Read Online Gaudi Afternoon by Barbara Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

looked around and realized he was talking to me. I quickly ordered the menu of the day. I began with an ensalada de tomates , followed by a tortilla español and then roast chicken. Afterwards I’d have a flan perhaps, and coffee. I thought I might need all three courses if Frankie didn’t show up soon.
    Even though we were outside, the noise among the tables was deafening. Maybe there was a tour group here enjoying a taste of the real Barcelona. Women in pantsuits with strong midwestern accents and pink and blue hair talked about how they just loved this Gaudy architecture, while their husbands discussed bullfights and how many miles they’d covered that day. Young couples carrying The Rough Guide to Europe or Frommer’s Spain on $40 a Day (hadn’t it once been five dollars a day?) argued about whether they could fit in Seville before Madrid or whether two days in Granada was too much.
    I read a few pages of La Grande but I couldn’t help eavesdropping on the conversation of two college-aged women nearby. They had obviously just met and were trading horror stories about the French.
    â€œThey might as well have put their hands over their ears when I asked them a question. It was that blatant!”
    â€œYou’d think they thought of French as some kind of sacred holy language. It’s just a language, for pete’s sake.”
    â€œBoy, I never was so glad to get out of a country in my life. I like Barcelona. The Spanish seem really friendly.”
    â€œOh, I think so too. I met the cutest guy at my hotel. He wanted to talk English with me.”
    Then a most awkward thing happened.
    â€œIsn’t that a great novel?”
    I jumped. It was Ben, smiling disarmingly and pointing to the book in my hand.
    I put on my best Irish accent. “Well and it’s certainly a vivid picture of life in South America today. From a woman’s point of view of course.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought,” Ben said, leaning closer. “I mean, we’ve been hearing from Garcia Márquez and Donoso and Vargas Llosa for years. But what about the women?”
    Oh god, he was a feminist type of guy. And he knew about South American writers.
    â€œMay I join you?” he said, convinced that we had a lot in common. “I’m waiting for a friend, but she hasn’t shown up yet. I can’t stand eating by myself, it really makes me lose my appetite, especially in a place like this.”
    Curiosity has always been my downfall. I invited Ben to sit down with a wave of my hand. Frankie would just have to lump it.
    â€œI’m Hamilton Kincaid,” he said, holding out a firm brown hand. “Originally from New York, but I’ve been living in Barcelona for the last few years.” He had blue eyes and a couple of days’ growth of blond beard.
    If he wanted to bluff it so could I. “Brigid O’Shaughnessy,” I said. “From Dublin.”
    â€œThat name sounds familiar somehow,” he said.
    â€œI’m a journalist.”
    â€œI don’t read newspapers much,” he apologized. “I try to keep up with contemporary fiction—Eco, Kundera, the Latin Americans, naturally—but I always feel I’m behind. Of course I try to read literature in the original and that takes a bit longer.”
    â€œWhat do you do?” I asked him. Besides try to impress girls like me?
    â€œOh, I play a little music. Saxophone.”
    Dilettante. I smiled charmingly. “So you think you’ve been stood up?”
    â€œShe said one and it’s one-thirty. But then my friend is— how shall I put it?—something of a free spirit.”
    Strange that Frankie had said the same about him. Just a couple of free spirits with hidden agendas.
    â€œIs she Spanish?”
    â€œNo, she’s another American. It’s her first visit to Spain.”
    â€œOh dear, and you’ve been cajoled into playing tour guide.”
    â€œNot