[fic] An infinite capacity for self-deception (7/?)
Title: An infinite capacity for self-deception (7/?)
Characters: Martina (fem!Argentina), Luciana (fem!Brazil), The Green Eyed Monster, Sebastián (Uruguay), Daniel (Paraguay)
Pairings: Martina/Luciana
Rating: For all
Warnings: Human AU, swearing
Summary: Martina invites Luciana over to have a little talk.
1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8
Martina awoke sometime just after dawn when the front door slammed shut, and Daniel shouted, “Sorry!” from the foyer. She rolled over and shoved her head under a pillow, cursing her cousin under her breath, and fell asleep again. At noon she shot out of bed with the sudden realization that if Daniel was here, Luciana was finally alone. She fumbled for her phone with shaking hands and then paused for a moment, calculating how long it would take her to get ready for this moment, since it was important and she was not going to tell Luciana that she loved her in her pajamas with ratty hair that smelled like a bar, before finally calling. The phone rang six times before Luciana’s voice came on:
“Hey! You’ve reached Luciana Da Silva. Sorry I can’t get to the phone right now, but if you leave me a message, I’ll call you back right away. Have a nice day!”
Martina hung up and called again. Once again it rang until she reached Luciana’s too cheerful voice on the voicemail. She growled into the phone and then called again. This time a busy tone beeped at her mockingly, and when she hung up this time, her phone began to play a cheesy Brazilian pop song. She answered it.
“Yes?”
Luciana snorted on the other end. “I just missed your call, and you’re acting like you have no idea why I’m calling?”
“Did I wake you up?” Martina asked, curling her legs up under her and fiddling with one of the pillows. She wondered how late she and Daniel had stayed up. Then she stopped wondering because she realized that it only made her want to hang up, curl into a ball, and hide under her covers for a few weeks. There was no time for that now.
Luciana laughed. “No, no. I was just getting out of the shower when my phone started ringing. Sorry if I didn’t want to trip on the tiles in order to pick up right away. That would be an embarrassing call to the paramedics. At least Daniel wouldn’t be on duty to take it.”
“Oh.” Well, that helped ease Martina conscience a little, but now she had another problem on her hands. “Right. So, shower. So you took the time to get dressed before you decided to call me back, hmm?”
“Nah, I’d really rather not listen to my phone ringing for five minutes straight while you called me over and over again. Even if my ringtone is pretty catchy.”
“You don’t think I’d just stop bothering after a while? You’re not that important, you know.”
“I don’t know, you can be pretty persistent, but I’m grateful that at least you haven’t mastered the art of leaving an actual message,” Luciana said. “So what’s up?”
Martina lay down. “Not much. How was your date?”
She could have kicked herself for asking that. She did not care one bit how Luciana’s date went, and even if she did care what kind of…stuff…the pair might have gotten up to, she sure as hell did not want to hear about it. Maybe she could just pretend that the connection was bad and hang up, but she was not sure if she would get the courage to call her back again later.
Luciana’s smile was practically audible over the phone. “Oh, it was fun. Dani tries too hard to be a gentleman sometimes, but he’s such a sweetie.”
“Hmm.”
Luciana went on to describe the date in nauseating detail, while Martina only half-listened and made soft, encouraging sounds at appropriate times to try to get Luciana to speed the story along. Thankfully the night’s retelling was surprisingly innocent, although that might have just been Luciana editing things out.
“And then he kissed me good night-well, good morning, I guess.” She laughed again. “And then I took a nap and got up and took a shower and then you called.”
“That’s…great. So, anyway, do you want to come over?” Martina could feel her heart racing and her cheeks burning up, but she did not let herself stutter. If she was having this much trouble simply asking her over, how was she going to actually tell Luciana when she saw her? Well she would have time for that later.
“Uh, sure! You know, for a second there I thought you were going to say that you were standing outside my apartment again.”
“You keep bringing that up as if it were a regular thing I do, but it was only one time!”
“But still, it was kind of creepy. Who knows, maybe you are a creep?”
Martina smiled despite herself. She was a little nervous, but that was normal when making a huge statement like this. Right now she just wanted it to be over. She wanted to go get some ice cream with Luciana and have both of them just know that there was something more there. She wanted to feel this fluttering lightness in her chest and know that Luciana knew about it, know that Luciana felt it as well.
“No, I’m not there. Come over in, oh, two to three hours. I just got up, too.”
There was some rustling in the background. Martina wondered if Luciana was drying herself off or putting on her clothes with one hand.
After a pause, Luciana said, “Sorry, I was just. Yeah, that would be fine. Do you want me to wait to have lunch with you?”
Martina considered it for a moment. “If you want to.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. I don’t want you complaining if I get there and I’ve already eaten while you’re still hungry.”
“Well, it would be rude to eat without me.” She imagined Luciana was probably rolling her eyes by now. “So, I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Don’t worry about setting out the fine china for me.” There was laughter in Luciana’s voice, and this was good. If she could put her in a good mood, then this all would roll more smoothly. Not that Martina had any doubts that it would go wrong. Luciana’s affections were so blindingly obvious, Martina was not sure how she had managed to miss them before.
She said goodbye and hung up, her heart light in her chest with promises of what the day would bring. She washed her hair in the shower, twirling it into a peak on top of her head with the shampoo and singing a melange of upbeat love songs into the shower head. When Sebastián knocked swiftly on the door and informed her that she was wasting water, she sang all the more loudly, her voice echoing against the yellow tiles of the bathroom. Finally she had rinsed all the suds from her hair, and she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a fluffy, pink towel around herself, padding lightly across the damp tiles to look in the fogged over mirror. Wiping a hand across the surface to clear enough steam for her to be able to see her face, she wondered how much Sebastián was going to bitch about the streaks she left behind.
After rubbing herself dry, she began the ritual of preparing herself for public, piling her makeup and cleansers and perfumes onto the small counter. She plugged in a curling iron and let it heat as she set about transforming herself into someone that Luciana could say yes to. It took a while, and Sebastián even popped his head in to ask if she was going to scrub the mildew out of the grout after this little incident (she slammed the door in his face while shrieking, “I’m getting dressed!”). Finally she had remade herself. Her outfit had green accents that made her eyes pop, and her hair was curled into soft waves. Daniel whistled at her and gave her a thumbs up when she finally graced the kitchen with her presence.
“Where are you going?” he asked. There were rings under his eyes, but he looked otherwise happy, which could only mean that he had a good time with Luciano the night before. Martina sniffed at him, and her hair had an extra bounce to it when she flipped it over her shoulder.
“Nowhere,” she informed him. Luciana could come here and say hello to him in passing, and then…and then…it would not matter what Daniel did or thought after that. Then she looked out the window to the little garden of flower boxes that Sebastián tended to in his spare time. “By the way, could one of you run down the street and pick up a bouquet for me? Something bright.”
“We’re not running your errands for you,” Sebastián replied for Daniel. He flicked the newspaper down to give her outfit the once over. “But I would recommend yellow.”
“I know that.” She checked the clock over the stove. One thirty. Which meant that she still had a half hour at the very least to run down the street for some flowers and cook some lunch. Or a snack. Whatever. “Can one of you guys start lunch? For two people?”
“Which one of us gets to go hungry?” Sebastián asked.
“Both of you. I’m having someone over.”
“Oh, who?” Daniel asked.
“A guest.”
She left the apartment and walked down the street and a few blocks to the west to the florist next door to the dry cleaners that Sebastián said was the most reliable in the neighborhood. There were all sorts of flowers in bunches along the sidewalk, all different colors, and Martina had her hand around a bouquet of large yellow blossoms when she saw the roses, blood red, and she knew what she was going to get. They were a little more than she could afford, but you couldn’t put a price on love, right? The florist gave her a wink as he took her money, and Martina thought that she was walking on the backs of floating butterflies as she bounced back home with the roses cradled in her arms.
Of course no one had started anything for lunch by the time she got back, but she really had not expected either of her cousins to follow her request. Daniel was in the living room playing a video game while Sebastián, with a forgotten newspaper in his lap, tried to direct him though the level with more and more exasperated explanations. Daniel was so absorbed in the game that he barely did anything more than say hello when she walked past them, but Sebastián raised an eyebrow at the roses in her arms.
“Interesting choice,” he said. “I thought you were going to go with something a bit brighter.”
“These are bright enough,” Martina told him. She walked into the kitchen and thought about pulling a vase out, but decided against it, so she went to her bedroom and hid the flowers behind some of her pillows. Then she looked around the room and realized just how messy it was, with the dress from last night hanging over the little wooden chair in the corner, a pile of communications and macroeconomics textbooks in a pile near the foot of the bed, and a fine layer of dust coating her dresser. Sebastián would have a fit if he had noticed the state of her room. He probably had noticed and had already had a small conniption, and Martina had just ignored him. Ah, well. Luciana had never complained before, but this was important. She did not want to look back on their anniversary and remember Luciana tripping over a shoe.
After the room had been straightened up, dusted, vacuumed, the pillows were fluffed and arranged invitingly on the bed, and there were little scented candles burning on the dresser, Martina checked herself in the mirror just in case her sudden bout of nesting had ruined her look. With a shaking hand, she brushed her hair behind her ear. There was a little sweat springing up at her hairline, and a slightly wild glint in her eyes, but otherwise she looked fine.
It was already a little after two o’clock, which, knowing Luciana, meant that she still had around an hour to calm herself down, make lunch, and maybe figure out if she could get Daniel and Sebastián out of the house before Luciana arrived.
Daniel pouted and told her a woeful story about how he hardly ever got a full weekend off from work and how he really just wanted to relax at home and how he was already up to level six in the game and he didn’t want to have to turn it off when he was on a roll.
“And besides,” he said, mashing his right thumb on a button that made his character somersault across the screen, “You’re not the only one with your name on the lease. It’s my apartment just as much as anyone else’s, so you can’t go around kicking me out.”
“We’ll be sure to respect the privacy of your room,” Sebastián told her.
She stomped into the kitchen and started pulling out dishes and some kind of fancy looking cheese that Sebastián must have bought, when the buzzer rang from the hall.
“I’ll get it,” she called from the kitchen. Damn Luciana for being on time for once. Daniel and Sebastián grunted from the living room, leaving her to unlock the door by the street. That gave her a minute and a half of pacing, deep breaths, and checking herself in the mirror by the coat closet one last time before Luciana knocked on the front door. She opened it.
Luciana grinned at her and said, “Hey,” her smile radiant, and it almost distracted Martina from noticing the bruise on her neck. Almost. That must have been some good night kiss. Martina’s hands clenched at her sides as she imagined ripping out some of Daniel’s hair. It would not fix anything, but it would sure feel good.
Now Luciana was looking at her expectantly, so she smiled back and kissed her on the cheek as greeting, inhaling the clean scent of soap on her skin. “You’re here earlier than I expected,” she said.
“Are you saying I should come back later?”
Okay, that came out wrong. Martina’s smile went crooked, and she told her, “Of course not. I just need to finish up lunch.”
“I can help,” Luciana offered.
“It’ll only take a minute. You can wait in my room, if you want.”
Luciana rolled her eyes. “I’m not sitting in your room alone.” She leaned around Martina and peered into the living room. “What are the boys doing?”
“Nothing. Being idiots.” Martina grabbed her wrist and started to drag her into the kitchen, praying that she would not stop to chat with Daniel.
“Daniel, hey!” Luciana called, plopping herself down on the arm of the sofa. Of course Sebastián did not say anything to her about respecting the furniture-those lectures were apparently saved for his cousins.
“Luci!” Daniel’s character jumped off a cliff, but he was no longer paying attention to the game. “Tina didn’t say you were coming over.”
“I didn’t think you needed to know,” Martina grumbled from the kitchen, chopping up fruit with cathartic hacks. When she came back into the room with two little dishes and a platter of cheese, bread, and fruit, Daniel’s eyes were twinkling, and Luciana’s lips were quirked flirtatiously.
Martina did not throw any of the food at Daniel’s face. She did, however, clear her throat pointedly and frown. Daniel and Luciana ignored her. She sighed loudly. Nothing.
Sebastián hummed and asked, “Did you clean up when you were done?”
The chattering pair stopped, giving Martina the chance to waylay Luciana. “No,” she told him, and then to Luciana, “So, are you ready to spend time with the person who invited you over?”
“Oh, sure! But only if you’re ready for me.” Luciana grinned. Martina swallowed heavily and flushed, her jaw twitching erratically as she lead her to her bedroom. She lay the tray in the middle of her bed and knelt down. Luciana sat across from her and began filling one of the plates with food.
“I’m starving. I mean, I had a piece of toast earlier, right after I took a shower, but it really wasn’t much.”
“You could have told me you wanted to eat before you came,” Martina said.
Luciana shrugged, took a bite of bread, and chewed. “No, it’s okay. So. Did you do anything fun and exciting last night? Did you meet anyone?”
“I was out with Sebastián.”
“Oh, but that makes no difference. I’m sure you had plenty of guys falling over themselves for a chance to talk to you. Isn’t that what usually happens when we go out? Except I never seem to notice half of them.”
Well yes, but Luciana was obviously not getting the point. Martina chewed on her lip. This was not how this afternoon was supposed to go. There would be no Sebastián, especially no Daniel, and no inquiries about other men. Of course, Martina could overcome all adversity, so even if Luciana was acting like a complete dolt and not cooperating, she could do this. She could…tell her…
She realized that she had spent so much time imagining how perfectly this whole thing would work out, that she had not taken the opportunity to decide exactly what she was going to say. Whatever came out of her mouth would be just fine, obviously, but it would have been nice to know where to start. Could she start at the beginning? But where? The beginning was a series of petty, childish spats that were best left forgotten. She wondered if Luciana remembered the book she'd destroyed when they were younger, the one she couldn't understand with all the extra circumflexes and tildes. She wondered if Luciana was still bitter about it. Martina understood now just what that book must have meant to her, but she could not change the past. She would not bring that up.
So, what? Should she talk about waiting in the emergency room for her when Daniel was acting like a punk? That might have been the first time she had ever really noticed how special Luciana was, but again it was a memory she would rather not bring up. This needed to be perfect, without bad blood dragged into it.
She looked at the bruise on Luciana’s neck and shivered.
“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked.
Luciana paused mid-chew, and then swallowed before saying, “Uh, what?”
“Did you hurt your neck?”
It was not what she had wanted to say, not at all, but she raised her chin and dared Luciana to question her choice of conversation topic.
“It’s nothing.”
It was not nothing; Martina was not stupid. “So you had a good time with Daniel?”
Luciana was touching the bruise thoughtfully, as she said, “Yeah, I did.”
“Oh, and I suppose you had fun letting him mack on your neck,” Martina grumbled.
“…What the hell are you talking about?”
Martina flushed. “Never mind. Do you want something to drink? I’ll go get you something.”
Luciana grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving. “No, don’t do that, Tina. What’s your problem with your cousin? You were bitching about it last week, and I thought you would have gotten over it. It was a date. We had fun. End of story.”
“I don’t have a problem with Daniel. I don’t.”
“Oh really? Then tell me what your problem is.”
Martina could not meet her eyes. It wasn’t supposed to go this way, it wasn’t. She flinched when Luciana called her name.
“I don’t have a problem,” she said. “It’s you. It’s your fixation on guys.”
“Fixation-going on a date is not a fixation!”
“But every time we get together you always want to talk about men. I hate it.”
“I don’t always-” Luciana frowned. “You’re the one who brought up Daniel this time. And you never said anything about this before. Were you just letting me ramble on so you could laugh at me later?”
“Luciana, listen to me.” Martina gnawed on her lip.
“I am listening. I’m always listening. I thought you liked talking about guys or whatever. You never acted like you had a problem before. I was just trying to make conversation. I’m serious. I can go if you really don’t want me here.”
“Stop, Luci, you’re acting hysterical.” And she was squeezing Martina’s arm too tightly. She shook her off and gripped her shoulders. “Listen.”
“God, if you didn’t want to hang out with me you could have said something. Stop being such a coward and just tell me to-”
Martina kissed her. Luciana’s lips were still slightly parted, and she could taste cheese and bananas on them. The kiss, warm and sweet, did not last long. Luciana's shoulders were a tight line beneath Martina's palms. She pulled back, eyes sharp and dark. Martina's hands fell to the bed when Luciana stood, looking a little lost.
"I...I have to go." She swallowed. "I'll see you later." And then she hurried out of Martina's bedroom without looking back.
Martina could do nothing but stare at her retreating back, and then at the spot on the bed where Luciana had just been sitting. When she ran a hand over it, the sheets were still warm. She pushed the platter to the foot of the bed and threw the roses on the floor. Then she lifted the sheets and crawled under them, pulling them over her head and curling herself into a ball, willing the bed to absorb her.
The End
/shot
tbc
Characters: Martina (fem!Argentina), Luciana (fem!Brazil), The Green Eyed Monster, Sebastián (Uruguay), Daniel (Paraguay)
Pairings: Martina/Luciana
Rating: For all
Warnings: Human AU, swearing
Summary: Martina invites Luciana over to have a little talk.
1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8
Martina awoke sometime just after dawn when the front door slammed shut, and Daniel shouted, “Sorry!” from the foyer. She rolled over and shoved her head under a pillow, cursing her cousin under her breath, and fell asleep again. At noon she shot out of bed with the sudden realization that if Daniel was here, Luciana was finally alone. She fumbled for her phone with shaking hands and then paused for a moment, calculating how long it would take her to get ready for this moment, since it was important and she was not going to tell Luciana that she loved her in her pajamas with ratty hair that smelled like a bar, before finally calling. The phone rang six times before Luciana’s voice came on:
“Hey! You’ve reached Luciana Da Silva. Sorry I can’t get to the phone right now, but if you leave me a message, I’ll call you back right away. Have a nice day!”
Martina hung up and called again. Once again it rang until she reached Luciana’s too cheerful voice on the voicemail. She growled into the phone and then called again. This time a busy tone beeped at her mockingly, and when she hung up this time, her phone began to play a cheesy Brazilian pop song. She answered it.
“Yes?”
Luciana snorted on the other end. “I just missed your call, and you’re acting like you have no idea why I’m calling?”
“Did I wake you up?” Martina asked, curling her legs up under her and fiddling with one of the pillows. She wondered how late she and Daniel had stayed up. Then she stopped wondering because she realized that it only made her want to hang up, curl into a ball, and hide under her covers for a few weeks. There was no time for that now.
Luciana laughed. “No, no. I was just getting out of the shower when my phone started ringing. Sorry if I didn’t want to trip on the tiles in order to pick up right away. That would be an embarrassing call to the paramedics. At least Daniel wouldn’t be on duty to take it.”
“Oh.” Well, that helped ease Martina conscience a little, but now she had another problem on her hands. “Right. So, shower. So you took the time to get dressed before you decided to call me back, hmm?”
“Nah, I’d really rather not listen to my phone ringing for five minutes straight while you called me over and over again. Even if my ringtone is pretty catchy.”
“You don’t think I’d just stop bothering after a while? You’re not that important, you know.”
“I don’t know, you can be pretty persistent, but I’m grateful that at least you haven’t mastered the art of leaving an actual message,” Luciana said. “So what’s up?”
Martina lay down. “Not much. How was your date?”
She could have kicked herself for asking that. She did not care one bit how Luciana’s date went, and even if she did care what kind of…stuff…the pair might have gotten up to, she sure as hell did not want to hear about it. Maybe she could just pretend that the connection was bad and hang up, but she was not sure if she would get the courage to call her back again later.
Luciana’s smile was practically audible over the phone. “Oh, it was fun. Dani tries too hard to be a gentleman sometimes, but he’s such a sweetie.”
“Hmm.”
Luciana went on to describe the date in nauseating detail, while Martina only half-listened and made soft, encouraging sounds at appropriate times to try to get Luciana to speed the story along. Thankfully the night’s retelling was surprisingly innocent, although that might have just been Luciana editing things out.
“And then he kissed me good night-well, good morning, I guess.” She laughed again. “And then I took a nap and got up and took a shower and then you called.”
“That’s…great. So, anyway, do you want to come over?” Martina could feel her heart racing and her cheeks burning up, but she did not let herself stutter. If she was having this much trouble simply asking her over, how was she going to actually tell Luciana when she saw her? Well she would have time for that later.
“Uh, sure! You know, for a second there I thought you were going to say that you were standing outside my apartment again.”
“You keep bringing that up as if it were a regular thing I do, but it was only one time!”
“But still, it was kind of creepy. Who knows, maybe you are a creep?”
Martina smiled despite herself. She was a little nervous, but that was normal when making a huge statement like this. Right now she just wanted it to be over. She wanted to go get some ice cream with Luciana and have both of them just know that there was something more there. She wanted to feel this fluttering lightness in her chest and know that Luciana knew about it, know that Luciana felt it as well.
“No, I’m not there. Come over in, oh, two to three hours. I just got up, too.”
There was some rustling in the background. Martina wondered if Luciana was drying herself off or putting on her clothes with one hand.
After a pause, Luciana said, “Sorry, I was just. Yeah, that would be fine. Do you want me to wait to have lunch with you?”
Martina considered it for a moment. “If you want to.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. I don’t want you complaining if I get there and I’ve already eaten while you’re still hungry.”
“Well, it would be rude to eat without me.” She imagined Luciana was probably rolling her eyes by now. “So, I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Don’t worry about setting out the fine china for me.” There was laughter in Luciana’s voice, and this was good. If she could put her in a good mood, then this all would roll more smoothly. Not that Martina had any doubts that it would go wrong. Luciana’s affections were so blindingly obvious, Martina was not sure how she had managed to miss them before.
She said goodbye and hung up, her heart light in her chest with promises of what the day would bring. She washed her hair in the shower, twirling it into a peak on top of her head with the shampoo and singing a melange of upbeat love songs into the shower head. When Sebastián knocked swiftly on the door and informed her that she was wasting water, she sang all the more loudly, her voice echoing against the yellow tiles of the bathroom. Finally she had rinsed all the suds from her hair, and she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a fluffy, pink towel around herself, padding lightly across the damp tiles to look in the fogged over mirror. Wiping a hand across the surface to clear enough steam for her to be able to see her face, she wondered how much Sebastián was going to bitch about the streaks she left behind.
After rubbing herself dry, she began the ritual of preparing herself for public, piling her makeup and cleansers and perfumes onto the small counter. She plugged in a curling iron and let it heat as she set about transforming herself into someone that Luciana could say yes to. It took a while, and Sebastián even popped his head in to ask if she was going to scrub the mildew out of the grout after this little incident (she slammed the door in his face while shrieking, “I’m getting dressed!”). Finally she had remade herself. Her outfit had green accents that made her eyes pop, and her hair was curled into soft waves. Daniel whistled at her and gave her a thumbs up when she finally graced the kitchen with her presence.
“Where are you going?” he asked. There were rings under his eyes, but he looked otherwise happy, which could only mean that he had a good time with Luciano the night before. Martina sniffed at him, and her hair had an extra bounce to it when she flipped it over her shoulder.
“Nowhere,” she informed him. Luciana could come here and say hello to him in passing, and then…and then…it would not matter what Daniel did or thought after that. Then she looked out the window to the little garden of flower boxes that Sebastián tended to in his spare time. “By the way, could one of you run down the street and pick up a bouquet for me? Something bright.”
“We’re not running your errands for you,” Sebastián replied for Daniel. He flicked the newspaper down to give her outfit the once over. “But I would recommend yellow.”
“I know that.” She checked the clock over the stove. One thirty. Which meant that she still had a half hour at the very least to run down the street for some flowers and cook some lunch. Or a snack. Whatever. “Can one of you guys start lunch? For two people?”
“Which one of us gets to go hungry?” Sebastián asked.
“Both of you. I’m having someone over.”
“Oh, who?” Daniel asked.
“A guest.”
She left the apartment and walked down the street and a few blocks to the west to the florist next door to the dry cleaners that Sebastián said was the most reliable in the neighborhood. There were all sorts of flowers in bunches along the sidewalk, all different colors, and Martina had her hand around a bouquet of large yellow blossoms when she saw the roses, blood red, and she knew what she was going to get. They were a little more than she could afford, but you couldn’t put a price on love, right? The florist gave her a wink as he took her money, and Martina thought that she was walking on the backs of floating butterflies as she bounced back home with the roses cradled in her arms.
Of course no one had started anything for lunch by the time she got back, but she really had not expected either of her cousins to follow her request. Daniel was in the living room playing a video game while Sebastián, with a forgotten newspaper in his lap, tried to direct him though the level with more and more exasperated explanations. Daniel was so absorbed in the game that he barely did anything more than say hello when she walked past them, but Sebastián raised an eyebrow at the roses in her arms.
“Interesting choice,” he said. “I thought you were going to go with something a bit brighter.”
“These are bright enough,” Martina told him. She walked into the kitchen and thought about pulling a vase out, but decided against it, so she went to her bedroom and hid the flowers behind some of her pillows. Then she looked around the room and realized just how messy it was, with the dress from last night hanging over the little wooden chair in the corner, a pile of communications and macroeconomics textbooks in a pile near the foot of the bed, and a fine layer of dust coating her dresser. Sebastián would have a fit if he had noticed the state of her room. He probably had noticed and had already had a small conniption, and Martina had just ignored him. Ah, well. Luciana had never complained before, but this was important. She did not want to look back on their anniversary and remember Luciana tripping over a shoe.
After the room had been straightened up, dusted, vacuumed, the pillows were fluffed and arranged invitingly on the bed, and there were little scented candles burning on the dresser, Martina checked herself in the mirror just in case her sudden bout of nesting had ruined her look. With a shaking hand, she brushed her hair behind her ear. There was a little sweat springing up at her hairline, and a slightly wild glint in her eyes, but otherwise she looked fine.
It was already a little after two o’clock, which, knowing Luciana, meant that she still had around an hour to calm herself down, make lunch, and maybe figure out if she could get Daniel and Sebastián out of the house before Luciana arrived.
Daniel pouted and told her a woeful story about how he hardly ever got a full weekend off from work and how he really just wanted to relax at home and how he was already up to level six in the game and he didn’t want to have to turn it off when he was on a roll.
“And besides,” he said, mashing his right thumb on a button that made his character somersault across the screen, “You’re not the only one with your name on the lease. It’s my apartment just as much as anyone else’s, so you can’t go around kicking me out.”
“We’ll be sure to respect the privacy of your room,” Sebastián told her.
She stomped into the kitchen and started pulling out dishes and some kind of fancy looking cheese that Sebastián must have bought, when the buzzer rang from the hall.
“I’ll get it,” she called from the kitchen. Damn Luciana for being on time for once. Daniel and Sebastián grunted from the living room, leaving her to unlock the door by the street. That gave her a minute and a half of pacing, deep breaths, and checking herself in the mirror by the coat closet one last time before Luciana knocked on the front door. She opened it.
Luciana grinned at her and said, “Hey,” her smile radiant, and it almost distracted Martina from noticing the bruise on her neck. Almost. That must have been some good night kiss. Martina’s hands clenched at her sides as she imagined ripping out some of Daniel’s hair. It would not fix anything, but it would sure feel good.
Now Luciana was looking at her expectantly, so she smiled back and kissed her on the cheek as greeting, inhaling the clean scent of soap on her skin. “You’re here earlier than I expected,” she said.
“Are you saying I should come back later?”
Okay, that came out wrong. Martina’s smile went crooked, and she told her, “Of course not. I just need to finish up lunch.”
“I can help,” Luciana offered.
“It’ll only take a minute. You can wait in my room, if you want.”
Luciana rolled her eyes. “I’m not sitting in your room alone.” She leaned around Martina and peered into the living room. “What are the boys doing?”
“Nothing. Being idiots.” Martina grabbed her wrist and started to drag her into the kitchen, praying that she would not stop to chat with Daniel.
“Daniel, hey!” Luciana called, plopping herself down on the arm of the sofa. Of course Sebastián did not say anything to her about respecting the furniture-those lectures were apparently saved for his cousins.
“Luci!” Daniel’s character jumped off a cliff, but he was no longer paying attention to the game. “Tina didn’t say you were coming over.”
“I didn’t think you needed to know,” Martina grumbled from the kitchen, chopping up fruit with cathartic hacks. When she came back into the room with two little dishes and a platter of cheese, bread, and fruit, Daniel’s eyes were twinkling, and Luciana’s lips were quirked flirtatiously.
Martina did not throw any of the food at Daniel’s face. She did, however, clear her throat pointedly and frown. Daniel and Luciana ignored her. She sighed loudly. Nothing.
Sebastián hummed and asked, “Did you clean up when you were done?”
The chattering pair stopped, giving Martina the chance to waylay Luciana. “No,” she told him, and then to Luciana, “So, are you ready to spend time with the person who invited you over?”
“Oh, sure! But only if you’re ready for me.” Luciana grinned. Martina swallowed heavily and flushed, her jaw twitching erratically as she lead her to her bedroom. She lay the tray in the middle of her bed and knelt down. Luciana sat across from her and began filling one of the plates with food.
“I’m starving. I mean, I had a piece of toast earlier, right after I took a shower, but it really wasn’t much.”
“You could have told me you wanted to eat before you came,” Martina said.
Luciana shrugged, took a bite of bread, and chewed. “No, it’s okay. So. Did you do anything fun and exciting last night? Did you meet anyone?”
“I was out with Sebastián.”
“Oh, but that makes no difference. I’m sure you had plenty of guys falling over themselves for a chance to talk to you. Isn’t that what usually happens when we go out? Except I never seem to notice half of them.”
Well yes, but Luciana was obviously not getting the point. Martina chewed on her lip. This was not how this afternoon was supposed to go. There would be no Sebastián, especially no Daniel, and no inquiries about other men. Of course, Martina could overcome all adversity, so even if Luciana was acting like a complete dolt and not cooperating, she could do this. She could…tell her…
She realized that she had spent so much time imagining how perfectly this whole thing would work out, that she had not taken the opportunity to decide exactly what she was going to say. Whatever came out of her mouth would be just fine, obviously, but it would have been nice to know where to start. Could she start at the beginning? But where? The beginning was a series of petty, childish spats that were best left forgotten. She wondered if Luciana remembered the book she'd destroyed when they were younger, the one she couldn't understand with all the extra circumflexes and tildes. She wondered if Luciana was still bitter about it. Martina understood now just what that book must have meant to her, but she could not change the past. She would not bring that up.
So, what? Should she talk about waiting in the emergency room for her when Daniel was acting like a punk? That might have been the first time she had ever really noticed how special Luciana was, but again it was a memory she would rather not bring up. This needed to be perfect, without bad blood dragged into it.
She looked at the bruise on Luciana’s neck and shivered.
“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked.
Luciana paused mid-chew, and then swallowed before saying, “Uh, what?”
“Did you hurt your neck?”
It was not what she had wanted to say, not at all, but she raised her chin and dared Luciana to question her choice of conversation topic.
“It’s nothing.”
It was not nothing; Martina was not stupid. “So you had a good time with Daniel?”
Luciana was touching the bruise thoughtfully, as she said, “Yeah, I did.”
“Oh, and I suppose you had fun letting him mack on your neck,” Martina grumbled.
“…What the hell are you talking about?”
Martina flushed. “Never mind. Do you want something to drink? I’ll go get you something.”
Luciana grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving. “No, don’t do that, Tina. What’s your problem with your cousin? You were bitching about it last week, and I thought you would have gotten over it. It was a date. We had fun. End of story.”
“I don’t have a problem with Daniel. I don’t.”
“Oh really? Then tell me what your problem is.”
Martina could not meet her eyes. It wasn’t supposed to go this way, it wasn’t. She flinched when Luciana called her name.
“I don’t have a problem,” she said. “It’s you. It’s your fixation on guys.”
“Fixation-going on a date is not a fixation!”
“But every time we get together you always want to talk about men. I hate it.”
“I don’t always-” Luciana frowned. “You’re the one who brought up Daniel this time. And you never said anything about this before. Were you just letting me ramble on so you could laugh at me later?”
“Luciana, listen to me.” Martina gnawed on her lip.
“I am listening. I’m always listening. I thought you liked talking about guys or whatever. You never acted like you had a problem before. I was just trying to make conversation. I’m serious. I can go if you really don’t want me here.”
“Stop, Luci, you’re acting hysterical.” And she was squeezing Martina’s arm too tightly. She shook her off and gripped her shoulders. “Listen.”
“God, if you didn’t want to hang out with me you could have said something. Stop being such a coward and just tell me to-”
Martina kissed her. Luciana’s lips were still slightly parted, and she could taste cheese and bananas on them. The kiss, warm and sweet, did not last long. Luciana's shoulders were a tight line beneath Martina's palms. She pulled back, eyes sharp and dark. Martina's hands fell to the bed when Luciana stood, looking a little lost.
"I...I have to go." She swallowed. "I'll see you later." And then she hurried out of Martina's bedroom without looking back.
Martina could do nothing but stare at her retreating back, and then at the spot on the bed where Luciana had just been sitting. When she ran a hand over it, the sheets were still warm. She pushed the platter to the foot of the bed and threw the roses on the floor. Then she lifted the sheets and crawled under them, pulling them over her head and curling herself into a ball, willing the bed to absorb her.
The End
/shot
tbc