This Too Shall Pass Read Online Free PDF

lunch too, though the three of us rarely hang out at the same time—threesomes never work, not even in friendship.
    —Let me go ahead and mix our cocktails now—that’ll make you feel better, Sofía says.
    Sofía is an expert cocktail maker and can be seen strolling around the city with an exquisite ecru-colored canvas bag loaded with the items necessary for preparing them. Elisa has brought the sushi. I pull some dried-out leftover crumbs of cheese from the fridge, and we sit down at the table. We toast to life, to ourselves, and to summertime. Lately, everyone seems hell-bent on raising a glass with me to toast something or other, summoning some future I’m not sure will ever arrive.
    —Well, girls, I say, —I’ve decided to go to Cadaqués for a few days. Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. Who wants to join me?
    Elisa looks at me with trepidation, and Sofía applauds the decision enthusiastically.
    —Yes! That’s it, let’s go to Cadaqués! she exclaims while Elisa launches into a scholarly discussion of the effects of drugs, Freud, grief, and the maternal figure—great dangers that are stalking me. One is committed to enjoying life and the other to suffering and analyzing it.
    —Have you noticed how she dresses like a Cuban now that she’s dating one? Sofía whispers.
    —You’re totally right…
    Elisa is wearing a white flared short skirt, her flip-flops have a platform heel, and her top is covered in red polka dots. Her long, dusky cloud of undulating hair is loose and there’s red polish on her finger- and toenails. She seems as happy and pert as a five-year-old. We all look younger when we’re happy, but in Elisa’s case, she can go from five to five thousand in a two-minute flash. She’s almost never in between; when she’s older, she’s going to have the face of a shrewd squirrel, I think, as she continues talking with a news anchor’s gravitas.
    —With an ass like that, it was only a matter of time before a Cuban got ahold of her, Sofía goes on, using her inside voice.
    The problem with Elisa, I tell myself, is that underneath that gorgeous Cuban ass, or more like above it, there’s a brilliant and highly analytical French existentialist philosopher’s mind that never sleeps, and that makes her life a tad complicated. The poor thing, she’s always trying to balance her Cuban ass with her French philosopher’s head.
    —You should come with us, and bring the Cuban too, I say when she finally finishes.
    —I’ve told you a thousand times, his name is Damián, she answers.
    —Oh, right, Damián, Damián, Damián. I always forget. Sorry. He is Cuban though, isn’t he? The only one I know.
    Elisa looks at me earnestly and doesn’t say a word. My relationships with my friends are always impassioned and often a little troubled, though it’s subsided a bit with my mother’s illness. I wonder how long it will take for them to go back to the way they were.
    —Yeah, why don’t you come with us? Sofía exclaims. How’s it going with Damián, anyway? Are you happy?
    —Yes, but he’s very demanding sexually. Truth be told, I’m exhausted.
    Elisa can turn any subject, even sex with her new boyfriend, into something brainy and intellectual. Sofía, on the other hand, turns everything into the frivolous and festive, and inevitably everything revolves around her. Each one of us carries our own leitmotif in life, a common strand, a motto, a signature fragrance that envelops us, a background music that accompanies us wherever we go, abiding, silenced every now and then, but enduring and imperishable.
    —Who else is coming? Sofía asks.
    —Let me think. Oh, um, yeah, my two ex-husbands!
    —What? they both cry in unison.
    —You’re going to Cadaqués with both of your exes? Are you joking? And you think that’s normal? Elisa says.
    —I don’t know if it’s normal. But you both spend all day telling me I shouldn’t be alone, that I should surround myself with the people who care about