In the afternoon, Estrella Berrocal was dragged by Adán Rouco on a two-kilometer run and returned covered in sweat.
After a shower, I sat in front of my easel, thinking about the design, and my mind went blank for a while.
When Adán Rouco came out of the bathroom, he found the little woman sitting in front of the easel with her hair wet, the window still open and blowing, he took a hairdryer and stood behind her.
“You just got out of the month and you’re not afraid you’ll get a headache after washing and blowing out your hair?”
Estrella Berrocal listened to his chatter with some amusement: “How come you’re like Felipa, who talks all day about how her head hurts from drying her hair with wet hair”.
Adán Rouco turned on the hair dryer, tested the temperature with his hands and then stood behind Estrella Berrocal, grabbing her hair and blowing it out.
Previously, Estrella Berrocal used to cut her hair short and now that she hasn’t cut it for a few months, it has grown back to her shoulders.
Adán Rouco looked at the blank pages of his drawing board and asked nonchalantly, “Haven’t you thought of a new design yet?”
“I used to just draw randomly when I was inspired, but now that I’m really in the final round, with a purpose, I don’t know what to draw instead. And something like a wedding dress, itself is not like everyday clothes, the style is so varied, the design of the wedding dress can only be changed in the details … But I haven’t thought about what kind of detail changes to make.”
Adam Rouco frowned slightly, thinking his idea was a bit limited, and suggested, “Have you ever thought of designing a niche wedding dress, just for a certain group of people?”
Estrella Berrocal froze, thought for a few seconds and turned her head to look at Adán Rouco: “You mean there are too many designs for a popular wedding dress and you want me to create a different one that no one has designed before? This way, could I make it to the finals?”.
Adán Rouco is objective in his assessment: “Although the act of innovating may sometimes seem dangerous, the act of silently adhering to stereotypes is actually more dangerous”.
Estrella Berrocal nodded, agreeing with him, but fell into a different distress, “But this particular group of people, what group is it?”
“Girls, don’t you all want to be slim before you want to wear a wedding dress? But there must be a lot of fat girls who can’t lose weight, are there any wedding dresses …”
Before Adán Rouco finished speaking, Estrella Berrocal was inspired and said excitedly “What you mean is that you have to design a wedding dress for a fat girl, which is especially slimming and covers the flesh, so that even if you can’t lose weight before the wedding, you can wear a beautiful wedding dress to the wedding. Most of the wedding dresses out there are quite fussy, even if they are custom-made, plus size is not too friendly for fat girls, so if I design this wedding dress, if I can reduce the body shape requirements and at the same time make it aesthetically pleasing, it will definitely be very marketable.”
The man’s big hand, stroking his little head, congratulated him, “A child can be taught.”
Once Adán Rouco finished drying Estrella Berrocal’s hair, he put the dryer away and went to lie down on the bed, where Estrella Berrocal sat drawing for more than an hour at her drawing table.
Adán Rouco scanned his phone to check that it was half past eleven before getting out of bed and taking the little woman, who was engrossed in drawing her designs, back to bed.
“I haven’t finished painting…”
“You won’t be able to finish your painting tonight even if you don’t sleep, so go to bed first, get enough sleep to freshen up and then continue tomorrow.”
Estrella Berrocal reached out and wrapped her arms around Adán Rouco’s neck, burying her face in his neck and rubbing it. “Adán, I am so happy to be with you.”
Adán Rouco hugged her, kissed her forehead and closed his eyes without speaking again.
…
During the week, Estrella Berrocal was busy drawing designs and spoke relatively little with Adán Rouco, and even less intimately.
Once Estrella Berrocal had finished her drawings, she contacted the tailor for a sample of the dress, and got the final dress made on Thursday afternoon.
When I went to pick up my wedding dress, I met Ricardo Prats on this street.
Of course, they haven’t seen each other in a while, and Ricardo Prats is still as vibrant and youthful as when they first met.
When Lucio had his full moon reception, the Prats family came, as did Perla Prats, and she took the opportunity to reconcile with Perla Prats, but Ricardo Prats did not come.
The motives are not something Estrella Berrocal has thought deeply about, nor does she want to find out.
Unashamed of this encounter, Estrella Berrocal asked, clutching her wedding dress in her hands, “Ricardo, what are you doing here, too?”
“Oh, I’m here too, to collect design samples.”
“What a coincidence, I also came to collect design samples.”
Ricardo Prats laughed and said, “We’re in the same design contest, I think.”
After some small talk, Estrella Berrocal kindly said, “Then you have to come when little Dulcina has her birthday reception.”
I’m afraid I can’t. Star, I…”
Estrella Berrocal seemed to realize what she was going to say and spoke in a hurry: “That, it’s getting late, next time you are free to play at home, I have to go home”.
“I’ll take you.”
“No, I…”
Ricardo Prats looked at the time on his watch, yanked open the door and said, “My brother-in-law is not due home from work at this hour and it is not very convenient to take a cab with such a heavy wedding dress in your arms, get in and I’ll take you home.”
Estrella Berrocal did not say no again, and there was a moment of silence as she got into the car.
Ricardo Prats was the first to break the silence: “It’s only been a year, more or less, but I always feel like I’ve been away”.
It has been almost two years since she and Adán met again, Paulita is in her first year and they have Lucio.
“Yes, it’s been a while, how have you been?”
“What’s good for me has always been so. And you, how’s it going with my brother-in-law?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Ricardo Prats laughed again to himself and wondered, “How stupid of me to ask, you and my brother-in-law must be very happy, otherwise how could you have had a second child so soon?”
“Ricardo …”
“Star, you’re right, and so is my brother-in-law, I was the one you always unilaterally liked in the first place, and I even caused you trouble. But I never understood why you liked my brother-in-law. It always seemed to me that, although my brother-in-law was quite nice, he had a very shady character and the average girl would have a hard time getting along with him, and I was curious how you could fall in love with my brother-in-law.”
Speaking of Adán Rouco, Estrella Berrocal, with a bit of tenderness in her eyes, curved her lips and smiled: “It is true that Adán Rouco has a bad temper, one could even say sometimes that he has a bad temper, and indeed he is difficult to get along with, but…. he left me his patience and his good character. So, no matter how grumpy people outside think he is, he has always tolerated my shortcomings, and with him I am very relaxed, I don’t need to think too much, it’s probably the feeling that you don’t need to carry your brain when you go out, and you don’t need to look at the lampposts when you cross the street.”
“But if you were with me, I could have done the same thing, but why…”
Estrella Berrocal laughed lightly, “It’s unlikely that the two of us will get married even if we are together.”
“Why?”
“I’m not one to think much about these things, but yesterday this suddenly occurred to me. You remember when I was in Paris, there were days when I said I was fat and wanted to lose weight, and you were with me for three days on a diet, and we both ended up not being able to keep it, and I was very excited that you were with me, but I was not happy because the diet was not really good. But when I’m with Adam Rouco, he doesn’t diet with me, he buys me good food and makes sure I’m hungry, but if I want to lose weight, he goes training with me and enjoys the food, doesn’t starve me and gets in shape. That’s probably the real reason I fell in love with Adam Rouco. “