by Linda Gerber
“Oh. Right.” I dug into my purse and handed him a ten-euro coin. He grunted and dropped it with a clank into his till.
I turned to Mateo, daring to full-on stare at him now that my eyes were hidden behind the dark lenses. He stared right back, smiling his brilliant smile, which for some reason made it hard for me to breathe.
But then he kept watching me.
“What?” I demanded.
“They look good,” he said.
I practically skipped to the next booth.
We probably wandered to about ten more booths. I found a charm for my necklace—a Moorish cross with a deep red stone in the center of it—and a large fringed scarf with a bright abstract print. It looked like something my gramma would like. I’m thoughtful that way.
Okay, maybe I was feeling a little guilty about how I said I didn’t want to go live with her. Or how I really didn’t want to go live with her. What if she wanted to talk about Grampa being gone? I couldn’t handle that. So I bought the scarf for her—but it didn’t make me feel better.
It was then that Bayani called everyone together and announced it was time to resume filming. Daniel huffed when he saw me and ordered me to sit for makeup once again because I was getting “shiny.” Thank you, Daniel.
He was pretty much a diva like that the rest of the afternoon. I swear, he must have thought we were filming an art house documentary instead of a television show the way he went on about aesthetics and composition.
“I’m sorry,” I told Mateo. “He’s not usually like this. I think the power is going to his head.”
“I don’t mind.”
But I did. I had to keep reminding myself to be useful whenever Daniel would direct Mateo to stand closer to me or for me to walk a little taller. (What did he want me to do? Balance on my tiptoes?) I kept waiting for Mom or Dad to say something, but Mom was already prepping for her segment, and Dad was too busy strolling down memory lane with Señor Ruiz-Moreno to notice. And laughing like a juvenile.
Which was plain weird. I mean, I know my dad had a life before he turned old and everything, but it was really strange to see it.
“Can you just imagine them with long hair and faded jeans, thumbing for rides?” I asked Mateo.
He regarded them for a moment and shuddered. “I don’t like to think about it.”
“There!” cried Daniel. “The way you just bent your heads together! Do it again!”
I slid a look at Mateo. “I’ll hit him high, you hit him low. He’ll never see it coming.”
But Mateo just laughed.
The last stop of the morning was the playground at the Turia Park. Okay, so you know in malls and places where they have play areas for kids with really huge flowers or ice cream cones or breakfast foods to play on? Well, this park was kind of like that, only the play structure was a huge Gulliver lying on the ground like he’d just been tied down by Lilliputians.
The entire playground was a football-field-sized Gulliver, all tied up. I am not even kidding.
Daniel hefted his camera and pointed to Mateo and me. “Now climb on up there and slide down his coat,” he instructed.
“What, us?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be more authentic to get some shots of kids playing on it?”
“You are kids,” Daniel said matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, but….”
I noticed Mom glance up from her notes, watching me again. Useful, I told myself. Useful, useful, useful. But a playground? What was I, five?
Then Mateo bumped my shoulder with his. “I will if you will.”
It was probably his smile that did it. Or the challenge in his voice. Did I mention I like a challenge? Whatever it was, I raced Mateo up the stairs that ran the length of Gulliver’s leg and threw myself onto the coat slide. I was even able to ignore Daniel, who was standing at the base of the coat shouting, “Yes! Very good! Now give us a smile! Once more from another angle!”
Up and down, over the hand, the foot, the sword. And then we were supposed to slide down Gulliver’s strands of hair. Which would have been okay, except the strand I chose had a small crack in it. Just enough of a crack to snag on the pocket of my shorts. I heard the rip before the sting on my skin registered.
Victoria must have realized something was wrong because she called out, “I believe we have enough for now,” and made Daniel put the camera away.
Mateo offered to help me up since I was still sitting on the end of Gulliver’s hair, but there’s no way I was going to stand until I knew how big the tear was. And where.
“Um, thanks. I’m just…. going to catch my breath for a minute first, okay?”
He looked at me strangely, but at least he didn’t press it.
“Mateo,” Victoria said, “why don’t you go see if your father is ready to go?” She pointed over to where my dad and Señor Ruiz-Moreno were playing air guitar by Gulliver’s foot. Now that Daniel had put his camera away, it’s like they thought they had free reign to act like complete idiots. If I hadn’t already been thoroughly humiliated, that would have put me over the edge.
“Where is it, then?” Victoria asked once Mateo walked over to his dad.
I stood and turned my back to her.
She started to laugh but caught herself. “Oh, sorry,” she said, but she couldn’t hide the smile.
“Ha, ha.” I reached back to feel the tear in the seat of my shorts and was mortified to touch skin. “What do I do?”
“I could take you back to the flat to change,” she suggested.
I sat back down. “Only one problem. My suitcase hasn’t come yet. I have only one pair of pants besides these, and they’re wet. I washed them out this morning.”
“I see.” She sat next to me and balled her fist under her chin. “I suppose you’re stuck, then.”
I shot her a look. “I hate it when you do that.”
She blinked at me innocently. “Do what?”
“Act like you don’t know what to do so I have to come up with the solution.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Right.” I folded my arms and looked away. Mateo was over talking to Bayani, but he was looking at me, which made me even more determined to get off the slide.
“Do you have that scarf I gave you to hold?” I asked Victoria.
“Right here,” she said, patting her purse.
“Can you help me for a minute?”
We ducked behind Gulliver’s head, and Victoria quickly unfolded the scarf. I grabbed it and wrapped it around my hips, tying it on one side like a sarong.
“Turn around,” she directed. I did a slow pirouette, and she watched with a critical eye, tugging here and tucking there. “That looks fine,” she said.
I glanced down at my scarf skirt. I’m not sure how fine it looked, but at least the rip was covered.
When we started back toward the group, Daniel spotted Victoria and me right away. “Ooh, I like the change,” he called. “Darling skirt.” He started to lift his camera, but Bayani shook his head.
“We have only fifteen minutes to make it to the horchateria,” he said. “We’ve got to wrap it up.”
My mom’s segment was scheduled to
be filmed at the Horchateria de Santa Catalina, which was located back at the Plaza de la Reina, right across from the Santa Catalina chapel. A horchateria is a café where they serve a traditional iced drink called horchata, which is what my mom’s segment was going to be about.
Half the crew members rushed ahead of us to set up security and cameras at the horchateria. By the time the rest of us got there, Bayani and the other crew members had already set up rope barricades and a crowd had begun to gather. The crew ushered us inside the roped-off area and stood around us like Secret Service to keep the spectators from getting too close.
“Nice pick, Bayani,” my dad said. “This place has character.”
“It is one of the most famous horchaterias in the area,” Señor Ruiz-Moreno agreed. He pointed to the sign over the entran
ce that read CASA CON DOS SIGLOS DE TRADICIóN. “Two hundred years of tradition,” he translated.
“That’s why I chose it,” Bayani said proudly.
“My mom always decides on the food segments she wants to do when we’re on location,” I explained to Mateo, “but Bayani has to set them up and find a venue.”
“How do you know where to look?” Mateo asked.
Bayani tapped a finger to his forehead. “Smarts,” he said. “Plus I research the history of an area and look for a location with the most character for filming. Take this place, for instance….”
Bayani kept talking, and Mateo nodded enough to make it look like he was paying attention; but the way his eyes shifted this way and that, it was obvious he was getting distracted by the growing crowd. I guess Bayani picked up on it, too, because he let his story taper off, and he turned to talk to Dad and Señor Ruiz-Moreno instead. Mateo didn’t even seem to notice.
“How do you get used to this?” he asked me in a low voice.
“Bayani’s not that bad,” I said. “Kind of annoying sometimes, but—”
“No,” Mateo said. “Not Bayani. Them.” He gave a little nod toward the people pushing up against our sound technician’s back, trying to get a better view. “Isn’t it weird to have people watching you all day?”
“You get used to it.” I shrugged like having a following was old news. I didn’t remind him that I was usually in the background helping the crew, and that most people are interested in gawking only at the ones who are in front of the cameras. This was the first time the crowd was actually paying attention to me. And seriously? I thought it was kind of fun swishing my hair and hiding behind my dark glasses, pretending to be a celebrity. I noticed a couple of ladies near the front of the crowd taking pictures with their cell-phone cameras, and I nudged Mateo. We fake-posed, pouted, and puckered until they turned their phones on someone else.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked my dad. I plucked at my damp shirt. “It’s hot out here.”
“Daniel wants shots of you entering the establishment,” Bayani said. “He has to get the equipment set up.”
I didn’t care about equipment at that point. All I knew was that inside the horchateria were air-conditioning, chairs to sit on, and something cold to drink. Outside on the sidewalk, sweat was prickling down my back. I’m sure my face was getting shiny again. And, despite what I had told Mateo, I didn’t like people staring at me like a bug under a microscope.
Finally, with Daniel’s approval, we were allowed to enter the horchateria. The cool air raised goose bumps on my damp skin, and I closed my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief.
“No, no, no. Again, please, without the theatrics this time.” Daniel shooed us back out the door. I wanted to strangle him, but Mateo chuckled beside me.
“Be serious,” Mateo warned as we walked inside again. Both of us scowled and stalked toward a table.
“Again!” Daniel cried.
He made us walk through the door three times. We probably would have kept tormenting him so he’d never get his shot, but my mom gave me a pointed look from the corner of the shop where she had set up for her segment.
Useful, I reminded myself, and allowed Daniel to direct us. Fortunately, he had to go film the foodie segment next, so we would be free of him for a while.
A waitress in a black uniform showed us to a table where we could drink our horchatas while we watched my mom do her segment.
The horchateria looked kind of like an old-fashioned ice cream parlor back in the States, only fancier. It had a colorful mural on the wall, a black-and-white tiled floor, and long glass counters filled with sugared pastries that looked kind of like those you can buy at an American carnival. Our table even had a round marble top. Señor Ruiz-Moreno ordered for us, and the waitress hurried off.
“Have you ever had horchata before, niña?” he asked.
“Only the Mexican kind,” I told him.
“Our horchata de chufa is better,” Mateo assured me.
“That she can decide for herself,” Señor Ruiz-Moreno said, winking. And then to me he added, “Mexican horchata is made from rice, but the Valencian horchata is made from chufa. How do you call it? Tiger nuts. They are grown right here in this region.”
The drink came, and I took a long sip. It had been a long time since I’d had rice horchata, so I didn’t remember it enough to describe the difference; but this was milky, sweet, and cold, and that’s all that mattered. Along with the horchata, the waitress had also brought a plate of pastries from the glass counter.
“Dunk one,” Mateo said. “It’s very good.”
I picked up a pastry and dipped it into my glass. “Like this?”
“Yeah. Now—”
“Shh!” Daniel hissed. “We’re filming.”
We ate and drank quietly while my mom smiled into the camera and talked about the chufa plant like it was the most interesting thing in the world. She explained how chufa had been brought to Spain from Egypt. The Moors had cultivated it into an important crop in the Valencian region.
Next, some guy from the shop joined her to show how horchata de chufa was made.
I’d already heard all about it back at our apartment while she was preparing for the shoot, so I started to zone out. I counted the tiles behind her head and then followed the checkerboard pattern around the wall to the front door. Outside, the barricades had been taken down. Several gawkers had pressed forward and now watched us through the glass like we were a living exhibit at a museum or something. I didn’t like that image, so I turned it around so that they were the ones on display.
Just then my phone began to buzz and vibrate, and I slapped my hand over my pocket to muffle the sound. It was 4:35, the time I had set my alarm for that morning. I must have switched it from A.M. to P.M. instead of turning it off. And now it was in my shorts pocket, under the scarf skirt. Great.
Daniel turned from the camera long enough to shoot an icy glare in my direction. I had to untie the scarf to pull my phone out of my pocket and turn it off.
“Brava,” Mateo whispered. He looked like he was trying to hold back the laughter, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of my alarm or my scarf. Or both.
I ignored him (and the burning in my cheeks). Setting the phone on the table, I turned my attention to retying the knot in the scarf. It might look a little off when I stood up, but at least the air-conditioning in my shorts would be covered.
“There,” Mateo said.
I looked up to see that he was holding my phone.
“I entered my number in your contacts,” he said, handing it back to me. “Now you have to text me so I can have yours.”
“Oh,” I said. I’m articulate like that. The only people I ever texted were my mom and dad and Victoria. Sometimes Bayani. But that was way different than texting a boy socially. This was a big moment for me.
I cradled the phone. It was still warm from his hands. (All right. I know it was probably warm from riding around in my pocket all day, but he had just been holding it, and that’s what counts.)
Just as I was about to type in a text to Mateo, Bayani called out, “Okay, everyone. That’s a wrap. Go unwind, and we’ll meet up again in front of the apartment building at five thirty sharp.”
My dad stood up, his chair scraping over the tile floor. “You coming, Cassie-bug?”
I winced. “Dad!”
He chuckled and patted me on the shoulder. “You know, when you were a little girl—”
I cut him off before he could humiliate me any further. “Go on. I’ll be right there.” I turned back to the phone and quickly sent my number to Mateo’s.
“People!” Bayani shouted. “If you’re not clearing out, you’re packing up!”
“Wow,” I told him. “You sound really authoritative.”
“You mean bossy.”
“That, too.”
Mateo stayed with me, and we helped Bayani finish cleaning up the shoot. By the time we walked back outside into the
heat, the crowds had disappeared. And so had the rest of the crew. Bayani shifted the box of cables, extension cords, and gaffer tape he was carrying and looked down the street to where everyone else was clustered in front of our apartment building, talking and laughing. We trudged down the hot sidewalk to join them.
“Cavin better be here before we leave for Buñol tonight,” he grumbled. “I don’t want his job anymore.”
“If he gets here, does that mean you can take over for Daniel?” I asked. “Please?”
Bayani laughed. “What? I thought Daniel was your friend.”
“Well, yeah. But I think this film thing has gone to his head.”
“People!” Mateo mimicked. “Once more with feeling!”
With his Spanish accent, Mateo sounded even more dramatic than Daniel himself. I had to laugh.
“No theatrics!” Mateo warned.
“Good!” Bayani said. “There he is.”
I thought he meant Daniel and I winced, hoping Daniel hadn’t heard us. Just because he’d been making me crazy all day didn’t mean I wanted to hurt his feelings. But then I realized who Bayani was waving to. It was Cavin, just climbing out of a taxicab. “Come on,” I said to Mateo, “you’ve got to meet him.”
“But wait!” Mateo held back, holding his hands up to form a frame. “I must capture the moment.”
“No, really,” I said, pulling on his arm. “You’re going to like—” And then I stumbled to a stop right in front of the cab and stared.
Because standing behind Cavin was a tall, dark-haired boy with laughing green eyes I would know anywhere. He cocked his head to the side and looked straight at me.
“Hello, Cassidy,” he said.
Logan McCarthy and I practically
grew up together. Okay, we were together for only three years—from the time I was seven and he was eight until I was almost ten and he was eleven—but those were crucial years as far as I was concerned. Logan’s dad was with When in Rome way back when it started, and in those days Logan, like me, had traveled from location to location with the show. Then, two years ago, his mom decided he’d had enough “ladding about,” and she’d taken him back to Ireland to live with her.