
“Wowzer, the whole table’s talking shit about poetry tonight. I mean…what’s the prize? If you tempt me, maybe I will go up there and dedicate a few words to you guys.”
“An ode to stupidity,” Aroa adds with a half smile.
“I don’t know what you’ll win, but if you get up there, you’ll definitely lose your dignity.”
I take another bite of my burger and wipe my fingers and mouth on a used napkin. Disaster. Everyone looks at me and bursts out laughing.
“Better if Coco goes up there. We’d probably get some kind of compensation from the government for bringing her on this trip with us.”
“Okay, come here…”
Marín grabs the clean napkin from under his plate and wipes my face. My eyes are about to roll back in my head from the sensory pleasure, but I glance at Aroa, who’s openly watching us.
“Do you normally do this at home?” she asks. The good vibe from the beach must have been left back there in the sand. Her voice sounds friendly but tense.
“It’s not usually necessary. We have bibs,” Marín jokes. “God, you have so much mayonnaise everywhere, it’s probably in your hair. You just need to get straight in a shower.”
“Sounds like an indecent proposal,” Gus points out.
Gus, dude, you’re a dumbass.
“More like an older brother, right, Marín?” I feel like the look he gives me is filled with disgust, but that’s just my perception.
He nods and smiles. “I’m going to have to apply for legal guardianship from the state on top of the compensation.”
“The apartment would be way cheaper then.”
“For the time you have left there, right?” Aroa asks.
I shoot Aroa a confused look. “What are you talking about?” I ask, casually.
“I dunno… Isn’t your lease ending soon or something like that, Marín?” she questions.
Marín drops the napkin onto the table and shifts in his chair.
“No. Our lease goes until the end of the year, but the landlord loves us and I’m sure he’d renew it.
We pay religiously, we’ve never had any problems with the neighbors, we haven’t broken anything…
We’re exemplary tenants. But, listen, is there a specific reason you’re saying that? ”
There’s a challenge in the air, but Aroa doesn’t bite.
She doesn’t even answer, but it’s easy to see there’s a little pebble of rage there.
Marín is glaring at her, even though she turned her back to pretend she’s watching the performance.
She seems annoyed, even disappointed. I put my right hand, which is relatively clean, under the table and squeeze his knee.
I’m trying to tell him that I’ve got his back, but he has to be calm.
It’s not the time to fight with his ex-girlfriend.
It’s becoming clear to me that part of the problem between these two sprang up because Aroa, who always seems so chill about everything, is kind of bothered that he lives with me and not with her.
“So…should we get a drink?”
It’s the first time on this trip that everyone at the table looks appreciatively at Gus, who raises his eyebrows trying to break the tension that has robbed our little corner of oxygen.
“My treat.”
“If it’s your treat, then even I’ll have one.” Marín smiles at him.
“Are you calling me cheap?” Gus pretends to be offended, stabbing his chest with his finger, right between his pecs, over his shirt. But he quickly opens his hand and strokes his chest. “God, I’m so sexy.”
We all cackle, and he stands up.
“Five beers?”
“Wow, you’re such a cheapskate,” Blanca moans. “I want a gin and tonic.”
“And I want a rum and Coke,” I say with a smile.
“Jesus…why not just get a candy liqueur. So sweet,” Gus grumbles. “Anyone else?”
“I don’t want anything.” Aroa seems regretful and a little embarrassed.
I give her a little kick under the table, and when she looks at me, I try to send her a message telepathically: Come on, cheer up. I don’t know, either I’m abnormal or it’s just that I’m a fake and bad person. I probably have some kind of multiple personality disorder.
“I’ll have a Larios Twelve with Coke Zero,” Loren pipes up.
“Cool. Let’s see,” Gus puts his hand in his pocket and fishes out a twenty-euro bill.
“Will this be enough?”
If we lived in Paris in 1850, Gus would die of tuberculosis in a dingy garret, a scrawny alcoholic. And probably with syphilis.
* * *
It’s two in the morning. We don’t really know how that happened.
We were planning to go to bed early because later today we have to pack everything up and get this show on the road, but after the musical numbers, we went nuts.
The retired ladies did end up performing, and we were about to improvise something and go up there.
Even Aroa cheered up a little…I think. She’s such a good actress that you never know if she’s put on a mask or if it’s actually her.
Now, after three rums, I wonder if that doubt could be applied to the rest of our lives together.
I wonder if I really know her that well.
We all keep secrets, that much I do know. We all lie.
We walk back to our site doubled over with laughter. We want to have a nightcap in the RV, but a quiet one because we don’t want to bother our English neighbors now that we know how sweet they are. But halfway back, we come across the pool. And the temptation is strong.
It’s surrounded by a tall fence that is locked at night, but from down here and with so many of us, it doesn’t seem too challenging to hop the fence and go for a silent swim.
Loren even tries it, but obviously just to prove it’s not a piece of cake and get us to give up.
When he climbs back down the wall supporting the fence and announces it’s impossible, it only makes Marín more into the idea.
“Daddy longlegs,” Loren warns him, cracking up. “If they throw us out of the campsite on our last night, I’ll kill you.”
“What’s the big deal?” He laughs. “Either way, you have to sleep in a camper.”
“RV,” Blanca corrects him with a smile.
“Whatever.”
“I get everyone else being stupid because alcohol is the worst, but you, you’re always sober!”
“Sobriety isn’t a synonym for boredom, cutie.”
Marín looks around. Not a soul on the path. Everyone else went to bed with their dignity intact, while we begged them to serve us one last drink at the bar. The only noise is the summery sound of crickets and the ocean in the background. Far in the background.
“If you see someone coming, give me a warning. Sardine, help me.”
“Of course, Sardine and Anchovy need to get in the water. They’re Maríne creatures!” Gus laughs. “Should I write you two a poem?”
“Oh, Sardine, Sardine, hold my phone, for I’m going to jump,” Marín recites pompously before he empties his pockets into my hands and gives me two phones: his work one (it doesn’t matter that he’s on vacation…
it’s part of his body now) and the personal one, his wallet, and the keys for the motel, which are heavier than a Castilian chair.
It’s quite the disappearing act. He grabs the fence, climbs the wall, and, once he’s there, puts one foot halfway and…boom. He’s in. We’re all looking at him like he did a magic trick.
“I wanna go too!”
“Shh,” everyone else scolds me all at once.
I put Marín’s stuff down and try to imitate him, but my legs are way shorter.
I need someone to give me a leg up. Blanca takes one foot, Gus takes the other, and Loren pushes up.
I feel like I’m flying, and for a fraction of a second, I think I’m going to die, impaled on the fence of a pool in La Marína, Alicante.
But no, I’m over it, and the crash is imminent.
An arm breaks my fall, and I land on Marín’s chest, whacking my eyebrow pretty badly on his shoulder, but alive and well.
They all laugh, and the flash of a couple of cameras blinds me when I turn around triumphantly. They’re taking pictures.
“Now the rest of you!” I say giddily.
“No fucking way.” Blanca laughs.
“I’ll meet you back at the camper.” Aroa sounds surly.
“Aroa, you could jump this with the power of manifestation!” I egg her on.
“Your elven blood will protect you.” Gus laughs.
“I’ll wait for you back there.”
We watch her walk away slowly, as if she’s hoping Marín will insist, but he doesn’t, and she turns the corner. We look at everyone else, who are all shaking their heads.