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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
Author: Luis A. Santamaría
Illustration: Luis A. Santamaría
Translation from the Spanish by Elizabeth Harvey
ISBN: 978-84-616-0260-5
First edition published: September 2012
Second edition published: June 2019
www.luisalbertosantamaria.com
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
REFLECTIONS IN THE MIRROR | Luis A. Santamaría
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ACKNOWLEGDEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
REFLECTIONS IN THE MIRROR
Luis A. Santamaría
1
Daniel Santos was plain and dull.
At least, those were the words his brother, Ricardo, had used to describe him, moments after sharing his big news. He had acquired a loft that would, after a lot of effort and money were invested, be the coolest rooftop bar in the whole of Madrid.
Ricardo had assured his younger brother that he would come to forgive him for missing his stag party, and for arriving late to the hospital when his daughter, Maria, was born (in the end, it was only his niece. What would he do the day it was his own son or daughter? If he ever had one...) He could even understand not shedding a single tear at their mother’s funeral (he was just a boy at the time and he didn’t really understand death), and that he didn’t talk to their aging father. But this was the final straw. That indifference to Ricardo’s achievement, the one that he had always dreamed of? According to Ricardo, that day Daniel’s expression said one thing and one thing only; he didn’t give a shit about his brother’s future trendy rooftop bar. And, really, he wasn’t wrong.
“Can you at least congratulate me? How about a hug?” he had said with his executive suit-and-tie air. “If you don’t do it for me, do it for yourself, little bro. Go out a bit, meet people, have some fun. Or you’ll end up alone. Like Dad.”
That conversation took place about five months ago, before the United Eastern States troops had attacked Quebec.
“You’re under attack!”
Oscar pushed all the canons and horses that he had on that part of the board to Daniel’s territory, and then kept looking at him with a twinkle in his eye of someone who was about to win an almost four-hour long match.
“You’re an idiot,” Daniel retorted. “This game isn’t over yet, I’ll go and grab some snacks.”
“Yeah, bring some beers to celebrate my imminent victory, if you would be so kind.”
“Well, now you can and tell us that story you promised before,” suggested Kiko, who had by now lost almost all of his troops.
Daniel got up from the sofa and busied himself in the kitchen, leaving his friends to begin what would surely be a new story for their collection.
“Mate, don’t look at me with those big black eyes, you scare me,” he heard Oscar say to Kiko. “I’m not starting until Danny comes back from the kitchen.”
“My big black hands will end up in your face if you don’t stop with the casual racism.”
From the kitchen, Daniel raised his eyebrows and pulled a face. Kiko being a sore loser was typical of their Friday night matches, mostly because he never won.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Kiko.” Oscar had raised his voice. Had he stood up too? Probably. “You know that I’m joking. Anyway, you’re not black, only half.”
“I’m café con leche, like all Cubans. So, how come you don’t want to tell your story without having a drink? Wimp”
“You’re calling me a wimp? I’m about to conquer the world.”
“What I think is that your story has something to do with a girl and you’re too embarrassed to tell me in private.”
From the kitchen Daniel heard the deep, chortling laugh that always reminded him of Jabba the Hutt. Oscar had pointed it out once and it always made Daniel smile, like now, making it look like there were jokes written on the drinks that he was taking out of the fridge.
He went up to one of the cupboards and took out a bottle of rum and another of gin. He grabbed a bag crisps, emptying them into a bowl, and another of ice cubes. Oscar had suggested a couple of beers, but on a Friday evening like that one, Daniel fancied a proper drink. He was sure his friends would agree.
While he was serving ice cubes, he looked up at the photo held on the fridge by a magnet. In it, there was a group of kids wearing school-team green, standing in formation. They looked excited. They looked ready to conquer the world. Those were the days, he remembered.
Back then he loved just throwing the basketball around, despite it being bigger than his head and he almost couldn’t hold on to it. The result didn’t matter, nor the points he scored. ‘No pressure, just fun’ is what the Yankees used to say. Not like now. He was incapable of shooting baskets without thinking of the consequences of a simple mistake. He couldn’t switch off the light at night without first reliving the entire game in his head, focusing on anything he’d done wrong. It was impossible to look in the mirror without asking himself: where had he gone wrong? Where had he lost his way on the path to the professional league? And, how had he ended up repairing computers in a local shop? Now it was hard to make ends meet while he beat himself up about the games he watched on TV at the crack of dawn on Saturday mornings.
Daniel’s sombre reflections were interrupted when he noticed how much gin he was serving in one of the glasses: somewhat more than the other two, and far more than recommendable. This one will be for Oscar, that will make his story more fun, he thought. He might even forget about attacking Quebec.
The last rays of sunlight seeped through the open window, and a pleasant end-of-September breeze almost made the living room feel like a meadow. The patterned rugs that covered the wooden flooring hinted at how little Kiko and Daniel had worried about decorating the flat. Everyone who came in noted a strong aroma of wood and with every step, the floor creaked with old age.
Daniel hurried to leave the tray on one of the side tables and gave out the drinks. Quebec would enjoy a brief ceasefire for the moment.
“I’m ready, start your story,” said Daniel as he dropped down beside Oscar on the sofa.
Oscar sipped his gin and tonic and breathed out a sigh like someone drinking cold water after two days in the desert.
“What I’m going to tell you has to stay between these four walls. I’m already embarrassed enough without more people knowing. Deal?”
He locked eyes with his two friends. Setting his glass alongside his troops he began.
“It all started last night, which, if you hadn’t noticed was bloody freezing. As often happens, the rubbish bin was full to the brim so I put on my old Jurassic Park jumper, the one I use to lounge around the house, and I took out the rubbish. Well, as I lifted up the container lid to throw away the bin bag, I heard a jangle of keys, for crying out loud, fall into the rubbish container.”
> Daniel struggled not to laugh, especially seeing Kiko doing the same.
Oscar sat up to set the scene of how he looked standing in the street wearing nothing but slippers and a dinosaur jumper. However, the thing that had bothered him the most was that one of the girls next door might see him in this ridiculous situation.
“So what did you do?” Daniel asked without hiding his smile.
“What could I do? It was dark and cold. I had a quick look inside the bin, of course, it was absolutely full, but saw no sign of my keys. As I feared, they had fallen to the bottom.”
At this point, Homeless Oscar had no choice but to take out the bin bags one by one until the container was practically empty. There, in the bottom, covered in a greasy, watery gloop, he found his keys.
Daniel noticed Kiko staring hard at the crisp bowl, trying not to laugh. That was enough to make him lose control and burst out laughing himself.
Oscar shot Daniel a look of pure hatred and continued his story.
“Careful not to touch anything else, I grabbed them. This was the crucial moment because if anyone saw me head first in the container, they would have written me off as a beggar and that would have been the end of my street cred. I quickly put all the bin bags back inside the container, like the responsible citizen I am,” hearing that part, Daniel and Kiko looked at one another and raised their eyebrows, “and I dived back into the house as if I’d just activated a bomb in the doorway. The first thing I did was scrub the keys clean and then had a thirty-minute shower.”
He finished his story with a grimace and took away the memory with a sip of his cardamom mixer.
“Let’s change the subject.” Oscar blew up at his rebellious fringe. It gave him an air of David Bowie. “Danny, isn’t tomorrow the grand opening of your brother’s rooftop bar?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he replied. Really, he knew for certain. “Why, are you thinking of going?”
The mood created by Oscar’s story was muted by anxiety and became a knot deep in Daniel’s stomach.
“Mate, are you saying you’re not going?” asked Kiko, visibly surprised.
“Honestly, I don’t really feel like going.”
“But it’s your brother’s opening party! It would be criminal not to go.”
“Exactly, it’s my brother’s party, not mine. He’ll be there surrounded by all his arse-licking pals, acting like hyenas that have smelled success. The party will be full of spoilt brats and posh girls dressed like princesses looking for a dirty one night stand, or worse still, some poor arrogant sod with a full wallet.” Daniel was almost shouting and he knew it. “I don’t know, I’ll think about it. I’ll see what I’ll do in the end.”
Silence flooded the living room.
Suddenly, Kiko took his mobile out of his pocket and dialled a number. He lifted the phone to his ear and spoke:
“Ricardo? Hi, it’s Kiko, your brother’s friend.”
A muffled reply was heard on the other end of the phone.
“I’m great, thanks for asking,” he continued. “Yeah, so I was calling to ask something, no pressure or anything, but have you got any tickets left for the party tomorrow? I know that it’s all probably super crazy but... Yeah? Awesome! How many do I want?” He looked at Daniel doubtfully. After a few seconds he replied, “Can you save me three? Great.”
Oscar looked at Daniel out of the corner of his eye, conscious of how unamusing he was finding Kiko’s little scheme.
“Cheers, Ricardo, see you tomorrow, bye,” he put down the phone with a huge grin on his face.
“What the hell did you do that for? You have no right to mess around with my life.”
Kiko frowned.
“Tickets sell out, dude. You’ve got to reserve them ASAP.”
“Didn’t I just say that I don’t want to go?”
“No, you said that you’d think about it. Maybe you don’t go but I definitely will. I’m sure Oscar is dying to meet those posh girls dressed as princesses.”
Oscar gave a roguish smile.
“Hey, the Cuban’s right.” In Oscar’s eyes, Kiko was always right. “I might not have a full wallet but I’m a real catch.”
“Fine, you two do what you want.” Daniel knew he couldn’t stop them from going to the party. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you know what I decide in the end.”
Kiko nodded, pleased. Oscar broke the ice by getting up off the sofa.
“I’m going to head off and throw the leftovers in the bin” he announced and grabbed the bowl with the remaining crisps.
“Careful with the keys, Oscar!” Kiko called, placing his hands around his mouth to shout louder. “He’s going to the bin! Save yourselves!”
Daniel and Kiko’s laughter filled the apartment. For a few minutes at least, because General Oscar’s troops would soon conquer Quebec and the world would be run by a clumsy, chatty burger-maker with a weakness for the female species and a great devotion to his friends.
In the future, time and again Daniel would wish that his brother had been right. He wished he had been the plainest, dullest guy that had ever existed, because everything that happened, every single painful and unthinkable thing, all happened because of that party.
2
That Friday I ended up with two things: the palms of my hands red raw and an intriguing love letter abandoned in a drawer.
If someone had warned me of all of that before I had taken the burnt cake out of the oven, I’m sure I wouldn’t have believed them. That would have been a mistake. If I had listened to that warning, been more careful, the cake wouldn’t have flown through the air, much to Rafiki’s delight.
If I had believed them, I would have acted differently regarding the other thing, without a doubt much more delicately. Would I really have done it? How would my life have been from then on?
I had an emergency: I’d burnt my hands taking the baking tray out of the oven. I ran to the bathroom and ran them under cold water. It didn’t help much, they were still red. I looked up what to do in these situations while writhing in pain. I ignored the suggestion of using toothpaste because it sounded stupid, and I ended up smearing skin cream all over them. My hands were still throbbing, but the coolness was enough to make me stop crying.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. That something slid over the floorboards. A letter? I rushed over to see what it was about.
Just as I crouched down I realised it wasn’t a letter, it was sheet of paper from a notepad. The door was closed. Someone must have pushed the paper under the door.
The first thing that sprang to mind was the burglars that had sparked panic in the capital in recent months. Alarm bells rang in my head as I unfolded the paper with difficulty. Now, my hands weren’t just throbbing, they were shaking.
It was written in pencil with crooked, hasty handwriting. I sat on the floor with my back against the wall and that was the moment my dull life started to change.
You don’t know me, but the green of your eyes gives me life every morning. And your red hair? It’s out of this world. I know what you’re thinking and you don’t need to worry. I’m not a stalker or a psycho and I don’t mean you any harm. Quite the opposite, consider me an admirer. Really, I’m just a normal guy. As proof, I’ll leave the doorway as soon as I’ve pushed this message under the door. I’ll be back next Friday.
P.S. I don’t know your name so from now on, I’ll call you Angie, like the Rolling Stones song.
So that was what this was about: a lovesick teenager who would stand outside my door every week like some Shakespearean character. Just what I needed to make that Friday go down as the worst day in history.
I decided to play it cool. I stood up and went into the kitchen where I almost tripped over Rafiki. My little rabbit was thoroughly enjoying himself with the walnut cake. I swept up the crumbs and thought back to the note. I was going to scrunch it up into a ball, but I changed my mind at the last moment. Instead, I opened a drawer full of take away meal leaflets and pu
t the note in there.
You never know, I thought. Anyway, my hands weren’t in any condition to scrunch up paper.
3
Last night had gone on much longer than normal in the boys’ flat. As soon as they had finished one drink, they started another. Daniel had changed his mind at least ten times about whether he would go to the party or not. By the time Oscar left, Daniel had sworn he wasn’t going.
Of course, he went.
The sun had just set and the last rays of light polished the rooftops ochre and silver. Terraces stretched out onto the pavement fuelled by the pleasant temperature.
The entrance to the rooftop bar was through a stately doorway of a building several floors high. Despite the queue made up of several groups of people, Daniel, Oscar and Kiko didn’t have to wait in line to go up to the rooftop.
“I told you, we don’t fit in here,” Daniel protested, casting a disdainful glance at the well-dressed strangers.
“As if!” Oscar’s elated expression soured. “I don’t know what you mean. We look the same as everyone else, so let’s go inside, congratulate your brother and have a great night.” He finished by directing his gaze at the backside of one of the girls. “Have you seen her?”
“Have you two not seen these people?” Daniel opened his arms. “Look at their suits and dresses! Did you see the yellow supercar parked around the corner? I bet whoever owns it is already inside; I wouldn’t be surprised if it was my own brother. Guys, face it, this party is out of our league.”
“Nonsense! OK, yes, the dresses are expensive but we’re looking rather dapper. Anyway, Kiko told me you spent more than half an hour in the bathroom, isn’t that right, Don Juan?”
Oscar managed to get a smile out of Daniel who glanced at Kiko, and mocked;
“By dapper I assume you are referring to you and I, because this one looks like a traffic warden with that shirt. Come on then, let’s go inside.”
“That comment was uncalled for. My shirt is colourful, end of story,” protested their Cuban friend as he closed the door behind them.
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