Six of us rather than five go home from Marbella in the car, Mom and Domingo in the front and the other three of us in the back, with the unexpected company of the lone Siamese cat on my lap. Grandma decided to keep him, on impulse, at the last minute. On the way back, we stop in the village where Mom was born. I’m always excited to go there but it never lives up to my expectations. I’ve heard so many stories and idealized the place so much that there’s no space left for what it’s really like. This is where my grandparents lived without a toilet, this is where they raised a cat called Noni who lived to twenty, this is where they laughed and cried. I’d like to come here and for it to be 1950. The grown-ups order coffee and sweets. I know by now that the chocolate milk in bars is not to be trusted, so I usually order juice. I vary the flavors and I’m so used to them being gross that they’re not gross to me anymore. Actually, with a chocolate cream roll, this thick, lusty peach nectar is pretty tasty. The drive is slow and boring with Mom at the wheel. But it’s also nice, I guess. She’s never in a hurry, it’s exasperating. The trip constantly gets interrupted. She needs to stop all the time. To cool off, to smoke, to have another coffee, to go to the bathroom, to check out some sunflowers up close. I have a good time on the drive, except when they start arguing up front. Then we in the back exchange glances that say we feel eons away from problems like that. There haven’t been too many squabbles today. By the gap between the shoe store and the fruit stand, Mom promises she’ll bring more toys soon, and good news about her health. I didn’t get to give her a last massage, to get the last critters out. Her skin is taut and she hasn’t got many wrinkles, but I know she’s completely worn out, obsessed with providing for me. I don’t know when I’ll see her again. The feeling I get when I see the car drive off knocks me sideways. Two weeks in Marbella with those loyal old ladies aren’t the real summer. It all begins here: my shadowy hideouts, my steamy adventures, seeing the future come toward me from inside my lair. Based on her own experience, Mom thinks growing up with Grandma leads to ruin. She knows it’s my vice, that if she died I’d rather be shut away here forever, that’s why she’d prefer to leave me in stricter hands. Abelina’s gone. What I’ll miss most about the last two weeks is her sweet, soothing voice and the swish of her polka-dot dresses. And I’m a bit mad at my book. I finished it at around four in the morning and all my satisfaction at having got to the end was drowned in a sadness I wasn’t expecting that felt like losing a bunch of friends or being abandoned by my true love. I don’t even want to look at the cover. All I want to do is watch TV and dip fried potatoes in egg yolk and not think about anything. During dinner, though, the characters in the movie we’re watching get onto the subject of death. I still don’t fully grasp that I won’t always be trapped in this prison called childhood, that at some point I’ll grow up and have to face even worse problems. I feel dull and cranky, like a blank chalkboard. I keep belittling the characters’ suffering and Grandma frowns. She looks affronted.
“Hey, honey, less of the teasing, OK? This stuff is serious.”
“What, death?”
“Yes, of course, death.”
“But everyone has to die, right?”
“So what, if everyone has to it doesn’t matter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, when you’re nine you don’t think you’re ever going to have to die.”
“But Grandma, I thought you weren’t afraid of dying.”
“Wanting to have a good time is one thing and not caring is another. Get it, smartass? Even people who commit suicide care. And what about the people they leave behind?”
I keep my mouth shut. I wasn’t expecting a dressing down, but it doesn’t surprise me either. No one’s free from this horror. One day I’ll fully understand all of life’s conundrums. Sooner or later I’ll see this woman die. That’s life and she knows it. It’s easy enough to see, even from where I am, that all the adults I know will have to die. But what about the babies at Inma’s birthday party? In theory, they’ll see my generation die, when my classmates are old and tired and scattered across the world. And there’ll be more babies, year in and year out. I’ll only overlap with some of them for a few months. They’ll see a part of the future I’m not even prepared for. Will I ever be a grandma? Will anyone see me die? I can’t imagine raising children and letting them see me on my deathbed. Who says dying alone isn’t better? How many people have families as life-insurance policies? Why is everyone obsessed with not dying alone? They never stop talking about the Persian Gulf on TV. I don’t get the situation no matter how hard people try to explain it, but I can’t help thinking about the war movies I’ve seen, the atomic bomb, and the train of terror that runs me down, brings me a taste of every torment I’ll have to face if there’s a barbarian invasion. Being a member of the latest batch of kids doesn’t make you immune, though our lives are so uneventful in terms of physical violence that people think we’re humanity’s greatest hope, like not having been starved and being forced to go to school is going to make us all into superheroes. This cheap training is no kind of privilege, we kids all hate it. Being good or bad at things makes no difference, it’s all the same shit. We try to be cheerful since we have no choice and we know what’s in it for us, but seriously, this isn’t the way. We feel like they’re wasting our precious time, like our brains are being colonized by a bunch of second-rate bores. That’s why I feel so much for rebellious kids, even if sometimes they pick on me. Deep down I get them, I’m on their side. Getting the best grades in class just means I’m the most fired up, the one who’s really itching to burn the school down. But it’s hard to fight back. They take all the good things we had away and fill the gaps with useless trash. They break down our defenses. I’m afraid I’ll run out of space in my head. They hardly teach us anything useful that might help us figure life out, understand each other, deal with each other. All they do about that is step in when a fight breaks out and ask who started it. Look, I want to get out of the system as much as anyone. I just toe the line because I know there’s zip on the other side. Mom has been there and come back to tell me how tough it is, how people abandon you, go after you, punish you. I’ve figured out that teachers sometimes talk nonsense, that they don’t actually know all that much, even if they mean well and make an effort to treat us kindly. A lot of the information they give us is random and confused, you can’t count on it. I do what I’m told since I think the system has to be beaten from within. Teachers are never too well prepared and it’s easy to follow orders, to learn how to satisfy their whims. I’m obedient but don’t want to forget what I already know. When I start running out of space in my head there’s going to be trouble.
The movie on TV gets harder to follow, until it’s too much and we change the channel. There’s a talk show starting, one with two sides that spend the whole time discussing things. But today they’re talking about love and that’s always fun. Grandma and I join in loudly and say what we think, like a couple of extra panelists at the table.
“That’s not true, you can’t be that shitty!” she yells. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we don’t. We’re stubborn but we always hear each other out, and sometimes we even change our minds. The panelists discuss things like passion, affairs, and seduction strategies, and the debate is soon full of sexual content. Since I’m with Grandma it doesn’t matter a bit, we’re living our lives so far from the world of flesh we’re immune to it.
“Grandma, do you think you were good in bed?” I ask after a few seconds’ thought.
“What do I know, honey, that’s not something you can know, the people I slept with would have to tell you.”
“Yeah, but I can’t ask them.”
“True. It’s too bad, honey. Your grandpa would’ve liked to meet you.”
“Yeah, you think so?”
“Of course, honey, you’re so smart.”
“But why would that matter?”
“Well, it would’ve made him happy to see how bright and what a good girl you are, but you also have what he had.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how to explain it – you think a lot. Not like him, he was so tormented, but in another way. You’re quick and sharp in a way I don’t think he ever was. You get things. And your hands remind me of his somehow and I’m not sure why.”
“My hands?”
“Yes, delicate and pretty like that, the way you move them when you’re nervous. I think they’ll be like his when you grow up, but don’t pay too much attention to me.”
“And did he think a lot too?”
“Did he ever. Maybe because he wasn’t right in the head, poor thing. It started to show in his face. He was always handsome, but when he was twenty he was a quiet, good-looking boy, and then the other, darker side started to show.”
“Right.”
“Your poor grandpa, honey, he wasn’t well, we all went through so much because of him. Times are different now, you know? If he’d been twenty or thirty today, I think things would’ve been different. Think of what they knew about people’s heads in the forties and fifties. They didn’t know a thing.”
“They know a lot now though, right?”
“Of course, honey, and they’ll know a whole lot more one day. Back then people’s heads were a mystery. They didn’t know a thing about making them better. There were the people who sent you to the priest so he could get the devil out from inside you, and the people who sent you to the nuthouse for electroshock therapy, God damn them to hell.”
“What’s electroshock therapy?”
“Something nasty they did back then if you weren’t right in the head. A dirty trick that left you worse off than you were before. It was a shame, honey, but don’t you worry, they hardly do it anymore, and if they do it’s different and they do a better job. Plus it would be very unusual for it to happen to a girl like you.”
“OK.”
“Poor angel, with the doctors these days it would’ve been so different for your poor grandfather. He was so unwell and it all ended so badly. But he wasn’t a bad guy, he was just in a muddle, you see what I’m saying?”
“Yeah.”
“He used to say he could sing like Joselito, who sounded like a goldfinch, and one time when we were very young and we’d been married nearly a year, I was making myself a flamenco dress for the village fair – it was a really pretty dress, you know how I’ve always made pretty things, and it had a high neck, all done-up like this, and dark brown. You know how I’ve always liked bright colors, but at the time I was terribly modest and I thought now that I was a married woman it was more decent to be discreet.”
“Why?”
“Because I was very naive and silly, and I didn’t want anyone to have a reason to badmouth me. And one day your grandpa comes along and sees me sewing that awfully drab dress and he looks at me like this and says, ‘Who’s that flamenco dress for, Marina?’ ‘It’s for me,’ I said, with my sweet little lips. And he asks me, ‘And how come you made it so plain?’ and I tell him, ‘Oh, I don’t know, honey, I thought it was the right thing to do since I’m married.’”
“And what did he say?”
“Well, he answered, ‘Look, Marina, if you like the dress as it is that’s all well and good, but if it’s about what people might say, what do you care? Tell me something: If we hadn’t gotten married, what kind of dress would you make yourself?’ And I answered him right away, without even thinking about it, ‘Me? Scarlet and with a low neckline.’”
All grandmas say scarlet instead of red. It makes me laugh. Her belly wobbles gently.
“Back then I only weighed fifty kilos but I’ve always liked the same things.”
“And what happened?”
“I made myself a scarlet dress with white polka dots and a neckline that showed my cleavage, and I wore it with a green shawl my cousin Pepita lent me, and we went to the fair together and had a wonderful time. And you know what I did with the dark-brown cloth?”
“No.”
“I made myself a skirt that was tight around the hips and pleated at the bottom that I wore with a yellow flowery shirt, and since I was nice and dark it looked ever so pretty on me.”
I stare blankly at the TV while she lights a cigarette, pleased with the end of her story. I try to peer into the forties to see them stroll arm in arm through the fair, Grandma with a cinched waist and plump cheeks, curly black hair at her neck, the ordeals of childhood behind her, still childless but with a big family, taking care of lots of animals. There are only a couple of photos left of that hazy time. The memories are in color for her, but I can’t see them no matter how much she describes them. When she thinks about all that, she can picture the fair exactly, and her dress, and my grandpa before he wasn’t right in the head. Grandma looks at me and stubs out her cigarette. She’s thinking of saying more.
“Now I’ll tell you something. When I was widowed I was very beautiful. Look, get up for a second and hand me that coin purse on the table by the couch.”
She wants to show me a photo she keeps tucked away. I’ve seen it lots of times, but I get up and pass her the purse. She takes out the photo, puts on her spectacles, and caresses it.
“Look, honey, no wonder I had plenty of suitors. What do you say?”
I look. Her hair is backcombed and her eyebrows are penciled in, like a country girl’s. Her slight smile has a hint of mischief, a bit like the Mona Lisa’s. Now she tells me about her second husband.
“Around that time I met Manuel at the bus stop. He was crazy about me as soon as he saw me. I was off to a house to do some sewing and we started chatting to pass the time. And then at some point he said, ‘Miss Marina, I’ve been thinking. Here we are, both widowed, and frankly I don’t like being alone.’ When he said that I saw it coming, see how quickly it happened? He was still being so polite, but since the subject of how sad it was to be widowed had come up already, well, he didn’t want to wait.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty crazy.”
“So he says, ‘Life’s no fun when you’re alone, and I’d like to spend the time I have left with a pretty woman like you. What I most enjoy is taking the car and going to the countryside, and I have five dogs. What do you think?’”
“He won you over with the five dogs.”
“He was very simple and a bit of a brute, but he mentioned the countryside and the dogs, and since I could tell he was head over heels, I thought it seemed like a fun idea. And he said right there that if it went well, we could see about getting married and all the rest, and I told him that seemed all right to me. And you know what?”
“What?”
“Two husbands are better than one. I always have both of them with me right here.”
She shows me her ring finger with two gold rings that look almost the same, one for each husband, and plants a kiss on them both at once. She takes off her spectacles and goes back to the matter at hand.
“Anyway, honey, the point is I don’t know if I was good in bed, but nobody ever complained, that’s for sure.”
“But you didn’t talk about those things, right?”
“Not much, as I recall, but I was always enthusiastic, d’you know what I mean?”
“Yes, yes.”
“But the enthusiasm’s all gone now, at this age I just want to do my own thing.”
Now she has a revelation, claps her hands in the air, and cries, “I know what we’ll call the cat!”
“What?”
“Felipe!”
Talking about fucking must’ve made her think of Felipe González. You’re never too old for Mr. President.
I’ve had a hellish night imagining a gang of Persian Gulfs running rampage through my school, delirious from the sound of the radio and the stifling heat, the cat pressed up against me. I try to focus on my excitement about getting to see Canica, who’s been away from us for more than two weeks and has no idea what’s going on. Now we’re in the waiting room at Animal Advocates, which offers boarding and grooming services. She’s upstairs, where they’ve been giving her a trim. Two weeks of being held hostage and on top of that they give her a bath and cut off her hair, poor thing. I wonder if she’s scared. I can hear her paws tapping hysterically on the floor above. Grandma laughs, she knows the dog’s been let loose and is thrilled to hear her voice. Canica charges gleefully down the stairs and comes over barking and leaping, running around in circles, ears back and tail wagging. She licks our faces.
“Oh, poor little Canica, poor, poor little thing,” Grandma comforts her, stroking her head. Being recently shorn makes her joy seem a tad pathetic. She looks like a different dog. We put on her leash and go out into the street. She can’t believe her luck. On the way we buy churros and two bags of kibble, one for dogs and one for cats. We pass only old people. At this time of day the best cartoons haven’t started yet, I’ll even get to see some of the ones I usually miss. It’s nice to get up early in the neighborhood. If only I could do it in a good mood every day.
It’s after three thirty, I’m not sure if it’s Thursday or Friday. Maybe it’s Monday? How could I lose track so quickly? The dog and cat hit it off as soon as they met and spend all day curled up together, napping. The most blistering heat of the year has settled into the houses, making everything perfectly still. It’s unpleasant and even unsafe to be in a rush. Time drags on. Lunch is laid out on the table, the blinds are down, the living room dark, the fan on a chair. Someone comes to the door. Grandma gets up and opens it. There’s a woman telling a long story that’s hard to hear with the TV on. She must’ve come to collect the maintenance fee or the water money or the latest Readers’ Circle book. Grandma asks her to wait a minute and goes into the kitchen. The woman steps furtively inside. Without making a sound, she bends her knees and reaches an arm down to the coffee table. Now she sees with a start that I’m sitting here and locks eyes with me. She smiles faintly but warmly. Maybe she knew me when I was a baby? I get that a lot. She’s acting suspiciously. A force radiates from her eyes and smile, making me freeze. She grasps something on the table. As soon as she closes her fist the look on her face is transformed. She can’t get out of here fast enough. She retreats to the door, hunched over and walking backward. She gives me a last sweet look before slipping away without a word. Grandma appears in the living room with a glass of water.
“Where’s the woman who was just here?”
“I don’t know, she left.”
“Didn’t she say anything?”
“No, who was she?”
“I don’t know, she came asking for money and said she was sweltering and, oh! My coin purse! She took my coin purse from the table!”
We look at each other, stricken with terror. A thief came in and looked me right in the fucking face without blinking. The door’s still open. Grandma closes it quickly.
“And how much money was in it?”
“None, I’m just sad about the photo I showed you from when I was fifty, back when I was so good-looking.”
After the shock has passed there’s nothing much left to say, so we have lunch. It doesn’t come up again until six, when Grandma takes her fan and goes off to the hair salon. She wants to look good for when she gets her picture taken for a new ID. She loves having an excuse to go out and run errands. I’ve only ever seen her be lazy about making the bed or cleaning the kitchen. It’s time to poop, and I long to look at the label on Grandma’s conditioner, but she’s taken it with her so they don’t charge her extra for any products. It’s the same one she had back when Mom and I lived with her. There’s actually tons of it left – by the time it runs out I might be fucking, and that’s forever away. You don’t see labels like that anymore. I love it. I’m kind of obsessed with it. I probably won’t be fucking until the next millennium. I’ll be sixteen in the year 2000. Centuries are a big deal, which one you get has a major effect. Most of my life will happen in the twenty-first century, weird as that sounds. This is just an in-between chapter, the last one for old people now, and a dark prequel for the kids who’ve just been born. I’ve been told over and over that time moves slowly when you’re young and then it starts zipping by like crazy. Is that for real? Does being a kid take longer than being old? Why couldn’t it be the opposite? That would be more relaxing.
I’ve just wiped my butt when someone pounds on the living-room window. Either someone wants to mess with me because they know I’m alone, or it’s Lucía. It’s Lucía. Finally, Lucía.
“Come in, hurry!”
“No, Marina, you come out here!” she calls and then vanishes, laughing, not waiting for my reply, a string of kids of various ages trailing behind her. What does it take to be popular?
I put on my Minnie Mouse pinafore and go outside, wondering what kind of elegant whimsy she’s planned for us today. You never know what’s going to happen with her. The little plaza is hopping, full of moms and their broods. Everyone looks free and easy and cheerful, so it must be Friday. Lucía is standing in the middle of a ring of people, singing a song. She’s eleven and she’s been wearing the same blue pinafore since she was six. She’s tall and thin and the skirt is shorter on her than ever. Her skin is really tanned and her lips are red.
“Are you wearing lipstick?” I ask, and everyone laughs at me.
“Here we go again!” Lucía cries wearily.
“What’s the matter?”
“My mom gave me a kiss on the lips and everyone’s asking me the same thing.”
Her diva act is so convincing that no one dares to argue with her, to interrupt the captivating flow of her performance. I accept the tale meekly and try to get up to speed. My social skills aren’t exactly at their best. So her mom kissed her on the lips? I still haven’t been kissed on the lips. Not by anyone. I don’t think I’m the only one in this crowd who feels that way. Lucía’s stories have a hint of perversion about them and the smut is on the increase. If she stays a while I sometimes get lucky and we end up alone in an entryway. When she shows up, everyone treats her like a princess, but then her suggestions get a bit twisted and people start leaving. There’ve been times when her familiarity has been too oppressive even for me, and I’ve had to run away. But we always come back and she knows it. We make her feel like a witch with a magic pleasure wand.
“Want me to show you my panties, Marina?”
“What, I don’t know, OK!” I answer.
“She’s not wearing any panties!” the others yell, collapsing into another fit of giggles. Lucía finds it so funny she falls on her butt, and explains from the ground:
“I didn’t have any clean panties today so I wore one of my mom’s bodysuits.”
She undoes her shirt buttons and shows me. It’s navy-blue lace and matches her pinafore. You never know if she’s telling the truth or just spinning out some fantasy to thrill her audience. I admire her style but sometimes she makes us feel bad. When we were little I thought we might be alike when we grew up, but we’re not. These days she treats me like a baby most of the time. I prefer Natalia’s manners a thousand times over. They’re a world apart. But when Lucía gets really feisty she sometimes masterminds truly epic games of kiss-in-the-ring, and even if I end up wimping out, I always want to be there for the beginning. She’s a warm and imaginative friend but the problem is that when people give her a lot of attention she gets drunk on fame and it makes her insufferable. We haven’t seen each other since November and her talent for lying has gotten out of control. She rubs our noses in the fact that we’re just kids, when she’s only eleven herself. I’d like to have someone to count on, someone I could see often, someone to talk to. But with Lucía, it’s always sporadic and rushed.
Now she’s sitting on a bench telling whoppers, who knows why. The littlest kids stare at her, jaws hanging open. She says she’s been granted powers by aliens, that she was born on another planet, that she can’t feel cold or heat. Maybe some of it’s true? She definitely has some sexual experiences under her belt. I don’t think they have much to do with losing her virginity, but they’re definitely really, really filthy, filthier than regular fucking. What’s the point of virginity anyway, it’s just a cheap fetish, right? I haven’t had many opportunities to experiment and I’ve usually failed. I would be dying to keep going but then I’d get crippled with shyness, something held me back and made me say no. When someone gets their butt out I can’t help laughing, it’s like all my other feelings get cut off. Are they being censored? Have I been programmed to react like this? Or have I just not been in sync with the playmates who’ve propositioned me? Would my body work if I liked the way they came on to me more? The first time, the boy was nine and I was four; the second, the girl was six and I was five. I had a couple of streaks of good luck but since then it’s been like a desert. I’m always hungry for it, but when opportunities appear, I hide. I have a feeling a bunch of boys like me but none of them ever comes over to me, and when I go over to them nothing happens either. Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding, just fantasy and lust. But sometimes I also wonder if pouring my deepest longings into comics is what dries me up. They give me such relief from my social frustration, but maybe they’re getting me into a vicious cycle. Comics and magazines with tits are generally inoffensive, I feel lucky to have them around, but often I’m scared to turn the pages because if the next scene turns out to be really cruel and nasty my eyes burn and it’s like they’re melting, and when they drip, it stains the pictures forever. But when the stories are appealing, my body short-circuits, my heart beats faster, I stroke the pages, sniff them, suck them, look at them up close and from far away, and feel like I’m about to come. Not that I know what that feels like, but I get the general idea and think it must be a bit like this. People in my generation are either boring dimwits or Machiavellian pigs. I don’t know where I fit in. I guess my place is in silent rooms, and there must be lots of others like me, holding their breath alone, without anyone knowing.
Grandma appears in the gate to the street, hair stiff from all the spray, hands on her hips.
“Ah, you’re here. I’m going to buy candy, are you coming?”
I get up and run over. When I reach her she asks if I’ve noticed how pretty she looks. I say yes and we go to the store and buy orange, lemon, peppermint, and Vampire candies. Grandma puts it all in the plastic bag she’s using to carry the eighties conditioner.
“I bring the conditioner because if I don’t they want to use the one at the salon and charge me two hundred pesetas for a little glob like that, see? Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I’ve told you that already, haven’t I?”
“Lots of times.”
“Well, now we’ve added another for your collection.”
After dinner I’m the first out on the street, leaning against a water tank on one side of the little plaza with two dark-haired, well-dressed dolls in my hands. I think it’s all the kids’ favorite spot on this street. It’s the perfect height to work as a stage for us. Playing at shop-keeping or bartending here and putting things on top of it is strangely enjoyable. It’s also really dark here at night. I wish I could get far away enough not to hear the neighbor ladies, but I’m not allowed. I do the dolls’ hair and arrange them around the metal padlock, listening to the ladies chatter about really boring stuff.
“Do you like ironing?”
“Yes, I do.”
“That’s lucky!” several exclaim all at once.
“Yeah, it’s really lucky, cause no one else likes it, right? And it’s the chore I like best of all. Cooking, though, I really don’t like.”
The ones who love cooking now laugh proudly. Grandma’s in the same camp as the show-off chefs. On the other hand, she’s not very tidy, something I’m grateful for. She doesn’t mind that I’m disorganized and lazy too, so it’s win-win. We never fight.
Lucía comes over in the dark and jumps the wire surrounding the water tank.
“So you came down early,” I say.
“Yeah, I came down with Poppa and Nana, they’re going to dinner.”
She points to them and shakes the skirt of her pinafore. She moves with speed, skill, and verve. She puts her face up close to my dolls and looks them over.
“You made them so pretty.”
“You like them?”
“A bunch.”
She’s in a good mood. We’re alone. I can’t believe my luck. I pluck up the courage to say the bravest thing I can say out loud without choking.
“Do you want to play with me before the others get here?”
She makes an impish face, a face some have never seen, but which certain others have seen a lot more than I ever could. How far will her mischief go? I’d do anything to be able to watch, to be a fly on the wall. Within a few minutes, the dolls are grinding against each other. When it comes to this, Lucía has always helped me give vent to my urges. She’s already pretty bored of toys and has a different kind of hunger, but we’re still on the same level with dolls, and together our fantasies unfold like the colors of the rainbow. It’s obvious to her that this is important to me, that I’m relishing it. So she shows off, makes me cream my panties, and feeds her enormous ego in one fell swoop.
By the time more kids start showing up we’re breathing fast and have to cut things short to start a game of hide and seek, the only one we can enjoy when there’s a wide age range in the group. I’ve just crouched down to hide near where the neighbor ladies’ chatter is coming from, and I relax my butt to let out a fart I’ve been holding in since we were over by the water tank. But what I feel coming out through the hole isn’t gas, but something hot and runny. I touch the fabric of my pinafore at the height of my butt. It’s moist. I’ve shat myself. Just a little. That’s all I need. Luckily it’s dark and the party is breaking up. Lucía is still playing but without much enthusiasm. The little ones get sad, feeling abandoned in their innocence. She’s leaving tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll see her again. It’s truly annoying to never have anything planned. I can’t really say I like her all that much, but Mother of God, I miss her a lot when she’s not around.