expect you tonight at nine. I'll bring the beer, you bring the girls! Oh, sorry. I always forget you're a queer. That means I'll settle for beer. Don't be late!
Good morning, Mr. Director. I hope the article it's fine. Otherwise, I'll replace it with a piece of news.
Manuel, I have a review tomorrow. Could I borrow your French dictionary?
Daisy read more messages. With each line, she felt the tears in her eyes rise.
"Well? Did you find something?"
Daisy couldn't respond quickly enough.
"I don't think… I don't…" she slurred, each syllable a painful lament.
"Daisy, are you all right?" worried Lorraine, seeing her pale, her lips trembling, foreshadowing a broken cry.
"The phone, I can't… I can't figure out who’s it is” she lied. "If you agree, I will hand it over to the principal” she proposed, the phrase broken by an inner hiccup.
The girls nodded with a distracted expression of who no longer thought it was their problem.
Daisy finished dressing. She greeted Lorena, who had an appointment with the boy, and headed for the locker room bathroom.
She looked in the mirror to brush her wet locks.
As she watched carefully, she became irritated with herself at the restlessness and suffering on her face.
Guido couldn't have been that important, especially now that he had turned out to be some kind of maniac. She didn't want to cry. That idiot did not deserve his tears. All he had to feel was a healthy pissing off with the bastard. Nothing more.
She put his gym bag over hes shoulder and walked out in slow steps, his phone tightly in his hands, with an overwhelming desire to throw it to the ground.
She walked down the driveway that separated the locker rooms from the school with his head down.
He watched the yellowed leaves rustling on the porphyry tiles. She was lost behind her thoughts, but sometimes she came to her senses, as confused as someone who does not know exactly where she is and where she is going. From
time to time, she simply responded to the greetings of the boys she met.
ʺHi Nico, yeah, that's good. Doesn't it look like it? I'm just worried… no, I'm not afraid to go on tv… ʺ
ʺMy hair? No, no gel, it's just wet…ʺ
ʺYes Rosy. See you at the course…ʺ
So he went back to being a stranger. As he walked down the avenue, he went back to the things he said in the locker room.
"They'll take us for whores … we would be disgraced for life."
"But no, you're more bitches than bitches" she said out loud, just to hear the concept ringing in his ears and be pleased with it. She had been irritated by the hypocrisy of her companions towards her, but at that moment she thought it was pointless to think of them. Now she had to focus on Guido.
She had promised to take the phone in the direction, but she was no longer so sure she wanted to.
ʺCome could she do something like that? Still, he doesn't look like a maniac. Which, however, is not at all reassuring. Usually it's the ones you think are shy and harmless that do these things” she thought.
He was coming out of the high school gate when he heard her voice.
ʺOh, shit she said to himself as he ran towards her with a serious face, as if tormented by anxiety and uncertainty.
"Daisy, I need to talk to you… wait… let me catch my breath” he said, short of breath and bent in two, his hands on his thighs to catch his breath. He took off his fogged-up glasses to clean the lenses, and when he slipped them on again, he saw Daisy's delicate hand holding his phone almost with disgust. She stared at him haughtily, surprised to feel a thrill of satisfaction at seeing his face become earthy.
"Now you're going to tell me you had nothing to do with it."
"It wasn't me. I swear it wasn't. I swear to God. On my family. On everything I hold most dear."
He remarked the expression “On everything I hold most dearʺ staring at her with an intense expression, as if the oath included her.
It seemed sincere to Daisy, but that was not enough to make the disgust she felt for him at that moment fade away. The situation was serious and required a hard, nasty, grudging attitude.
"Who says you're not a dirty peeping tom?" she asked furiously.
"Because I'm not." he defended himself.
"I don't believe you. You guys are all pigs. And you're probably the king of pigs." she said, slamming his cell phone into his hand.
"Daisy, listen…"
"We have nothing to say to each other” she exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Don't you understand? Someone has stolen my phone."
"They stole it! Ah, that's a good one" she interrupted him, waving her hand to end the conversation.
"Wait. Let me finish. Yes, it was stolen. But that's not the point. The point is, there's something weird about it. Look, I want to show you something" Guido slid the backpack straps off his shoulders, put it on the driveway bench, sat down and pulled out the computer.
"I had to write an article when you appeared on the screen" he exclaimed, turning on the computer.
"I saw you in the shower. I was confused and surprised. I thought of a thousand things. Even that you…" he interrupted, unsure whether to be completely honest.
"What did you think?" she replied furiously, sensing what she was implying.
"Okay. I'll tell you. Of all the things, I thought she filmed you on purpose."
"Are you kidding?" she exclaimed with disgust.
"Listen. I'm sure you had nothing to do with it. But think about it. How was I to know which shower room you'd get into? After practice, one usually slips into a cubicle on a random basis. There could be people coming in and out, hot water not working, a few broken pipes… too many surprises. So I'm wondering, did your friend film you? I don't believe that either. I'm guessing someone hid my phone somewhere. But how would they know where to point it? There's too many weird things. And that's not all yet…"
She interrupted him in amazement.
"Are you suggesting that I stole the phone myself to put it in the girls' shower just so you could jerk off?"
"No. I'm… I'm not saying that” he replied uncertainly.
"That's exactly what you're saying! You're trying to defend yourself by blaming me. But I'm not you, man. You're perverted on the inside. It's in your DNA. DNA that's miles of shit when you unroll it. You know what? I'm going to the principal. I'll tell him all about it and get you kicked out of school."
Daisy deviated from the gate that led to the exit and walked a long way down the courtyard avenue. She had let off steam. She had been impulsive, furious, pretending not to have heard Guido's explanation, when in fact she had been paying attention to every single word. Her reasoning was unmistakable. No one could know which shower cubicle she was going to wash herself in. But for some strange reason she had preferred to insult him rather than agree with him.
Daisy measured the steps that separated her from the answering machine door without knowing what to do. Behind the glass in the lobby, she noticed the secretary's cotton-clad hair. She did not know whether or not to report the incident. She pointed her glossy lacquer nail at the doorbell, hesitating whether to press the button.
She felt Guido's breath running out behind her, but he didn't turn around, remaining completely on his own.
"You didn't let me finish” he said, staring over her shoulder.
Guido looked pensively at the small, compact computer held in his hands.
"I wanted to tell you that a message came along with the film. A strange comment."
Daisy crossed her arms