Chapter 9

9

S he was meeting Miquel to visit the World Press Photo yearly exhibition at the perpetually hip CCCB, but first they were catching up over a glass of wine at one of the terraces at pla?a dels àngels.

She had gotten there on time after zigzagging among the many skaters who flocked to that particular square in the Catalan city as a skateboarding destination.

She was anticipating the wait so she was comfortably seated, had already ordered a glass of Albari?o, and was catching up on her reading of the fourth volume of Heartstopper —the creaks and smacks of the skates against the concrete a constant, if not quite melodious, background theme—when Miquel finally appeared.

"Benvinguda," he said when he finally got there, bending down to kiss her on the cheeks and flash one of his most alluring smiles.

"Fas tard," answered Sol. She had lifelong immunity to his many charms and hated the fact that he was always invariably late everywhere.

"London is not agreeing with you," he continued in Catalan. "I'm only twenty minutes late and I texted you. Plus, you're the one who wanted to see me." He sat down next to her.

The smile hadn't abandoned his lips for a second. His hair was longer than the last time Sol had seen him, and even though she doubted he'd seen a hairdresser for months, his long, mussed locks worked for him in a way not many people could have pulled off. She'd always been jealous of his simple, undemanding beauty.

"I need one of your pep talks," Sol told him.

"What happened?" Real worry blemished his expression for an instant.

"Got laid off again," Sol said. "Been looking for a way to tell my parents. You wouldn't want to talk to my mom, right?" she half-joked.

"I mean, she adores me… and I'm sorry about the job. But why tell them anyway?"

"They'll want to know what I'm doing here."

"You work from home most of the time. You can work from your Barcelona home. Especially now that awards season is over. You've done it in the past."

"I guess. Wouldn't I be lying to them though?"

"Not if they don't ask you about it."

Sol remembered how his mind worked.

He continued, "Don't rush to tell them until you're ready."

Miquel hadn't imparted a proper inspirational speech yet, but Sol was already feeling better. Was it the sunshine? The wine? All the beautiful fashion-forward people walking by?

"What's so bad about being jobless this time? It's happened to you before and you've always managed to find something else. And it happens all the time in our line of work," said Miquel. He sipped his beer, and Sol remembered why she'd called him.

He never panicked and always downplayed things. Nothing rattled him, and she envied his sunny views on everything. It was almost as if he'd been untouched by life drama and midlife crisis, by age itself. And the thing was, he pretty much looked the same way he had twenty years before. He was the only friend Sol had her own age who could make her forget they now lived in the land of yearly mammograms, knee pain, back problems, kitchen repairs, endless bills, infinite laundry that needed folding, and all the other insufferable adulting stuff.

"What happens is that this time I'm older than the previous time, and our profession doesn't reward seniority," she said more for herself than for him. Saying it out loud helped Sol understand why the layoff had hit her so hard.

"I know you don't like me reminding you about it," Miquel said, "but you don't have to worry. You have more contacts now than you had last time precisely because you're older. So what if you have to freelance for a few months?"

"I hate freelancing!"

"We all do. The difference is, you don't really need to worry about the pay at the end of the month. Can you at least try enjoying your family money for the rest of us? You know I'd gladly be in your place." He flashed that smirk of his once again.

"Don't get used to this, but I think you may be right," said Sol, even if she knew Miquel was considerably magnifying whatever money he thought she had.

···

She had said goodbye to Miquel after a tedious forty-five minutes of him insisting on mansplaining the whole photographic exhibition. Sol was reminded of why her first marriage had imploded.

He was captivating and had a bright take on everything that mostly made life easy, and she'd been madly in love with him when they were younger. But he was better in small doses.

She needed to make sure to go to the museum another time during her Barcelona visit though. The exhibition appeared to be fascinating without the imposed audio guide.

That evening, she was meeting her friends Laura and Lali for drinks at a quaint gin cocktails bar in one of Eixample's quintessential corner buildings near her place. Her friends were already having basil-infused gin and tonics when she got there. She knew she should have opted for water—she always drank too much when she was home—yet she decided to join them.

They talked about relationships, gentrification, fast fashion, inflation, and shared custody as the ideal but flawed co-parenting formula after divorce for couples with children. They touched on work, but what really kept them engaged was a lively conversation about strength training, anti-inflammatory nourishment, and wood therapy. Lali swore by the wooden technique in her fight against cellulite, even if it was apparently painful, and Sol resolved to do her own online research.

Lali was sharing the name and contact info of her personal trainer in case Sol wanted some guided-workout suffering during her visit to Barcelona when the conversation took a turn Sol didn't see coming.

"Are you worried?" Lali asked her in Catalan.

"About my job? A little," Sol admitted. She'd briefed her friends on her newly attained unemployed status.

"I actually meant about the theft of The Privateers script," Lali explained. "Wasn't it stolen at the studio you go to all the time?"

"Yes, so?" Sol didn't understand what her friend was trying to tell her.

"Aren't you worried they're gonna think you had something to do with it?"

"With the theft? Why would anyone think such a preposterous thing!" Her friends could be so ridiculous sometimes. They didn't have the first idea about how things worked in the showbiz industry.

Sol was still musing about what little her hometown friends knew about certain aspects of her life when she saw someone who looked familiar sitting at the bar.

"Do we know him?" Sol asked Lali and Laura.

The friends didn't even pretend to conceal their curiosity, turning rapidly to look at the person Sol was referring to. His profile was visible from the table they occupied, and Sol hoped the bar was too busy for him to notice their scrutiny.

"I don't think so," said Laura.

Lali agreed and implied she wouldn't mind getting to know him.

"I didn't think we knew him," said Sol. He was too young to be one of their peers from school or college. "But he looks familiar."

She never forgot a face and hated it when she couldn't place someone.

They got a message from Lurdes—yes, Sol was aware of the remarkable affinity she felt for people whose names started with L—swearing she'd be there in the following ten minutes, right after dropping off her kid at her parents'.

"I'm gonna get us something to eat," said Sol, knowing they were going to be there for a while. She headed to order some food.

When she got to the bar, the guy who looked familiar saw her. He seemed surprised, but it looked like he recognized her right away.

"Ens coneixem, oi?" she asked him in Catalan, her go-to language in the city.

"I'm sorry, what?" he muttered in English. Sol placed his husky voice and Estuary English accent.

"Oh, we know each other from London. Now I remember!" she said. "You're the guy from my Pilates class, right?"

He looked different than she remembered though. Hotter.

"Yes," the TDS muttered.