I’ll never forget when you introduced me to your dad, remember? He puffed up like a priest and said, “Kids, love isn’t an easy thing and shouldn’t be treated as such. Just try to be nice to each other. Amen.” I think he hated me in the end. He never joked around with me ever again. He must have thought I was a whore. But I’ll always remember him affectionately.
I don’t want to treat something that isn’t easy as if it were. Until not long ago I used to dream I had fish hooks caught in my throat, and now I feel them when I’m awake. But that’s precisely why I believe we should do everything we can to ease the burden. I miss you. Stay in touch. And take care. Love, Viv
* June 23, 2008. Worst hangover ever. My driving test is today…. Before he left, I said I was going to show him something that no one could see and took him into the corridor to the dressing room to show him the girls’ mural. The girls hang things on it that make them remember why they are working there. There are photos of their kids, a key ring from New York, a lottery ticket. Márcia wants to be a flight attendant, so she put a picture of a plane there. Some things are hard to understand: a woman’s leather glove, a silver ring with a skull on it, and there’s one girl who always pins up a blue butterfly, and it stays there till it’s all dry, and then she always replaces it with another one exactly the same. I don’t know where she gets them. I told him that looking at the mural every day helps us feel a little better. Then he asked what my thing was, and I was so embarrassed ’cause I’d forgotten to pin something up there. I’ve never managed to choose the right thing to hang there. I like to look at what the other girls have put there. If they can achieve their goals, so can I. So he took a piece of paper out of his pocket, a pamphlet for a tour company that offers boat rides in the beach town where he lives, and folded it so all you could see was a photo of a beautiful beach, and he told me to hang it there as a reminder to call and visit him sometime. I told him again that I don’t mix work with pleasure, but I left it there for the time being, to give him a bit of an ego boost. I think I’ll take it down today…. I don’t know what came over me, but I asked him to promise never to go back there or to go to that kind of place ever again. Funny thing is, he actually promised. As if!..
* Hey, fish. You asked for a photo of me, but I’m sending one of the two of us, because I want you to remember your own face too whenever you want to remember mine. You’re very good-looking, and I reckon you know it. I’m helping my mother out in the restaurant while I decide what to do with my life. The curse of the treasure hasn’t caught up with me (I hope!). I’m working on a proposal to try for a master’s in Rio de Janeiro. I’m resigning myself to being alone and hoping it doesn’t take you long to find the person you’re looking for. I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I hope you don’t hold it against me. I adored being part of your life. I hope Beta is well and running on the beach with you. I like remembering how you took care of her. Put this photo of us somewhere safe. xxx J.
* By Raimundo Fagner and Antônio Carlos Belchior.
* By Leopoldo Rassier.