Shoes and a Mobster

After purchasing my laptop yesterday, I was able to devote my brain power to more important things.

Like the fact that I was in the middle of a shopping district with some pretty amazing stores.

I walked into Nine West, and almost fainted at the sight of these. The picture does not quite capture their full splendor, but I definitely stood holding them in my hands for an extended period of time, with the sales lady nodding complete understanding of my effusive, incoherent exclamations of enthusiasm.

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I didn't buy them. Although, it was tempting. Once I start whipping out that credit card, it's hard to stop.

BUT. I couldn't quite fathom fitting yet another pair of shoes into my luggage when I pack up. I brought six pairs of shoes with me. It was a monumental struggle to whittle my choices down. I have had the opportunity to wear exactly one.

Abandoning my newest shoe love, I settled down at an outdoor cafe. I had been fighting bouts of nausea all day, and so got a diet Coke: my go - to remedy for when I am on the point of spewing my food everywhere. Do not judge.

As I sat and enjoyed the sun and the breeze and the delicious taste of aspartame, an older man wearing a fedora sat down at the table next to mine. I nodded hello, he nodded back, and I went back to my Coke.

When I got up to leave, the old gentleman said something, and as I have been doing for the past month, I ruefully admitted my inability to understand.

"English! Sit down, sit down!"

And so I did.

"Are you British, perhaps?"

I admitted the blandness of being from Canada.

He raised his eyebrows,"Interesting. I am from Boston."

His English - almost accentless - could not hide the flavor of another language layering into it, and I wanted to ask if he was actually Greek; his accent did not seem to tend that way. The conversation quickly moved onto various other things, and I did not get the chance to inquire.

Finally, I told him I really had to start on my way, and he told me that as he was in Greece for a month I should come into Kalamata again and meet him for dinner. As he wrote down his hotel information I asked him what he was in Kalamata for. I had already established that he had no family here.

He paused for a moment. "I have a few matters...a few matters of business to take care of."

My head snapped up from rummaging through my purse. The tone of his voice was so ominous. As he continued writing in his slip of paper, I examined him more carefully. A heavy gold watch. A ring on each hand, big and heavy enough to knock a man's skull in. That fedora.

At wharp speed I reached my conclusion. He is a mobster. Overseeing some kind of hit.

Having been (interiorly), up to that point, somewhat ambivalent about traveling into Kalamata again, even to have dinner with another English speaker, I was suddenly vastly enthralled with the idea.

He handed me his card. "I am at the Biltmore Hotel - this is their number. Just ask for Charles."

No last name? I was so right.