Sure Thing • Gavi

Chapter 1: I am Victoria

🎶 Bette Davis Eyes — Kim Carnes 🎶

"The Princess will receive you now" the man said and I stood up, with the newspaper's photographer Miguel following me.
This interview was my first real big piece that I had landed since working for La Vanguardia. I started there last year after having completed my master's degree in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. I had then applied to the politics office of Catalonia's biggest newspaper and started at the bottom. After a year of hard work, I was now set to write a four-page exclusive on the country's heir to the throne.

Princess Leonor had just completed her IB in Wales and was set to join the military academy this summer, so the piece would focus on her personal and the country's expectations for the future.
She greeted us very friendly and we talked for about three hours, while Miguel was taking snapshots and short videos of our conversation to promote the article online. She was very well-mannered, but still had a very personal sense of humour and I would definitely praise that character trait in my article.

"Thank you very much, your royal highness, I think we're all done here" I said when I had finished all my questions.
"Oh thank God, I was so nervous" she sighed and laughed.
"Oh no, did I make you feel uncomfortable?" I asked concernedly - she was still young.
"No, no, not at all, you were great. It's just... this is my first major interview and that for a newspaper from a region which is not the monarchy's biggest fan. But our PR officers says that's the reason why we're giving the exclusive to you guys instead of El País or El Mundo." she replied.
"Makes sense. Well, I will write the truth and that is that you are a charming and intelligent young woman." I said and smiled.

"You excited about the final?" she asked while I was packing up my stuff.
"Which final?" I said - I hoped she knew by now that I was a professional journalist and not a student who still had to take exams.
"Nations League, we beat Italy yesterday!" she said excitedly.
"Oh that! Yes, I read that, but I rarely have time to watch football" I chuckled.
"I think we have a chance, we have really good players..." she swooned.
"Like Gavi?" I asked and chuckled, hoping to not have gone too far with my joke. It had been all over the news that she apparently fancied the young talent.
"Ha ha, very funny. He is very good-looking and good at football, I won't deny that" she said and blushed.
"Well, thank you again and all the best for your military career" I said and shook her hand.
"Thank you, goodbye, have a safe journey home!" she said and then we were off.

Miguel and I took the train back to Barcelona and I immediately started working on the piece I had to have ready by next week. Miguel showed me the pictures, which turned out great and he already started editing a teaser video for our Instagram page. While he returned home when we arrived at the train station, as it was a late Friday afternoon, I decided to go to the office to continue on my article.

Irene, my colleague who was sat across from me and worked for the Economic section of the paper, was also still there.
"Oh my gosh, you've missed such a great scene today. Mr Juan fired basically the whole sports office because he discovered that they had been having secret raves on Saturdays here at the office and paid for food and alcohol for those with the paper's credit card." Irene laughed.
"No way! I would have loved to see that!!" I said and she told me all the details, but unfortunately we were interrupted by my work iPhone ringing.

"Hernandez?" I answered the call. Why was our editor calling me? I had never talked to him in person.
"Ah Miss Hernandez, thank Heavens you're picking up! Are you still in Madrid or already back in Barcelona?" he asked. He sounded very stressed.
"Erm... actually, I just arrived at the office" I replied.
"Oh great, could you please come to my office? Eighth floor" he asked.
"Uh - yes. I'm on my way" I said and hung up.

"What's up?" Irene asked curiously.
"Mr Juan wants to speak me." I said and my hands started sweating, hopefully he wasn't firing me.
"Oh... good luck with that. He also came up to me today and started asking me weird questions about football... As if I have a clue about that" she scoffed.
So I made my way two floors up and took a deep breath before knocking on my boss' boss door.

"Ah, here you are, I'm coming straight to the point. You're going to the Nations League final in Rotterdam on Sunday." he said and looked for some documents on his desk.
"I... sorry, what? I work in the politics department, I-" I stammered, but he cut me off.
"You think I don't know where my employees work? You certainly heard about what happened to my sports department. Our national team is standing in a final on Sunday and we need a reporter. Most of our employees are married and have families - I can't call them on Friday night and ask them to fly to another country for the weekend. But you're young, good, clever - you'll do it" he said.
"With all due respect Sir, I have never written a sports article, I'm not familiar with many technical terms-" I said, but he interrupted me again.
"Do you know what offside is?" he asked.
"Yes" I replied. I only knew because my brother and father were huge football fans and every weekend we had to watch Barça play, either on TV if they were playing away, or at the Camp Nou when they played at home. I hadn't been in ages though as I had moved to Madrid and then London for uni.
"Great. You know more than your friend Miss Garcia, who seriously thought that the referee was an extra player who was there to help the weaker team on the pitch." he said and rolled his eyes.
Fuck, Irene, how could you be so stupid.

He scrambled around on his desk until he pulled out a stack of papers.
"Here are Mr Diaz' notes for the post-game interviews. Here's also your plane ticket, you're leaving on Sunday morning."