Chapter 11 The Old Gringo

I met a man the other day, an old gringo I'd seen around the village ever since I arrived. It's taken me this long to get up the nerve to speak to him. As far as I knew, he'd never noticed me, although you'd think my hair would make me stand out a little. I was timid because he struck me as someone who's been here a while. An old hand, and sometimes those types don't like pushy young gringas invading their turf. By definition, all gringas in Mexico are pushy and loud.
Around eleven most days I go to the only cafe on the plaza and order either an agua melon or agua sandia. Cantaloupe or watermelon water, sweetened and delicious. That's it though. You'd be proud of me. While people around me stuff themselves with eggs, beans, tortillas and tamales, I just sit there and sip my melon water. Even Horacio, who always comes with me to the village, has a few tacos, even though he complains that they aren't as good as the ones in Sinaloa. The only other person at the cafe who never eats much is the gringo. He drinks Nescafe and nibbles a little at a basket of pan dulce while he reads either the Sunday New York Times, which he gets on Tuesdays, or a novel. The first novel I saw him reading was Timbuktu, Paul Auster. The second one was Fuentes, El Gringo Viejo, which was too much. I couldn't shut my mouth. "So," I said, "the old gringo reads The Old Gringo." Not my most clever moment, I know, but I wanted to say something before I changed my mind, and what else would one say?
I'd already done my homework, by the way. Horacio comes in handy for all sorts of things. He found out that the old gringo wasn't, after all, such an old hand. He'd only been there a few weeks before I arrived, his Spanish was minimal, and he was living in a little house owned by a gringa painter who hadn't been seen for a couple of years. He told Mercedes, the woman who takes care of the gringa's house, that he was writing a novel and would be here for several months, maybe a year. Another old gringo writing a novel, I thought. They practically grow on trees down here. And then there's young gringas writing memoirs, although most of us stay at home to do that. I wasn't at all sure I wanted to meet him. On the one hand, I was starting to get a little stir crazy, with only Horacio and his wife and kids to talk to, wonderful though they are, but this guy might turn out to be a terrible bore.
Or he might not. Still good looking, I thought, a chiseled sort of face, and nice eyes. Good taste in novels. And most important of all, not the least bit interested in me, apparently. That I found very curious, so how could I not approach him?