The academy is small, the blocky exterior not giving anything away. Climbing the stairs, there’s an A4 paper with a bright red arrow pointing to the left.
Gexta English Academy, it reads.
There’s a girl behind a wooden desk, her chestnut ponytail high on her head. When she sees me, she jumps up. “Cat?”
I didn’t know I was expected. “Yes, that’s me,” I say. “And your name is?”
“Charlotte,” the girl responds. She looks young, but as she steps away from the desk to shake my hand, I see why. She’s a foot shorter and her entire royal blue dress can fit around one of my thighs.
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
She smiles, her teeth crooked and her makeup thick, eyes peering out from caked mascara. “Come with me.”
We walk down the carpeted corridor, her ponytail swinging from side to side. Swish, swish, swish.
We pass glass cubicles, each with a printed A4 sheet with a name on it. Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, London. She leads me into the Liverpool room, where charts and phrases of the English language line the walls. The room smells stale, but there’s a coffee machine in the corner and my mouth goes dry.
“Do you mind?” I ask.
“It’s not very good,” she says, shaking her head. “But feel free.”
I fiddle for coins buried in my bag, the product of a cash withdrawal and an expensive sandwich at the airport. I feel her eyes on me as I watch the coffee drip into the paper cup. When I turn, there’s a new face at the door.
He’s tall with dark stubble lining his chin. His hair is thick, a wave curtaining his eyebrow. His dark grey jeans and navy sweater make him look older, like a figure of authority.
“You must be Cat.”
He motions me to a plastic chair, pulling one closer. As he puts a pile of books and papers on the table, I think of Sam. Of how she could teach him a thing or two about organisation.
You need a binder, dude.
“Welcome to Spain,” he says. “I hear you got in a few days ago.”
“Fresh off the boat and happy to be here,” I say, giving my best smile. He turns his attention to the papers, shuffling through them. “Did you fly in from Cape Town?”
Charlotte’s standing with her hands folded like she’s about to take our order. “Johannesburg,” I say.
“Nice,” he says, like he just scored a goal on FIFA. “I’ve always wanted to go to South Africa. I’m Greg, by the way.”
Somehow, I must have known he would be. But the man who conducted my interview doesn’t reflect the guy sitting across from me. He seems more awkward in person. But friendlier. Maybe he was having a bad day when we had our call.
And for a second I realise who I’m meeting. It’s not just Greg, my interviewer, my colleague. It’s Lisa’s Greg.
Curiosity boils inside me, my ears buzzing as he tells me about the academy, the British curriculum, all the things I already know from the material I read online. But I don’t want to talk about any of this.
I want to talk about Lisa. Even though I know it’s a bad idea.
“Are you the core team?” I ask.
“Basically,” Greg says. “We’re small and only teach a few classes. Mostly to people living outside Bilbao looking to practise some English.”
“Any specific age groups?”
He shrugs. “Working class. People in their twenties to fifties, really.” There’s something attractive about him, and I wonder if Lisa saw it too.
“Anyways, Charlotte will take you through the course material today and then you can start sitting in on classes tomorrow.”
“Sorry, sitting in?” I ask, confused.
He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, sitting in. You’ll watch us teach before giving it a go yourself.”
The way he says giving it a go sounds like I’m in kindergarten, about to throw a frisbee for the first time. But it’s his turf, so I go along with it. “Whatever works best.”
My instincts want more information. More dirt. I take a sip of coffee to bide the time. “Are there any gatherings for new members?”
Silence. Charlotte stares at Greg, not meeting my gaze as I look from her to him. Weird crowd.
“You mean—like what?” Greg asks.
“Like get togethers. Drinks after work. That sort of thing.”
I’m fully aware that I won’t be having a drink, but if I’m going to be working with these people, I should at least get to know them better. Over a juice, or something.
Plus—and again, I know I shouldn’t—but I want to know more about Greg.
He scratches his chin. “We haven’t really had a lot of outings. It’s just me and Charlotte. We’re a small team.”
I try to smooth the edges of the conversation. “It would be great to grab a drink after work sometime. If you guys are up for it?”
“We went to San Sebastian once. You should visit,” Charlotte says brightly, but as soon as the words are out she steps back, like a frightened bird.
Weird, weird crowd.
“I’d love to,” I say, looking back at Greg. My mind weighs my next words, decides to let it out. “There’s a nice place by the water where I’m staying. In Galicio.”
There’s a flicker of something, a change in his face. He knows where I live. Who I live with. The paperwork shared by the academy before I arrived here shows as much. Which means he probably knows that I know about Lisa.
But he gives nothing away.
“There’s a bar around here,” he says. “We can go there one of these days.”
I smile, but something tells me Greg isn’t going to stick to what he says. He leaves Charlotte and me in the Liverpool room, taking his papers with him. The next hour passes quickly, the curriculum familiar. As we move through rules and practices, Charlotte’s shoulders relax.
“You seem like you know all of this already,” she says.
“I’ve had some practice. I used to work with a friend who has an academy.’
“Well, the pace is much slower here, so you’ll be fine.”
Questions rise in my throat. I start with the most relevant. “Who can I speak to about my visa?”
Her eyebrows come together, a deep crease of foundation forming. “Your visa?”
“Yeah. I’m on a Schengen right now, but it expires in three months,” I say. “My host family told me the academy was working to extend it to six months.”
The way she looks at me tells me it’s the first she’s heard of it. “I’d need to check with the admin team.”
She says it like there’s more people in the building, but from what I’ve seen, it’s just her and Greg. In a town this small, where everyone seems to know everyone’s business, I’m sure that Charlotte knows more than what she’s telling me.
Perhaps I’m looking for answers to calm myself. After all, many parts of my life are up in the air right now. InCheck. Family. Career. Somehow, clarifying the specifics around this town, my host family—how Lisa died—makes me feel like I’m in control.
I clear my throat. “My host family also told me about what happened here a few months ago,” I say, preparing to ask Charlotte a question I wasn’t planning to. “Did you know the girl that drowned?”
She looks battered, like I’ve hit her across the face. “You mean Lisa?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth opens, then closes. Then opens again. “No. I only saw her once, but we never spoke.’
I look at Charlotte’s tiny hands. She’s picking at her fingernails, flakes of soft pink nail polish falling on her dress. A few seconds later, she’s out of her chair, barely making a sound as her tiny feet hit the floor.
“I haven’t shown you our canteen yet,” she says. “Come, I’ll show you where we keep the good tea.”
As we walk through the hallway, the swish of Charlotte’s dress is accelerated as she moves with determination. My thoughts jump from my visa to Lisa, then back again.
But one thought remains constant.
Something’s off. There’s something my new colleagues aren’t telling me. This morning I felt excited to meet them. But just like Richard and Deborah, they’re odd. Holding something back. And if I’m going to stop my anxiety from getting to me in this foreign town, I need to find out what it is.