Delicate * { Fred Weasley }

Gravity

I slept well that second night in Las Ballenas. Unusually well, at least for me. I woke up early feeling refreshed, energized, and rather optimistic. The mistakes I had made yesterday—all the little embarrassments and missteps—those were the actions of a girl who had slept poorly. Today, I was well rested. Today, I would not make those same mistakes. I would keep my composure; I would be measured and calm. I wouldn't accidentally reveal all the little ways I was damaged from the War.

I would stop thinking about the feeling of certain hands on my thighs.

In retrospect, these were rather ambitious goals. Too ambitious, when you consider my recent performance in this area of my life.

The morning and afternoon were uneventful enough to lull me into a false sense of security. Alicia and I spent the morning exploring the open-air market with Aunt Lynn and Uncle Pete while the others slept in. We breakfasted on fresh fruit from local orchards and Uncle Pete tried to haggle with vendors in laughably bad Spanish.

"Señor," one of the vendors said finally, barely managing to keep a straight face, "forgive me, but I do not think you are saying what you think you are saying. 'Un pollo' means 'chicken,' but 'una polla' is...it is a rather vulgar word for...something else..."

"Wait a moment," said Alicia, her eyes lighting up. Her Spanish was not very good, but she could put two and two together from context, "did my father just ask you how much the penis with rice costs?"

The vendor managed a brief nod before he burst out laughing. A lesser man might have been horribly embarrassed by this encounter, but Uncle Pete laughed so hard that he cried. The vendor—a man named Luis—ended up giving us all free bread with alioli, declaring we were his favorite customers this week.

In the afternoon, Katie, Angelina, Alicia, and I went with Aunt Lynn and Mrs. Jordan on what proved to be another fruitless search for that antique shop that Aunt Lynn had heard about from Mum. We ended up getting lost in the historical district for over an hour, but we found a bakery that sold greixonera and ensaïmadas that practically melted in our mouths and I found a yellow sarong that made me seem like a proper adult who knows how to pack for the beach, so the excursion wasn't a total failure.

We returned to the hotel around four and had an early dinner at five. And then we returned to our rooms so that we could prepare to go out.

To a nightclub.

I had resigned myself to the fact that I would likely have to go to a nightclub or three while we were visiting Las Ballenas. I had made an agreement with Alicia: I would be a good sport and go along if I didn't have to kiss a stranger or drink some sort of overly fancy drink from a vessel that was not normally used for drinking.

Alicia said that I was overreacting and that no reasonable person would make me do either of those things anyway. I was somewhat skeptical, but decided I would take her at her word—not that I really had a choice about it.

While Las Ballenas was very trendy, most of the nightclubs had embraced a sort of casual, beachy dress code that meant that I could get away with a slightly dressy tank top, shorts, and strappy sandals (though I suspected that I would regret the sandals by the end of the evening). I made an attempt at a smoky eye, mucked it up, scrubbed my face and started over, mucked it up again, and finally made Alicia do it because this was all her idea anyway.

I thought that I was doing a decent job at hiding my true feelings about this excursion until we met the others in the lobby. Katie took one look at me and immediately started laughing.

"Oh, Maggie," she said, pulling me into a hug. "You poor thing, you really are a dear."

"There's a reason the Sorting Hat put me in Hufflepuff and that reason is because I am frightfully dull," I said, trying to sound more at ease with my conspicuous dissimilarities than I actually felt. "I promise I won't be a spoilsport."