Chavela

Chavela is Bea’s best friend and, as Bea describes her, almost the only person she can call a true friend. A psychologist with a taste for Tinder and a talent for turning romantic disasters into comedy, she offers Bea both shelter and a bracing alternative to self-pity. Her importance lies not in solving Bea’s relationships for her, but in making herself available through their worst turns—and, at key moments, refusing to soften what she thinks Bea needs to hear.

Identity and Character

Chavela is a psychologist and an enthusiastic Tinder user. She imagines forming a therapy group for people addicted to the dating app, where each participant would recount their experiences in detail. Bea suspects the idea is less about curing anyone than feeding Chavela’s erotic fantasies. Chavela herself acknowledges that Tinder has helped her become the promiscuous woman she had wanted to be as a teenager, even as she complains about the app.

Her characteristic storytelling turns bad dates into comic material. She can describe encounters with men as if they were horror stories, yet Bea finds herself crying with laughter. Chavela’s gift is not to deny that something painful or unsettling has happened, but to exaggerate its absurdities until it can be seen from another angle. That ability makes her especially valuable to Bea when heartbreak has narrowed Bea’s attention to the injury itself.

Shelter After Víctor’s Betrayal

After Bea witnesses a kiss involving Víctor and the TV News Presenter, Chavela takes Bea in. Bea stays for days in Chavela’s tiny apartment, which she estimates at just twenty square metres. She does not even go home to collect clean clothes: Chavela is close enough to her size that Bea can borrow her jeans, though they sit short on her and loose at the waist, and she raids the rest of Chavela’s wardrobe too. The cramped space makes the friendship practical as well as emotional; Chavela gives Bea somewhere to remain while Bea avoids the life she cannot yet face.

Bea calls Chavela her pillar, rock, comfort, shoulder to cry on, and anchor against losing her sanity. During those days Bea refuses to answer Víctor’s calls or WhatsApp messages. When he comes to Chavela’s home, Bea hides in a wardrobe rather than meet him. Víctor also sends friends and his sister to intervene, and Bea angrily dismisses them. Chavela’s home thus becomes a refuge from confrontation, but Chavela does not treat hiding as a lasting solution. She asks whether Bea should speak to her fiancé or stop locking herself in the wardrobe whenever the doorbell rings. Bea refuses both suggestions, exposing the gap between the shelter Chavela can provide and the decision Bea must eventually make herself.

Chavela’s support is not automatic agreement. When Bea concludes that Víctor and the presenter must have slept together, Chavela responds that, if they did, Bea brought it upon herself. Bea is shocked by what sounds like Chavela taking the other side. The rebuke cuts against the consoling role Bea expects from her, but it also reflects Chavela’s willingness to challenge Bea’s conduct rather than simply validate it. Bea has herself recognized that her evasions and dramatic refusals were not how she imagined she would behave. Chavela’s frankness brings that uncomfortable contradiction into their friendship.

Bea’s Departure and Chavela’s Continuing Presence

Eventually Bea decides she wants to marry Víctor and will have to put the episode behind her. She imagines that, with time, his involvement with a celebrity from his list of women he would be permitted to sleep with will become an anecdote for their future children. Before leaving Chavela’s apartment, Bea fills the refrigerator with expensive food as thanks for Chavela’s patience, using a thousand euros from her severance money. The gesture gives a material form to her gratitude after days of borrowing clothes, occupying the tiny flat, and leaning on Chavela. Chavela’s visibly delighted response to Bea’s announcement that she is going home is playful, but also suggests how much she has wanted the visit to end.

Chavela remains an important confidante later, when Bea’s feelings shift toward Diego. Bea admits that she misses seeing Diego’s daughter and telling her about the progress of the house, and that she has grown attached to the child. Chavela immediately teases Bea that her attachment to the girl means she has fallen hard for Diego. Bea denies it, insisting that she is only obsessing because the relationship seems impossible and asking Chavela to confirm that she could not fall for a man like him. Chavela counters by listing the very qualities Bea finds compelling: Diego is handsome, wealthy, arrogant, a devoted father, and mysterious. Her humor again helps Bea hear the truth beneath her protestations.

Confidante and Comic Counterpoint

Chavela’s way of helping Bea combines refuge, teasing, and confrontation. She gives Bea space when Bea cannot face Víctor, but she also questions the retreat; she can be unexpectedly severe about Bea’s role in the breakup, then later recognize Bea’s love for Diego before Bea can comfortably name it herself. Their intimacy allows Chavela to move between tenderness and provocation without losing her place as Bea’s trusted friend.

Her presence also extends beyond private conversations. When Bea has avoided television and gossip websites, Chavela calls and asks whether she is watching television. The exchange signals that Chavela is again bringing Bea news from outside her self-imposed retreat, though the passage ends before revealing what she intends to tell her. Across these episodes, Chavela acts as a comic counterweight to Bea’s tendency to dramatize romantic crises: not by diminishing the consequences, but by helping Bea see herself and her choices with greater clarity.