Page 15 of A Christmas Adventure

"Are you serious?" Teresa can hardly contain her laughter.

"I don't find it funny, you know the look on my face when I saw her? I almost had a stroke."

"And what did she say?"

Teresa can't contain her excitement, she would pay anything to have witnessed the moment.

"Nothing, what was she going to say? We pretended we didn't know each other, I wasn't going to tell my mother that we had slept together. Damn, Teresa, I don't know what to do," she says, overwhelmed.

"I don't understand, what do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean? I'm going to be here for more than two weeks and I'm going to see her every day, Tere. I won't be able to pretend that nothing happened if when I see her even my eyelashes tremble."

"Your eyelashes tremble? You didn't tell me that," she teases maliciously.

"Well, it's much worse," Violeta confesses. "We were in her kitchen, my mother wouldn't stop talking and I couldn't stop remembering that night. Damn, I felt so bad."

"Wanting to do it again," her friend deduces.

"Damn, of course. You don't know how beautiful she is, and her laugh, her way of gesturing when she talks, she's so elegant and at the same time so down-to-earth."

Teresa's laughter makes Violeta cut her string of praise towards Olga.

"Well, you're going to have a problem if you don't control yourself."

"And what do I do?"

"Well, you have two options; either you keep pretending that nothing happened and behave yourself, or you talk to her and tell her what happens to you when you have her in front of you."

"You want me to tell her that she turns me on?" Violeta's voice comes out louder than she would have liked, causing some people walking in front of her to turn around curiously to look at her.

"Is it not true?"

"Yes, of course, but I'm not going to tell her."

"Well, I don't know what else to tell you, Violeta, but you'll have to do something, because if that woman turns you on the way she does, you're going to have a very bad time if you have to be with her every day. I would tell her, maybe she doesn't feel like you do and when she tells you that nothing is going to happen between you, your horniness will go down at once."

"And why wouldn't she want anything to happen?"

Violeta immediately realizes how much it would bother her, but she also quickly understands how inappropriate it would be to have an affair with her mother's friend. It would all be complications, and if something goes wrong, it could end up affecting the relationship between them, and she can't do that to her mother.

"Look, Violeta, I don't know what that woman wants, but the daughter of her boss drooling like a child next to her, surely not."

"You're right, but I don't need to tell her anything, just behave myself the days I'm here. I can't jeopardize her relationship with my mother, then I'll leave and they'll stay here with the problem."

"That's also true, and your mother can't take any more upsets," her friend concludes.

"Well, no more talking, I'll take a cold shower every day if necessary, but Olga won't even notice. I'll keep pretending that nothing happened, it's the best thing for everyone."

"Okay. If you get overwhelmed, call me and we'll rant about that asshole Hernán, that will surely relieve you."

The two friends laugh and when they hang up, Violeta still sits alone on that wall for a while, thoughtful, remembering that night while thinking anxiously that only a wall separates them.

Chapter 9

The next day, Violeta arrives at the bakery at nine o'clock sharp, just as she agreed with her mother last night. She enters through the back door, greets Antonio and another boy whose name she can't remember, and then her mother.

"Did you sleep well?" her mother asks.