Spain or Shine (8 page)

Elena logged off and made her way to the quad to see if she might catch Alex on his way to class and walk with him. She spotted him near the fountain talking to Jenna.

“Hi, you guys,” she called as she ambled over to her friends. “What's going on?”

“Elena, we were just talking about you.” Alex tipped his head back in order to peer out from beneath the bill of his hat. “Are you still up for going to the tapas bars tomorrow night?”

“Sure. I'm in if you guys are.”

Alex nodded enthusiastically. “Totally.”

“I'll talk to Marci and Caitlin about it in Basque culture next period and make sure they're still planning on meeting up, too,” Jenna said.

“Cool. Let's meet at nine at the Plaza de la Constitución,” Alex suggested. “It's in the middle of the old part of town.”

Jenna agreed to tell Marci and Caitlin about their arrangements and then sprinted to her Basque culture class. Elena hustled toward Ms. B's class, prodding Alex to hurry up.

“Alex, I know you can walk faster than that. We're going to be late again.” After only a few days of walking to class with Alex, Elena had already noticed that both of them had a tendency to regard time as a relative thing. Elena didn't even own a watch, but she had resolved not to be as flaky here as she had been at home. Last year she was late so often to algebra that her teacher had threatened to take points off her final if she wasn't sitting in her seat before the bell rang.

Elena and Alex slid into class just as the bell marking the beginning of the period rang. Ms. B began chirping about the role of conflict in a play. Alex scratched a note at the bottom of his notebook, tapped Elena's shoe with the toe of his own, and shoved the notebook out to the edge of his desk so she could steal a glimpse.

She was surprised Alex was taking any initiative. For the past few days he seemed to be just having a little fun flirting, like Jenna. Elena slid a sheet of paper out of her own notebook and responded

Alex wrote:

“Okay, does anyone have questions about conflict?” Ms. B asked, panning the room. Elena liked that Ms. B always allowed the shy students, like herself, enough time to work up the courage to raise their hands. “Good. Now then, your first assignment will be to apply conflict in a dramatic situation.” Ms. B wrote FIRST WRITING ASSIGNMENT DUE TUESDAY on the whiteboard in large black letters. “I want you to think about a conflict you have experienced recently and dramatize it. It could be an argument with someone, a debate, or even a problem accomplishing something.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Elena saw a thin arm shoot up into the air. It was a familiar sight by now. The arm belonged to Dylan, the only girl with a pierced lip Elena had ever met. Her hair was black as ink, and she wore smudgy kohl eye shadow around her almond-shaped eyes. On Elena that eye makeup would look trashy, but on Dylan it looked model-cool. Dylan was attentive in class and seemed serious about playwriting. Elena knew right away that she was going to have the best work in class. “Yes, Dylan?” Ms. B nodded in her direction.

“Ms. B, can we use a fictional conflict?”

“I'm going to say no this time, Dylan. I admire your ambition, but we'll get to fiction later in the semester. This is just to get an idea of conflict. Anything else?”

Elena glanced at Dylan. She couldn't decide how she felt about this girl. On the one hand, she was impressed by her knowledge and ambition. But she also felt a stab of jealousy. Dylan was obviously going to be her toughest competition.

 

Elena was kneeling on the floor of her room watching Jenna pull shirts from a bottomless black suitcase. It was Friday night, and Jenna was trying to figure out what to wear to the tapas bars. She had dragged her suitcase into Elena's tiny room so they could try on outfits together in front of the full-length mirror Señora Cruz had propped against one wall. Elena had decided on jeans and a pink top twenty minutes earlier. She offered her advice as Jenna pulled tops on, and then yanked them off moments later, flinging them on the floor as she vetoed each one.

“I'm almost ready-I swear,” Jenna called as she buzzed around the room in a skirt and bra, limping on one wedge sandal and searching for the other. “What do you think?” Jenna asked, holding up a trendy green top.

“Cute,” Elena said.

“Hmm,” Jenna turned and considered herself in the mirror. “No, it makes me look fat.”

“Oh, please,” Elena groaned. Jenna took off the shirt, revealing a perfectly flat belly.

Jenna finally decided on the first shirt she'd tried on—a plain white tank top—with dangly earrings. Elena waited another ten minutes as Jenna combed through the mess on the floor in search of her purse. She finally found it shoved beneath Elena's bed. The girls hastily piled the clothes back in Jenna's suitcase, then said good-bye to the Cruzes.

“Have a good time,” Señora Cruz called. “Please be back by twelve.” Elena's curfew at home was eleven thirty. She'd always held the suspicion that those extra thirty minutes could mean the difference between a fair evening and a truly memorable night. She was ready to find out.

The sun was sinking into the ocean as Elena and Jenna veered from the promenade toward the dorms. They hooked up with Marci and Caitlin at the front entrance of the dorm building as planned, and then headed out as a group toward the tapas bars to meet Alex.

As they entered the alleyways, the streetlights above the doorways were already lit and glowing fuzzy yellow. Alex was waiting at the Plaza de la Constitución with a blond guy.

“Hey,” Alex called as the four girls approached. “This is Chris. Chris, this is Elena, Jenna, Marci, and Caitlin.”

Chris offered each girl a polite handshake. Elena marveled at how much he looked like Alex. They could have been brothers. Chris wore baggy pants, a long-sleeve Billabong shirt, and a knit cap pulled down low over salt-ravaged hair. He was an all-American, California surfer boy in every way. That was why Elena practically lost her balance when he said, “Pleasure meeting you,” in a distinctly British accent.

“Wait. You're English?” Elena blurted before she could stop herself.

“Yes.” He nodded, clearly surprised by her reaction.

“Right. Of course.” She snapped her jaw shut and pumped his hand. “Well, it's nice to meet you.”

“Hey, Jenna,” Alex said casually.

“What's up?” She tossed him a sweet little smile. Elena thought she saw them hold each other's gaze for a couple extra moments before Alex cut the silence.

“So, where should we go first?” Alex asked. They stood together watching the other diners strolling through the cobbled streets beside them, ambling in and out of open doorways and flocking around bars. The plan was to hop from bar to bar, tasting tapas at each place.

“Okay, I have a plan,” Jenna announced. “It's easy to find out where the best place is. You just have to figure out where the locals are going.”

“But they're going all over the place,” Caitlin interjected.

Jenna scanned the crowd, ignoring Caitlin's comment. “There,” she shouted, then lowering her voice. “Follow those two.” She pointed in the direction of a chic Spanish couple in matching tight Versace pants.

They tailed the young Spanish couple to a bright and airy bar. Bullfighting posters lined the walls, and cured hams hung from the ceilings. But the focal point of the restaurant was clearly the bar. Flocks of patrons stood chatting and drinking and nibbling from a collection of plates, each one nesting a small portion of food. Elena and her friends found an open spot where the bar curved toward the wall. They squeezed in and waited.

“Why isn't anyone taking our order?” Caitlin groaned. It did seem that everyone around them was munching happily, while they were being ignored.

“I wonder if there's an age limit,” Elena ventured.

“Definitely not,” Jenna returned. “They would have carded us on the way in. Maybe we have to wave someone down.”

“First time at a tapas bar, eh?” inquired the cute young guy standing beside Elena at the bar. They looked over at a boy with shaggy hair and rumpled clothes who spoke with what sounded like an Australian accent. “You just grab what you want and tell the bartender later.”

“How does he know you ate what you said you did?” Jenna asked.

“He doesn't. It's the honor system,” he returned. “Are you honorable?” This last question was playfully directed at Jenna.

“Who me?” Jenna asked with mock innocence. “Of course.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes and cut in. “So, we just grab these things and start eating?” she asked, leaning in for a plate of skewered shrimp.

Elena glanced at Alex to gauge his reaction to Jenna's newest flirtation, but he had already struck up a conversation with the Spanish couple they'd followed to the bar.

“What'll you ladies have to drink?” their new friend asked.

“I'll just have a Coke,” Elena responded as she reached for a plate of stuffed mushrooms.

“A Coke?” Jenna shook her head. “There's only one thing to drink at tapas bars. Sangrias all around.”

Elena shrugged and popped a mushroom into her mouth, then switched places with Jenna at the bar so she could be closer to the boy of the moment. They learned his name was Paul, and he was actually from New Zealand. “I'm traveling for a while before I head back home and start working for my mum and dad,” he explained.

“How long is a while?” Jenna asked.

“I'm not sure. Until my money runs out, I guess.”

While Jenna flirted with Paul, Elena stood with Marci, Caitlin, and the boys—all of them sliding plates back and forth around the bar like a game of checkers. They started cautiously with dishes that looked familiar and unthreatening, sautéed mushrooms and bacon, cheeses, olives, and pan con
tomate—
bread with tomatoes.

The female half of the Spanish couple they'd followed to the bar introduced herself to everyone as Arrosa. She was friendly even though no one in the group spoke Spanish particularly well.

“Usted debe tratar éstos,”
she said, pointing to what looked like it might be stuffed squid. Elena kept quiet, but she was surprised how well Alex and Chris were able to communicate with the Spanish couple. With Arrosa's guidance, the whole group soon began to venture into the unknown, popping morsels into their mouths that they didn't recognize and couldn't pronounce.

“You should try the ham, too,” a woman with a French accent leaned over to say. “It's their specialty.” Elena hoped they wouldn't pull one of the hams from the ceiling and slice it up in front of her.

She tried a timid bite of some ham from a plate in front of her. “Oh, that's really good. Thanks for the suggestion.”

Most of the people at the bar had a dish to recommend or a story to tell. Elena was beginning to realize that the whole tapas bar experience was as much about the company as it was about the food.

“I think I'm ready to move on,” Jenna said, after they'd been at the bar for about an hour.

“How come? Aren't you having fun?” Elena asked, raising her voice to compete with the growing chorus of voices around them.

“Yeah, but the whole point is to hit several different places. We have to be home by midnight, right? So I think it's time to move on.” Jenna took another sip of her purpley-red sangria. Elena had a similar glass with hunks of fruit bobbing in it, though she'd hardly had any of it. It was too sweet, and the smell of wine and cinnamon made her dizzy, so she just took small sips now and then to seem agreeable.

“That Spanish couple at the bar told me of a cool place to go, a locals' place,” Marci suggested, barely concealing the pride she took in one-upping Jenna in the competition to find the coolest place in town.

Alex and Chris squeezed through the cramped bar, while Elena and the other girls grabbed hands to form a human chain so that they wouldn't get separated. They all spilled out into the street in front of the restaurant.

Marci led them past several discos where Trikitixas—Basque pop music—came thundering out into the street whenever the doors opened. They wandered out toward the cathedral at the edge of the old section of town, and stopped in front of a restaurant that had a Basque sign mounted above the door by rusty nails.

“This is it; I'm sure of it,” Marci said. She opened the door to an inviting, lively place. The lighting was soft and rosy, and flamenco guitar played live in the back of the restaurant. They walked up to the bar, and Elena took her time looking over the array of choices. Finally she leaned into the bar and stretched out to grasp the rim of a plate of prosciutto rolls—melon and figs wrapped in thin cured ham. She pulled the plate toward her and felt a tap on her shoulder.

As she started to turn, her eyes fell on the profile of a Spanish boy several paces down the bar. She couldn't help but pause midmotion. It was like stumbling upon a treasure at a yard sale—a beautiful surprise. He was taller and more muscular than most of the Spanish boys she'd seen and his face was leading-man perfect. For a moment the only sound she could hear was her own heart thumping inside her chest. Then he turned and looked right at her. She glanced away quickly as a rush of blood filled her cheeks.

She felt the tap on her shoulder again and turned to answer Jenna. When Elena looked up again, the boy was gone. It seemed no one else had spotted him. Even Jenna, with her finely tuned boy radar, had missed him.