Boy For Rent

by Mayte Esteban

  “Dad!” Paula protests, embarrassed and anxious, because she hasn’t briefed her boy for rent yet. “Don’t ask him that now. There will be time later. Look, here comes the bride.”

  Javier looks at the man. He knows he’s seen his face somewhere, not just once but several times, but he can’t remember where. His memory isn’t great. He’s had to repeat the second year of one of the easiest degrees for a reason. Paula leaves with David. He realizes that they’ve hardly talked in any detail, and that the evening will be full of questions. Almost like a contest, only they aren’t on television, and it won’t be a presenter in a suit tossing him trivial softballs, but a gang of aunts, cousins, great-aunts, and gossips, who will be taking notes on the answers “David” gets right or misses.

  “Come on!” she says to him. And without saying any more she takes him to one side, nearly dragging him. “We met each other in class. You study the same subject as me, and the first day of the course we sat next to each other. A few weeks later, we fell in love, remember?”

  “Sure,” answers Javier. And this time he asks a question because he doesn’t see any way of avoiding it. “And what is it that you study?”

  “Second year of sociology in the Complutense, mornings,” she says very quietly, terrified because she knows what will come next. She doesn’t find it funny that he’ll realize they’re in the same class. “Here come my friends. I’ll introduce you.” What good timing! It’s true they’re a little gossipy, but her friends always end up saving her.

  Javier freezes. She must be in his class! But he’s never seen her before. It’s strange, because she’s an attractive girl, but she’s probably unfamiliar because he hardly spends any time within the classroom walls. The university bar is his favorite place, the spot where he gets together with the most select of those without serious intentions for the degree, and where what he studies are techniques for winning games of ‘mus’. From now on, he’ll need to be careful that she not see him at the university, he thinks. His identity needs to remain anonymous if he doesn’t want to lose his job, or worse yet, be the object of his classmates’ jokes. What bad luck to get a classmate, he thinks, but then it occurs to him that it’s in her interest to keep the secret too. Anyway, she hasn’t made any comment. Maybe she hasn’t recognized Javier either. After all, tonight he does look very different.

  “Hello girls! You look beautiful. I’m going to introduce you,” says Paula, speaking to her friends, while she shows off Javier in the same way a boy might show off some new toy to his friends. She thinks she has the right to do so, given what he’s cost her. “This is David. My friends, Marta and Raquel.”

  “Hi, David!” says Raquel. She wears a light blue dress and casts him a flirty glance. “You’re even more handsome than we’d heard.”

  It’s obviously a compliment. Paula knows that she’s never made any reference to the physical attributes of her supposed boyfriend, because she hadn’t known anything about him. But the comment makes her pay attention to him for the first time. He’s not film-star handsome, that’s obvious, but there’s something really interesting about him. Something about him that makes him special. It’s not any concrete physical feature (nose a little big, lips too thick, brown eyes just like most people’s), but rather the general harmoniousness of his face. She thinks that in class he hadn’t seemed like anything special. It must be the clothing. Definitely. Or the hair. Or maybe a little of everything.

  “Come on, let’s go inside,” says Marta. She’s wearing a black spaghetti-strap dress, which remains hidden beneath her jacket. The wedding is about to start, and she is followed in by Raquel. Javier holds Paula back, grabbing her smoothly by the arm.

  “How should I act around them? Should I be friendly or ignore them?”

  Paula thinks for a few moments, torn between the signals sent by the common sense in her brain and the sensations coming from her skin, and weighing which deserves greater credibility.

  “Don’t pay much attention to them. Remember that I’m the one paying.” When she hears these words coming out of her own mouth, she wants to swallow her tongue. She doesn’t know why she’s said that.

  It’s alright though, because Javier is still amazed by the previous exchange. They’re going to pay him to go out with a girl, a situation he wouldn’t have thought could happen to him in his wildest dreams. Lucky for him, it’s a girl his own age, one who might even be called beautiful. And he’s realized, to his surprise, that she likes him, because when Raquel complimented him Paula looked sincerely annoyed. Maybe tonight is finally his night to score.

  Throughout the ceremony, the guests pay attention to three things taking place simultaneously. One is the wedding itself, which although it’s Mario’s fourth is the first for the bride, and so at least her relatives pay attention. The second is the bizarre get-up that Susana, the “mannequin” as Paula calls her, has chosen to wear for the occasion. Although she isn’t exactly in the family, she’s been invited because someone has to take care of Cayetana and Loreto, and Paula squarely refused to do so at her father’s first request. The third is the guest of the groom’s eldest daughter.

  “David,” she says in a low voice, during the endless reading by the justice of the peace of the Civil Code articles she knows nearly by heart.

  “What?” he answers in barely a whisper.

  “Do you see the girl in the bizarre dress in the third row?”

  “Yes,” he says. It’s difficult not to see her. The dress combines pink with maroon and red, and she’s wearing some kind of feathers in her hair. Ideal to go undetected.

  “She’s one of the people I can’t stand to even see. She can’t stand me either, which is why I think she’s going to try to get with you. Don’t let it even cross your mind to be friendly with her!”

  Javier agrees. The girl is beautiful, even more so than Paula, but her choice of outfit doesn’t say much about her good taste. But he doesn’t want to pass judgments lightly. He often experiences it from the other side, because he isn’t exactly a Greek god. Ángel is always the one that picks girls up, despite insisting on the love he feels for the mysterious girl that Javier’s never met. He thinks of Susana for the rest of the ceremony. Maybe she seems like just a perfect body without a hint of gray matter in her brain, but maybe he’s wrong. He always seems an idiot in girls’ eyes, but at bottom he’s not. He’s only an insecure person who’s never known how to carry on an interesting conversation with other teenagers, because the stupidities and cheesy lines Ángel uses to charm girls don’t come naturally to him. That’s why they never choose him. They only give him the chance to be the funny guy in the group. Maybe Susana’s never had the opportunity to be anything more than a pretty face.

  When the ceremony ends, Paula tells Javier to leave while she congratulates her third stepmother. It’s a providential decision because it means he avoids meeting the twins, who have been there the whole time although neither Paula nor Javier has seen them.

  “Hi, guys!” says Paula, giving a kiss to each one. Her brothers are the two people she loves most. She would have liked to have the same relationship with Raúl, or with her mother, but it’s impossible. For that reason, every time she thinks of affection or caring in the family, she only sees the duplicated faces of Eduardo and César.

  “Dad says you have a boyfriend,” César says suddenly, even before greeting her with a polite “hello”.

  “Yes,” says Paula, regretting having to lie to them. “He’s here with me.”

  “You have to tell us who it is,” says Eduardo.

  “No, sir! I know you two very well. You’ll torture him to no end with your evil questions and blackmail all the aunties for candy in exchange for telling them some completely made-up flaw of his.” Paula knows these two little angels very well.

  “Come on!” says Eduardo. He knows that with that tone he can get what he wants with his sister.

  “I have a better idea!” she says. “I’ll give you ten euros if you don’t come n
ear me the entire night.

  The twins look at each other and César holds out a hand. For ten euros they’ll do anything, even if they have to share it!

  “Take it! I’m warning you that if you don’t respect the agreement I won’t show up at your birthdays.”

  Paula smiles. She knows that the worst possible threat she could invent wouldn’t have as much effect as the blackmail with their birthdays. She’s used it since they were very small and it’s always worked. And so she’s sure they won’t annoy her for the rest of the night. She leaves the courtroom, breathing deeply to regain calm, while she wonders if she’ll be capable of continuing the charade. The people are there, milling around, waiting for the newlyweds to come out to throw rice at them, talking while killing time before dinner, when she sees that “David” isn’t with her friends. She gets scared, because she thinks that if he’s left, all her plans are in ruins, but it’s not just that. Suddenly she thinks that she won’t get to talk to him again, and that’s what most terrifies her. She’s sure that in class she won’t even dare look at him. She’s analyzing her own thought when Raquel comes up to her.

  “Where’s David?” Paula asks. Her anxiety is so obvious that not for a minute does it appear a farce.

  “There,” Raquel responds, “talking to that cheesy girl.”

  Paula is infuriated. And Paula when angry is capable of kicking up a storm. Marta and Raquel still remember the day when they were twelve years old and her bicycle disappeared in the park. When she found the boy who’d taken it, they had to take him to the hospital. Without thinking twice she’d thrown a rock and smashed him in the face. Five stitches and his apology were needed for her to feel better. Over the years she’s mellowed, a little.

  “Don’t take your anger out on him! He was with us and Susana practically took him hostage!” says Marta, trying to calm down her friend.

  “Sorry!” interrupts Paula, inserting herself into the conversation the boy is carrying on with the future lawyer, because, although this is a fact that can’t be comprehended by normal brains, Susana studies Law, and always gets high marks. “David, let’s go. I’m sorry you have to stop talking to such a nice girl, but they’re waiting for us.”

  The two go toward Paula’s car. They get in without saying a word, leaving without a predefined itinerary. The silence is tense and Javier doesn’t know what to do. He’s already asked enough questions. He knows he’s ignored the warning not to get close to Susana, but he hadn’t thought it was that serious. He’s curious to know what mystery lies behind the dislike of the girl renting him for the girl in the bizarre dress. She’d seemed to be curious about him.

  “I told you not to talk to her!” yells Paula suddenly.

  “But... she practically grabbed me! And I couldn’t do anything...” he apologizes.

  “What’s your problem? Your agency hasn’t taught you anything! I’m not paying for you to go off with the first person that shows up. Your assignment is to stay at my side.”

  “But you ordered me to wait for you outside! I didn’t do anything except follow directions!”

  “Look, don’t get angry! If you want to be paid, the best thing for you to do would be to carry out your role. Don’t think I’m going to pay the astronomical sum you cost so that you can go chat with all the girls in arm’s reach!” Paula is furious, and yells as if he has a hard time hearing, although they’re alone in the car and the radio’s switched off. “Now we’ll go to the restaurant. Don’t leave my side for a single moment.”

  “Not even to go to the bathroom?” In the attempt to play down the importance of what’s happened, Javier lets out one of those silly lines most typical of his character. It doesn’t strike him that in her present state of anxiety, she might not catch the joke.

  “You’ll go when I say that you can go!”

  “But...” the situation is escaping from his hands.

  “Didn’t they tell you in the agency not to ask? So don’t ask! You’re as idiotic as you seem!” She says it with such a bad attitude that suddenly Javier loses his nerve completely, and says to her what he’s been thinking for a while.

  “Why are you being so rude?”

  “You’ve gone too far!” Paula stops abruptly and the car behind them, not anticipating this, crashes into them.

  “Great!” says Javier. “You’re crazy! Of course you couldn’t be a normal girl. Girls that rent boys aren’t normal, even if at first sight they seem to be!”

  “And neither are boys that let themselves be rented!” They get out of the car and keep arguing. “Obviously! It’s a very comfortable job! You don’t break your back and you earn a lot more money than you’d get with normal work!”

  “You believe that?

  “Guys...!” the man driving the car that’s bumped into them tries to speak, but they don’t pay him the least attention.

  “In this job I’ve never been put with a girl as crazy as you, who brakes without looking at the rear view mirror!” Javier starts to yell like a crazy man, imitating his classmate’s attitude.

  “Because you insulted me!” Paula yells furiously, while the poor driver of the other vehicle tries to butt in again.

  “Will you listen?” he manages to yell during a brief pause in the fight, which threatens to go on forever. The two go silent, and are conscious, for the first time, that they aren’t alone. A crowd of passers-by on the sidewalk watch the scene, amused. “That’s better! Will someone please explain what happened?” The man believes he’s taken back the control.

  “She’s crazy!” says Javier.

  “He insulted me!” yells Paula.

  “But I didn’t tell you to brake, you did that yourself!”

  “You’re an idiot!”

  “And what are you? Now I remember you! You’re the one that nearly took my eye out in class the other day!”

  “Slow on the draw, aren’t you? Don’t tell me that you only just realized?”

  “Enough!” yells the man again, to make himself heard. “Sort out your relationship problems later. Now the best thing to do would be to exchange insurance information. If I’m too late getting home my wife won’t make me dinner.” It seems that this is his weak point as a man. He’s decidedly hefty, and it seems that the car matters less to him than a good plate of eggs with chorizo sausage.

  In the time they take to exchange insurance, the argumentative atmosphere that drove them to disaster dissipates, and Paula and Javier behave themselves like civilized people. The man thanks his lucky stars, because they finish quickly and he can go home.

  “There, that’s everything. I’ll call you if there’s any problem. And don’t worry! Your parents won’t be happy with what you’ve done to the car, but since nothing’s happened to you, it will pass quickly.”

  “My father! God! We’ll arrive late to the wedding banquet! Let’s go, David!”

  Javier climbs into the car, ready to forget the incident and to ask that she call him by his real name. He can’t put up with the fake name she’s given him, and he’s been thinking that when they’re alone she can call him Javier. In the end he still has to pass a few hours with her, and has to find a way to make them bearable.

  “What’s happening now?” he asks, after hearing the strange sounds the car’s motor is making.

  “I don’t know. It won’t start. Oh no! It’s run out of battery because I always leave the lights on. Don’t you dare say a thing.”

  “Great! This is the most entertaining date of my life. What are we going to do now?” Javier thinks that he’s never had so much happen to him in a single afternoon.

  “What do you think! We have to call a tow truck.” Paula rummages through the papers in the glove compartment and finally finds the one with the number she needs. Meanwhile Javier stays silent, thinking it perhaps the best strategy to take with this girl who seems angry with life.

  Paula gets out of the car. She slams the door with all her might, then dials the number of the insurance company in her cell phone.
After a while they track down a tow truck, which will be there in a few minutes to pick up the vehicle. In addition to the crash, which has destroyed the back bumper, the car doesn’t have battery. What’s worse, her mood hasn’t changed. She thinks how ridiculous she’s being to blame the crash on jealousy for someone she barely even knows, and she hardly has the energy to keep going.

  “Let’s wait over there,” says Javier, pointing to a bar a short distance from where they’ve been stranded. “It’s starting to get pretty cold out here. We can drink something while the tow truck arrives. I’ll pay.”

  Paula resigns herself. They drink a coffee in silence, which manages to calm them down a bit, as well as quiet their stomachs, which have been growling for too many hours. Neither of the two ate much in the morning. Both were nervous for the blind date.

  “By the time we get to the wedding reception it will already have ended,” Paula says out loud, regretfully, gazing into some fixed point in the distance, the cup of hot coffee in her hands.

  “And you’ll have rented me for nothing. I’m really sorry.” Javier realizes it must be sad to have to rent a person to accompany one somewhere. As sad as it is to think of letting oneself be rented. That silly boy in the mirrors, always annoying him when he least expects it, was trying to tell him something that day. But as always, he didn’t listen. Suddenly he asks the other thing he really wants to know.

  “Who’s David?”

  “Who?” she asks in turn. She’s still mulling over the excuse she’ll have to make to her father.