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Havana, Cuba - Source: Getty
She was tall and slim and elegant. Beautiful, really beautiful. And she walked with the confidence of someone who knew it.
I watched her sweep in, past the table with the old German couple in their three-quarter pants and sandals, eating their nibble tray of ham tit-bits and chicken wings.
She swept past the British girls with their sun-pinked flesh and big sunglasses and pints of cold beer. She swept past them all, and I watched her all the way.
In a fortnight in Cuba, I'd never seen a local who looked like this. A perfect glamorous pink dress, giant silver hooped earrings and a cluster of silver bracelets that warned the blind of her impending arrival.
Her smile was wide and white, her hair carefully styled. I'd put her at about 24.
I watched as she strode in and gently held the bar manager's arm. She greeted him and kissed him softly on the cheek and laughed at his joke. He smiled and she turned to a table right in the middle of the courtyard. She lit a cigarette and smoked it like a movie star in the Fifties.
Here she could see everyone. Perhaps more importantly, everyone could see her.
After 10 minutes or so, a man came from behind her and sat down.
He was a local too, and he was just as cool as her. He had a crisp white tailored shirt and those finely tended pencil-thin sideburns that you'd need to shave three times a day to maintain. He had deep piercing eyes, and a big shiny stud in each of his ears. I wondered if he might be the girl's brother.
They sat facing out, right next to each other, but not facing each other.
As Havana walked by, they focused only on those sitting at the tables directly around them. They were unique, the only locals at a restaurant with tourist-only prices. The kind of restaurant where a Cuban band with I-hate-my-life expressions play Buena Vista Social Club covers one after the other. The kind of restaurant where two brothers (I'd guess Argentinian) walked in and sat down for a beer after a hot day in the Cuban sun.
The manager was back with food and cocktails for the girl and the man, though I'm not sure they even ordered.
It was a fabulous meal, but very expensive looking. Far too expensive for the average local, probably more than a month's wage. She ate and smoked another cigarette with her legs crossed and the manager neatly cleared her table. Her man scanned the room.
The Argentinian brothers were drinking quickly. A giant beer tower - one of those dispensers with a column of ice down the middle that makes beer taste that much crisper on a hot Caribbean day. They re-poured pints and examined fresh boxes of cigars they'd bought at a shop across the square.
The sun was fading and everyone was very relaxed.
Then it came. The girl slowly and deliberately reached to her bag and pulled out a neat piece of paper, perhaps the size of a post-it-note.
She held it against her table with a long slim finger until the bar manager came across. The man spoke to the manager briefly, and gestured across the tables to the Argentinian brothers. They were none the wiser.
Two Argentinian brothers were holidaying in Havana. It was hot work walking about and they relished a cold beer from a beer tower at a restaurant with a band playing Buena Vista Social Club. Then out of the blue, the bar manager passed them a note. One of the brothers read it, and passed it to his sibling.
They looked up across the tables, where a beautiful girl smoked a cigarette and purposefully avoided their gaze. The man next to her waved his fingers and gave the brothers a coy smile.
What next? Google the word ' jineterismo'.
Read more Jack Tame commentary here.
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