Page 21 of After the Fire
“Victoria? It’s Lucía, Santi’s sister.”
“Oh, hey,” I said, confusion in my voice.
“Do you want to have dinner with me downstairs?” she flat out asked me. Maybe it was a family thing. Maybe they were the official town ambassadors, and they were supposed to welcome everyone like this.
“Uh, sure? Now?”
She laughed. Her laughter was so similar to Santiago’s. I could almost picture her, her head tossed back and her eyes closed. “Yes, now.”
“Okay, I’ll be down in a minute.”
Lucía waited for me at the bottom of the stairs. Her hair was down, a little wet from the rain. She frowned at her phone, but the moment she saw me, she put it away and smiled at me.
“I didn’t know you were still here,” she said. “Julia told me earlier today. I just got off work, so excuse the way I look.”
I smiled at her, but I had a feeling it looked stiffer than what I was intending. The people in this town were too friendly, and I was out of practice with my smiles. I didn’t grow up with tons of friends, but I did have my cousins. It was easy—I would see them at school during the week, and we played well together at recess and then again on the weekends. Thinking back, I would say they were more like playmates rather than friends, but they were built into our family dynamics, and it worked. I had Susana—I could consider her my friend, my best friend, even at some points—my family, my cousins. Manuel. Cata. That was it. So this friendliness was weird. Uncomfortable?Unexpected.
We walked straight to the back of the restaurant and sat in a booth by the kitchen door. I noticed in the few weeks I’d been here that the regular customers sat towards the far wall, leaving open space at the front for tourists. It was the off-season by now, but the locals still did it.
Lucía dropped her things on the bench right next to her and scooted inside. I sat across from her, copying her movements.
“Are you having fun?” She grabbed the menu and started looking at it absentmindedly. She scanned the room, probably looking for the waitress, and then put the menu back on the table. “Our town is small and there’s not much to do in the off-season, but I bet Santiago’s been showing you some of our prime hangouts.” She laughed. “When do you leave?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said honestly. Because I still had to make a plan. So far, I floated in a cloud of numbness, trying to get my thoughts in order. But I was working towards making a plan—taking baby steps to figure out what was going on with my life. Certainly, trying to figure out what was happening with my grandfather would inch me closer towards closure—of at least one thing. Would that open a can of worms? Absolutely. And I was ill-prepared to clean it up.
“Still trying to figure some things out. I took two months off of work, so I still have some time,” I added, without going into any detail. I wasn’t sure how much Santiago had shared with her, and this wasn’t the appropriate time to tell her my little sob story.“I heard you’re the town’s pediatrician?”
Her face lit up with pride, and she smiled. Those siblings all had the same smile, and I could definitely see the resemblance now. She took after her mom, her skin white and her eyes a light blue. “Yep, only one in the family who deviated from the plan. Although, you know, it’s not like I chose to do something ‘easy’ compared to law. I just paved my own way.” She smiled. “I think the only reason I got away with it is because I’m the only girl, and as my brothers love to say, I have our dad wrapped around my finger.” She laughed, a deep, comfortable laugh. It made me smile, how it seemed she didn’t take anything too seriously.
“She’s great at what she does,” said the waitress, who was standing right next to us, ready to take our order. “Everyone loves her. She even has some grown-up patients because they refuse to see another doctor.”
“Nonsense,” she said and then looked at me. “Really, it’s either me or Dr. Martin, and we all know he’s past due for retirement, so some of the younger patients are more comfortable with me.”
The waitress took our orders and left, going through the kitchen doors to the back of the house. I ordered the pasta; I had been ordering the same three things since my arrival and wasn’t ready to try something new. Too many new things in the past few weeks left me craving routine.
We engaged in some small talk, Lucía telling me how she went to med school in the city but came back to town as soon as she’d finished her residency because she couldn’t stay away for too long. It made it seem like this town had everyone hooked, like they were all addicted to it, and no one could stay away for long.
“He was the broodiest, grumpiest teenager,” she said, rolling her eyes with a huge smile on her face. “He was always going to that bench in the clearing. I assume he’s taken you there?”
I nodded, not knowing where this was going.
“He doesn’t know this,” she said, looking at me with mischievous eyes, “but I caught him sneaking out of the house so many times the summer before he left for the city. We had a really strict curfew, and he broke it every single night that summer.”
“Did he party a lot? I can see that for sure.”
She laughed. “No, he hated parties. He just went to that bench and sulked.”
I smiled. I couldn’t contain it this time. Just the idea of Santiago sneaking out of his house to clear his head made my stomach flutter. Lucía narrowed her eyes at me, searching my face for something.
“What’s going on there?” she said. The corner of her lips ticked up, but she relaxed her face immediately. I pursed my lips—I knew exactly what she meant but wanted to play coy. I wasn’t even clear on what I felt; I couldn’t tell a virtual stranger what was happening.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said after a moment. She didn’t buy it at all. Instead, she smiled and planted her hands on the tabletop.
“Did you know that he broke up with Clara?”
Shit.
“What? She was here last week. I saw her,” I answered too quickly.
