The Dream of the City by Andrés Vidal

admiringly.
    From the upper floor, Laura peeped over the banister. Once she was sure it was Jordi who had just arrived, she went downstairs, and she saw from the threshold of the room that he was uncomfortable with all the attention. She smiled and felt the touch of Núria’s arm as she came down from her rooms. Her sister smiled back at her in collusion, understanding all that was taking place.
    â€œJordi, come here, let’s go up to my studio; it’s the only way we’ll be able to talk in peace,” she proposed to him, to get him away from the slightly cloying excess of friendliness coming from her parents.
    â€œTo your studio?” Pilar said. “In my day we didn’t allow that kind of familiarity. A boy from a good family with such a promising future …” She winked at Jordi, who blushed in return.
    â€œJordi, did they already offer you something to drink?” Núria asked while she knelt to receive Sara, her youngest daughter, who ran to her from the entrance. “Laura is a bit forgetful sometimes. …”
    While she spoke, she looked fleetingly into the library. Through the half-opened leaves of the double doors she could make out her husband reading the paper. Felip turned his head to them and looked up over the frames of his tortoiseshell glasses. It was just a moment, then he returned to his reading.
    Jordi didn’t know what to do. Laura smiled at him again and pressed him.
    â€œAre you coming or not?”
    He excused himself as best he knew how and walked upstairs with a hesitant step. A sheen of sweat made his forehead glimmer. Once in the studio, he took off his jacket and sat close to Laura in one of the chairs, over by the little balcony where she had gone to open the doors and let in a bit of fresh air. The conversation started off agreeably, though routine and rather banal. After the preliminary niceties, Jordi finally ventured to ask her, “How are you? I mean, how are you really? Since you’ve been back you’ve seemed different, distracted …”
    Laura looked directly into his eyes. She saw how they gleamed: He was getting tense again. She took a stool and sat down close to him, in front of the large desk where her drawing tools were scattered about.
    â€œI’m fine,” she affirmed, self-assured. There was a tense silence; Jordi waited for her to speak again. “Italy was … I learned a lot. I enjoyed it like you can’t imagine, visiting all those museums. So much art … The streets, the plazas, every individual monument, the cafés …” She fell silent again. She realized that she wasn’t actually saying anything. Jordi noticed it as well and decided to urge her on, so she would explain herself better.
    â€œWhat happened in Rome, Laura?”
    The youngest of the Jufresas seemed to return to her former self, as if awakened from a daydream.
    â€œYou know me too well,” she admitted with an unsteady smile. “I met a man named Carlo. I haven’t told anyone: I was betrayed by him, wounded. But as the days go by, I realize that what happened wounded my pride more than my heart. I think I let myself be dragged along: I knew what was going to happen and yet I threw myself into the mouth of the wolf. Be that as it may, I know now I won’t ever let anything stand in my path again: I won’t ever put anyone else above myself.”
    Jordi twisted in his seat. Inside he was furious, a thousand questions flitting through his mind: Who is this Carlo? Did he kiss you? Did you … do something more? But no, God no, it couldn’t be, he thought, unnerved. Laura couldn’t have changed so much, not his Laura, the Laura who kept her distance with an almost childish familiarity, despite her openness, her free and easy sincerity, the same Laura he almost didn’t dare to touch, the chaste, honest girl he had known for so long. … Surely that unknown Italian hadn’t taken