by Karina Halle
Chapter Three
Once we reached the crest of the hill, we finally got a good look at what would be our home for the next month or so. It was amazing and not at all what I expected. Instead of one big hotel-like building like I had imagined, there were numerous houses scattered about landscaped grounds. Most of them looked like two-story cottages, although some looked like duplexes. They all had their own patios and balconies and little plots of green grass lined with lavender. The houses had a similar look to the buildings I saw in town—whitewashed stone with dark brown wood trim and brick-colored shingles on the roofs.
In the middle of it all was one big brick and stone building that said “Reception” on it. There was a terra-cotta patio in front that lead into a wide, groomed lawn with small tables, wicker and lawn chairs dotted about. The occasional small oak tree provided shade. It was beautiful and I immediately saw myself soaking up the sun. I was pale as anything thanks to the endless rain of a Vancouver winter and spring and the little stint in London didn’t help either. I wanted my limbs, my hair, my everything to be golden.
I could overhear Jerry telling everyone that each cottage housed two apartments. All Anglos would be sharing an apartment with a Spaniard though we would each have our bedroom and bathroom. I’d be lying if I secretly didn’t start hoping that Mateo would be my roommate. At least I knew I couldn’t be paired up with Lauren.
All of us left our suitcases and backpacks on the patio while we crammed ourselves into the reception building to get our room keys and the apparent rules to the icebreaker game. The building was grandiose inside, in contrast to its humble exterior. Smooth orange tiles, faded brick that covered the walls and arched over the doorways in a defiance of gravity. Everything I remembered about flying buttresses and the like from my history classes were all coming back to me. However I could have described it though, it was very European, very ancient and very cool.
The reception desk was manned by two bustling, smiling women and across from it, where we had all gathered to line up, was a common area with a few computer stations, comfy chairs and antique looking coffee tables, as well as a bar made out of a solid piece of wood and layered with copper that complimented the green bottles of Heineken lined up on the bricks behind it. A spiral iron staircase at the end of the room led up to the second floor. Through the main archway I could see a large dining hall with impossibly high ceilings and large white table-clothed tables with four chairs at each one.
Mateo didn’t seem the slightest bit impressed—maybe this kind of architecture was common here. He was, however, frowning at a little man in the line in front of us who kept turning around and giving him the eye. My gaydar wasn’t going off so it was more of a “do I know you from somewhere?” kind of look to which Mateo responded with a “you talkin’ to me?” stare. This was all done non-verbally, of course.
Finally we got up to one of the receptionists. I gave her my name and was handed a thick pamphlet and was asked if I had a credit card I wanted to put down for bar charges. It sounded like a dangerous proposition—so I did it.
While she took my Visa, Mateo read the writing on the envelope, “Vera Miles.”
“That’s me,” I said. Jerry had been yelling at us to take out our name tags and wear the lanyards around our neck for the entire program. I took it out and put it on. There was another smaller package inside the main one and Jerry had warned us not to look inside those yet. My room keys were also inside.
“There’s an actress called Vera Miles,” Mateo remarked. “She was in Psycho. Good film.”
I nodded, trying to make sure my name tag didn’t get stuck between my boobs. It was hard to do with Mateo watching me so closely. “Yup. But I’m named after my grandmother.”
“I’m named after my grandfather,” Mateo said with an easy smile. The receptionist handed me back my Visa card and looked to Mateo, her lips teasing into a smile when she got a good look at him. So, I wasn’t the only one who thought he was handsome as all hell. I could tell she also noticed his ring when he placed his hands on the counter, because her eyes flashed with disappointment.
She looked at me and I stuck my lower lip out, as if to say, “such a shame.”
She snapped out of it and looked at him. “Your name please?”
“Mateo Casalles,” he replied.
Damn. I was hoping it was something less sexy than something that not only rolled off his tongue but made it sound like he could use that tongue in many interesting ways.
Perhaps I needed to cancel my bar tab.
“Mateo Casalles?” she repeated, a weird sort of recognition in her eyes.
He gave her a quick smile but that was it. She reached underneath the counter for the envelope and gave it to him. He opened it up with deft fingers and stuck the nametag and lanyard so it was hanging out of his pant pocket.
I wanted to ask him if he was trying to draw attention to his crotch, but I had a vision of that going horribly wrong in translation so I just said, “You’re supposed to wear that around your neck, I think.”
He gave me a steady gaze as we moved out of the line. “This is good.” Then he brought out his room key and peered at it. “Room numero tres.” He waved his hand like he was erasing the Spanish from the air. “Sorry, sorry. Three. Building five.”
I looked at mine and hid my disappointment. “Room two, building one.”
“At least we are close to each other, no?”
I grinned up at him. Everything he said was so disarming, how casually he treated this, like there was an us, like we’d been friends for a long time. He made me feel like I was the only person in the room.
Until Claudia joined our side.
“Hey, Claudia, how are you?” he greeted joyfully as if he hadn’t seen in her in a long time. My smile diminished slightly. He treated her the same way, like she was an old friend, too. Mateo was just a really personable, gregarious man. There was no us. There was just Mateo.
I took in a deep, steady breath and suddenly I was okay with that. I was just really grateful to have friends, to have people to be comfortable with and to talk to.
Especially when I noticed someone standing in the corner of the room, someone I’d only briefly gazed over early. He was an Anglo, it seemed, it was hard to hear his voice from where I was, and judging on looks alone he was, well, right up my alley. Whereas Mateo was fit, muscular and athletic, sporting a body he carried around with ease, this guy was thin and wiry. Lean but sexy in that rocker heroin chic kind of way. He had black hair that spiked up around his forehead, a hoop nose ring and a lip ring. Pale as an albino ghost, wearing tight black jeans, mean boots, and a black thermal shirt from an ISIS concert, the print so faded I could barely read it.
The guy looked over, scanning the room, perhaps to escape from conversation from the overly-tanned, blonde woman he was with and I smiled at him, hoping to catch his attention. I knew to a man like him, I was totally attractive.
His eyes lit up and he gave me the cool nod of acknowledgement that guys like him were so good at. Perfect. Someone to already distract me from Mateo. I hoped he wasn’t married, either, or I was going to have to give up on men this trip. Perhaps this could be my twelve-step, no sex program. At least I had remembered to pack one of my vibrators.
“I knew it!” a thickly accented voice said at my ear.
I turned in surprise, expecting to see someone talking to me. Instead it was the short man who was in line earlier, the one who kept giving Mateo the eye. Up close his eyes were bulging, like a cartoon frog and he had the goofiest smile on his face. He pointed at Mateo’s face, then down at his crotch. Well, at his name tag.
“I knew it, you are Mateo Casalles,” the man said. “I thought you looked familiar.”
Mateo nodded and gave the man a polite smile, the kind that politicians gave.
So…who the hell was Mateo Casalles?
Claudia picked up on my confusion for she lay a hand on Mateo’s chest—something I had wanted to do—and tapped him
there. “Of course, you don’t watch football do you?” she addressed me.
I grimaced. “Canadian football or American?”
“No, football,” she said. “Soccer.”
Oh right. Football was called soccer here, which makes more sense when you think of it.
I shook my head. “I don’t really know a lot about sports. I played soccer as a kid but I got in trouble for kicking shins instead.” True story. My coach was so upset with me that banned me from taking part in any games. Eventually my mom put me into gymnastics, which wasn’t much better since I have the coordination of a severely untalented monkey.
“Casalles was part of our team,” the frog-eyed man said. I peered closer at him. His name tag said Jose Carlos. Froggy Carlos was more apt.
I tried to think about what I knew about Spain and soccer. Suddenly it hit me. “Oh my god,” I cried out. “You were on the same team as David Beckham!”
Mateo gave me a chuckle, his eyes softening. “No,” he explained. “There are two teams for Madrid. I was part of Atletico de Madrid. It’s…not the team you would have heard of.”
Aw. No Beckham. Though to be honest, the dude did have a higher voice than I did. Still, if Mateo had been on a soccer team—one important enough for someone to recognize him—that meant he might have a body like David Beckham, something I had suspected anyway.
Oh boy. His wife was one lucky bitch.
“He was the best centre-back we ever had,” Froggy Carlos said excitedly, pride practically pouring out of him. “He could stop everyone.”
Mateo’s smile faltered slightly. “More or less.”
Froggy Carlos’s expression faded to somberness. “Yes. More or less.”
Okay, so there was some story here that I wanted to know. What had happened to Mateo? Why was he in the restaurant business now and not being the best centre-back they ever had? Just how old was he? And did he wear David Beckham underwear, because those boxer briefs were sexy as fuck.
My thoughts—probably everyone’s thoughts—were interrupted by the screechy call of Jerry.
“Listen up, mates,” he said, climbing on top of the antique coffee table in the middle of the room. I wondered if he was going to damage it in some way, but he seemed so sickly and frail that it was deemed impossible. “We’re going to play the icebreaker game. It’s simple, it’s easy. And it’s fun! So don’t worry.”
I was worried.
He went on, as if we were all eight-year olds at our first day of camp, “You’ll take the card out of the little envelope that’s inside the big envelope and—without looking at it,” he jabbed his finger at us like we’d already made a mistake, “you put it up on your forehead. Your goal is to go to each person and ask them one question to try and figure out who you are. No cheating! I’ll be watching you.”
Well, what else would he do?
He clapped his hands together and told us to commence the game. With a sigh, I exchanged a caustic glance with Claudia and fished the card out. I immediately put it on my forehead and held it there and turned to look at her.
She was holding a card that said Napoleon on it. I was already smiling.
“Do you want to go first?” I asked her.
“Okay,” she said, her eyes darting up to the ceiling in thought. “Am I…a man?”
Good question. “Yes, you are.”
She nodded, knowing that didn’t really narrow it down.
My turn. “Am I a man?”
She shook her head vehemently. “No. you’re a woman.”
Okay, so quite a feminine woman and probably not a girl or a child. I was putting my deduction skills to good use.
An older Spanish man with the name Pablo and the card of Steve Jobs tapped her on the shoulder, sequestering her attention. I turned around and looked at Mateo who had just finished asking Froggy Carlos something. His face broke out into a huge, panty-melting grin the moment he saw me. Meanwhile he was holding a card to his forehead that said Muhammad Ali. Floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. Seemed about right.
Froggy Carlos cleared his throat and I looked over at him. His pick was Albert Einstein. Hmmm.
“Who am I?” Froggy asked me. Always so exuberant.
“Um, that’s not how this works,” I told him. Damn, it had been one minute already and my arm was getting tired of keeping this at my forehead.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Oh dear. Drowning in translation.
“Yes. Who am I,” I said slowly. “Am I a movie star?”
A dawn of understanding came over his face and I could hear Mateo chuckle softly beside me.
“Oh,” Froggy said. “Yes! You are a big movie star. You were. You’re dead.”
I raised my hand. “I think we’re only supposed to do one question at a time.”
“Lo siento,” he said, then clamped his hands over his mouth in shock over his contraband Spanish. Then dropped the card so it landed face up and just ruined the game for himself. What a noob.
“Oh no,” he said softly, bending down to pick it up. “Oh no, I was Alberto Einstein.”
I swiftly turned to Mateo, trying to suck up all of his attention.
“Okay, you ask me something about yourself,” I said, making sure he hadn’t gotten sidetracked by Froggy’s version of the game.
As he kept the card to his forehead I started noting the largeness of his hands, the details of his forearm, the way his dark hair complimented his bronze skin but never overtook it.
“I think I am a male,” he said slowly, a gleam in his eye. “In fact, I know I am. How could I not be?”
Good question. Seemed impossible.
“So,” he mused, “I have to ask then, am I dead or alive?”
I had to think about that for a second? “You’re alive,” I told him. “Though I don’t think you’re doing too well, which is a shame since you’re such a trailblazer.”
Okay, so I said more than I was supposed to but I wanted to help him out. Besides, he looked puzzled over the word trailblazer anyway.
“Okay, do me,” I said excitedly. And then my whole body flushed hot from my words. My god, I was losing my edge here.
I had hoped the little phrase had gone over his head, but he just gave me a look that told me he knew. He seemed to pick up on the things I didn’t want him to.
“Yes, I will,” he said with a smirk. He straightened up and seemed much taller. “What do you want to know?”
“Oh, right,” I said, forgetting how the game worked for a second. I pursed my lips, thinking, my arm growing more strained. I had a feeling I knew who I could be, someone I hoped I could be.
“Am I sexy?” I asked, almost whispering, as if this was a secret. “Beautiful?” I added, in case he didn’t understand the sexy part.
His eyes looked me up and down and the slowest, wickedest smile tugged on his lips. “Yes. You are very beautiful. And very, very sexy.”
I raised my brow. “Not me, the person I’m trying to figure out.”
“Yes,” he said smoothly, eyeing me through his long lashes. “That is what I meant.”
We stared at each other for much longer than two almost strangers should, the room feeling like it had emptied out, like it was just us here and we weren’t surrounded by thirty-eight other people tripping on their words and laughing at their mistakes.
But we weren’t alone. Claudia was squeezing Mateo’s arm and saying something to him and he was tearing his eyes away from mine and breaking the spell. If there even had been a spell. Things of this nature were usually in my head.
With his attention on her now, I scanned the room looking for someone, anyone, to continue the game with. I wasn’t used to feeling attracted to guys I couldn’t have and it was throwing me off-kilter.
I spied the rocker dude making his way through the crowd, heading to the bar. There was no bartender there, though with the nervousness of the Spaniards and the lameness of the game, you’d think there would be one, just handing everyone free shot
s.
I squeezed through the people until I was at his side.
“Hey,” I said to the guy as he peered over the copper-topped bar in frustration. He turned around and I looked to his name tag. “Dave,” I said slowly. Damn, I thought he would have had a cooler name than that, like Jet or Bones or Styxx.
“Hi,” he said brightly with a North American accent. He had really nice deep blue eyes, though slightly bloodshot. He looked at my tag. “Vera,” he read thoughtfully. Then he looked at the one on my forehead. “You’re still playing that?”
I shrugged. “I’ve almost figured it out. Thought you could help me.”
He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the bar, resting one black boot up on his toe. His arms were covered in tattoos, nothing too pretty or interesting though, just the generic snakes and symbols and shit.
“Sure, ask away,” he said.
I purse my lips in thought, hoping they looked poutier than usual and asked, “Am I a blonde?”
He nodded.
I smiled. “I’m Marilyn Monroe, aren’t I?”
I took the nametag off of my head and looked at it. Sure enough, I was Marilyn. I totally knew it. I had a bit of a Marilyn obsession and was convinced she was my sad yet sexual spirit animal.
“Not bad,” he said. “I’d buy you a drink to celebrate but…”
As if he sensed we were contemplating going behind the bar and taking a warm bottle of beer off the wall, Jerry appeared. He had a bit of Froggy Carlos’s bug-eyed thing going on too, coupled with bad teeth and a nose that wouldn’t stop twitching. I wanted to make a bunny comparison, but Jerry just wasn’t cute enough for that.
“The bar will be open after dinner,” Jerry said in his Irish brogue. He eyed the card in my hand. “Oh Marilyn, she was my favorite. Why do the beautiful ones always have to die?” I opened my mouth to say something but he went on, “I’m glad you enjoyed the game Vera and Dave.” He smiled at our name tags. “You’re free to go take your bags to your room and relax before dinner. It’s at seven, so make sure you come back here a few minutes before and don’t be late!”