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After the appetizers and eating with my parents and my four brothers at the giant wooden table in the backyard, I convince Jaime to take a walk. I can see he’s exhausted from the trip—me too—and I know we should take a nap, especially considering tonight we’re planning to celebrate the Night of the Bonfires with my family, but I can’t wait to show him everything. I’m that impulsive, I’ve always been.
We ride the giant slope that will take us to downtown. I’m on my pink and white bike—cute basket included—and Jaime rides one that belongs to my brother Hugo. If there’s anything in abundance in that house of ours it’s bikes, toy guns, fake swords and soccer balls.
On our way down I explain to Jaime how to get his bearings around town—how he can easily find my house by following the green tile path that starts at the seafront promenade, and ends up at the big roundabout with the three palm trees we just saw as we left the residential area.
“And every time you went downtown when you were kids you had to go down this hill?” he asks after my explanation.
“Yes.”
“What a hassle!”
“You’d think so, but it wasn’t. Going up was harder, but we went down pretty fast on our skates and bikes. Way too fast, indeed.”
“What do you mean too fast?”
“This fast,” I answer, showing him the scar on my right arm.
When we arrive downtown, we leave the bikes in one of the bicycle stands at the beach and head for the main street.
We have to stop every few steps, greeting people here and there; it’s not that small a town, but except for the non-natives living out their nice retirements under the Mediterranean sun, we all know each other. At least, the ones about my age or my brothers’ age. We Cabanas are quite famous around here.
“That was another of my brother’s exes,” I whisper in Jaime’s ear as we say goodbye to yet another girl.
“Fuck, how many girls did your brothers hook up with? You’ve been saying those same words since we left home.”
“Well, there are four of them.”
“Even so!”
We keep walking up the infamous hill that will lead us to my favorite pub. We’re panting from the heat and the exertion, so we’re almost grateful to the passers-by who recognize me and force us to stop and say hi.
“That one hooked up with River and with Marcos,” I whisper to my friend right after the girl in question walks away. She’s so lucky... she’s going down the road, not up as we are. I’m so out of shape. I don’t remember this slope being this hard.
“It looks like in the hook-up department, River and Marcos win hands down. Adrián is close. Seems Hugo is the moderate one.”
“Hmm.”
My friend’s thin patience vanishes when we greet the eleventh girl. And thanks to that, and his big mouth, the unimaginable happens.
“And this is—”
“Oh, let me guess,” he interrupts. “This is another girl your brother River fucked.”
Shit. There’s Jaime’s distinct lack of filter. He’s right though; this is another girl my brother River has fucked, but she’s also—
“I’m his wife,” my sister-in-law says, arrogant, defiant, looking daggers at both of us.
“Is she serious?” Jaime asks me, stunned.
“Jaime, this is Catalina, River’s wife. River is my eldest brother. Looks like you’re mixing up names. The one who’s hooked up with half this town is Marcos, not River.” I emphasize every phoneme as if he’s a three-year-old who needs me to speak slowly to understand. I try to let him know with my eyes that he needs to humor me, but it’s useless.
“Don’t bother, Priscila, you and I know each other inside out by now,” says my sister-in-law, so full of sarcasm.
My friend moves closer to kiss her cheeks, and she lets him, but with a face a mile long. Someone is going to have trouble at home tonight. And another someone is going to be lectured because of it. That would be me.
“You didn’t come to have lunch with us today,” Jaime says.
Oh my God, he keeps going and going, hitting where it hurts.
