Spain or Shine (7 page)

“Oh,” Elena gasped, genuinely surprised. She immediately regretted sounding like such a prude. She looked around and sure enough, a little less than half the women on the beach were sans tops. For some reason she hadn't noticed until now. She'd been too lost in the beauty of the ocean and the sky—swimming in her own little world of thought, as usual.

“So, would you?” Jenna asked. The girls stared at her, leaning in for her answer.

“Would I what?”

“Go topless.”

“Uh, well. I'm not sure,” Elena stammered, not knowing if she meant now or sometime in the very distant future. She didn't want to be the party pooper, but she was seriously doubtful about taking her top off in public. It took a lot just to get out here in her bikini. “What do you guys think?” she asked, lobbing the question to the two girls she'd just met.

“I don't think anyone would even notice if I went topless,” Marci said, looking down at the two triangles of material barely poking out from her chest.

“What about you, Caitlin?” Jenna seemed to be getting into this, counting Marci's ambivalence as a vote in favor of yanking the tops.

“No way,” she said, shaking her head violently. “These babies stay right where they are.”

Elena didn't blame her. Caitlin seemed to be getting enough unwanted stares as it was.

“Come on, you guys. We're in a foreign country. When in Rome, you're supposed to do as the Romans do, or whatever that phrase is.”

Elena looked away, pretending to watch a little boy splashing in the waves. Caitlin just shook her head.

“All right, let's do it, Marci. It's not like we're going to see anyone we know,” Jenna said, sitting up and fiddling with the clasp of her top. Marci shrugged and began pulling at the string tied behind her neck.

“Hey, Elena, what's up?” Elena looked up to see Alex ambling toward the girls, a surfboard tucked under his arm. Marci gasped, and her hands flew up to her chest just in time to catch the triangles of fabric before they flopped down onto her stomach. Jenna casually refastened the clasp of her top. If she was rattled at all, she didn't show it.

Alex set his board down on the sand in front of the girls' feet and sat cross-legged on top of it. Jenna immediately switched into flirt mode, pulling her knees up and sliding her big Jackie-O sunglasses down the bridge of her nose. Alex was mesmerized.

Elena decided to let them flirt in peace. She flipped over onto her stomach and watched a pair of mothers herd their suntanned children toward the showers. The kids had beautiful lithe limbs and delicate features. Elena took in their smooth, dark skin and wondered if she had possibly been switched at birth. Her brothers and sister had inherited their mom's Spanish skin—the color of coffee with lots of cream—and her dark, shiny hair. Although Elena was the only one named after a Spanish relative, she didn't look Spanish. She glanced down at her white arms, which were already turning a mottled pink color from the intense sun. As she reached for the sunscreen tucked in her bag, she heard Alex saying something about the tapas bars in the
parte vieja.

“So, what do you think?” he asked the group. “Don't you think it'd be cool if we could get some friends together to check out the tapas bars this weekend?”

“I'm in,” Jenna agreed quickly.

Marci and Caitlin echoed Jenna's response, and Elena said it sounded like fun.

“Cool. Let's meet Friday night at, like, nine. I'll talk to you about it at school this week.”

“If you know any other guys, you should bring them along on Friday.” Marci tossed the idea out casually.

“All right.” Alex began to stand. “I have to take off. I'll see you in class tomorrow, Elena.”

“Okay,” she said as she squirted a blob of sunscreen onto her palm and began smearing it on her arms. “If you're early, save me a seat.”

He nodded and then said good-bye to the rest of the girls, though his gaze seemed to linger a little longer on Jenna. While Caitlin and Marci returned his good-bye, Jenna just smiled slyly and tipped her head back in a good-bye nod. Alex flashed one more wide smile and strolled away.

“He was nice,” Caitlin said once Alex was out of earshot.

“He certainly thought you were nice,” Marci teased, poking Jenna in the ribs.

Jenna shrugged. “He was all right.”

“What do you mean, he was all right? You were all over him,” Elena cried. From the way Jenna had transformed so quickly into Marilyn Monroe, Elena had assumed she'd found the love of her life.

“I know. I'm so bad. I just like to flirt.” Jenna laughed.

“Well, you're very good at it,” Elena returned, laughing now as well.

Jenna struck a fashion pose on her towel. “Thank you, dahling,” she drawled like an old-time movie star, throwing her head back dramatically.

After a couple of hours at the beach Elena decided to leave. There would be plenty of time to get a tan, she reasoned. The last thing she wanted to do on her first full day in San Sebastián was to stay at the beach too long and end up glowing like a boiled lobster. When she stood up to put her clothes on and stuff her towel and sunscreen back into her bulging backpack, Jenna stood, too.

“I'll go with you,” she said, slipping on a pair of shorts.

They left Marci and Caitlin, and trudged through the soft sand and up the stairs that led to the promenade. Elena stopped for a moment at the top to take it all in, the sea, the sunbathers, the tiny boats bobbing at the horizon. She tried to take in the scenery the way a filmmaker would, as a shot on a wide-screen lens. If she were scripting this moment, she'd linger on a shot of the sea and then write, “Fade out.”

As the girls headed up the hill toward the Cruzes' apartment, Jenna veered off their path for a moment and strolled over to a shawl of bougainvillea that dripped down the wall of an apartment building from a balcony above. Jenna plucked a sprig of magenta flowers from the dangling vine and tucked it behind her ear. Then she twisted off another piece and helped Elena wind it through her thick ponytail.

“You look hot,” Jenna exclaimed as she stepped back to take in the sight of Elena, who smiled shyly and felt a little goofy standing on the sidewalk dripping in petals. “We needed a little color.” The girls fell back into step. Elena felt the eyes of some passersby brushing over them. She wasn't used to drawing attention to herself. Her instinct was to shrink away from it. But Jenna, strutting unself-consciously beside her in a bikini top and a crown of pink flowers, had a way of making things seem less goofy.

When they arrived at the Cruz apartment, Alita bounded to the door to greet them.

“Did you go to the beach today?” She followed them through the foyer and into the living room.

“We did,” Elena answered.

“I am not allowed to go during the week, only weekends,” she explained, then turned her attention back to Jenna. “Maybe you can take me with you this weekend.”

“Sure, maybe,” Jenna answered.

“What are you doing now? Do you want to go for a walk?”

“Well, we were outside all afternoon,” Elena offered as gently as possible.

“Why don't you read magazines with us in Elena's room,” Jenna suggested.

“Yes. American magazines,” Alita sang as she motored down the hall and into Elena's room before the older girls even had time to set their backpacks down by the door.

 

Señor Cruz walked through the front door at half-past eight, and Señora Cruz called them all to dinner twenty minutes later. The three girls put down their magazines and joined Señor and Señora Cruz and Alita at the round dinner table. Elena gathered that the Cruzes' normal dinnertime was close to nine o'clock in the evening. She made a mental note to check with another student who lived with a host family in town to see if it was a Spanish thing or a Cruz thing.

After a leisurely dinner of paella, Elena and Jenna cleared the dishes and offered to wash up. Elena had been so travel-weary the night before that she hadn't even thought to offer her help. She knew her mother would be mortified.

Elena stood at the sink scrubbing the pans and plates, while Jenna sopped them with a dish towel and then lined them up in the drying rack.

“Do you wash the dishes at home?” Alita asked from the table where Senora Cruz was helping her with her homework.

“Uh-huh. We all have chores, and mine is to do the dinner dishes,” Elena explained.

“How many people do you clean up after, Elena?”

“Six when my brother Jeremy is home from college.”

“That is a big job,” Senora Cruz nodded to show her approval of Elena's work ethic. Elena didn't tell her that at home all she had to do was squirt the dishes with water, stack them in the dishwasher, and flip a switch. “And what about you, Jenna?”

“We have a housekeeper,” Jenna murmured.

“I have chores,” Alita interrupted. “I clean my room and sweep the balcony, and I help Mama with the groceries.”

“Sí, estás muy útil,”
Señora cooed. “She is...is it an American phrase ... my little helper?”

“Yes, that's a phrase. She's your little helper.” Elena smiled over at Alita, who lit up. Señora Cruz kissed Alita, and then scooted her off to bed. Elena could hear her stop to kiss her father good night in the living room.

Elena rinsed the last dish in her pile and handed it to Jenna. She pulled the stopper in the sink and watched the murky water slide down the drain and putter out at the end.

“That was the last one,” Jenna announced to Señora Cruz.

“Thank you so much for helping, girls.” Señora Cruz took the wet dish towel from Jenna and hung it on a rack in the corner to dry. “You are good workers.”

“Thank you for dinner,” Elena said.

“The meal was wonderful,” Jenna piped in, as Señora Cruz left the room.

“You can use the bathroom first,” Elena offered to Jenna.

After Jenna padded toward the back of the apartment a hush settled over the small kitchen. There were only a few sounds in the apartment. The ancient window that stood over the sink was shoved open, allowing a cool night breeze to waft in. Elena could hear a car's tires crunching on the nearly empty gravel road outside, and music playing in one of the apartments across the alley. She couldn't recall a time in her own house when things were still long enough for her to pause and consider each soft, distinct sound.

On Thursday, Elena broke her routine of hanging out in the sun-drenched quad during the break before play production. Instead, she'd rushed to the multimedia center as soon as the bell rang in order to snag an empty computer and check her e-mail.