May 3, 2019

A young man of no more than twenty-eight. His hair, just long enough to be considered long, was brown and thick and swept to the side. The whites of his teeth contrasting with the tanned and healthy skin. His eyes smiling at the corners.

He was watching Maria and Maria… Was watching him back. In the background, an impossibly well timed song by Jesús Alejandro Pérez played. The chords of the guitar filling up the room of the open kitchen of the tiny restaurant located in a tiny street of Barcelona.

Outside the sun now red and big slowly began its descent, calling it in after a long summer day’s work that particular day in August.

Outside the restaurant the city street began to fill up. The first murmurs of people leaving their warm refuges reached the cobbled streets. Everybody looking up at the now darkening sky. The first stars beginning to show. The voices of tourists, drunk, and excited, yelling non-sequiturs could be now heard as they headed towards the main parts of the Gothic, in search of a night of love, and romance, and alcohol.

The young men said something… Maria’s eyes shifted away from staring outside the windowed walls of the restaurant to setting on the young man’s handsome face. The impossibly tanned, impossibly good looking, impossibly charming young man. If only Jose was like this guy.

He said something again. Maria didn’t quite catch it.

‘Si?’ she said.

Jose. Since he’d entered her life, just a year before, he had been nothing but trouble. His smile, which was suspiciously similar to that of the young man in front of her, had caused more troubles than joys. Definitely, at least, a few heartbreaks.

‘I was wondering if you had a table available for tonight.’

‘Tonight?…,’ Maria said again.

The boy smiled at her again. Boy or man? Maria thought. How old could he’ve been? Twenty? No. Too young. Maybe twenty-six? No more than twenty-eight, Maria concluded. She turned around and grabbed her apron from the nearby counter. She unfolded it, white and clean, and freshly pressed, and tied it methodically like she did every night. Two loops and then a bow at the back She grabbed her long black her and tied it back severely. Her long neck, now exposed, causing the young boy-man or man-boy to take another look at her again. Why couldn’t Jose look at her like the Man-boy did? Jose. Jose was forty and old and divorced. He didn’t look at woman any differently now than he did with a bottle of wine. Both cause of joy, Maria thought. And depressions she said again. She tucked a loose strand of her behind her ear.

The Man-Boy was staring at her. Smiling, like Jose used to do when they first started dated.

‘Si?’ she said

The Man-Boy laughed. ‘Pues… I was wondering if there was space tonight for one?’

‘For one? Miguel, ven aqui!’ Maria said.

From the backroom Miguel appeared, tall and thin. His blond-hair and blue eyed framed by just enough beard to seem effortless.

‘Miguel, mira, do we have a table for one?’ Maria said.

Miguel went around the open kitchen’s V-shaped counter and reached for a red leather book next to the register at the entrance. His hand began scanning the book.

‘For one, for one, let me check,’ he said. ‘Last order, 11.30. Want me to pencil him chef?’

Maria stared at the Man-Boy and the Man-Boy stared back at Maria. His eyes smiled just a tiny bit more that made her think twice whether there was space or not.

‘Si,’ Maria decided.