The Spanish Spotlight (LSD, #4)

8. It's Raining Men

It's Raining Men

When we drive off towards Cádiz, three beeps of my spiPhone indicate the arrival of an urgent message. I ignore it. I'm driving. You shouldn't play with your phone while you're driving. The phone beeps again, a little louder this time. That's the problem with urgent messages: they keep annoying you until you respond.

"Didn't your phone beep three times?", Chelsea asks, curiously. Her phone gets more attention than a crying baby in Central Park on a sunny summer Sunday.

"It did. There it is again. It repeats the signal until I respond."

"So...? What does it mean?"

"Three beeps indicate an urgent, urgent, urgent message."

"Why don't you pick it up and read what's so urgent, urgent, urgent?"

"Because I'm driving a car on a mountain road with lots of hooks and angles. All sorts of other traffic want to kill me or push me over the side, into that deep, deep, deep ravine on our left. Paying attention to the traffic is always more urgent than urgent, urgent, urgent messages."

Chelsea refuses to give up: "Duh! What if that urgent, urgent, urgent message orders you to go back to where you came from? If your destiny is behind you, you're wasting your time, driving ahead."

I keep quiet for almost ten seconds, glad, glad, glad for Chelsea's perfect cross-pass, which allows me to score an unexpected point with an easy header, admitting I admire her intelligence: "You're right. That was superb thinking. You outsmarted me 10 to 1. Spies dedicate their life to gathering information, and I'm ignoring the signals. Didn't I say I admire you? This is why: your sharp mind is always one step ahead of everyone else's."

Chelsea flashes a proud smile. My own sharp mind reminds me of a tiny gadget in the left pocket of my grey trousers. I fumble the earplug out of my pocket and into my ear, while overtaking a lorry with a trailer, before a bend to the left curls into a turn to the right, while I tell my spiPhone: "Lovely Sweet Dear. Activate earplug. Aloud message." I listen to what the phone tells me, nod, and flash an optimistic, mysterious smile.

It works better than I hoped. Chelsea's curiosity kills the street cat that crosses the road (the cat is lucky I'm a cat person; my quick reflexes and the superb brakes of the Ferrari save nine lives).

"What is it about? Is it top secret? Do we need to complete a dangerous mission? Did they just order you to save the world and you'll need my help? We're a team, right?"

I speed up, overtake a small car, dive into a dark tunnel, and when we see the light again, I explain: "Saving the world is nothing urgent; we can leave that for tomorrow. This is a whole lot more pressing: it's a one hour drive, and we have twenty minutes to get there. But you were right with the other thing you said: it can't be done without your help. I don't have the qualities they need for this rescue mission. But we're a team... You might save the day... Can you sing? Can you dance?"

"Duh. Do you think I'm simple, or what? Of course, I can sing and dance. Every girl can sing and dance."

"Well, I can do a lot of things, but I sing like a whale, and I absolutely can't dance. What I should have asked was: can you sing like a black woman?"

"What for?"

"I just got a message from The Nerd: Venus is lost."

"WOW! An invasion from Martians? And now we have to save the Earth?"

"I'm not talking about John Grey's science fiction novel «Men from Mars and Women from Venus». I'm talking about real-life Venus, the woman. She boarded the wrong private plane and ended up at the Australian Open instead of the sunny south of Spain...