[ eight ]
My first night in Madrid went by without a problem. I got settled into a hotel where I would be staying until I could find a decent flat to live in and I set out to explore the town. The first and only time I came here was with James, when he was offered a contract with Real Madrid. Because everything happened so fast, I never got the chance to see the capitol of Spain.
Now I had all the time in the world, six months, to become aquainted with the city.
I set out without a plan. The sun was still out and I estimated I had at least two hours of sunlight before I would return to my hotel.
My eyes curiously examined my surroundings. The old continent had always been something appealing to me. It was full of rich history and in a sense made me feel at home. It was the case that once, hundreds of years before, there might have lived one of my ancestors here in Spain. With that in mind, it was even more amazing to me how us as Latinamerican people were probably connected, somewhere along the ancestral line, to someone we never met before.
Inhaling a breath of fresh air into my lungs, I threw my arms out into the air and announced to no one in particular, "Here's to a positive new life! No more crying."
My heart stopped in my chest when I felt my hand collide with the warm skin of someone's face. I pulled my hand back in horror and with a gasp offered a stream of apologies as the young man said in an English that had a thick German accent attached to it, "Geez! What the fuck is your problem? Are you trying to knock me unconscious?" His blue eyes stared back at me, his face red where my hand hit him.
"I'm so sorry." I quickly said in English, "I'm new here and-"
"And you thought it was okay to hit people?" He concluded, finishing my sentence for me.
"No!" I yelled, outraged.
Placing a hand on my shoulder, he said to me while a small smile tugged at the corners of his lips, "Calm down. I was joking. But that really did hurt, you know." His free hand went to rub the sore spot on his face.
I crinkled up my nose as I spoke. "Sorry."
"I'm Toni." He stuck his hand out for me to shake.
"Oh," I gasped, impressed. Even though he seemed familiar when I almost knocked his teeth out, he looked a bit different. That was sometimes the case with some people. The way they looked on television was different than the way they looked in person. "You're one of those guys from that team that won the world cup. What are the odds..." When I realized I was leaving him hanging, I shook his hand and said, "I'm Arista."
The moment our hands touched, I saw a few flashing lights in the distance. It came from the camara of a paparazzi that had been following around and had probably gotten pictures of me accidentally hitting him.
Gesturing back to the entrance of the hotel, I told him shyly, "I should probably go. I have a lot to do tomorrow." My desire to explore the town was now gone. With those photos now in possession of the media, they would no doubt be in a local newspaper by the next morning. All I could think of was how James would react to it, or if he would even care.
The German footballer stood there as I raced into the hotel.
One set of pictures meant nothing. I would probably never encounter Toni again.
.
.
.
.
I was almost on my way out in the morning when my girlfriend Giselle walked into the kitchen in her silk night gown, a heavy newspaper weighing down her hand as she scoffed loudly to get my attention. "People don't know what to report anymore." She said, dropping the newspaper on the table in front of me. "Now they're shipping your friend Toni with some girl he ran into on the street. It must be a slow newsweek."
