24: A Gift

Marta, sitting at her desk, had bluffed with a lie as hollow as the fake countdown on New Year's Eve. And just as the new year is exposed by a clock, Mario could be found out with a simple GPS route search.
Felisa, for her part, was somewhat confused by Marta's lie — but Melisa was eyeing her mother with suspicion.
"Am I the only one who can't merge with a business partner, or what?"
"I genuinely don't follow you, sweetheart." Marta sighed with weary patience. "Didn't you say he was as expressive as a wall?" — she knew perfectly well Mario was no such thing — "Those were your own words, Melisa."
"But those were the first dates — I'm sure it was just that."
"Or because it was you, Melisa!" Felisa had no patience for how obsessive her niece was becoming.
"Hang on — he was the one who approached me, not the other way around!"
"And that means you have to fixate on someone who no longer pays you any attention?" Marta laced her fingers and rested her chin on them. "Is the only reason you're interested because he's stopped chasing you?"
Melisa raised her eyebrows, ready to reply — but opened her mouth without a sound coming out. She frowned slightly and looked down.
"It's just that he seemed so interested before, and so interesting now..." She offered as an excuse.
"So what you like about Mario is whatever that girl from the spa has awakened in him, Melisa." Felisa followed the thread smoothly, while resting a hand on Marta's arm to calm her.
"Right, fine, thank you." Melisa didn't seem entirely satisfied, but tried not to show it. "I think I'll update the software in my office while I'm at it."
Melisa left, and once she was back in her office, Felisa looked at Marta, who sank back into her chair.
"I hope your energetic suitor knows how to keep up the act." Felisa said with a knowing look.
"My what?" Marta hadn't caught a word.
"Never mind!" Felisa noticed her friend's computer was still off. "Shall we head home?"
"I've got used to being the last one to leave — it gives me the feeling of having everything under control." Marta thought of the previous Thursday — she had been the last to leave that day too. "Even if it's a false sense of control."
Felisa picked up her bag and Marta's from the coat rack without fully unwrapping it.
"That intrigues me — why do you say that?"
"Because I met him on the Thursday." Marta gave a mischievous smile. "You know?"
"How thrilling — tell me more!" Felisa looked like a Pink Lady in Grease as she opened the office door.
Marta let out a quiet laugh and leaned towards her friend to whisper what had happened.
"I came out last, as always. I was heading to my car in the parking space, and it happened right at the pedestrian crossing."
The two friends made their way through the room full of desks and computers, leaving the individual offices behind.
"He crossed your path?" Felisa asked as they reached the main door.
"I was buried in emails and made the mistake of stepping into the road without really looking — and then the suspension did the rest."
Neither of them noticed, as they left, that someone had been standing in the doorway of their office, listening to them talk warmly and cheekily about a traffic incident.
They reached the car without delay — and Mario was waiting there.
"A spa? Seriously?"
"Don't tell me I got you mixed up with another boy!" Marta smiled with mischief.
"Oh, please!" Felisa protested with feeling. "As if that would be so strange!"
"Marta."
"Yes, Mario."
"I mean it — about wanting to find myself, I mean."
"Do you understand that I felt cornered?" Marta crossed her arms and looked at him with mild sternness. "Just because I have a refuge doesn't mean you have to find yourself one right next door."
"And if I hadn't been Manuel's son — would you still feel cornered if I were just the man from the weekend, a neighbour in La Cabrera?"
"Why does this feel like something I've seen before?" Felisa cut in.
Mario laughed with a trace of shyness.
"'That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.'"
"Very clever — quoting Shakespeare!" Felisa noted.
Mario shrugged, the same sweet, innocent smile still on his face.
"'Romeo and Juliet' — don't you think you're setting the bar rather high, comparing us to them?"
"You haven't answered me, Marta." He asked again. "Would you feel stalked if you simply ran into me as another neighbour in La Cabrera?"
Marta found herself defenceless against the question, looked down, and shook her head in silence.
"Then let Melisa be Business Management. I don't want to be the one who hurts you by staying in the company."
Marta and Felisa exchanged an alarmed look.
"You can't leave the company!" Marta said.
"Don't talk rubbish, lad!" Felisa was offended. "What excuse are you going to give your father?"
"I'll think of something." Mario looked away, a slight frown forming.
"Leaving the company because of me — that would genuinely hurt me. Manuel doesn't deserve to lose you." Marta answered from her position as his superior.
Mario wiped the innocence from his face and looked at Marta directly, with a quiet possessiveness.
"If you think so highly of my father — what happened at the weekend?"
"Hold on — blimey!" Marta raised one corner of her smile without thinking. "I'm saying it as his business partner, since I also have both my children in the company."
Mario took that half step back that put distance between him and his dark gold Mercedes, and ended up sitting against the car. He had frightened himself with his own jealousy — and of his own father, no less.
"It's a dangerous game, Marta." Mario breathed in slowly and opened his car door to take out a small bag. "Since Thursday I've been a complete blockhead — cork for brains and all. This is for you."
Marta took the bag and opened it. Inside was a clean cork, attached to a set of barrel keys.
"What is this?"
"My refuge."