Here the Whole Time - Vitor Martins Page 0,38
good time. And Caio’s face opens up with a huge smile, like someone who’s just had the best idea ever. And I feel my sweat drip down harder, because I know exactly what he’s about to say.
“Wanna go to the pool?” he says.
Actually, he shouts it.
My mom chokes on her lemonade, because she knows me well. She knows there’s nothing in the universe that can drag me to the pool. But for a second she seems to forget about that and completely ignores my freedom to make my own decisions.
“Sorry, Caio, I have a lot of work piled up. Can’t even think about having fun. But the two of you are on vacation, so go enjoy your day!”
And after dropping that bomb, she gives me two taps on the shoulder, gets up, and walks to the kitchen.
Caio gets up as well.
And I end up standing, too, because it makes no sense to sit by myself on the living room floor. But, considering that the alternative is going to the pool, I wouldn’t mind just staying on the floor.
Caio’s level of excitement is comparable to my level of despair. He dashes into the kitchen (and I follow because I want more lemonade).
“Can I invite my friends?” Caio asks my mom, almost jumping up and down with excitement.
“Which friends?” my mom asks, but with curiosity, not suspicion.
“Becky—Felipe met her yesterday—and her girlfriend, Melissa. I hope that’s okay. I mean—”
“Lesbians?!” my mom yells in a terrified voice, feigning surprise. And then laughs out loud. “No problem at all. You know, I was almost a lesbian myself for a while in college.”
Caio and I go silent, absorbing this information, and then he runs out to grab his phone, leaving my mom and me alone in the kitchen. I muster all the irony I have inside me and condense it into two words:
“Thanks, Mom.”
She kisses my forehead (in the way she always does, but in this case I see it as an act of true love, since, in case you forgot, I have been sweating nonstop this entire time). Then she says, in a very soft voice only I can hear, “Son, the opportunity train only passes by once. Go enjoy your day.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about.
I stalk out of the kitchen in an attempt to make a dramatic scene, but it doesn’t work well because my mom starts laughing at me. She might be able to make me go to the pool, but she can’t make me go in.
About thirty minutes later, Becky and Melissa are at our place. The two of them are polar opposites. While Becky arrives totally confident, chatting nonstop and calling my mom “girlfriend” after talking to her for literally one minute, Melissa is quiet and very shy.
Her skin is very pale; her hair is long and blond and has some pink on the tips. And she might be the thinnest person I have ever seen. Her arms are bony, her legs are long, and I think whoever came up with the term negative belly had actually just met her.
She’s a very good-looking girl. Good-looking like those models who have big eyes and gap teeth.
“Hey, my name is Felipe,” I say, unsure whether I should wave, shake her hand, or go in for a hug.
I do all three at the same time, and the result is pretty clumsy.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Melissa. Or Mel. But never Meli. Please don’t ever call me Meli,” she says with a smile, and then I see that there’s definitely a gap between her front teeth.
Officially a model.
Caio and Becky won’t stop talking for one second, my mom offers the girls some lemonade, and it feels like there’s a party in our living room.
While we waited for Becky and Melissa, Caio put on shorts and a tank top and applied sunscreen. I put on shorts, a T-shirt, and a Pokémon hat I got when I was a kid that surprisingly still fits my head.
I never wear tank tops. I don’t like showing my arms in public. I feel as if I were attacked by two hippos, one from each side, and that they’re still hanging from my arms, swinging from side to side when I walk.
(My arms are the hippos, in case you find this image hard to re-create in your head.)
I get a bag and shove sunscreen, a water bottle, three comic books, and a novel in there. My plan is basically to sit and read my stuff and answer,