Grapes Upside Down

25. Piscola (Madisen)

~Madisen~

"¿Qué pasó con el chico de Recreación?" As Clara re-works her hairstyle in my tiny bedroom mirror, I inquire after the boy she met in our Recreation class last week.

"Nuh." She makes a few nondescript sounds through her teeth, clicking her tongue to disguise disappointment with nonchalance. "Never heard from him, whatevs."

"Qué loco."

"Tengo frío." Clara changes the subject to complain about the cold, cuddling up to the portable space heater in the corner of my bedroom. She dons a stylish, oversized jacket over her club outfit, which she hasn't bothered to remove since her arrival.

"¿Estás lista para una noche loca, abuelita?" Clara teases, asking if I'm ready for a crazy night while referring to me lovingly as "granny."

After a three-hour nap on the bus ride home, I'm feeling surprisingly refreshed. In fact, I'm buzzing with the sensation of caffeine jitters. It's difficult to believe our two outings—the thermal springs and the vineyard—plus a long bus ride home to Viña del Mar, are all part of the same day.

Act four of this eventful Sunday is my birthday celebration at the Viña Casino. I've never actually been there, because the night that everyone went for Samira's birthday last month was when I ran into that Italian guy, Alessio, and ended up ditching the party.

In the bathroom, I put forth more effort than I normally would applying makeup. Clara is sprawled across my bed scrolling Instagram when I return, cracking up at the pictures everyone posted at the vineyard.

"Jonathan está poniendo like en todas tus fotos." Clara informs me in singsong that my host brother, Eduardo and Graciela's son, has "liked" all of my photos.

I don't care, at all.

Plucking up the scarf Noah gifted to me this morning, I recall his adorably flustered face as he attempted to keep his eyes away from my boobs. My heart races as the memory of our hug rushes through me; the sound of his breath catching echoes in my eardrums.

"¡La foto con Glenn!" Clara thrusts her phone in front of my face. We've already seen it a dozen times, but it never gets old—the picture of Glenn and the girls with the smiling llama.

Running my hands along the iridescent silver threads of my scarf, uneasiness overtakes me as Clara continues swiping and smirking.

Out of compulsion, I scoop my phone off the bed and scroll through the images on Instagram. I notice that Noah has responded with three laughing-with-tears emojis to Clara's shot of the upside down grapes through her legs, in which the camera has captured her thighs in the frame and practically most of her crotch as well.

Clara has commented with heart eyes on a photo I posted of Noah with an ostrich. "So cute with his little feather mohawk! (You look cute too, Noah)," she has added coyly in parenthesis, with a winking emoji.

What the heck?

"Do you like Noah?" The question flops off my tongue like a lump of chicken cartilage I've accidentally bitten down on and must expel from my mouth immediately.

There's a stinging pause in the space between us, as Clara blinks at me, her expression dead serious and inscrutable.

"The question is, do you like Noah?"

"What?"

"I mean, yeah, sure I like him," Clara replies, shrugging, as if we were discussing pizza flavors. "What's not to like? He's super cute, super kind and super smart."

The description of him is so generic, her tone so nonchalant, that I'm not sure if she means she likes him in a general way, or whether she is admitting to deeper feelings.