Estefania had called me a few hours earlier, telling me that the two American subletters had arrived. “Hombre, they seem pretty nice, but…I don’t know, there’s something a little strange about them. Well, maybe that’s unfair, since we really didn’t talk that much. Maybe it had something to do with what they were wearing. Anyway, you’ll meet them soon enough.” Apparently they had lost their luggage, so I’m sure Estefania was exaggerating their appearance. They were probably just a little disheveled, maybe a little off from the plan ride. Estefania is always so dramatic. She’s cute, though.
By the time Rafa and I finished the game and had dinner, it was around midnight. My mom told me that Americans go to sleep really early, so I assumed I probably wouldn’t see them until the next day. Julia was having a party at her house, so I figured I’d just tiptoe in, change, and head out. I was kind of interested in meeting them, but if they were staying for a month, we’d run into each other eventually.
I’d always been interested in getting to know some real Americans. I mean, movies are probably the lamest way to go about making assumptions about people—if that were the case, then all Spaniards eat ham and look like Penelope Cruz, which is unfortunately not the case. I mean, Julia is totally great, but she definitely doesn’t look like Penelope Cruz. Even what my mom told me about growing up in Connecticut is kind of a hard thing to go by, since she lived in a tiny town outside of the state capital. These two were from New York City, and that’s totally supposed to be all crazy and cosmopolitan, right?
Anyway, as soon as I walked into the apartment, the girl in pink totally freaked out. When I say pink, I mean she was decked out head-to-toe in pink—really loose cotton sweatpants with a weird miniskirt folded on top, and an enormous Yogi Bear t-shirt that hung off of her like a scarecrow’s jacket. She seemed to have been decorating her room with all kinds of pink cloths—a handkerchief and a shawl tied awkwardly around the loft ladder, and this dingle-dangle belly dancer’s cloth draped on the side of the bed frame.
When she saw me coming in, she immediately dropped the gigantic pink housedress she was hanging up and gasped. I smiled and looked to where I heard a voice screaming in Spanish. Blue Monster was sitting in my armchair, yelling into a cell phone at whom I assumed to be the airline that lost their luggage.
“No, you listen to me. I obviously understand that there is a lot of luggage that needs to be delivered all over Madrid, ok? But first of all, that wouldn’t even be a problem if you all did your job; second of all, that’s definitely not my problem, since I’m not the one who lost two pieces of luggage. If you tell me my luggage, that’s been lost for two days, is coming to my apartment during a certain time, I’m supposed to stay here so I can receive it, right? How long do you really expect me to wait around like a fool until you decide to get your act together and do your job? Tomorrow? Sunday? What if it doesn’t come until Monday, am I supposed to take a day off of work to just sit around the house waiting for you to fix a problem that you caused? Are you joking?” Blue Monster looked up at me for a second and muttered, “Hola,” before turning his attention back to screaming into the phone: “Oh, really? Well, give me the number of your supervisor right now, because this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I have never been treated with such disrespect. How can you treat paying customers with such disrespect?” He grabbed a pen from the table, ripped a piece of cardboard from an empty box, and began writing furiously. “Of course I’m writing everything down, why would I ask you…”
I walked into my room and shut the door. There’d be time to get to know them later, or to at least introduce myself. But they seemed a little preoccupied. I had wanted to shower, but I just wanted to get out of the apartment as soon as possible, so I just threw on some clean clothes and got ready to run the hell out of there. I opened my door just as Blue Monster was hollering out something, probably the luggage code: “M! A! D! I! B! Siete! Tres! Tres! Nueve! Nueve!” I walked past Pink Freak just as Blue Monster added: “Ostia!” Looking at Pink Freak timidly moving around her little room, hanging those weird decorations, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad, so I invited her and Blue Monster to Julia’s party. Holding either a pink fanny pack or hat, she looked at my with wide eyes and said slowly, “Oh, ok, thank you very much. But, um, I don’t know…”
For a second, I thought she didn’t speak English, but I think she was just really, really out of it.
“Vale, well, have a good night,” I responded. I opened the door and left. I wanted to call Estefania and yell at her for picking huge weirdos for me to live with, but I figured the damage was done. I walked down the stairs thinking about how late I’d have to stay out to avoid talking to my two new roommates for a month.
