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I
imagine you will believe me if I tell you I wasn’t able to go to sleep in my house the entire week. Day after day we delayed sleeping apart again. Anyway, so much physical exercise was working well on helping me fit in the dress I would wear during the party on Saturday. I haven’t accepted the invitation yet but, I knew my mother, she would drag me there if necessary. As I was saying, my parents are going to give a party on Saturday. Some more informal than law firm’s party but still you have to dress well. My parents use to make a party in one of the restaurants of Salamanca, to friends and closest people the night before Christmas Eve. This year they decided to throw the house through the window and celebrate the party in the Castle of Good Love, a place that I have always liked, by the way. When I was little, my parents use to take me there to eat when we had something to celebrate and nowadays, I still visit it at least once to lose myself inside the French maze it has around it.
Jorge is always more than invited, of course. He is not just an employee of the firm; they use to meet out of the company since years ago as Claudia is an intimate friend of my mother, something that I always hated, personally. How my mother can have this kind of friend? I consider my mother a sane person with good judge and, Claudia is... well, is Claudia, I don’t feel like describing her as an intrusive witch, shallow with lack of the minimal culture; I don’t like to be forced to make this kind of descriptions about anybody...
I don’t use to go to that party ever. I assisted some year back on time but, when my parents stopped pushing me, I started to sneak away. On the other hand, parties we displayed at my parents’ house taking advantage they were not at home, were memorable. But this year, my mother kept insisting me to assist. Right the year I don’t want to go for anything in the world. Jorge is almost forced to go and Claudia is going to be there also. I don’t want to cause him troubles, I know if I go as well, he is going to have a bad time between his wife and I. He guarantees nothing happens, that we have to manage the best we can from now on but, I don’t see it clear.
“Sweetheart, you have to come” my mother insists once again as a dog which doesn’t want to release its prey.
Jorge is in the kitchen making a salad to have dinner but he smiles as he knows how persistent my parents can be any time they want something.
“Mother, please, leave it. I don’t feel like assisting to the party, you know that already.”
“But, why? That is your favorite place!”
“I now but... I just don’t feel like.”
“Laura, something happens here. Tell me why you do not want to go.”
“Nothing happens, I mean it, it is like the previous years, I just don’t want to go, that is it.”
This is like coming back to be a teenager.
“No... something is happening...” my mother says in a suspicious tone.
Now she won’t stop insisting until she finds out what happens...
“Mom, nothing happens. I repeat I just don’t feel like, nothing else. What I don’t understand is why you are insisting me so bad to assist this year.”
“If you go, your father and I will cede you the Grand Feudal Suite.”
Wou... she is seriously interested in my assistance...
“Mom, please...”
“Look sweetheart, something is happening here otherwise, you would ever reject this offer. Is it about someone who will assist to the dinner?”
If my mother continues digging, she will end discovering something, I am sure. She is a good lawyer. I feel panic just to imagine she might find out what happens.
“No, no, it has nothing to do with any of the invitees” Jorge turns to watch me horrified. He opens his eyes and tells me moving his lips accept now “Ok, I’ll go, but I want that room.”
“Of course!” she claims with that cheerful tone mothers have every time they get away with anything “You don’t know how happy you make me, sweetie. I’ll leave you now; I have to keep going with tomorrow’s planning. Shall we look after you or you are coming?”
“I’ll go in the car, don’t worry.”
“Remember, we will be there at six, ok?”
“Ok...” you can notice the exhaustion in my voice for discussing the same topic the entire week “See you tomorrow, mother.”
“See you tomorrow, sweetheart”.
Jorge approaches my dish and sits next to me, waiting to know the details he couldn’t listen to.
“There was no way, I’m sorry” I apologized.
“I already told you that I do not care.”
“But Claudia will be there and, I don’t feel funny for watching her with you.”
He smiles after he understands my almost childish concern and tenders my face for an instant.
“She will not be there with me, I will tell everybody we are getting divorced so, it will not be a problem if we do not even talk to each other.”
“But you won’t be able to talk to me either” I complaint with a pitiful voice.
Jorge raises my chin and gives me a little kiss in my lips but, not even with that part smile he manages to cheer me up.
I hate Claudia, I mean it.
“Hey...” and his voice almost becomes a whisper “We will be able to talk the way we used to do before, nothing happen.”
“Not... like before... you, proud and distant and; me, anxious and feeling like a child.”
“It was that way before? You felt that way with me?” he asks with his face frown after hearing those words.
It seems like he hurts what I just said but, it is the real true. Just to think on turning back to our previous status, makes my entrails twist.
“Yes... I had told you already I liked you, Jorge, talking to you intimidated me very hard. Also, you were very distant all the time.”
“I did that because I wanted to hide I felt the same way about you, you silly.”
He rubs his nose with mine and gives me a kiss, making impossible to me to stay serious and not smiling after the touch of his lips over mine. Everything is so different now from what it was just few months ago...
“I don’t understand why they insist me so bad to assist this year, they were very pushing” I say taking a lettuce leaf to my mouth.
“Whatever it is, there is nothing we can do now.”
He lays back supporting on the back of the chair and sitting over one of his legs while he puts a cherry tomato inside his mouth. In that moment his phone rings. He stretches a little to get close to the table where his phone is and makes a gesture of reluctance; he raises to take it.
“It is Claudia...” he warns me before hanging up, painting his eyes white “Tell me Claudia, what happens... Yes, of course... No, an individual one... Absolutely not, Claudia, make your reservation by your own... Yes, very well... Well, I don’t know... Very well, but do not make me wait, I will not be able to stop in Villamayor... See you tomorrow.”
He hangs the phone and leaves it over the table again. He sits again and puffed, watching at me with a help me tell you this without disturbing you, face. He notices my face expression and understands that the lift of my eyebrows means I am almost placing a gun on his head to tell me what did Claudia want this time?
“She wanted to know if we will reserve a room for both of us...” he sees I am opening my mouth and he doesn’t even let me start uttering several kind of insults “...and you already heard my answer, I picked an individual one for me. And well, she asked me to pass tomorrow to Villamayor apartment to go there.”
“Do you still have the apartment of that street?”
“We were going to sell it but, we are just starting with this and... I am still in Lasalle and she and the girl are there to be closer of the school and everything, you know.”
“And why doesn’t she go in her car?” I say upset.
“Do not be upset with what I am about to tell you, ok?” he says watching at me very serious, grabbing my hands. I have a bad feeling about this... “I will go to her house in Christmas Eve to celebrate near Noelia and I will spend the night there.”
I’m going to kill Claudia. I know exactly what she is trying to do, forcing him to spend the Constitution holyday with them and now Christmas Eve. She is refreshing him what it is to be in family and what he will miss of his daughter if they finish divorcing. I have this enormous desire to break things. I would begin with the dishes, then I would make crystals blow and maybe, I would try the resistance of every single one home devices in the house by kicking them.
“Ok” I answer holding my anger and trying to sound calm.
He seems surprised after my tranquil answer.
“Are you ok with this?” he asks clearly surprised.
“Of course not, it is normal for you to spend Christmas Eve with your daughter. I would like to do it as well, no matter who would be in that house...”
...even if is a slut like Claudia.
“You are amazing, Laura” he says kissing me “you keep surprising me day after day.”
“As long as it is for good...”
“You know it is...” and he kisses me again.
Claudia won’t succeed with her move. I can’t lose Jorge now that I taste what might become a future next to him. I don’t plan to lose him. So she will have to effort a lot to accomplish what she seems she has proposed.
Because I won’t make it easy at all.