Ana nodded sadly. ‘I know that I’ve lost all my friends. You sort of get used to just being on your own.’ She smiled. ‘After a while I kind of got to like it. You start relying on yourself, because you can’t rely on anyone else.’
‘Exactly right. But that’s why I love the internet. You can just be yourself, and nobody’s judging you. Nobody knows that you can’t hear them, cos you don’t need to. We could meet online in a chat room if you like.’ The idea seemed to excite him.
Ana’s smile faded and her eyes turned down towards the table.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘We don’t have internet at home.’
‘Oh.’ Sergio was crestfallen. ‘Maybe you could ask your dad?’
‘I don’t think he can afford it.’
‘Well, then, you’ll just have to come here three nights a week, and we can make this our real-life chat room.’ He grinned. ‘And I’ll teach you proper sign language.’
She pulled a face.
‘No, honestly, it’s good. When you get the hang of it you can really express yourself. You forget that you’re not actually speaking out loud.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ She paused. ‘Still not sure I’m coming back, though.’ She watched his face fall again – an odd expression, but for the first time she realized how apposite it was. His face really did fall, and she didn’t have the heart to keep playing hard to get. It made her laugh. ‘But if you ask nicely . . .’
His relief was patent, and he grinned. ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you out for tapas. I don’t just have to see you here.’
‘Woah!’ she raised her hands. ‘Not so fast. We just met, remember?’
‘Life’s too short for wasting time.’
‘Maybe. But it seems to me that you’re asking me out on a date when you really don’t know anything about me.’
‘Well, how am I going to get to know you if I don’t see you again?’
‘You can see me here.’
His face lit up. ‘You’re coming back then?’
She saw how he had trapped her into that. ‘I’ll think about it.’
He beamed. ‘Well, think about tapas, too. And maybe a beer. We don’t want to spend our whole time surrounded by a bunch of old deaf people.’
She laughed out loud. ‘One day, Sergio, we’ll be old deaf people, too.’ And she realized how much she liked saying his name, and how much she really did want to get to know him better. And she decided there and then that she would accept his offer to take her on a date. But she wouldn’t tell him just yet.
*
It was a couple of weeks before Ana plucked up the courage to tell her parents that she had been asked on a date by a young man at the centre. She needed a lift into Estepona. But she was completely unprepared for the reaction it provoked. She had been five times now to the centre, and on her previous visit had told Sergio that she would go for tapas with him.
It was a hot summer’s night. Her father sat at the table wearing only a singlet and shorts, the local newspaper open in front of him. A pair of half-moon spectacles rested halfway down his nose and sweat darkened the white cotton of his vest where it stretched itself over his ample belly.
He looked up, frowning, and said simply, ‘No.’
Ana bristled. ‘What do you mean, no?’
‘Well, which part of the word don’t you understand?’
She turned belligerent. ‘I understand that I’m seventeen years old and that if I want to go out with a boy, I’ll go out with a boy.’
‘As long as you’re under my roof you’ll do what I damned well tell you.’
Her mother appeared at the kitchen door. ‘What do you even know about this boy?’
‘A lot.’
‘What age is he?’ her father said.
‘He’s twenty-one.’
‘Hah!’ He folded his newspaper shut and slapped a palm on the table. ‘Well, that settles it. Only one thing on his mind.’
‘How could you possibly know what’s on his mind?’ Ana was aware of her voice rising in pitch.
‘Because I was twenty-one myself once. I know what a young man thinks when he looks at a seventeen-year-old girl. The answer is no. And that’s an end to it.’
Her mother cast a judgmental eye over her husband, wondering perhaps if those same things still went through his mind when he looked at a seventeen-year-old girl. She refocused on Ana. ‘You met him at the centre?’
‘Yes.’
‘So he’s deaf?’
‘Yes, he is.’
She gasped her frustration. ‘Holy Mary mother of God, Ana, could you not find yourself a normal boy?’
Ana’s simmering anger started to boil over. ‘What do you mean, “normal”? Are you saying I’m not normal?’
Her mother realized her mistake. ‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘But you need someone with normal hearing to make up for your lack of it. You know the doctor said it’s only going to get worse. One day you’ll not be able to hear at all. Then you’d be two deaf people.’
Now her father slammed both palms down on the table. ‘Enough!’ he bellowed, and Ana was sure they must have heard him down on the coast. ‘You are NOT going out with him.’
Ana felt hot tears fill her eyes. If only Isabella had been there to speak up for her. She was sure her parents would have listened to her sister. But the only one who was going to stand up for Ana was Ana herself. She got to her feet. ‘What are you going to do, tie me up? If I want to go out with Sergio, I’ll got out with Sergio. And if
