My life in Valencia has been strange these past three months. I mean, the people here is quite different from what I’m used to at home: I’m from the north of Italy and we are not as open as those I met here. But there is a fine line between being open and being hilarious. I should tell a bit of a back story before writing about this episode though, or it would not be totally clear.
I am also a translator and, at present, I am working on translating a book from Italian into English. Sometimes – especially during Summer – it’s a bit hard to work at home, thinking about all the things other people are doing to enjoy their weekend [I translate mainly during the weekends, since the other days I work at the University], so I usually go to Starbucks, buy myself a huge cup of Matcha Green Tea or Americano and sit at a table to write. I can isolate myself good enough, other people talking don’t bother me.
So, during my stay here in Valencia I have chosen my Starbucks and have spent my Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays sitting at my usual table…with the same two guys sitting right at the table in front of me. These two friends were living in this beautiful Spanish city to write the dissertation for their PhD and, like myself, preferred to work outside their apartment. We haven’t really talked, just exchanged pleasantries above our cups of coffee like “everything ok?” or “have a nice day”. Good neighbors talk. That was until yesterday.
This Sunday we were sitting at our usual spots, drinking our usual drinks, when a group of young and careless/wild girls stormed the place. They were five-ish teenagers with their eyes full of laughter and their hearts light as feathers. I was working already, with my earplugs in and my head wrapped around how to translate a particularly difficult paragraph, when someone bumped against my table, laughed a “Sorry!” in my direction, and then went to the table opposite to mine. The guys were talking to each other and were totally unprepared when the girls “attacked” them in formation, like a perfectly trained pack of wolves led by their leader.
Said “leader” was a petite girl who had the energy of a dozen people compressed in her tiny body, always on the brink of exploding, like a soda can that has been shaken and is about to come out frizzing once you open it. She started talking to the first of them, the one with dark hair and a military cut, who was much more concentrated on his task, always typing and almost never chatting. His friend, on the other hand, had the air of a Californian surfer – wavy blond hair included – and enjoyed himself in the occasional smile and chat with a passing girl, far less worried about the progress of his dissertation. At least, that’s what he told me. But back to the little wolves. The Alpha approached the dark-haired guy accompanied by her two Betas, while the others started circling Blondie, resembling more some piranhas that had caught a whiff of blood in the water.
Alpha led her attack at full speed, she was taking Spanglish so quickly I couldn’t even understand what she was saying, I just saw the pleading look on Dark’s face. He tried to tell them in a shaky spanish that he was english and had some difficulty in understanding her, but she just kept blabbing at full throttle until she told him: “let’s take a selfie!”. He was so shocked he didn’t even move or smile when they started to click on their I-phones and snapping enough photos to fill a portfolio. He tried muttering something about the work he had to do, but they had already moved to their next prey: Blondie was ready for the ripe. Alpha joined her pack and led the assault on him, but she had met her match and she had to sweat more to get what she wanted: his name to add him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and a bunch of others social medias I did not even realized existed.
He could put up a good defence formation, but eventually from his castle he had to raise the white flag, allowed her to snap her pics and even gave her his Instagram and Facebook accounts. Dark couldn’t stop from smirking at this capitulation and I with him: Blondie had been way too confident and could never have suspected how good these girls are at what they do. But they weren’t done yet. The Alpha followed Dark and Blondie’s gazes – we were in a sort of eye-to-eye conversation made of laughs and dumbstruck nods – and she saw me. Her eyes turned to slits and she started to shashay towards me, ccompanied by her pack.
She started with “You’re so pretty!”, moving on to “what are you doing here”…all in Spanish. She did not extend to me the same courtesy she gave the guys, but talked at full speed in her mother tongue, not expecting I was fluent and it wasn’t a problem. When I answered her, she gave me a startled look, before reconsidering her tactic and moving on to more juicy subjects: the guys. She asked me who I was “pursuing” – none of them – and if we had talked a lot and she went on and on at such a speed that my head started turning… until she said “Back off, the one with the dark hair is mine”.
Her eyes were pure steel, not matching her young ge at all, and I have to admit I was sort of startled by the change. I laughed at this, but then she handed me a card, with a name on it and she started telling me the story of her life, of her estranged father and the siblings she had – same father but different mothers – until she asked me:
“Do you know who he is?” I didn’t. “He is the owner of a lot of bars and discos in Ibiza so I’m giving you a friendly advice: don’t go to the island. Never.”
I was sort of chilled to the bones by the serious note on her voice, but didn’t have the time to answer to that no-so-veiled threat, because she stormed out of the coffee place with her friends – they had plans to go to a party at the beach. Still baffled at the experience, I looked at the guys, they looked at me – they heard everything and their eyes were silently asking me what did I do to anger that little mobster – I shrugged and then we laughed. We laughed and laughed…but in the back of my mind that manacing line and the stare that accompanied it stayed with me.
A regular day at the office.
The Errant Reader 