3 Mama Torito

At her wedding, Eugenia Díaz envisioned herself twenty years into her future: imagining a family gathering in a park, perhaps a quinceañera, her sitting in an expensive, foldable armchair that maybe one of her sons had bought for her, shelling peas, no, gambas, yes, shelling expensive fresh prawns from the market stalls along the shorefront; wiping the greasy shell residue from her fingers onto her apron and tossing the white and pink prawn meat into a silver bowl; chatting to a toddler, one of her many grandchildren no doubt; watching teenagers (her elder grandchildren), chase each other through the park trees; her sons nattering, possibly arguing a little with their wives; her only daughter over by the picnic table, setting up plates with one hand and beaming at her, nursing her baby against her hip, sun behind them all. This was her life: the matriarch at the center of a large Venezuelan family, surrounded by love and the family that she had built. Her own parents had died young. She had never known them, and she was shuttled off to her only aunt who, when Eugenia was nineteen, moved to Mexico with an American woman, and who would write letters every Christmas  and Semana Santa, which was usually on or close to Eugenia’s  birthday, but would never call. So this quinceñera was her  accomplishment. She had invested in loving her family so much  that their family bonds grew strong: they were a tribe, and she was at the center of it.

She probably should have thought twice about why her  husband, Ignacio Palacios, did not feature prominently in that  idyllic picnic scene of twenty years hence. It would seem that the missing husband was the only prescient aspect of her wedding  day fantasy. Shortly after the birth of her firstborn and only  son, Ángel, Ignacio declared (lacklusterly, Eugenia thought) his  undying love for the bar owner on their street corner and he  moved in with her. For the next ten years, as Ángel grew into  an inquisitive and excitable boy with wide brown eyes, plump, rose lips, smooth caramel skin and impressive dimples, Eugenia  Díaz Palacio walked her son to and from school each day, out  of the corner of her eye seeing Ignacio sitting on the bar terrace,  eyes following her and her unbeknownst son up and down the  street, at times looking perhaps curious about them, other times disgusted, either with them or himself, Eugenia did not know.

Her aunt died in a motorcar accident shortly after Ángel  turned ten, leaving Eugenia with an inheritance that she spent  on relocating. To Barcelona. The one in Spain, not the one in  Venezuela.

One evening, in late May, she had been walking Ángel home from school as usual, him holding her hand tightly while  giving her a detailed description of everything that all of his best friends had done and everything they had said throughout  the day. From a sideways glance as they turned onto their street,  Eugenia could see Ignacio as he sat on the bar terrace. As they  passed, Ignacio stood and Eugenia’s breath fluttered, her heart  sped up, her skin burned and released a light sweat. From her  peripheral vision, it looked like he was going to call out to her.  Eugenia pulled her shoulder blades together, pushing her breasts  out in a posture that was equal parts Coraima Torres and the Alexander Technique. She prepared herself to ignore whatever  his first words to her in ten years were going to be. Instead, she saw him move to the edge of the low terrace wall of the bar and  watched him projectile spit onto the road. She couldn’t say for  sure that it was some symbolic act directed at her, but the rage  she felt was intense and limitless. She knew then that she could  spend the next eight years of her son’s life seething with anger every time they turned the corner onto their street, or every time they left the house to head out.

Her son was a such a bright spirit, playful and charming, that  she feared that by the time he was an adult, she would have  taught him her depth of hatred if he had to see her like this  every day. Tia Miriam’s money had arrived a week earlier so that evening, Eugenia made calls and booked the Barcelona  flights and some accommodation. The boy’s teacher’s sister had  a former neighbour who lived in Barcelona and was happy to  help them get settled. All of the teachers and administrators at  Ángel’s school were more than willing to do what they could for Ángel, and, by extension, for Eugenia. Eugenia was not foolish  enough to think this was some sort of pity support for her  estranged status, although enough members of their community  knew the backstory there, and she had heard through one of  the other children’s mother’s nannies that neither Ignacio nor  the bartender were welcome to shop at the main street farmacia  unless they had a prescription to fill, instead having to go to  the one on the other side of town if they wanted anything else  from the drug store. It was not even pity for Ángel that made everyone so willing to do what they could. Eugenia was sure  it was the way her son responded whenever anything good  happened to him. His smile would widen, revealing his bright  white, perfect teeth, his eyes would glisten with a moist dew, his dimples would sparkle. People would splutter and stutter,  tripping over themselves to please him again so they could catch  another burst of that joy radiating from him. His obliviousness  to his impact on others only added to his beauty.

On the way to the airport, and for the ten hour flight to Barcelona, Ángel cried the entire distance, preemptively  missing the ruptured friendships that he had not even had time yet to notice were gone. Flight attendants, shopkeepers, other travelers, everyone that passed Ángel’s path rushed forward  to try to alleviate his suffering, all broken-hearted that such  a beautiful boy could be in distress. Ángel did not notice the  offers of comfort, focused as he was on sobbing and replaying an internal film reel of his friends receding into the distance,  leaving him on his own.

When they finally arrived in Barcelona, as the taxi ferried  them into the Poble Sec district where Ángel’s teacher’s sister’s  former neighbour had rented them an apartment, Ángel looked  up and saw the towers of Plaza Espanya, the cultural museum  on the Montjuic hillside beyond that, showbiz-style premiere torches lighting it up and traveling out into the stars above. As they passed, a fountain sprayed up jets of water in a panoply of  colored lights and mist. Ángel’s sobbing stopped suddenly as he became enthralled by his new city home, old friends forgotten and left ten hours and halfway round the world behind.

Eugenia Díaz Palacio acclimated well to the Catalan and Spanish communities. She sat a little taller whenever anyone  mistook her for Spanish rather than Venezuelan, which  happened often, but only really when Ángel was present and when she had been seen idolizing her son, doting on his meals,  or deeply concentrating on his teenage blather, for Ángel was  a bit of a talker and enjoyed relaying the minutiae of his days’  events to his adoring mother. Eugenia had a permanent job as a  secretary at an accounting and legal office near the Sant Antoni market, but she had made few friends apart from Montse, the caretaker in their building, with whom Eugenia would have  weekly coffees on Sunday mornings while Ángel played football  at the Satalia campgrounds on the side of the mountain.

One evening as she was preparing to leave work, her boss,  Ricard Muntaner, mentioned that his husband was away in  the south of Spain, visiting his family, and without thinking,  Eugenia invited Ricard to dinner for a home cooked meal.

Tonight Eugenia was planning to cook arepas, as she had  prepared the dough the previous night, but she did a quick  calculation in her head and knew there was minced meat, carrots  and stock at home, so she decided wordlessly on the spot to cook  albondigas, preferring to serve up the more traditional Spanish  meatballs to her guest than her homeland fare.

Ricard was a tall, broad-shouldered man, himself originally  from Girona, who had moved to Barcelona to attend  university some twenty years ago. Eugenia had always found  him to be a distinguished gentleman. His dark black and  streaked grey hair was always perfectly combed and styled, his  eyes were bright, and his skin immaculate. He clearly enjoyed  sports of some type: his neatly pressed business shirts always  tapered at the waist to better bring definition to his muscled  torso, tightening at the sleeves to show the strength of his arms,  and the shirt yoke sat neatly across his shoulders to accentuate  the broadness of his back.

Ricard gave a slight smile, warm and personal, when Eugenia  finally offered the invitation and he accepted immediately.  When they arrived at Eugenia's home, Ricard excused himself to use the bathroom, which is when Ángel returned from school. He immediately launched into the rundown of his day, working backwards to share what he did on the way home first. Eugenia  was used to this backwards timeline: usually by the end of  dinner, when Ángel had exhausted the more interesting (to him)  points of his day, he would scan over the earlier hours and start  briefing his mother on the lesser important events until he had  reached back as far as the morning when they had parted ways,  him leaving for high school when his friend Bernat had buzzed at their apartment, without coming up.

Today, Ángel was recounting a conversation he and Bernat  had had on the way home when Ricard entered the living room  from the bathroom. Eugenia was in the kitchen at the time,  rolling the meatballs into small spheres and coating them in flour, but had been listening to her son as he called out from the  other room. She knew exactly when Ricard must have entered the room, as Ángel’s story silenced as if Eugenia has suddenly  lost her hearing. She wiped her hands hurriedly on her tea towel  and rushed to introduce them.

“Ángel.” She declared. “This is Señor Muntaner. From the office.” She watched as her son stood there, his mouth still slightly open as if he had lost his voice mid sentence. She looked  at Ricard. A slight smirk on his face. His eyes welcomed Ángel into his outstretched hand. The two shook hands, and Eugenia  beamed with joy at how adult her now-seventeen year old son suddenly appeared to her, no longer that sobbing ten year old,  scared of traveling to a new country and a new life. There was  another beat of silence before Ricard finally spoke. “Please, call  me Ricard. A pleasure to meet you. Your mother says you are excellent at football?”

Ángel’s mouth was still open and it was as if he heard the  words, but did not understand the language. He looked to  Eugenia as an anchor. She was still beaming her love at him.  He soaked it in for a moment, as if standing in warm sunlight,  and, energised by her, he nodded slowly, wet his lips carefully  and looked up at Ricard. “We play more of a friendly game  than competition.” He paused as if searching for an exit hole in one of the walls of the room so that he could climb backwards out through it.

Eugenia watched the scene, beginning to get slightly  disturbed. Her son was so charming, if anything he normally  threw people off with his attentiveness and immediate, unfeigned interest in them, keen to deepen a conversation  first about them, but eventually swinging it back around as he  captivated his audience and was able to talk about himself. Right  now, Eugenia thought, he was coming off as slightly rude. “Do  you play?” He suddenly blurted, as if he had just remembered to volley the conversation back to Ricard. Relieved to see her  son gain composure, Eugenia returned to the kitchen to prepare  their dinner, one ear cocked towards the living room, confused  when she did not hear more followup questions or a bubble of  discussion between the two men while she finished cooking.

In fact, that whole night, Ángel was the quietest Eugenia had ever seen him. He seemed to lack the usual confidence and grace he had, dropping his fork at one point, eating silently while  staring at his plate, only glancing up occasionally to monitor  Ricard.

For Eugenia, the night was uncomfortable. She had been  wanting to impress her boss by showing what a mature son she had but instead, Ángel seemed childlike, withdrawn and quiet,  although she noticed he did not excuse himself at any stage, and he closely watched each of Ricard’s movements until, after  dessert flan, Ricard thanked her again, and, before he left,  shook hands with Ángel (for several seconds, Eugenia counted,  the two of them looking at each other silently and Ángel not  letting his hand drop out of the man’s warm hold).

Before Ángel or Eugenia had even heard the building door  at the bottom of the outside stairs open and shut, as they could usually hear after the rare departure of a guest, Ángel had  quietly left to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. Eugenia cleared the table, muddling through a confusion she  was only just starting to piece together. She headed to Ángel’s  bedroom door, keen to ask him what he had made of the evening,  when she could hear some scurrying from inside his room. She  guessed he was shadow playing at football, as he used to do  when he was younger, him imagining dribbling a ball between  his feet, making little criss-cross steps forwards and back. There  was some sort of movement inside his room and Eugenia could  hear her son’s breath getting louder, gruntier, and she thought she heard him breath in sharply, or whisper “Si!” to himself. She  left him in peace, tiptoeing away from his door.

One and a half months later, Eugenia planned another  dinner, deciding a respectable amount of time had passed, and  again when Ricard’s husband had had to return to visit ailing  family in southern Spain. The weekend prior, she had bought  her son a new pair of football shorts, ones that were perhaps a  size too small, so that they displayed more of his almost hairless,  tan, muscled legs, and that spread the football shorts fabric tort against his buttocks. She bought him a new jersey to go with  it, again, perhaps a size too small, so that the sleeves gripped his arms and when he stood, it would ride up slightly, allowing  glimpses of his flat stomach and the curved bones at either side  of his pelvis. The jersey was a deep green that accentuated his  silken brown hair and his sparkling eyes. Casually, Eugenia  suggested he wear the new clothes to football training on  the Tuesday evening. That same night, she invited Ricard to  dinner, who happily accepted, having started a new ritual over  the past weeks of always asking Eugenia how her son was doing  when he arrived in the morning.

Ricard was explaining, from the living room, his husband’s  mother’s sister’s sickness when she could hear the key in the  front door and Ángel enter the room. This time, it was Ricard’s  sudden silence that marked the meeting between the two men.  Eugenia’s heart beat faster and her ears tightened as she strained  to hear, from the kitchen, how the two were approaching each  other. She counted slowly to ten, forcing herself not to rush into  the room. As she turned to leave the kitchen, she grabbed her  purse from the countertop and made a big show of jingling her  keys as she walked into the living room. For a second she saw  how the two were simply just staring at each other, Ángel with  lips slightly parted, Ricard with his smirk.

“I need to buy peppers,” Eugenia spoke to the wall in  front of her, giving time for the two to break free from their  frozen stares and to take up more casual everyday stances. The  two murmured something, almost in unison, to indicate they understood and Eugenia looked at her son, trying to make eye  contact. He smiled and nodded at her, suddenly stretching as if  giving into a yawn, his jersey riding up as he did so, showing a  light patch of hair trailing up from his tight shorts to his navel,  smooth tan skin suddenly exposed. Eugenia thought she heard  Ricard gulp a breath of excited air but she did not turn to look,  pulling the front door behind her and trying to rush down the  stairs as quickly as possible so she could slam the front building  door to give a clear announcement to her son that his mother had left the building and would not be interrupting for at least  ten minutes.

She walked around the block and was about to return when  she realized she had not bought the peppers that she didn’t need,  so it was almost a full twenty minutes before she put the key  loudly in the apartment door and started fake coughing as she entered their home. Ricard was sitting on the couch, scrolling  through his phone, his tie now taken off and lying beside him.  Ángel was absent but Eugenia could hear the shower running  and the bathroom door was closed.

Ricard never asked her how her son was doing again. After Ángel finished high school, he announced he had  found a job at a men’s clothing store, El Toro. Eugenia looked  it up online. It was a fetishwear store for men, selling leather harnesses, something called “sportskit” which looked to  Eugenia like her son’s football outfits (but often in latex and  faux leather fabrics), tank tops, and more short shorts (which  reminded Eugenia of the ones she had bought her son two years earlier). Eugenia’s work finished at 7pm while Ángel normally  worked until 8. On Thursdays, Eugenia would proudly march  from her workplace in Sant Antoni to El Toro in L’Eixample  and pick her son up from work.

The first time she arrived, she worried her son would be  embarrassed by her entrance. So as she entered the store, she pressed her palms together in front of her chest, pulled herself  up like Caraima Torres about to confront a cheating lover, and  stood for a second in the front corner of the shop, surveying the  surrounds and trying to watch her son without provoking his  attention just yet. It was unsuccessful. As if sensing her arrival,  Ángel looked up at her, his wide smile appearing instantly, and  he proudly motioned her over, while also striding towards her.

After a kiss on each check, Ángel turned and introduced  her to his bosses, Carl and Sting, a fortysomething gay punk-looking couple who owned this store, and others in Madrid  and the Canary Islands. Eugenia tried to nod curtly and thanked the men for employing her son. She graciously accepted when they asked to take her on a tour through the shop’s two levels,  murmuring with enthusiasm when they pointed to the locally  designed polo shirts, the quality leather accessories, and the dungeon-like decor. The owners took pictures of Eugenia and  Ángel together in front of the shop. Eugenia stood on one side  of the store signage and her son, in the store’s clothing of latex  polo and faux leather short shorts, crouched on the other. They  posted it to their store pixelfed account and Eugenia later  downloaded the app and started following the store account, checking frequently to see the updated tally of likes the photo  had received.

From then on, every Thursday, Eugenia would visit the store at  8 pm to collect her son, allowing the owners to walk her through  and show her any new clothing designs or store upgrades,  always with her cooing an impressed hum in congratulations.  Occasionally, there would be a customer trying on an item, and Eugenia would tell them they looked very masculine, or that  they should try the blue harness instead of the black one. When  one customer pointed out that blue was traditionally for bottoms,  Eugenia nodded and said proudly that her son wore blue all the  time. The customer returned to the changeroom, but Eugenia  noticed he had picked up a blue harness as he had entered. She  later suggested he buy wrist cuffs as well. After the customer left  the store with two bags of items, Carl and Sting both started  speaking at once: an imbroglio of celebratory, thrilled chatter, four arms reaching out around Eugenia, then hugging Ángel,  the two owners babbling excitedly at each other.

After just over a year working at the store, Ángel announced  the owners had offered him a modelling role, where he would  showcase a new season of clothing, branded El Torito, aimed at  a younger demographic. The next day, she proudly announced  her son’s latest success to everyone at work, but her skin tingled  with a needle-like, metallic heat when, after her announcement,  Ricard casually mentioned that Ángel had already shown him  the modelling contract and sought out his counsel.

Eugenia tried to dismiss her worries that her son was turning to someone other than herself for advice, and that night, as she  cooked dinner, she leaned in eagerly to listen to his daily rundown  of everything Carl and Sting and the other sales staff had said,  and what Ángel thought of each of the customers who had  visited the store that day. She lost herself in reliving the day with  her son, sometimes picturing the events as he described them,  other times just floating along with his voice, bobbing up and  down in the wave of his storytelling as it got more animated or  more mundane, depending on his interest in his own narration.

When the new promotional photographs were taken for El  Torito, Eugenia again stood on one side of the store signage,  with Ángel again crouching on the other. This time, between  them was a giant poster stickered to the storefront glass. It showed her son in a fluorescent harness and, of course, short  shorts (these ones in neoprene), long football socks, and a cheeky  sneer, as if inviting the viewer to play a game with him.

Eugenia beamed for the camera, and over the next week,  she would regularly check her pixelfed to see the number of  likes and the hasthtagged references to her as #madreorgulla  and #mamatorito. She opened a new pixelfed account and changed her account name to @mamatorito, and quickly saw  her follower numbers grow as she reposted her archive of photos  from visiting the store to her new account. Carl and Sting both  followed her and, she was pleasantly surprised to notice, so did  Ricard.

Ángel had chosen, all this time, to live at home. Moving out  had not yet been discussed as a possible scenario and Ángel had  never been one of those boys who started sentences speaking of  a future in terms of “When I live on my own,” or “When I live  with my friends…” But shortly after his twenty-second birthday,  he came home one day, fidgety and non-communicative. As a  talker and day-regaler, always arriving home with a narrative  of his day’s events for his mother, Eugenia classed non communicative as being any time that Ángel would ramble in  half completed anecdotes, never really finishing any one story  before moving onto another incident and then trailing off again.

Eugenia had first noticed this coyness in the weeks after  Ricard had come for dinner the second time. Ángel’s after  school routine became sporadic for several months, and his  stories didn’t flow chronologically backwards as Eugenia was used to. At the time, she had become so worried that one evening  when Ángel arrived home late from school again, she rushed to  the front door, hugging him tightly as he entered the apartment,  as if having her son clutched securely in her arms would push out her worries of him distancing himself from her. As she hugged him, her body relaxed by itself, his smell reminded her of something new, yet familiar and comforting, and she wasn’t  able to place it until the next day, when at work, Ricard leaned over her desk and his aftershave brought her memory back to  her son’s hug the previous day. That night, again home late from  football practice, Eugenia noticed the story gaps anew, the odd way he would start on anecdotes and then let them drift off,  starting a new one from earlier in the day after another few bites of his dinner.

After starting work at El Toro, Ángel was often out late on Friday or Saturday nights (but never both), and she again noticed  the pockmarked regaling, some hours here and there missing, or stories half-told. It ceased to worry her and now caused her a little chuckle when it happened. Along with his blue harness, it was her son’s most obvious ‘tell’.

But this night, Ángel had arrived home directly from work to tell stories of his day and, as if approaching some event, he would then stop, seeing the cliff he was just about to jump off,  and then back away again. Tonight, Eugenia sensed, Ángel was circling around telling her about something, fighting internally his desire (on one hand) to tell his maternal confidante, with his preference (on the other hand) to keep it to himself. She did not insist, but instead went to the supermarket to buy dorada to bake Ángel’s favorite fish, which was usually the easiest way to get  him to reveal anything when he was trying to avoid telling her something. Several times, as she shopped, she fought back tears, searching her mind for someone she could talk to and constantly imagining her aunt, which turned her sadness to redhot anger,  furious at the woman who had abandoned her first for Mexico,  and then again several years later, for the afterlife.

Eugenia knew again she did not want to bring this sadness, or her anger, into her home with her son, so she walked on until the energy of the emotions subsided and she returned home to cook.

After Ángel demolished the plate of fish, and both a flan and a yoghurt for dessert, it seemed he was finally ready to tell her. “Alberto Suarez came to the shop today to see me,” Ángel told  her. Eugenia sat patiently, she knew that he knew that she didn’t know who Alberto Suarez is. “Alberto makes… films.” Ángel kept alternating between spooning out the creamy remnants of the yoghurt container and the creamy remnants of the flan tub. Eugenia’s entire body shivered slightly, as the tension she hadn’t realized she had been storing, holding herself in against whatever she thought he would say, was released. She cleared the table, knowing best to wait. Her silence goaded him on. “He asked me to be in his next movie,” Ángel explained it as a question, his voice inflecting upwards to sound like ‘next movie?’ Was her son asking her for permission? She decided to grant it in any case.

“I’m so proud of you, you will captivate the audience!” She declared, rising tall above the dinner table as she collected the plates, a proud display of confidence in her son’s as-yet untested  acting abilities.

Ángel smiled up at her, the stressed brow lifted, and his eyes sparkling again with love and admiration for her. She soaked in his stare and fed it back to him, glowing her love at him.

After he had left for bed, Eugenia searched her pixelfed feed for Alberto Suarez but when there were too many to be  found, she instead looked on the official El Toro pixelhead account and  scanned the followers there. Again, it was too long a list and  Eugenia tsked herself for not thinking earlier: she merely went through the shop’s feed, scanning the events of that day, looking  through the social media version of Ángel’s backwards anecdote chronology until she found a photo of Carl and Sting, Ángel, and another staff member, all posing with a large bearded man. The photo caption referenced @SuarezStudio. Eugenia followed  the rabbit hole to an account with handsome, near naked latin men, in couples and threesomes, hugging and kissing each other. Some photos showed a younger guy wrapping his arms  around the thick hairy legs of a beefier man, another with a boy  around Ángel’s age with his arms pinned together behind his  back, again, by a muscled, hairy, older man. Each image was  listed with a caption: “Check out the new scene from “Metirlo en yo!”, or “Just finished filming @SuarezStudio’s latest release, #CabronesDeCalidad”.

Eugenia scrolled up and down the account, her fingers  lingering over certain images as she imagined her son as the younger man in each. She checked the number of followers that Alberto had acquired, and started counting through the accounts of the actors from his studio to see how many followers  each of them had, and then she checked which actors Ricard, Carl and Sting followed amongst them all.

The next morning she woke early and prepared breakfast for her son. She suggested she would discuss the need for a new film contract with Ricard, if her son was comfortable with that. Her heart beat a little faster as she prepared for her son telling her  he had already discussed it with her boss, but instead he nodded quickly, a smile rapidly blooming across his face, understanding  that the offer meant his mother approved of the film deal.

“But I am wondering if you could discuss something with  Señor Suarez,” Eugenia asked, trying to sound as casual as possible. Her son stared at her, his eyes fluttering left to right and back again, as if in his mind he was trying to calculate longhand all the possible topics his mother and Alberto could  discuss.

After pausing long enough to make Ángel think that she was  going to suggest a list of restrictions on Ángel’s emergent film  career, Eugenia finally blurted out: “Do you think there could be a small role for me?” Ángel’s mouth opened and closed, his brow and eyes now bunched up again, him trying to understand if his mother knew the types of films she had tacitly given permission for him to be in. Eugenia held her ground, wordlessly trying to evoke a sense of innocence and wisdom at the same time. She hoped her body language conveyed that she knew what she was asking, but at the same time, that it was an ordinary enough request.

Given that it was a Thursday, Eugenia passed by her son’s work at 8pm that evening, where her son was waiting at the door, ready to introduce her to Alberto Suarez. Eugenia could see Carl and Sting behind the store counter, pretending to be busy tidying up papers and hanging samples back on coat hangers, but glancing over every few seconds to gauge what was happening with their prize employee, his new director, and the mother that could possibly stand between them all.

Alberto smiled with all of his beard and strode towards her, arms outstretched as if ready to envelope her in a welcoming  introduction. Eugenia greeted him with equal warmth, tilting her head in a nod, as if the two were old acquaintances or, at least, as if they had been circling the same events and gatherings  for some time but were now being formally introduced.

Ángel looked on, mouth puckering open and closed, unsure whether to insert himself into their conversation and yet marveling at the way the two seemed to be playing out some private agreement where certain things would remain unsaid, but be taken for granted as if spoken. Before Ángel was fully aware of how it was happening, Alberto and Eugenia were already discussing the scene she would be playing at the start of the movie, and Sting and Carl were on either side of him, waiting for the two to shake hands or make some final motion  that negotiations were complete, so they could open the bottle of cava that Sting was carrying and pour it into the glasses that  Carl held.

Eugenia sensed the others hovering and turned to give them a small nod, while resting one of her hands gently on Alberto’s  forearm. The cava cork popped and again, the boys lit up their imbroglio of happy chatter while several of the other store employees with nothing to say murmured delightfully to add to the animated din.

The next week, Eugenia and Ángel went to SuarezStudio,  and from there they all took a private car together to a tourist apartment near Barceloneta beach. Eugenia had brought along some folders and binders, as she had agreed with Alberto, and had assured her son that she would be leaving after her filming shoot so he could concentrate on his starring role.

The premise was simple: Ángel would arrive at the tourist  apartment with Steve Palmer, a bulky tattooed Australian that Ángel had met on the street in front of the apartment Steve was staying at while visiting in Barcelona (Alberto explained that introductory scene would be shot later, after Eugenia’s cameo). Eugenia would welcome them in and give them their apartment  keys, and show them to their room.

As the lights shone on her, she leafed through one of the binders she had brought, as if searching for their booking and then picked up the key from her desk, where there was only one anyway, and led them to the room. She was expecting to have to repeat playing out the scene multiple times as after the first  take, Alberto said she needed to move just a little slower and not rush to the door so fast, so that the camera could linger on Steve looking surprised that him showing up with a younger man at his side was so accepted without comment by Eugenia. But after the second take, Alberto clapped energetically, stirring up the rest of the crew to join him so that everyone brava-ed and whistled at Eugenia. She took her cue, smiled with pursed lips, and again gave the curt nod she was by now perfecting, gathered up her binders and left, a final wink to Ángel as she stepped into the elevator and closed the doors.

Ángel returned home late that night, but Eugenia was still up and he excitedly told her in a (now customary) series of  unfinished half-stories how his day had transpired.

In the weeks that followed, Eugenia noticed that on the  Thursday when she visited now, it was not just Carl and Sting  that would greet here warmly. David, Fabrizio, Iñaki, and Todd would each eagerly hold the door open for her, marveled when she remembered their names. She saw Steve Palmer again in the store one time and laughed at his jokes, which, with the Australian accent coating his beginner-level Spanish, she had not properly understood.

They had filmed Ángel’s first scene in January, on a bright and sunny day, so that it looked like summer, as the film was  due for release just prior to June’s pride festivities in Barcelona. Each year, there was a parade and festival by the port or in their neighbourhood where they had first travelled by taxi through the Venetian Towers. Eugenia  had attended once several years earlier when Ángel was in El  Toro’s float, but had slipped away when the parade turned into a long series of speeches at the day’s end.

Now she had been asked by Alberto to attend the fair day afternoon, where there were stalls set up selling sunglasses, or rainbow flags, or encouraging sign ups to the gay sports clubs. Alberto was releasing his new film, Barcelona Bottom Boy, Eugenia beaming that her son was in the starring role.

She arrived mid afternoon. Fabrizio from El Toro, and Steve Palmer, were both the first to see her and rushed over, one on each side of her, and led her to a giant cane chair with cushions, which they explained Alberto had brought for her. Ángel arrived with Carl and Sting and the three came over and hugged her, kissing her cheeks, before needing to change into outfits for the video launch. Ricard arrived, curiously with Bernat, Ángel’s high school friend, and another man, whom Eugenia guessed was the husband. She watched as Ángel greeted each of them, perhaps shaking Ricard’s hand a little too formally, but then elbowing Bernat and whispering something in his ear that made Bernat blush and laugh nervously.

“I want to help,” Eugenia called to David, another of the store assistants, when he was passing her by, holding a silver bowl.  David looked over to Carl and Sting, looking for permission or guidance, but both were busy adjusting the harness on Ángel while smoothing down the straps of the assless shorts around his butt cheeks. With a shrug, David turned back to Eugenia.

“We need to put these promo cards into these condom packs,” David pointed to a stack of printed cards, announcing  the release of Barcelona Bottom Boy, sitting inside the bowl on top of a pile of small plastic bags that each contained a condom and a sachet of lube.

Eugenia beckoned him over, gesturing for the cautious shop boy to give her the bowl. “Thanks David, you go help Carl and  Sting.” She motioned with her head to where the shop owners were now helping Fabrizio into a puppy head costume.

Alberto arrived, stepping out of a shiny black jeep, and in one move, caught her eye, and mouthed gracias at her, with a bow of his head. Then he was instantly surrounded by assistants that Eugenia recognized from the film set.

Behind them all, the port was hued in a pink and blue dusk light, Eugenia watching as Ángel kept joking with Bernat, but occasionally looking over at her to beam her a smile, Ricard and his husband whispering at each other, possibly fighting, Carl and Sting organizing outfits for several boys and men, now helping Steve Palmer into a pair of tight leather pants, Alberto gesturing directions to his entourage, and calling out to Iñaki and Todd to help make sure the digital display could be on a continual loop once the film was launched.

As she watched all around her, Eugenia found a rhythm for her hands, opening each plastic bag, sliding in the card, then zipping the loc closed and grabbing another. It was an automatic rhythm: like cooking, like shelling peas, no, gambas. Like shelling prawns, here on the edge of the port, watching her son and all the men around her.