The slim Portuguese man at table 47 gazes rapturously up at me. “Señorita, muy bonita,” he says, starry-eyed. I smile back at him. “Gracias,” I reply, and his eyes widen.
“¡Habla español!” his Spanish friend exclaims.
“Si, un poquito.”
They beam at me, and I mentally thank my Spanish tutor for drilling us in the basic phrases, which is just about all I can still remember.
“¿Como se llamas?”
“Juan,” the Spanish one says.
“Me llamo Beth. Hola.” I look over at the Portuguese. He’s just staring at me with this strange look in his eyes and I start getting a bit uncomfortable.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask, and he shakes his head admiringly.
“Because you are so beautiful,” he says earnestly. My eyebrows go up and I’m not sure what to say to him, so I just laugh a little bit.
The Spaniard turns to me. “¿Donde aprendio usted español?”
“En universidad,” I reply. He keeps shooting questions at me but he speaks Spanish much too fast and I shake my head.
“No se, lo siento.”
“I like you very much,” the Portuguese tells me when I return to serve them another round of drinks. I look at him helplessly then turn to the Spaniard.
“Your friend keeps staring at me!” I complain jokingly. He shrugs, smiling, and shoots off a string of Spanish words - the only two I recognize are “trabaja” and “cuantos”. I take a shot in the dark.
“I finish work at one,” I say, and it turns out to be the right aswer.
“After that you go home?” they ask in Spanish.
“Si, yo vivo en mi universidad.”
By this time I’m getting a little uncomfortable with the intense gaze of the Portuguese guy, so I make my excuses and trot off to do other things. Still, every time I walk near his table, he turns away from conversation with his friend to watch me. Once, our eyes meet, and he blows me a kiss. I shake my head and laugh.
Finally they get up to leave, and the Portuguese guy grabs my hand.
“I am going now,” he tells me. We do the whole cheek-to-cheek air kissing thing, and they both give my hand a quick squeeze.
“Buenos noches,” I say. “Hasta mañana.”
“Hasta mañana,” they reply, and the Portuguese guy beams at me.
“Muy bonita,” he says again softly before they walk off in the direction I point them in to get a cab.
I can’t help but smile a bit to myself as I clear their glasses from the table. Maybe I’m a softy, but unlike most of my gorgeous and confident colleagues, I don’t get these sort of compliments from perfect strangers often; and sometimes after a bad day, things like this can really cheer you up.