Plaid Shirt nodded. “How about you?”
“I don’t… Oh, I’m a director too. Theatre, though. Well, I’m trying to be.”
“God, another one?” Plaid Shirt blew a puff of smoke out toward the street. His face fell as he turned back to Alex. “I’m sorry, that sounded dismissive. I’m sure you’re very good.”
Alex flirted with the idea of mining their evening’s rehearsal drama for an anecdote, but it seemed a sure way to drive the stranger away. “I’m Alex.”
“Jago.” The man’s grip belied his small frame.
“Like inOthello?”
“Oof!”
“I’m sorry.Thatsounded—”
“No, I deserved it.” Jago smirked. “Actually, Iago is a form of ‘James.’ My full name is Jacobo, but please, Jago. Just Jago.”
Alex watched Jago stamp out his cigarette. “Sounds like you’ve had this conversation before.”
“I was wondering if I wanted to have it with you, or if you would want to talk with me at all. While I was considering this, out you came like a cuckoo clock. Some would call that fate.”
Alex felt what a cliched romance novel might have called butterflies. He called it regretting so much vermouth.
“Was that your boyfriend sitting next to you?” Jago asked.
“Oh. No. Actually he’s… My friends have been together almost a year now.”
“Ah, the girl? A most handsome couple.”
Alex’s mind reached for an appropriate follow-up question. Was Jago seeing anyone? Too intrusive. What did Jago do? Too obvious, and what if the poor guy worked at a bank or a café like Alex did when he wasn’t being a director? If this had been the movie, it would have been the perfect time for Vicente and Joanna to join them and save Alex from the pregnant silence. Not that Jago couldn’t have ended it any time he chose. In fact, Alex was starting to think he’d deliberately chosen not to, until at last he lit another cigarette.
“What play are you doing?” asked Jago. “I’d like to come see it.”
“It’s umm… an homage to… well, more of a retelling, really… you know Lorca’sBlood Wedding?”
Jago’s eyes darkened, casting Alex a side glance thick with scepticism. “Everyone. Knows.Blood.Wedding.”
The response had been so stilted and unreal, Alex was unsure how to respond, until Joanna and Vicente burst through the Alphaville’s doors.
“So much fun!” Joanna beamed at Alex. “Didn’t you have fun, darling? You should have joined us. Everyone’s quite friendly.”
“I had fun. It was just stuffy in there. Oh, this is…” Alex turned to the empty space where Jago had been. He looked around for any sign of a plaid shirt, only to see it vanish around the next corner.
***
“They’ll hate it.”
“You might be surprised.”
“No, they’re going to hate it,” Vicente insisted, a cigarette wedged between his lips as he emptied the last of the vermouth into two glasses. “They’re going to hate it because they’re obsessed with this strange pre-Fascist golden age that never existed, like every artist who came out of that age didn’t fuck off to Paris or Mexico or stay to be murdered by Franco.That’sthe fantasy they want to see. Not housewives pissing on lesbian punk rockers. Alex? Alex!”
“Eh? Oh!” Alex took the glass from Vicente’s hand, watching in silence as Vicente sat down opposite him. “No more ice?”
“No, and you’re too drunk to care.” Joanna leaned into Vicente’s chest as he took a sip of warm vermouth. “So, did you have an actual conversation this time?”
Vicente and Alex frowned at her.
“With that boy who disappeared on you after you got him into the movie.”
