The branches of the palm trees bowed in the strong south wind and it rained thick drops. The sky was steel gray, there were puddles of water on the lawn in front of our house and the children were bored. It was one of those days where you wonder if this is all worth it; all that travelling, all that hassle at Schiphol, all that flight shame, all that money (this was just a few days before we would make an emergency stop at Madrid on the way back from Lisbon to Amsterdam and spend the night there). When you are in Portugal, the answer to that question is always: Pasteis De Nata.
So we got in the car and drove to the nearest village. At the first cafe they sold the cream cake, but you couldn’t pin. We drove on to the next cafe, the rain beating against the windshield. They had no pastéis de nata there. On the way to the next village we drove through a small bay with a deep beach. The beach was deserted except for two silhouettes. In the distance, ankle-deep in the surf of the raging ocean, stood two young women in bikinis. They jumped and danced and waved their arms.
We slowed down. My girlfriend and I looked at them, admiring and endearing, but also jealous. We, dry and comfortable in a rental car with two children in the back seat, our bodies over their peak, circles under our eyes, always tired, always looking for time – or pastéis de nata. She half-naked, dancing in the pouring rain, tight bodies, overflowing with zest for life and with more time than the ocean could fit at their feet. So pure and so full of the moment.
Then one of the girls raised an arm. And on that arm was a hand, and in that hand was a telephone. They leaned toward the screen. Something was clearly being done for the socials here. “Yeah,” my friend sighed. “Oh come on,” I said. Could nothing at all remain undivided? Did everything have to be seen by others? Couldn’t that fucking phone just stay in a bag somewhere?
We weren’t even mad, just disappointed. But in these two girls? Or because we didn’t understand them and the resulting realization that our lives are so different from theirs. That we haven’t been like them for a long time, even though we secretly think we still look like them. We drove out of the bay shaking our heads. Two grumpy premature boomers in a white rental car, looking for pastéis de nata. Which we wouldn’t find.