Page 17 of Under His Sheets
“The whys. I will answer them. Soon.”
“Alonso?”
“Sí?”
What else could I say? Had we made progress? Was I still mad? I was so turned around—and turned on—I was ready tothank this guy for not speaking to me and worrying about my safety and pretending like he didn’t speak English. Instead, I stood there staring. Speechless.
“Si us plau. No et preocupis.”
“I know I should know what that means.”
“And do you know?” He winked at me. And left.
What the fuck was I supposed to do with that? I really needed to learn Catalan más rápido. While I was still learning Spanish. And a new job.
Lara and Madame Lahlou were not at Bar Elena when I arrived, but the rest of the staff was chattering away.
“Oh, Randall. So glad you are here. Sit beside me,” Josette said, immediately getting me settled and going to the bar to get me a glass of wine. I was still a little dazed and happy to have her fussing tonight.
“Are you feeling all right?” Camille asked me.
I gave a half shrug. “Yeah, just a weird afternoon.” But then my gaze landed on a TV set in the corner, and though I couldn’t follow the story, I recognized the subject.
Images of a protest, very similar to the one I’d been caught in, flashed on the screen, the familiar flag. Josette returned with my wine and I put a hand on her arm.
“Do you know what that’s all about?”
She followed my gaze. “Oh, the separatist movement?” When I nodded, she leaned closer and spoke quietly in my ear. “Oui. There is a large faction of people in Catalonia who want to not only be an autonomous region, but separate from Spain. In two thousand seventeen there was a crisis, the people voted on whether or not to have an independence vote, but it was illegal. Members of the Catalan European Democratic Party went to prison, some fled the country.”
And then a man’s face appeared on the screen, and I jerked in my seat.
“I’ve seen him,” I said, grabbing her arm. “In the parking lot, with Mr. Ferrer.”
Her eyes widened and she squinted at the screen, but then his picture was gone.
“Be sure to let Lara know. Probably it’s nothing, but you never know.”
I nodded and thanked her. She went back to the conversation but I continued to sip my wine and watch the TV screen until someone switched it to a fútbol match, which made even less sense to me. I hadn’t been a big sports guy growing up, never played, never watched, so the fact that this country was borderline obsessive about fútbol meant that I did a lot of smiling and nodding when people talked to me about it and asked me which team I followed.
I walked back to my apartment with my French ladies and was still replaying my conversation with Alonso in my head, so I missed Sasha’s question.
“Hola Randall? You are okay?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. Just been a strange day.”Week. Month. Year.
“We wanted to know if you would go with us into Barcelona tomorrow? We want to rent bikes and ride around.”
“Oh, thank you, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that after my crash,” I said with my hands out. “Also, my old teacher from California is flying in with her fiancé, and I’m having dinner with them at his family’s winery.”
Their eyes widened and they cooed over that news. “That sounds lovely. You will have a wonderful time. Bring us back some good wine, oui?”
“Of course,” I said, “and you have a great time. Be careful,” I said, thinking of the last time I was out and about in Barcelona. The protest. Alonso. My life-changing experience.
And as I climbed the steps to my apartment and closed the door behind me, I had another life-altering thought.
I had no idea what to wear to a surprise birthday family dinner at a winery, no idea where to even shop for something to wear to a winery, nor how to behave at one.
Despite living close to wine country in California, drinking wine and visiting wineries was not something I was raised with, and becoming what everyone else thought of as a rock star, and which I referred to as my job as a professional musician, wine drinking and wineries wasn’t part of all that.
