A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

I take my 14 year old granddaughter, Tatiana, to the opera: L’elisir d’amore at Covent Garden – a rare treat. 

Just before the lights go down, I notice a good-looking older man hovering very close to where we’re sitting staring at us both.  He suddenly speaks, in a foreign accent: ‘Mother & daughter?’  Tatiana pipes up: ‘She’s my grandma’.   

The man puts his fingers to his lips and blows them in my direction. 

 

‘You don’t have a husband if you look so good!’ he says.  I laugh and say: ‘No I don’t!’

 

He winks at me, having established my marital status.  Tatiana gives me a nudge and says: ‘You just can’t help it, can you?’ like I’ve done something wrong!  He takes his seat, the lights go down, and the performance begins. 

During the interval, Tats & I go walkabouts.  Her maths teacher is somewhere in the audience but we don’t find her – she said she wasn't bothered, but I'm sure she would have like to show herself off in other than her school uniform.  Crossing the bar on the way back to our seats, The Foreigner is standing alone drinking a glass of pink champagne.   Stylish!

He greets me warmly, asks Tats her name then asks mine. 

‘I will call you Wendy, not Grandma...’ he whispers in my eye.  ‘I am Carlos.’ 

We chat a little.  He’s from Mexico, travels 6 months of the year, is probably lonely with a wife in Acapulco or wherever.  Tatiana’s looking bored so we walk off but bump into him again just before the 2^nd act.  He quickly asks for my phone number.   

I say: ‘I’ll give it to you later’.  

At the end of the opera, he has to pass where we’re sitting to leave. I give a business card to Tats to hand to him (I never gave him my number, m’lud).  He takes both my hands in his and says: ‘Have lunch with me tomorrow at 2.’  I say: ‘I can’t tomorrow’.  He looks disappointed, but takes the card and leaves without saying goodbye to Tatiana which I find rude.  Men, honestly!! 

 

If he calls, should I see him? What would you do?