Free Gaudi Afternoon by Barbara Wilson

exactly,” Ben sighed, and broke off a piece of bread. “I just met her yesterday. I never would have guessed.”
    â€œGuessed what?”
    â€œThat she was transsexual…. Do you know any transsexuals?”
    Now that you mention it, I guess I did. A dozen details about Frankie flashed through my head and reorganized themselves.
    Ben went on quickly. “Not that I’m judgmental. People are different. I’m gay for instance.”
    He misinterpreted my stunned silence and apologized. “I’m sorry. Being from Ireland, you’re probably not used to talking about homosexuals, much less transsexuals.”
    â€œYou’d be surprised,” I managed with a wan smile. “We Catholics love to dress up.”
    The waiter brought our salads over and I had another surprise. Ben spoke to him in quite credible Catalan. There was something I didn’t understand going on here. If Ben had only recently arrived from San Francisco, how on earth could he have picked up Catalan? Spanish he might have studied at school. But Catalan?
    â€œSo, Brigid,” he said, pouring me a glass of wine from the carafe. “What brings you to Barcelona?”
    I told him that I was doing a piece for the Irish Times on how Barcelona was preparing for the 1992 Olympic Games, while all the time my mind was reeling in confusion.
    If Frankie was a transsexual then Ben could hardly be her ex-husband.
    Unless Ben had married Frankie thinking she was a woman.
    Perhaps Frankie was blackmailing Ben, threatening to tell his family that he’d been married to a transsexual.
    But if Ben were gay why would he have married Frankie in the first place?
    Why had Ben said he only met Frankie yesterday?
    And just where was Frankie anyway?
    Our first course was taken away and our second course and our third course put before us, but still there was no sign of Frankie. It was now two o’clock and Ben was telling me about how he’d come to Barcelona because of the jazz scene. Some of the best musicians in Europe had congregated here, at places like the Harlem Club and the Cova del Drac.
    The more details he gave the more worried I got. It sounded more and more as if he really did live in Barcelona. And if he lived in Barcelona and lived at La Pedrera, then it was likely that High Tops, Delilah and April Schauer were visiting him and not the other way around.
    â€œI keep thinking you look familiar,” I finally said. “And now I remember where I saw you. Yesterday, at the Parc Güell. You were with two women and a little girl.”
    Ben shot me a rather strange look, as if it had occurred to him for the first time that he had reason to be on guard with a stranger. “Yes,” he said finally. “I usually go there around this time of day. I like to eat my lunch outside. It’s a place I showed to some friends who are visiting. I usually meet them there around this time—”
    He broke off suddenly, and stared at me.
    â€œExcuse me,” he said. “I’ve just remembered something.”
    He threw down a thousand pesetas and rushed across the square.
    I threw down another thousand and followed him. The thought had probably come to both of us simultaneously that if Frankie wasn’t here, she might well be at the Parc Güell. Only Ben knew why.
    He was nowhere to be seen when I came dashing out of the Plaça Reial onto the Ramblas. I quickly hailed a cab. Would I get there before him, and if so, what would I find?
    Twenty minutes later I arrived at the Parc Güell and rushed breathlessly through the portals, up past the blue lizard fountain to the plaza supported on wide pillars. There was no sign of Frankie, no sign either of High Tops, Delilah and April. I came back down the stairs and looked between the pillars. Nothing.
    It was a warm afternoon and I had gotten myself in a sweat with my haste and alarm. I’d been trying to remember the pronouns April and High Tops