At seven in the morning, Santa Marina still seemed to belong to the fishing boats, the dogs asleep on the sidewalks, and the people who knew how to open doors without making a sound. Mel liked that hour because the town had not yet started asking anything of her.
She lifted the metal shutter of Bella Vita and breathed in the scent drifting from inside: freshly baked waffles, polished wood, and the sweet perfume of the soursop syrup Aunt Léa had prepared the night before. In February, the heat came early, but the shade along the narrow street still held on to a trace of night.
Mel turned on the lights, opened the two windows facing the square, and checked the flavor board. Soursop. Jackfruit. Dark chocolate. Toasted coconut. Mango with ginger. The list changed almost every day because Léa said a good ice cream shop needed at least one flavor that made someone ask, “Do those even go together?”
Mel thought her life had somehow been reduced to the same question.
On the counter, beside the register, sat the blue notebook where she had written in small letters: 72 days.
Seventy-two days until she left Santa Marina.
Seventy-two days until Santos, university, Architecture and Urban Planning, a tiny apartment shared with a girl she only knew through video calls, and a routine where no one would know she always ordered lemon without ice or that she hated sleeping with the window completely shut.
There was no university in town. For anything beyond high school, you had to travel miles of road and accept that growing up meant, sooner or later, packing a suitcase.
Mel had been planning that suitcase for almost two years.
Even so, whenever she looked at the number in the notebook, her chest tightened as if the plan had been made by someone else.
— You’re going to wear a hole through that page if you keep staring at it — Aunt Léa said, emerging from the kitchen with her hair pinned up by a pencil.
— I’m checking.
— What? Whether the days are still passing?
Mel closed the notebook.
— Exactly.
Léa laughed and set a tray of cones on the counter. In her forties, she ran Bella Vita with the energy of someone deeply suspicious of any wasted minute. She had bought the place when Mel was still a child and turned an old souvenir shop into the most photographed ice cream shop in the square.
— Your mother texted — she said. — She wants to know if you confirmed your enrollment.
— I did yesterday.
— And did you tell her?
— Technically, no.
— Mel.
— I will.
Léa rested both hands on the counter.
— You can be happy and scared at the same time, you know.
— I know.
— You can want to go and still miss this place before you leave.
— I know that too.
— Good. Then stop acting as if one feeling cancels out the other.
Mel opened her mouth to answer, but the bell over the door rang.
The first customer of the day walked in with a black backpack over one shoulder, a camera hanging from his neck, and hair longer than she remembered.
For one absurd second, Mel felt as if Santa Marina had pulled an old memory straight into the ice cream shop.
Theo Nogueira stopped in front of the counter.
— Do you still have soursop? — he asked.
Mel had not seen him in eighteen months.
Not that she had been counting.
She only knew because Theo had left on a Tuesday in August, two days after the town’s patron-saint festival, and because back then they still had the ridiculous habit of putting dates on everything. First swim without floaties. First movie watched in secret after midnight. First time they made it all the way to Ponta do Farol without complaining about the heat.
There had never been a “first kiss.” That space had remained blank.
— We do — Mel answered, more sharply than she meant to.
Theo gave her a small smile, without the easy confidence she remembered.
— Then one scoop.
— Just one?
— I’m out of vacation shape.
— You always hated the gym.
— I wasn’t talking about the gym.
Léa looked from one of them to the other with shameless interest.
— Theo! — she exclaimed, coming around the counter to hug him. — When did you get here?
— Last night.
— Your grandfather didn’t say a word.
— It was kind of last-minute.
Mel picked up the ice cream scoop and dug into the soursop harder than necessary.
— How long are you staying? — Léa asked.
— Until April, probably.
The scoop stopped in midair.
April.
Theo noticed. His eyes moved to the blue notebook, open again on the counter. The page showed the number 72.
— What’s that? — he asked.
Mel set the scoop on the cone.
— Nothing.
— Looks like a countdown.
— Because it is.
Léa, traitor that she was, answered before Mel could.
— Days until Mel leaves for Santos.
Theo did not react right away. He took the cone Mel held out to him.
— College?
— Architecture.
— You did it.
There was no surprise in his voice. Only a quiet certainty that irritated her a little.
— I did.
— Congratulations.
— Thanks.
Silence.
Léa decided it was an excellent time to disappear into the kitchen.
Theo paid and leaned against the counter as if he had nowhere else to be.
— Do you still sketch facades? — he asked.
— Sometimes.
— Liar. You used to draw on cookie wrappers when you were bored.
— People change.
He lowered his eyes to the cone.
— I know.
The answer was simple, but it stayed between them longer than it should have.
Mel busied herself lining up containers that were already perfectly straight.
When Theo had left, there had been no fight. There had not been a goodbye either. His mother had decided to move to São Paulo after the separation, and everything happened too fast: boxes, documents, a ticket bought, messages growing shorter by the day. On the last night, Theo had promised he would come by the square. He never did.
The next day, he sent only:
— I’m sorry. I couldn’t make it.
Mel replied:
— It’s okay.
It wasn’t.
— My grandfather needs help with the boat — he said. — And I have a college project to do. A short documentary.
— About boats?
— About people who choose to stay.
Mel let out a short laugh.
— Brave choice in a town where everyone asks when you’re leaving.
— Maybe that’s exactly why.
She finally looked at him.
Theo had changed less than he seemed to at first. He still frowned when he was thinking before answering. He still wore his watch on his right wrist. He still had that infuriating way of paying attention that made the rest of the room seem to fade away.
— Did you choose to stay? — Mel asked.
— I came back.
— That’s not the same thing.
— No. — He agreed. — It isn’t.
The bell rang again. Two tourists came in talking about the heat and asking for recommendations.
Theo stepped aside.
— I don’t want to get in the way.
— You already did.
He laughed.
— That sounds more like you.
Mel felt the childish urge to smile and hated that she had felt it at all.
Before leaving, Theo pointed at the notebook.
— Seventy-two days is a long time.
— For what?
He opened the door.
— I don’t know yet.
And he left before she could decide whether that was an answer or a problem.
By eleven, the square was crowded and Bella Vita had a line eight people deep. Mel worked without stopping until early afternoon. Even so, every now and then, her eyes went to the door.
Theo did not come back.
It was ridiculous to feel relieved and disappointed by the same thing.
When the rush finally slowed, Bia showed up wearing diving shorts and a T-shirt from her parents’ tourism school. She folded her arms on the counter and studied Mel for five seconds.
— He’s back.
— You say that like you saw a comet.
— In Santa Marina, news doesn’t stay new for long. My mother knew before I did, which I consider a serious failure in the local gossip system.
Mel handed her a glass of water.
— It’s not news.
— Theo coming back after a year and a half is exactly the definition of news.
— He came to help his grandfather.
— And make a documentary. I know.
Mel narrowed her eyes.
— Did you talk to him?
— No. Mr. Raul talked to my father. My father talked to my mother. My mother talked to me. The food chain of information.
Mel tried not to laugh.
Bia pointed at the blue notebook.
— Did you tell him?
— Léa did.
— And?
— He said congratulations.
— That’s it?
— What did you expect? For him to throw himself on the floor and beg me not to go?
Bia considered it.
— It would be embarrassing, but it would give us something to talk about.
Mel threw a napkin at her.
Later, when she was alone again, she opened the notebook.
72 days.
Beneath the number, without thinking too much, she wrote:
Theo came back.
She stared at the two words until she realized they looked far too important.
She crossed them out.
The ink was still visible beneath the line.
And for the first time in a long while, Mel had the feeling that seventy-two days might not be enough.