The Street Musician – Part 1: Under the Orange Trees

The first night, Alex stopped for one song.

The second night, she stopped for three.

By the fourth, she had brought a folding stool and a bag of oranges, and was sitting at the edge of a small plaza in the heart of Seville with her chin on her knees, listening to a woman play guitar like it was a conversation.

Marisol, thirty-five, played under an old orange tree with her case open at her feet. She was slim and dark-eyed, with a loose black braid, ink-black boots and fingers that moved over the strings with quiet authority. The music rippled through the warm evening, bright then low, full of old longing. A few passers-by stopped. Most walked on. Alex stayed.

When the last song ended, Marisol looked up. "You came again," she said.

"I came every night."

"I noticed." She smiled. "I was playing for you from Tuesday."

Alex, thirty-two, a primary teacher from Leeds, took the empty seat on the low wall. "I'm on holiday. I'm supposed to be seeing museums."

"This is a museum." Marisol patted the guitar. "Eight hundred years of Andalusian sadness. Very little air conditioning."

They sat laughing in the dusk. A breeze stirred the orange leaves, and the scent of blossom drifted down. Marisol packed away her guitar, and the plaza emptied slowly of tourists, leaving only the sound of a fountain.

"Would you like to eat?" asked Marisol. "I know a very small place. They serve late. Very late."

"Is that a date?"

"It is a very good dinner." Marisol hesitated. "And I would also like to kiss you at the end of it, if you would like that."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Late Supper.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Late Supper.