Furia(45)

“You don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to,” he said. “How do you live carrying so many secrets?”

Diego had a face like a book. I wasn’t that fluent in the language of love, but anyone could have seen it painted all over him. In my family, love had always been a weapon to be used against the weakest at their most vulnerable. I wouldn’t let my parents use it against Diego.

“Listen,” he said. “I can’t ask you to wait for me. You’re not the kind of person who’ll just knit a scarf or sit on a pier like the girl of San Blas.”

Why was it always the girl waiting and losing her mind?

“But I’ll wait for you, Camila. Until you’re ready to give me a chance.”

“You say that now . . .”

Lightning flashed, and I counted to three before thunder rumbled. He wanted a chance. He wanted to wait for me. Until I was ready.

My fantasies with Diego usually reached embarrassingly romantic points, but I’d never even dreamed of something like this.

He took the package from the back seat and handed it to me. The paper was stained with water and muddy sand. “I’ve been wanting to give you this since I arrived.”

I carefully placed my finger under the Scotch tape, but he said, “Rip it for good luck.”

Feeling guilty because this paper must have cost a fortune, I tore it off and opened the flat, white cardboard box. What I was certain must be the scent of Europe, clean and sharp like the expensive stores at the shopping center, filled the car. My fingers brushed the silky fabric of a jersey.

“What’s this?”

“Take it out and see for yourself.”

Carefully, I lifted the jersey. It cooled my fingers like water. It was an original, Juventus and Adidas, with all the official stamps, and on the back, above the number twenty-one, was my name: camila.

“Had I known,” Diego said softly, “I would’ve had them print Furia. You know, they have a women’s team. Maybe one day . . .” In the space of the ellipsis, I saw our future like in a movie.

“Maybe,” I said. I wanted him to take me somewhere else right now, while we had the chance. I wanted him so much, I could’ve done it right there in the back seat of his car.

He leaned in to kiss me, the same raw hunger in his eyes. Before our lips touched, his phone buzzed. My first impulse was to tell him to ignore it. We couldn’t stop now. But Diego glanced down at the screen, and his eyes widened in alarm. “It’s Pablo,” he said. “He’s asking if I know where you are.”

As if midnight had struck and turned the car back into a pumpkin, the illusion vanished. Pablo and the rest of my family might as well have been sitting in the back seat, watching my every move.

I looked at myself in the small, fogged mirror on the visor. I looked just like someone who had played a brutal fútbol game and then spent the last couple of hours rolling in the sand by the river. How was I going to hide all this?

Rain drummed on the car roof, amplifying my nerves.

Diego said, “He’s worried. What should we say?”

“Nothing!”

He looked at me like I wasn’t making any sense. “I’ll come up and tell him and the whole family—”

“No!” I exclaimed a little louder than I intended. I saw it all so clearly now. “Pablo just gave us the best excuse for being together tonight.”

“He’s going to tell. He’s not stupid. He has to know about us.”

I took Diego’s face in my hands and kissed him. “Here’s what we’re going to say.”

Diego trusted me so implicitly, he texted what I dictated to him without once questioning me. He sat up and typed staccato lies to his best friend.

Never had I felt this much power over anyone else, or even my own life, and the taste was intoxicating.





Diego sped home, but still the storm beat us to 7 de Septiembre. By the time we crossed Circunvalación, the rain and wind were wreaking havoc on the west side of Rosario. Water ran through the streets. Torn tree limbs had brought down power lines, dooming the residents to darkness and warming refrigerators. An empty 146 bus moved aside to let us pass. The beams of its headlights brightened the dark road. The BMW wasn’t built for the fury of Santa Rosa. She was drowning us.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“How?”

“I’ll find a way.”

When I got out of the car, the pelting raindrops couldn’t wash away Diego’s last feverish kiss or the memory of his hands all over my skin. I felt him watching me as I limped slowly up the stairs. My leg didn’t hurt so much anymore. Diego had said the hamstring was probably only strained but that I should be careful. Luciano had played after a tweak in his knee, and by the time the doctors realized his meniscus was shot, it was too late. None of the stories my mom told to scare me into behaving had ever terrified me the way Luciano in his blue La Valeria uniform had.

Once I was on my floor, I waved at Diego, and finally, he drove away.

I wished he’d taken me with him. But there was no avoiding my family.

Nico barked from inside the apartment, giving me away, and my dream of coming in unnoticed vanished.

To my surprise, we still had power. The only person home was Pablo, sitting in front of the TV, drinking straight from the orange juice bottle. Once Nico had licked my hand to his satisfaction, he made his way back to my brother.