Chapter 38 Wednesday
Wednesday
Coco
Marín hasn’t come back. He sent me a message yesterday.
He said he and his sister had decided to borrow his grandfather’s car and go on a getaway.
He didn’t tell me where or for how long.
Apparently, when we flipped our relationship upside down, that became information I can no longer handle.
Is he scared I’m gonna go hunt him down?
I wrote back as briefly as possible. Ever since Monday when I responded to his awkward goodbye message, I haven’t heard from him, so, of course, I was disappointed and frustrated.
I still am, but everything is so jumbled that sometimes I’m angry, the next minute I’m sad, and a few hours later I’m telling myself it’s not worth the pain and that I’m worth more than this…
only to then go back to the deep wallowing phase and hate every second since the group’s whole flimsy equilibrium went down the drain.
As a consequence of all that, he received a reply that was pretty sterile for us:
Coco:
Have fun. Give Gema a big hug for me and drive safe.
I deleted “you asshole piece of shit” at the end of the message before I sent it.
Well…and “I love you.” I deleted that too.
If Aroa was right that Marín thought I was pathetic about Gus, I have no desire to cross any lines.
And for the record, I’m the last one who wants to feel pathetic.
At this point, I’m starting to wonder if what anyone else thinks really matters.
I mean, it sucks that he disappeared, and it also sucks that I love him, but he’s going to have to come back for me to say that to him. I’m clear about that at least.
It’s Wednesday, and I’m bored. I spent Monday doing a deep clean, but it reminded me too much of him.
We always did this stuff together: We’d wrap bandannas around our heads, take a photo for Insta announcing that we were tackling the house, put on a record, and clean.
It wasn’t a good idea. I ended up flipping through our old photos and thinking about the moment he said, “I love you” and I was all cocky responding, “Yeah, I already knew that.”
Yesterday, Tuesday, I decided to go out for a walk, but strolling around Malasana in August is hell, so I ended up grabbing a drink in one of my favorite bars.
It was pretty disappointing. I don’t know if it’s because I went much earlier than usual or because I went alone, but the place seemed like a boring little dump.
Just a dive bar with dirty walls, red lights, and mismatched tables where they serve bad wine and sometimes play decent music.
I went home with my hands in my pockets and nothing good to say about myself.
Blanca disappointed me. I disappointed Aroa.
Aroa let me down even more. Gus broke Blanca’s heart.
Loren has had it up to here with our problems. Marín fled.
I’m left alone. He went to think. Did he go to think about how to tell me that he actually confused friendship for something more?
Maybe it was all a mistake. He seemed really (too) hurt by finding out that Aroa cheated on him with Gus.
When was he planning to tell me about wanting his sister to move in?
Why was he so dry and curt when we said goodbye?
It’s Wednesday. I’m bored, on vacation, and alone. These are the conditions that lead me to make the insane decision to take refuge at my parents’ house.
* * *
Flor, who’s helped out in the house for years, opens the door.
“Helps out” is a euphemism in this case.
Without that woman, my parents wouldn’t even be able to find their underwear.
Before Flor, a neighbor worked there, Dona Loles, who took care of me when I was little and who I love like she’s my granny.
I should actually say I love Dona Loles more than I love my real grandmother, who’s a musty old snob who sleeps in formaldehyde.
Flor is always cooking something delicious, so I’m very happy when I see she hasn’t gone on vacation, although I feel bad my family is being exploitative.
“Don’t they give you vacation around here?”
“Hush, hush, I made them a deal. I wanted to go to on a cruise with my sisters in September because it’s cheaper then.”
“Oh, cool.”
“I’m making ratatouille empanadas.”
Look, now I have something good to say about myself: You’re going to stuff yourself with homemade empanadas.
Mama’s in her studio. She was an art professor at a private school for many years, and now that she’s retired, she spends most of her time staining canvases as she experiments with avant-garde art.
When I open the door to her studio, she’s holding a paintbrush in her elegant hand, and I’m holding my third empanada.
My brothers are probably right: I’m adopted.
“Coquito!” she greets me with a smile. “What are you eating?”
“Empanadas. Flor is cooking.”
“If it weren’t for Flor, we’d eat grilled chicken breast every night.”
“And omelets.” I smile.
“What are you doing here?”
“I got bored.”
“Do you want a drink?”
Mama always offers you a drink. Well, not always.
You have to fulfill a few prerequisites: You have to be older than sixteen, the age she thinks that even if you’re not an adult yet, you should be; you must not have to drive in the next twenty-four hours, and you must be on her good side.
Normally I always say no. Marín and I have joked for years now about what would happen if I said yes. Maybe that day has come.
“I’d love a glass of wine.”
My mother drops her paintbrush and looks at me. “Go to the kitchen. I’m going to wash my hands.”
She appears with a cigarette between her teeth and then she puts it between her lips and sits with me at the island in her immense kitchen.
“The drink, Mama,” I remind her.
“Wait, I’m going to gauge the scale of the problem before I decide what kind of alcohol we need. What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“If nothing’s going on, I’ll give you a sparkling water.
” She raises one eyebrow. “If you’re sick, I’ll make you a hot chocolate.
If you’re mad at a friend, we’ll open a bottle of white wine.
If it’s a boy thing, I’ll get out the cocktail shaker.
” She winks. “But if something happened with Marín, I think your father has some twenty-five-year-old scotch around here somewhere.”
“Well, then I’d say I need an open bar…”
My mother is not my best friend, but I’ve always felt very free to talk to her.
She gives good advice, she’s never judged me, and she’s always clear about what the problem is.
When Gus and I broke up, she shrugged and said he looked like a guy who had “a lot of sex and not much affection,” and I could only answer with a grimace.
I’m not going to tell her about Marín and me breaking the bed in the Marazul hotel or the thing in the shower—not even the part about the bunk. What the hell do I want to tell her?
“The group is fucked,” I say when she passes me a martini with an olive.
“You’re exaggerating. It’s not your fault. You got it from me.”
“No, Mama, really. It’s fucked. We were all keeping a bunch of secrets that blew up in our faces.”
She takes a sip of her martini with a furrowed brow and gestures for me to keep going as she takes a drag of her cigarette, but I don’t know what to say.
“What was yours?” she interrogates me.
“You already know all about it.” I hazard a guess.
“Marín is the leader of a cult, and you’ve converted to his religion.”
“If you swap leader of a cult for a fucking perfect dude and converting to his religion to being head over heels in love with him, then I guess we’re on the same page.”
“What about everyone else’s?”
“Aroa and Marín broke up because she made him choose between her and me and he didn’t want to.
Marín didn’t tell me that he wanted his sister to move into the apartment next year.
Gus and Blanca have been having an affair.
An affair, Mama! And on top of that, Gus slept with Aroa when she was still with Marín and he was fooling around with Blanca. ”
“And Loren knew all of it and the little scoundrel kept it all quiet.”
“Yeah, but who could blame him? I would have done the same thing.”
“You would have requested a transfer to Helsinki,” she quips.
“Mama… I was living the dream, but now everything is terrible.”
“Your generation is the best. Nobody understands any of you.” She puts her glass down on the bar and looks at me. “If you came here looking for advice, you’re going to have to explain a little more of the story.”
I take a deep breath and start from the beginning. Mama laughs and tells me she misses being my age, that she envies how intensely we experience everything. “But keep going, keep going…”
Mama chews on her olive nervously as I tell her that I ran after Marín, our argument, how tough he was with me, and the kiss. “It was such a shitty night, Mami. I’m an idiot.” And the morning, Blanca fainting, Gus scared to death and those looks they gave each other, and Marín and me, making peace.
“Just peace?” She raises one eyebrow. “Ay, Coco, God, please tell me you’re being careful.”
I skip telling her I wasn’t careful with Marín, that I just took it for granted that I was safe. I just keep going with my story and how I ended up all alone. “I feel like I have no friends left.”
My mother downs the last sip from her glass and sighs. “The Blanca thing will pass, and Loren’s emotional indigestion will only last a few days. As far as Aroa… Coco, that girl is not right in the head.”
“I know.”
“And Gus… Gus makes me a little sad. I get the feeling that he needs to examine his conscience, but he’s avoiding it because the day he does, the self-mythology he’s built up using sex will crumble. Sex and…I don’t know what. Misunderstood self-love. Ay, Coco, you were careful with him, right?”
“Mama!” I groan.
“Okay, okay.” She holds her hands up and then lets them fall onto the counter.
I hear the annoying ticktock of my father’s clock, which he winds religiously.
I see my mother’s shiny manicure, always perfect despite spending the morning dabbling in paints and thinners.
My mouth tastes like martini and olives.
The air-conditioning feels cool on my skin.
Everything around me is lovely, but I’m being devoured by the absence that worries me most of all—that Aroa made her decisions, Gus won’t come back, Blanca and I will find our way, and Loren just needs space for a few days. But…what about Marín?
“What about Marín, Mama?”
She sighs. “My heart is split right now, and I don’t know which advice to give, the mother’s or the woman’s.”
“Can’t you combine them?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, then give me both.”
“I should know which to give you, Coco.” She seems disappointed in herself.
“But if you’re ever a mother one day, you might feel, like I do, that the important thing in your life is that you make all your decisions with conviction.
If you make a mistake, that’s part of your path, but it’s nobody else’s fault.
But I wish I could tell you what the correct option is. ”
“Mama, please…”
She shrugs and sighs again. “As your mother, I would tell you that life is too short to chase after cowards who don’t value what it means to love and be loved. If he’s scared, he should buckle up and get on with it because nothing worth it in this life comes for free.”
“And as a woman?”
“As a woman, I would tell you to…try to put yourself in his shoes. If this works out, he’ll be your companion for life, and you’ll have to make an effort to understand him more than once, like he will for you.
So do an exercise of empathy and…give him the time you would ask him to give you.
Do what you would want him to do if the tables were turned.
If that still doesn’t work…Coco, my darling, there’s no shame in retiring from a war when, battle after battle, you always tie.
One emotion will always win out over the other.
Balancing on the fine line between them is not living.
Sometimes peace simply means throwing in the towel. It hurts, but you get over it.”
I’m not gonna lie. Neither of those options sounds very good to me.
* * *
I listen to my mother’s womanly advice because it scares me less than the motherly advice.
Once my father told me that if I can’t decide between two paths, I should always choose the one that scares me the most because it will definitely be the one that will make me grow, but I think sometimes that doesn’t apply to feelings.
So I gird my loins, and when I get home, I put on a record that Marín is obsessed with, and I think.
I draw a timeline between his needs and mine, and I do it with my heart open to both, putting my empathy for him over my ego. Then I pick up my phone and write:
Coco:
I know you need time and space to accept what happened between us.
I know it changed what we were and the life we had, but at least for me, the excitement at discovering what’s waiting for us outweighs the fear.
If that’s not true for you, don’t wait until the end of August to tell me. We’ll both need to start again.
When I press send, I feel like I’ve started some kind of inexorable countdown that won’t stop until it reaches zero. The question is, what will the outcome be?