Mirador San Miguel Alto

"I'll buy one for a dollar." His American South drawl tripped and chuckled all over itself.

"A dollar?!" she replied, her accent, the vision, the perfect conception of an English speaking French woman. Star patterns punched in her leather shoes--scuffed at the toes--bounced against the wall overlooking Granada. She pulled a pouch of rolling tobacco out of her pocket. "I'll give you one."

"That was a very American thing for me to do." He stroked his wispy rat beard and slumped into his gut. His T-shirt, obscured by his fleece zip up, read only "ALKING." Walking Dead? Talking Heads? I was set adrift on furious internal debate.

She knocked excess tobacco off her thumb and forefinger onto her skinny red denim. As she handed him the rollie, she shifted inside her jacket, "It's a gift."

"It was actually my birthday just two days ago."

"Congratulations!" she replied with the warm enthusiasm young men love to break their hearts against.

"Congratulations? Okay. I didn't have much to do with..."

She immediately shot in, "Is that not what you say, 'congratulations'?"

"No, in America we just say 'Happy Birthday'," his tone flatlined with sarcasm.

"In my translations, it translates from my language to 'Very big congratulations on your birthday.'"

"I guess it's for still being alive."

They both laughed a little. 

"How old are you?" she asked sipping beer from a tumbler she brought from home. There was a woman in dreadlocks prowling the scenic overlook and selling Alhambra beers for one Euro a piece. If you took her up on her offer, she'd take your money, disappear to a stash bag hidden in a bush, and return with a cold beer. The tumblers were a sophisticated  touch, an elegant extension of her brown, short cropped curls and slender cigarette holding fingers.

"25," he said with the weight of double the years. "I'm almost 30." The case was terminal.

"30! I haven't even begun to think what it's like to be 30. I can't even feel what it's like to be 30."

"What should 30 feel like?" He could feel the three and the zero staring over his shoulder.

"Feelings of wanting to start a family and have career." Her friend next to her interjected, adding something in French to the woeful list. They both laughed. "Oui, oui. But there is no rule book to live your life," she quipped and threw back her head with full throated laughter.

It's a comfort to know token phrases have a place in all cultures, or maybe English is only taught in idioms and weightless slogans.

They chatted and found out they were both part of the exchange program at the University of Granada. She highly recommended the orientation. He wouldn't want to come hang at their apartment, though. As she pointed out, it was a one bedroom with the two of them and an Italian girl. Talk of school became talk of being in Spain. How long. How many stops. Barcelona. Sevilla. Bull fights.

"I just don't...I don't think I'd be in to that," he offered, rubbing his hand down the seams of his bluejeans as though he had to clean the idea from his hands.

"Will it make you cry?" she shot back.

"No, I just think it's mean." It was hard to tell if he meant it. 25 is a good age to still tell the women you want what you think they might want to hear. 

"You won't cry."

"I'm not saying..."

"If we go and you cry, you buy me a frozen ice cream treat and you buy her a..." she turned to her friend who just smiled through her cigarette hand. "You buy her a cake."

"You want to make a bet?"

"A what?"

"Make a bet, like..."

"Yes! Make a bet," she chirped.

As dusk light refracted through the belt of haze hanging fat above the rooftops of Granada, the quieting world filled their mouths. Clouds rolled over the hills edging the city, a cannon boomed on a hilltop, night birds bent their voices on the tangerines and rose water pinks and lavenders spilled over the fiery cup descending behind the Sierra Nevadas.

"Do you have siblings?" he asked trying to wedge the silence open.

"Yes, I have two brothers," she replied into the twilight.

"I have two brothers and one sister. I'm gonna have to get my sister something. What should I get her?"

"Shoes?" She shared a look with her friend and they laughed.

"I was thinking about getting her a flamenco dress."

"Oh no, those are very expensive. Maybe more than €100."

"Dang, maybe shoes? Well, I'm going to need your help."