Teaching Music
December 1 ,2015
To Civilian Life
Long ago, before I even went to the army my mom promised me that they would buy me a Vespa if I graduated high school. Well, I graduated from high school and finished my military service. I reminded her what she promised, instead of telling me the truth that she can’t afford the promise, she said; “I am not going to spend my money for you to kill yourself.”
I had to take matters into my own hands. The first thing I promised myself was to get my motorcycle driving license. Naturally I called Tamir. He was very happy to hear from me, after all I sent many of my friends his way. I didn’t need to take many lessons; just the 10 required.
“You need to pay attention to the road signs.” Tamir told me, “I can see you can maneuver this big motorcycle well and that you don’t have any problems being in control. The testers are very picky about the road signs, they want to make sure they don’t send you to kill yourself because you didn’t stop at a stop sign. The drivers don’t expect motorcycles and most of the time don’t even see it.” He took me to the streets where the testers like to take their “victims” and showed me all the stop signs and one-way streets and so on.
The way the test is being given in Israel is simple: The tester takes a group of riders, each on his or hers motorcycle and he would ride on another one. Following us and telling us where to turn or where to go. We were ten bikes raging from heavy motorcycles, light Vespas and moppets (yes you needed a license for that too) we drove to an area where he made us all do the zigzag exercise and he saw that we all drove well and had control over the bikes.
“OK everyone,” he said with a smile. “Let’s go home.” And he drove forward not even looking back. He continued for a while and then passed a crossroad without stopping and moved to the side. I can still remember, being the last in the line how each one of the riders crossed the road and continued on. For each one of them I said: Ouch! I was the only one who stopped at the stop sign.
When I dated Aviva, Mom had hard time with Aviva staying overnight, therefore I stayed more at her place. But now, I was without Aviva and I knew Mom would have resist of me having girlfriends over. It was time to move out and find a place of my own. Not having a job yet wasn’t something I could afford yet. Avi also, was just released from the military, where he was a tank commander. Now he was getting a job with a new relative. Nissim just recently married my second Cousin Hilda. Nissim was in publishing, he needed Avi’s help with the printing of his local magazine. Avi had another friend; Yuval, from the military, who worked at his father’s print shop. That is where they were printing Nissim’s magazine.
Dad was on my case to start working for him. He decided to teach me the art of polishing diamonds. I was to learn to polish the circumference of the diamond, very small polish facets. It brings a little extra brilliance to the stone. It was an easy task for me, I finished my daily quota within two hours, so I had time to search for a house for me and Avi to share. I finally found something we can afford. It was a one large bedroom studio with a very small kitchen corner and a very small shower/bathroom stall. We were fine for now; we ate at Mom’s or at our favorite restaurants. I still visited Aviva’s house; we still had the pregnant Lady to look for. She was still catching birds in the air, and I heard that she was stealing chicken from the neighbors. I matched her with a very big black Doberman that belonged to an old friend of mine from the days I was working at Bernanka’s lab. He used to buy parts from us for his new venture, the cable TV network. For some reason, it was illegal to have a cable network. We had to watch only what was available through the antennas on our roof. Shai, my friend was installing the illegal cables for whomever paid for the service. He was given fines and lost his system a few times, yet he took the subject to court and after a few years finally received a court order that allowed him to continue his service for the people of Netanya and his company slowly grew and took over everywhere in the country.
Avi was still seeing his girlfriend from Be’er Sheva so he would go to visit her on weekends borrowing Nissim’s El Camino. She even brought another girl with her over and we spent the night together, but nothing happened, the friend and I weren’t meant to be together. Yet, one afternoon Avi showed up at the door with no other than Efrat.
“Hey boy!” She said with a smile. “Long time no see.”
“Hey, Efrat, what’s new with you?” I said, not knowing if to be happy to see her or worried.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said as if she could read my mind, “I saw your brother and decided to come over for some fun.”
“You did…”
“I heard about your girlfriend, Avi told me everything. I thought you could use some good time. So, what do you think boys?”
The nest morning at 4:00am when Nissim came to pick up my brother, He opened the door (we never locked it – there was nothing to still) and literally dropped to the floor seeing the three of us in one bed. Avi wasn’t sure if to feel embarrassed or proud, got up and got dressed quickly. Efrat and I stayed in bed for a few more hours before getting up to go work for my dad. Efrat kissed me for the last time and went on her way never to be back again.
“This is Brahim,” Dad said when I walked into his office. “He will be working with us from now on.” Brahim was a tall freckled Arab man. It took me by surprise. “He will be sitting next to you, learning from you and the others the art of polishing diamonds.”
I took Brahim to my polishing wheel and showed him the ropes.
“Where did he come from” I asked Dad when I stopped by for dinner.
“That’s a long story.”
“I have nowhere to go”
“This goes back many years, to before the Six Days War,” he started to tell. “I was on guard duty on the border with Jordan. A little after 1:00am I heard footsteps coming from the direction of the border. I yelled stop! And asked for the password. The correct password was given by a man with an Arabic accent. When he got closer, he asked for our commander by name. Since I couldn’t leave my post for another 30 minutes, I offered him some of my coffee and after we talked a while, I learned that he was from Tulkarm across the border. I took him to see our commander and left them.
“Last week a man who showed me his credentials from the secret service came to our office and asked me to help our country by offering a job to a man without asking any questions. He would be working for us and sometimes will disappear without letting us know and will be back whenever his task will end. Of course, I agreed. And sure enough, it was the same man I met so many years ago on the old border between Israel and Jordan. He is an informer who works with the department of intelligence. He needs a job in Israel to show good reasons for traveling daily between the West Bank, and the rest of Israel.”
I spent a little more time at the workshop teaching Brahim how to polish and left to the beach or visit Lady at Aviva’s place. Not even three months passed since I was dismissed from the military service, and I received a letter inviting me to a new Airforce base for me to settle my future yearly reserve service. I decided to take the buses this time instead of hitch hiking. I stopped at the familiar Wimpy burger and bought a Jerusalem bagel for the road as well as the lemon ice pop for dessert. When I arrived at base located a little south of my original base Tel-Nof. I was directed to walk toward the training department.
“Tibi!” I heard a female voice coming from a pickup truck driving in front of me. Suddenly two figures jumped of the bed of the truck and started running toward me. Michal and Margalit were running toward me and both jumped at me almost knocking me down. They hugged me and talked with excitement together, I could barely understand what they were saying.
“Tibi, Tibi! Tibi you are the best! So nice to see you.”
“I am very excited to see you too” I said almost out of breath as they were hugging me and making me jump with them.”
“Did you hear? Did you hear about us? It was all because of you.” Said Michal.
“What? What happened? What did I Do?
“You taught us everything we know.” Margalit added, “we received a medal of excellence from the president of Israel.”
I was dumbfounded; can you fathom what are the odds of someone to receive a medal of excellence. Every year the president bestows medals of excellence to ten soldiers who did their job beyond their duty. Many soldiers are nominated but only a few actually receive this honor. If one soldier in a camp receives the medal it brings pride to the everyone at the camp. But imagine how I felt; two of my girls were honored. It was the first time I felt that I really have done what I was meant to do in the military service. The girls walked me to my destination and spent the rest of the day parading me around the camp and telling everyone about me. It took me a short time to register at my new post, but I was enjoying my day with the girls too much to leave. I spent lunch with them and gave them a hug again before getting a ride back home.
The first thing I did when I got home, was to visit Lady. She was about to have her puppies. By the time I arrived, she already had six pups. I marked the first one with a ribbon and came to visit them daily. Imre was a good “parent” to them. He knew exactly what and when to feed them. He even managed to revive the runt who was born unconscious. Even lady was being a good mother and protected the little ones. Imre was making sure they were all fed by her. I don’t know how he could tell between them they were three brown and three black ones. That was all I could tell. Except for the one I marked with the ribbon.
***
Tibi Tea
“Tibi?” The familiar voice of Meir my dancing friend calling me.
“Hey! What’s new?”
“We could really use you. I am glad I got you here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our dance group is looking for new dancers, and I know you would be a great addition.”
“What? Folk dancing?” I sneered.
“It is not what you think. We just got back from a tour in Germany”
“Nice! You know I stopped dancing the last two years. My ex-girlfriend didn’t like dancing.”
“We were invited for another tour, but we need new dancers; Male dancers.”
“Does the company have nice looking women?”
“Oh yeah! You know, dancers, they are really pretty.”
He lied, well, sort of, most of the girls were ok looking only one or two were pretty. But I will get back to it later. Now I needed to go and pick up my puppy, black cute Doberman. I named him Roul which in Arabic means a warlock. Avi and I decided to move to another house, the owner of the studio didn’t like pets. This time Avi came up with an idea. We would find a place that will pay for itself. His idea was to open a Tea House; a friend’s club that will serve many different types of tea. The price of a tea bag is much lower than the price of a cup of tea. So, if we sell enough tea, it will cover more than just paying the rent.
We found an old stone house that was used for storage of alcohol and drinks. The house was in bad condition. One room had floor tiles missing. All the rooms needed a new fresh coat of paint the bathroom needed repair. The plumbing was clogged. But the kitchen was in good shape. The landlord made us sign an amendment in the lease stating that he is not responsible for anything happened to us if any wall or fixture breaks on us.
We spent a few weeks fixing all that needed to be done. We found a used propane water heater and I installed it in our bathroom. It was noisy and kind of scarry. The water pressure triggered the valve igniting the fire that would instantly heat the water. Unfortunately, on Friday afternoons everybody in town was taking a shower before Shabbat. The water pressure wasn’t strong enough to ignite the fire. We had to shower at Mom’s. Mom and Dad bought a new apartment in a brand-new building across the street from where we used to live, where the yellow daises field was. While I was in the military a few buildings grew at that part of our street. I felt sad for the kids in our neighborhood. No more nature playground for them. Every Friday we would remind Mom to turn on the electric water heater early so we could come to shower while they were watching the weekly Friday night Arabic movie on TV.
The room with the missing floor tiles became my room. We took Mom’s old big closet and we put it on the far end to cover some of the missing tiles. We had enough space for both of our cloths. On the other end of the room, next to the door the biggest number of tiles were missing. I dug a hole under the floor and sunk an old bathtub in it. I filed the tub with water. I installed an underground aquarium filter, covered it with pebbles. The water was too cold for fish and a regular aquarium heater was not strong enough for the whole tub, so I bought a small water heating fork and connected it to a thermostat. I let it run for a few days and then bought some fish. I went to a furniture reupholster and requested the biggest bed he could make with sandwich foam. I built a platform bed for it and from a pile of huge down pillows we found in the other room we made two large duvet blankets. Mom bought a new washing machine, so I took her old one and with parts I had at Aviva’s I rebuilt it and we had a good working washing machine.
Now came the project of building the tea house. The best part of that house was the phone line that came with it.
“Let’s call it Tibi Tea,” suggested Avi “Tibi Tea the friends meeting place, this way we don’t need to deal with license for running a restaurant or an alcohol permit. It is a Friends meeting place. We will not advertise it and it will be small but active amongst our friends.”
The house had a small foyer and a very big room behind it. We converted the entrance to a reception area with a counter and hid Avi’s bed behind it. The Big room we converted to the main dining area, or should I say drinking room? We went to Tel-Aviv and found a store owned by two old ladies who made many essences of fruits for drinks. Small little buttles with different aromas. One drop in a cup of tea would change the experience of drinking that tea. We bought all kinds of herbal tea too.
From there we went to the flea market in Jaffa. We bought a few big old carpets, round fat pillows, big and small copper trays, and all shapes and colors ceramic tea pots and cups. Of course, we needed beer and soft drinks too. Not everyone loved Tea. We had to serve some kind of light food with it. The easiest part was to serve pitas with a plate of Humus or Techina. But we had to be unique we needed something that other restaurants in Netanya didn’t sell, not yet anyway. Avi had two friends from his early childhood; Yemenite twin sisters who lived at Neve Shalom. They offered to teach us how to make Mlawah.
1 Kilo Flour
1 TBSP of Salt
3 TBSP Vinegar
1 TBSP Baking Soda
3 TBSP Sugar
100-gram Margarine.
Mix the ingredients (except the margarine) with about 4 cups of water to form a soft dough. Cover with a wet towel and let it sit for an hour. Kneed again and make 10 balls of dough, cover and let sit for another hour. Flatten each ball, (better if you do it by hand instead of a rolling pin) spread margarin on it and fold to form a ball again. Freeze for two hours. Flatten again and repeat spreading the margarine and freeze until time to serve. When ready flatten again put in a hot and dry frying pan on medium heat and cover flip after 2 minutes until it turns flaky and golden brown. Serve with Crushed tomatoes mixed with hot pepper, or Techina.
The house we rented was in a private homes’ neighborhood. A short street with some old homes and some brand new. Unfortunately, the first building in the street was the tallest of this neighborhood eight floors tall, it stood like a sore thumb, it took all the water pressure every Friday afternoon. In front of it stood a new house where a woman and her three kids. One teen age boy, a nine-year-old girl and a baby boy. Dana was her name; she was very friendly and the only one who offered her help if we needed any. She was a schoolteacher but was on a motherhood leave. Her husband didn’t live with her. They were in a process of separation, as she placed it. But we all knew, the whole town knew; they were indeed in a divorce process, he was in jail. He was the infamous “Polite Rapist”. He raped many women and every time after doing so would apologize before running away. His last victim managed to take off his mask and was able to identify him.
“Am I expecting to be disturbed by you guys?” Asked Dana when she saw me put the new sign that I designed for the tea house.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” This is not going to be a noisy disco. The idea is for friends to come and have a relaxed time with soft music and tea.”
“Good!”
“Feel free to stop by,” I offered “And you too, if you need any help let us know.”
“Thanks!”
Tibi Tea wasn’t as lucrative as we expected but it did help pay the rent and a little more. Most of our customers showed up on Friday and Saturday evening. It was almost empty on the weekdays. We needed a few more ways to attract people. Some of the Fridays were so busy we had to make people wait. We didn’t have enough tables. Or should I say trays and pillows. The Tea House had the middle eastern feel. People sat on the floor pillows.
“I have an idea,” I said to Avi. “Since we signed that the owner isn’t responsible for any walls falling, we are not responsible either.”
“What do you mean?”
Let’s break the low wall of the balcony and open the backyard for more visitors. We could buy rattan furniture and set tables outside.”
“Great Idea, lucky for us we have a day job so we can afford it.” Avi stopped working for Nissim – the paper wasn’t doing well so he got a job as a truck driver for the biggest chocolate company in Israel – Elit. I loved it; he always brought all kind of chocolate for us to enjoy.
We needed some help setting the grounds for the tables. We had the white thin gravel delivered but we needed some manpower to spread it out. Those days when you needed manpower you could go to the crossroad next to the highway where a lot of workers from the west bank gather for part time gigs. Avi brought one of them over and I showed him to me. I instructed him to spread the gravel around and told him I wanted it flat and even. I gave him the tools he needed and left him, while I went to get him some lunch. When I returned, I found him in the front of the yard instead of the back. He was chopping down the pretty plants we just planted a few day ago.
“What are you doing?” I asked in Arabic.
“Weeding!”
“I didn’t ask you to weed. I asked you to spread the gravel.”
“I know, but your brother did ask me to do that too.”
“You go back and finish the gravel. I have to get a few more things, I will be back soon. Oh, and here is something for you to eat.”
I left him in the back and again when I returned, he was in the front tearing down more plants.” I reached in my pocket pulled out some money and told him to disappear. He begged me to let him work and promised to be better. I couldn’t trust a word he said and just stood my ground and sent him back, not even giving him a ride. That is when he started to curse and threaten to get back at us the “Jews”.
“Did you tell the guy to weed the front yard?” I asked Avi when he came home with the pile of chocolate.
“I told him that if he does a good job, I will ask him to come tomorrow to do the front too.”
“Well, we will have to fix what he did in the front but first we need to do the back ourselves. I sent him away.”
“When did you talk to your friend Efri last?” Avi asked when we started spreading the gravel in the backyard.
“I don’t know, a long time ago, we kind of lost contact. His wife was pregnant, and he got too busy moving to his own place too.”
“I just saw him with his wife and new baby.”
“Oh really? What did they have?”
“A Baby boy, his name is Erez.”
The moment we finished spreading the gravel, I called Efri and invited him to visit our tea house. We settled for the following weekend Shabat afternoon. I just bought a used Russian professional 35mm camera with a nice zoom lens and was eager to take some nice pictures of the new baby. Next to our new home was an empty lot with many wildflowers. Erez looked great sitting in the middle of the field with the flowers all around him. Even Roul behaved great. I shot some pictures of them together and was eager to develop them. Unfortunately, the next day when I left to work at Dad’s workshop, someone broke into my room through the open window ignoring the barks of the puppy, stole my camera along with the brand-new cassette recorder I had next to my bed. Poor Roul was so upset he ate two corners of the sponge bed. Lucky it was the biggest bed I ever seen so I was able to round the corners and save it. What I couldn’t save and was very sad about, were the photos I took the day before. I was wondering if the worker from the week before who came to work on our yard was the thief, but I guess I will never know.
“We need to do something to bring more people during the week,” Avi said, “this way we can afford staying home during the day.”
“Yes, Roul is still young to be watching the place.” I answered, “What about a movie night?”
“A movie night, good idea! What about every Wednesday? But how?”
“well, we need to get a big white sheet and hang it at the end of the yard. Your girlfriend Tali lives in Beit Herut?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“They have a social hall, where they show movies every Tuesday. See if you can talk to the guy to show the same movie here on Wednesday.”
“What about our neighbors?”
“Leave it to me, I will talk with Dana.”
Now that we had movie nights and busy weekends, we were able to break even and slowly the Tea house was supporting itself. Every Sunday afternoon I had a rehearsal with the Netanya Folk Dance Company and slowly learning the repertoire. Learning might be the wrong word; if you asked me what comes next or to describe the steps of the dance, I will never be able to tell you. My body leaned the dances not my head. Once the music started, I danced to the exact choreography with no problems, I was even able to change sides – left or right which could be a problem with many dancers. I guess we can call it muscles memory.
My first performance was at the Park Hotel overlooking the beach. With the help of my old friend Nehemiah from Neve Shalom and my new young friend Tzvika who gave me private practice time I was ready. For the first time I felt great about being the shortest person in the group. I was paired with the smallest female dancer that just happened to be the prettiest of them, Ilana. She had black hair, blue eyes, and a slim body shaped like a Spanish guitar. The show went perfectly. Ilana and I felt like one, even the lift part of the dance was perfect.
“Will you drive me home?” Asked Ilana as we were walking out of the hotel.
“Sure, where do you live?”
“Dora.” Dora was a southern section of Netanya where a lot of immigrants from Morocco lived. It was a poor neighborhood for the same reason my grandfather was poor after he made Aliyah – discrimination and nepotism.
“Can we stop at your place, please?” Ilana asked softly. “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Sure!”
“Coffee?” I asked a little loudly when she went to the bathroom.
She didn’t answer, she walked out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around her naked body.
“Maybe after…” she said and pooled my arm toward my bedroom.
“Oh my God, I forgot, my fiancé is waiting for me at home!” she exclaimed about an hour later. Can you drive me please, now?”
“Your fiancé?” I asked as we were getting in the Sussita.
“It’s a long story, I don’t know how I feel about him, there were some incidents, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“OK.”
As we entered the main street of Dora, I slowed down to avoid kids running in the street. We passed a few buildings and as soon as we approached a crossroad, a car came from the right, disregarding the stop sign, and rammed into the side of the Sussita. Lucky for us, and him the damage wasn’t bad, but the guy was trying to put the blame on me, but when I told him I was going to call the police to settle it down, he relaxed and gave me his papers and we left it at that.
“Now you have a real excuse for being late,” I told Ilana as she left the car next to her home.
***
Mom and Daughter
I knocked on Shai’s door, holding a cute Doberman pup in one hand. A pretty dirty blond woman, at her late 30s or early 40s opened the door. She looked at me, then at the pup and back at me.
“Yes?” she asked in English, then reached to the pup. “Such a cute puppy!”
“I am here for Shai.” I said and letting her take the pup in her hands. “Is he home?”
“No, but David is. David! She called back. “There is a puppy here to see you.” David walked from his room.
“Oh, it’s you.” He said then looked at the pup. “Very cute!” He reached to pet the pup. “Hey I never connected, Is Tibi Tea yours?”
“My brother’s, I just live there. You should come visit it’s a nice atmosphere and special teas. I even make Mlawah.”
“Shai is walking his dog now; it will be interesting when he gets back, and the big guy get to see his son. We will try to stop by tonight or tomorrow. What do you think, Rachel? Want to visit the tea house? He asked her in English.”
“Sure, why not?
She ended coming alone.
“Shai and David had other things to do today.” Rachel said as she walked in. Roul wagged his short tail when he saw her. We sat at the far corner and in very short time I learned that she just turned 40 and that she had two daughters. The older one, Judith, 19 years old, was here with her and the younger one who was 17 was traveling Europe with her boyfriend. Rachel was visiting her sister who made “aliya” from Holland. After describing her I realized that I have seen her riding her bicycles daily in the morning and afternoon passing our street. She too, was very pretty.
“My sister just had a baby, and I didn’t want to over crowd her space so whenever I can I stay with friends, like David and Shai.”
“Which one is your boyfriend?”
“No one, and both,” she said with a smile. “What kind of tea do you recommend?”
“I like the Earl grey with cherry flavored.”
“I’ll have the same,” I asked our friend Ilana who was helping at the tea house to bring us the clay pot with two cups. “So, I hear you are a dancer?”
“Yes, working on it.” I smiled.
“You should meat Judith my daughter, she is also a dancer.”
“I would love to,” I said almost showing too much excitement. If she was half as pretty as her mother that would be very exciting. We stayed and talked about many subjects that night until I walked her to her place taking Roul along. She kissed me on my cheek and promised to come the next day with Judith.
Did I say that Rachel was pretty? Well, Judith was even prettier. Her blonde hair was long all the way down her straight back. Small nose was just perfect above her thick lips. Her blue green eyes were wide and looked very happy to meet me. I was very happy to meet her too. We sat at the corner again and ordered the same cherry flavored Earl grey tea. Ilana gave me this encouraging look smiling at us as she was serving the tea.
“I need to go meat Shai,” said Rachel, and stood up a few minutes later. “I will see you tomorrow.” She kissed Judith on her head and left.
“I am not sure how long I am going to stay,” said Judith. “two of my friends promised to pick me up here later on.” I must say, I wasn’t happy to hear that, but I smiled and nodded my head. “No problems.”
No one showed up, it was midnight and Judith moved her seat a little closer to me.
“Are you sure?” I asked as she wrapped her arms around my waist. She didn’t say anything, she just leaned her head on my shoulder. “I wonder if your friends went to the other tea house.” I said, there was another tea house on the other side of town overlooking the seashore. It was called “The Tea House”.
“I don’t care,” she smiled, “I am having fun, can we go to your room?”
Do I have to tell you how much fun we had that night? All I can say is that Judith didn’t feel bad that her friends didn’t show up.
The next morning as we finished breakfast, Rachel showed up at the door.
“Ready to go to the beach?” she asked. “I took the liberty to bring you your bathing suit.” She handed the bikini to her daughter along with a beach dress.
“Let’s walk south,” said Rachel. “I like to tan at the far end where no one can bother us.”
“Sure.”
The south side of the beach was about a mile walk from the public beach. Like many other people, I used to go there sometimes with a girl, when we didn’t want to be disturbed. As soon as we got to a quiet spot Rachel took all of her cloths and laid naked on her towel. Judith grabbed my arm and pulled me to the water. We swam and played with each other for a while but as we walked out of the water, we saw Rachel entering the water on top of a horse. She was a pretty sight, a naked pretty woman riding bare back on a horse toward the oncoming waves. There was one more horse following her with a man I never seen before riding it. She took the horse back out and road it far south and finally turned back. Jumped of the horse, thanked the man and walked back to the water.
We walked back home together, they dropped me at the tea house and continued to Rachel’s sister.
“You two look so well together,” said Rachel before they left. I knew then there was no future for me and Judith, whenever a parent likes the boyfriend the girl leaves. That evening I was proven right when Rachel walked in and asked to stay over for the night. (Sorry, no details for you this time.)
A few weeks later on my way to the beach I stumbled upon Judith at a caffe on the southern shore of Netanya. She had a few blue marks on her arm and shoulder.
“Hey Judith, I miss you, is everything OK.” She turned her head as if she didn’t see me yet whispered, “go to the water I will meet you at the deep side.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked when she arrived.
“I wanted to make sure no one sees us together.”
“What do you mean? Who are you hiding from?”
“My boyfriend, he’s a little jealous,” she said pointing at the bruises.
“Didn’t you have a good time with me?”
“Oh, I did, very much. But do you remember when I came over and told you people were coming for me?”
“Yes, they didn’t show up.”
“Well, they did, and you were right it was the other tea house. It was my boyfriend who was supposed to pick me up.”
***
