“For real, Rita! Your food tastes amazing. My mom is so neurotic about what we eat at home. I already told my dad she’s taking it too far. She won’t even put salt in our food,” Caio says between bites.
“Don’t even think about telling Sandra that you ate fries here! She’d never let you come back,” my mom says, giggling.
And while the two of them talk as if they are best friends, I’m on the other end of the couch listening. Just listening and never speaking.
I know this will sound ridiculous, but I’m kind of jealous. Jealous of Caio, because my mom is only focused on him and paying no attention to me. And to make matters worse, I’m jealous of my mom. Caio barely got here and he’s already praising her cooking. I’m jealous because I wish he would talk to me. About food, about his mom, about soap operas—about anything at all.
When the TV show about wedding dresses ends (the bride loses the weight, the dress is gorgeous, everyone cries, fin), my mom gives me a light tap on the shoulder, and I know it means the dishes are my responsibility. Looks like she’s not done punishing me for today’s events.
While I organize the kitchen, my mom says good night to Caio (all smiles, of course), and I do my best not to freak out when I realize that in a few hours he and I will be sleeping in the same bedroom. Inches away from each other.
Our apartment is small, and we’ve never had a guest room. But my bed is one of those that you can pull a handle and ta-da! there’s another mattress hidden underneath. My mom chose this one thinking of all the friends I might invite for a sleepover. I can’t remember the last time the extra bed was used by anyone other than my great-aunt Lourdes.
Sharing a room with Caio for fifteen days could result in an unlimited series of disasters. In the time it takes me to wash three plates, I am able to come up with a list of fifty-four disasters that I might cause just by sleeping in the same bedroom as him. The majority of the list is pretty gross (hello, night farts), but some are natural and inevitable (like morning wood).
Jumping to the worst-case scenario is my specialty. But I decide to stop thinking this way when I come up with a hypothetical situation in which I’m a sleepwalker (for the record, I’m not) and I attack Caio in the middle of the night. Which … would be awkward.
I wash the dishes, dry them, dry them again, and then put everything away inside the cabinets. I try to waste as much time as I can so I won’t have to face bedtime. I wipe the sweat off my forehead with a dish towel (sorry, Mom) and go back into the living room.
I don’t know how long it took me to wash everything, but it was long enough for Caio to put on his pajamas, find a pillow, and lie down on the couch with a book, his feet on a folded blanket. For a split second, I don’t know what to say. Not that I was planning to say anything, but even still, I don’t react. I try to rationalize the following information in my head:
Caio is probably going to sleep in the living room.
Because he has a pillow and a blanket with him. In the living room.
Caio is already in his pajamas.
Is Caio going to sleep in the living room???
Apparently, he is, as he’s wearing his pajamas. In the living room.
Wow. Caio in pajamas.
I guess I won’t have to worry about night farts and morning wood after all.
And, yet, I don’t want Caio to sleep in the living room.
I want him to sleep next to me.
Especially if he’s wearing those pajamas.
I could go on for hours on the topic of Caio’s pajamas. They’re navy blue and white, with a maritime theme. The top is striped and has a deep V-neck. The bottoms have little anchors and boats. But I can’t focus on the design because, where his shorts end, his legs begin. I could dedicate another two hours to the topic of Caio’s legs. His thighs are thick and have some hair on them, and his tan skin is even shinier under the light of the chandelier in the living room. (Actually, the chandelier is a round paper lantern that my mom decided to make after watching a YouTube tutorial.)
If you look at him from just the right angle, Caio looks like Aladdin. And one second before I start imagining the two of us flying over a whole new world on a magic carpet ride, Caio clears his throat louder than he needs to and looks at me. I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, gawking at him and embarrassing myself over a pair of thighs.
“I’m sleeping in the living room,” Caio says matter- of-factly, as if I needed to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce as much.
I think about insisting that he sleep in my bedroom. I think about telling him that the couch is too lumpy and will be murder on his back (which is true). But who am I kidding? Of course he won’t agree. Not after seeing me naked, soaking wet, and wrapped in a towel, screaming, GET OUT OF MY ROOM!
I offer him some water, tea, an extra pillow, but he doesn’t accept any of it. When Caio turns his attention back to his book, I realize it’s better if I just go away. I walk into my room and slam the door gently enough so as not to wake my mom but loud enough to sound dramatic.
I decide to sleep in my pajamas tonight. I usually sleep in an old T-shirt and shorts. I pull the pajamas out of the drawer. They don’t have a sexy sailor theme; they’re beige, huge, and hideous. When I look at myself in the mirror, I look like a page straight out of the Guinness Book of World Records, showing the record holder for world’s largest sugar cookie.
I’m such an embarrassment.
I fling myself onto the bed and watch cat videos online until I fall asleep.
TODAY IS A SATURDAY. I usually love Saturdays. I get to sleep in and watch three movies in a row, and my mom always bakes a cake. Every Saturday is like that, and the tradition has never been broken. I like traditions, especially ones that involve cake.
And yet I don’t wake up excited today. I didn’t sleep well and spent the whole night thinking about how much easier it would be if my life were Freaky Friday. My mom and I would swap bodies, and she’d have to deal with Caio. I’d just sit there and watch, smiling and painting. We’d stay in each other’s bodies for fifteen days, and when Caio left, the spell would wear off.
I leave my absurd fantasies behind and decide to get out of bed. It’s early, six in the morning. I look in the mirror and notice that I’m still inside my own body. Too bad. This story would be much better if I had magically switched bodies with my mom.
I walk out of the room to get a glass of water, and when I pass by the living room, there he is. Caio is asleep on the couch, and it’s almost ridiculous how good-looking he is. I’ve never seen anyone who could look so beautiful even while sleeping. Not in real life, anyway. I’ve always thought the whole peaceful sleep thing, the thing where your chest moves up and down calmly in unison with your breathing, only happened in movies. In real life, people sleep with an elbow touching the back of their necks, one sock half-off, and drool streaking down their pillows.
Caio can’t be real.
I think a whole seven minutes have passed, and here I stand, watching him sleep. Seven minutes. I need help. Seriously.
Water, Felipe! Water! I tell myself, trying to focus on the actual reason that got me out of the bedroom. I walk to the kitchen, trying not to make noise, but of course it all goes wrong, because I’m about as delicate as a mammoth. I open the closet without realizing my strength and two pans fall to the floor. In the morning quiet, it sounds more like two hundred.