The final part of the night began like a carbon copy of the previous one: she and Petra smoking and staring at the sky in search of spy satellites. Even if they weren’t shooting stars, Verónica would have liked to make a wish or two. That black, moonless sky over the dark landscape made her anxious, though. She didn’t like it.
This time when they returned to the living room, Frida was still there and was opening a bottle of red wine. They had been planning to go out for dinner but changed their minds at the last minute. There were some pizzas in the freezer that would do the trick.
Verónica connected her iPod to the speakers and put a playlist on shuffle. The first song to come on was “Vambora”, by Adriana Calcanhotto. Petra brought out one of the pizzas, half of which was destined to languish, forgotten, on the coffee table. Verónica lit a cigarette with no intention of going outside to smoke it. The girls were still drinking, but she was tired of red wine. She went to the study to fetch her cousin’s bottle of Black Label Johnnie Walker and some whisky glasses, but poured out only one, for herself. The music playing was familiar to her, even though it wasn’t coming from her iPod. Without saying anything, Frida had connected her own device. Verónica knew the song, but not this version. She asked what it was.
“It’s ‘Bobby Brown (Goes Down)’, by a French singer called Swann.” 74
Verónica took a long draught of whisky. Frida and Petra started talking about a Swede they had met in the Norwegian fjords. A guy in his thirties, chubby, friendly, a bit shy, who they had chatted to on various occasions during their boat trip. They couldn’t agree on whether he had been called Svan or Stieg.
“Svan tried to kiss me at one point,” Petra recalled.
“Stieg.”
“I rebuffed him, nicely, and he gave me a look of pure hatred, only for a second, but…”
“I always got the feeling he was giving us funny looks.”
“That’s what you said afterwards, but up until that moment we’d thought he was a nice guy.”
“Whatever – the next morning the boat came into port at Bergen and from the breakfast room we saw all these strange movements on the dock. Loads of police cars.”
“There was a commotion on the boat too. People were going out on deck, so we got up and followed them. My heart almost stopped when I saw they were taking Svan away in handcuffs, surrounded by police.”
“Stieg. Afterwards, we found out the same guy had killed a girl on another trip a year earlier. The police hadn’t been able to find the person who did it until that moment.”
“We were so lucky. I still don’t know what stopped him showing up in our berth. The other girl had been killed in hers during the night, and in the morning he’d thrown her body into the sea.”
Verónica listened to the story as though it were part of the music. She poured herself another whisky. Frida and Petra were still drinking wine and telling her about their travels. Listening to their voices, Verónica felt herself to be in a kind of rapture, her body stretched out on the sofa with Petra opposite, on the other side of the table, and Frida beside 75her. Sitting up to take another drink, she realized the glass was already empty. She felt dizzy but decided to pour herself another measure anyway. After taking a sip she lay back, leaving the glass on the floor. She closed her eyes.
Now Frida and Petra were talking about some wonderful, mysterious girl, whose eyes spoke of sadness, who had secrets she told no one – not even them, who, being both so close and so distant, would be the perfect confidantes. A person should never be as weighed down by pain or sadness as she was. What could she do to end the pain that was so deeprooted in her? It was a few seconds or even minutes before Verónica realized this wasn’t a dialogue but just Frida talking. And she understood that Frida’s words were directed at her. She should open her eyes. But she didn’t. And she wasn’t surprised when the air filled with Flowerbomb and Frida’s lips pressed against her mouth. Not even a kiss. Just lips touching. The gesture would become a kiss only if she reacted. And she did. She moved her lips, felt Frida’s mouth, the warm breath, the perfumed skin. Verónica opened her eyes. She wasn’t going to let this be like a dream, like a wave that carried her along without her doing anything. She moved slightly away and took Frida’s face between her hands. Only now did she see her friend’s eyes were grey, or perhaps a muted green. Nordic eyes. Eyes like that had loved Vikings and Valkyries, and now they were looking at her. Verónica didn’t want Frida to think she had any doubts as she looked in her eyes. She pulled Frida’s face towards her and kissed her again.
One of Frida’s hands, resting on her knees, began to move up to her inner thigh. It stopped at the edge of her shorts. Verónica glanced over at Petra, but she was no longer sitting in the armchair opposite. Had she gone out to smoke, like last night? Was she in another part of the living room, watching them? Frida’s fingers caressed her thighs and ran over 76the trim of her underwear. Then she took her hand away, unbuttoned Verónica’s shorts and, with her help, took them off. Frida caressed her legs, stomach, breasts. Verónica didn’t know what to do. She had never experienced anything like this before. She was enjoying the kissing, touching, Frida’s perfume; she loved feeling the girl’s soft skin, but she wasn’t particularly interested in her tits or in moving her hand down to her pussy, as Frida was doing now, having put her hand inside her underwear and started gently stroking her, very slowly, almost distractedly, in the same way she pleasured herself alone. Now Verónica did want to know if Frida was as turned on as she was. She caressed the other girl’s nipples and Frida let out a strange-sounding moan. As if moans were different in different languages and this was the Norwegian version. Verónica wanted to know if Frida was as wet as she was. She moved her hand under the miniskirt which was now pulled almost right up, stroked Frida’s lower stomach and moved her hand down until she felt the damp warmth of her body. At that moment Verónica started to come. She squeezed Frida’s hand between her legs and didn’t let it go until her orgasm was finished. She felt her body grow limp then, as if all the alcohol she had consumed that night were sweeping over her. Frida kissed her lips again and Verónica closed her eyes. If she didn’t open them soon, she was going to fall asleep. And she didn’t open them.
II
When she woke up a few hours later she was on her own. The lights were all turned off, apart from one lamp in a corner of the living room. The house was quiet. From outside came the sound of crickets. Her body felt like a dead weight. Her hand still smelled of Frida. Sitting up on the sofa, she 77found her discarded shorts underfoot. She picked them up and summoned the energy to get up and go to her room, where she fell face down on the bed and went back to sleep. Around midday, as the crickets made way for the cicadas, she woke up again.
What a night, Vero, she told herself. She had done a lot of wild things in her life, but never this. She hadn’t even been one of those adolescents who made out with her friends amid fits of giggles. She had always been very clear that she liked men, and didn’t feel that had changed. But had it? How well did she know herself at that moment? Best not to dwell on it and instead start the new day. And yet she hesitated to come out of her room. How should she act? What should she say? Where had Petra been all that time? What would happen if Frida came up to her, touched her again? Should they talk about what had happened last night? Questions, questions. Verónica needed advice. She could call her friend Paula, but that felt like something a teenager would do. It would help her understand more clearly what had happened. For the first time in ages she turned on her laptop and wrote a long email to Paula, giving her a brief rundown of what had happened in the days leading up to and including last night. She wasn’t very explicit about last night’s events, but she made her confusion clear.
After sending the email she showered and gathered herself to leave the room. She could hear someone splashing in the pool. In the kitchen, Petra was making coffee and offered her one. She admired Verónica’s T-shirt, a violet one from GAP that her sister Daniela had brought back from Miami. Petra asked her about her sisters. From the way she acted, she seemed to know nothing about what had happened the night before. They walked