One Year with Dicky

By Elizabeth Aguilar

Dicky and Lizzie, despite being in their sixties and living alone for almost twenty years, got their lives intertwined-something which they both acknowledge as destined by God.

Conservative Lizzie grew up in a household where sex was not mentioned in daily conversations, while modern-day Dickys outlook on the matter was the opposite.

Every day, he sent Lizzie text messages of sexual jokes, which caused their budding friendship to be turbulent. But after months of daily exchange of text messages, they slowly chipped away the edges of their rough relationship, sculpting a beautiful friendship, such that not a day passed by without one missing the other.

Then something suddenly happened to Dicky. He fell into depression, shutting himself away from the outside. Will it be the end of Dicky and Lizzie?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504935852

Elizabeth Aguilar

Elizabeth Aguilar was born in a small town by a lake in the Philippines. Gathering clams at sunrise in the lake’s clear water gave her a love for art and writing, leading her to compose poems, write short stories, and paint watercolours in grade school. Adept with figures, she was made to pursue a career in accounting and business by her father, and the strictly paternal tradition of her society left her no choice but to comply. She spent all her life in the corporate world, but the love for writing never left her, and her friends persuaded her to attend a writing workshop in the early 2000s. She gladly did, and there she met her mentor, a writer of books published in the Philippines, who encouraged her to write a novel, and she did. The Secret Box is the result of these efforts and One Year with Dicky is her second published book.Undo

Book preview

A hilarious encounter through text between a 64-year-old grandfather of three and a 69-year-old grandmother of four in their one year of love-hate relationship.

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by

Elizabeth Aguilar

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AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 Elizabeth Aguilar. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/05/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3584-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3605-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3585-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015900824

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Part 1

1 Got Satisfaction?

2 Getting To Know You

3 A God-Destined Friendship

4 He Says I Love Him

5 Anna Loves Dicky

6 Does Lizzie Love Dicky?

7 Confusion in Love

Part 2

8 Dicky Loves Anna

9 Regrets and Reconciliation

10 The Heart Wins

11 Dicky Will Be 64

12 Coming Home From Perth

13 Tricky Dicky and Lolita

14 Techie Dicky Loves to Sing?

15 Dicky Loves the Rain

16 Knowing Dicky More

17 First Christmas with Dicky

Part 3

18 A New Year, A Clean Slate for Dicky

19 Father Loves His Son

20 First Anniversary in Hiatus

Acknowledgments

To my youngest son Nigel Masangkay for his tireless effort to help me publish my books.

To my blind friend Remir Romualdo who gave me the inspiration to go on writing inspite of all the odds and who introduced me my new editor Rosario Yu who did a very good job in editing this second book of mine.

And special thanks to my friend Ricardo Sison who never was weary of sending me his daily repartee during the time I was writing this book.

My gratitude to all of you for helping me make this book a possibility and also to the Almighty for bringing you all to me to help me in my new endeavour.

Part 1

You love not me,

And love alone can lend you loyalty…

Once you, a man, came to soothe a time-torn woman;

You love me not?

Thomas Hardy

1

Got Satisfaction?

I grew up in a city in the southern part of Metro Manila when it was still a backward, fishing community. I lived beside a lake which was still pristine and immaculate— the sand so fine it left one with the feel of a very soft cushion as one walked miles and miles to feel the cool early morning sunrise. I bathed in the lake where the water was so clean and clear that you could see the clams and the shellfish breathing at your toes as you waded in the cool water.

Growing up in a place so placid and undisturbed made me the most satisfied young woman of my youth. I did not crave opulence, pleasure or extravagance.

All I wanted and needed was a quiet, serene, and relaxing place that provided peace for my soul and the satisfaction of a simple life.

Satisfaction, a twelve-letter word everybody craves for but hardly ever gets. Chambers Dictionary defines it as happiness, gratification, contentment, pleasure, enjoyment, delight, comfort, fulfillment, pride, sense of achievement, getting everything you wish for. Materialism, worldliness, greed, covetousness, rapacity, voracity, avarice—so where are you?

Even Christian orthodoxy has a Satisfaction Theory: that Christ made satisfaction to the Divine Justice for the guilt of human sin by suffering as the human representative, and thus Divine forgiveness was made possible.

Satisfaction may be a two-edged sword. Satisfaction for our selfish needs and the satisfaction for meeting others’ needs. Which of the two would give us more satisfaction? Which of the two would give true meaning to our life? Which of the two would help us to not simply exist but to truly live?

I am satisfied with my life, my career, and my relationship with my family. What more do I need? A marriage? A relationship? For more than two decades I have not had either. Has this changed the way I see my life?

~~~~

Tuesday, the 19th of March

I have just come back from California and I looked over the jewelry my mother had given me before she died. It has been my desire for a long time to have the lapis lazuli necklace repaired and I decided to have it done now. I remembered Anna, who did jewelry repair for relatives before, so I asked my sister-in-law Sonia to contact Anna. Sonia was able to find Anna and give her my cellphone number for her to give me a ring. Sonia is the godmother of Anna’s eldest son. I asked Sonia if Anna had changed, and she laughed and said, Not a bit.

Anna must have been a beauty in her youth. She has smooth fair skin although she is short and plump. The first time I saw her, I found her to be outlandish and somewhat queer. She had the mannerisms of undulating her body, tousling her hair with her hands, twiddling her fingers, and fluttering her eyes when talking. She spoke in a wee voice. She liked to wear dresses that are too short and inappropriate for her age. She also loved body-hugging knitted jersey that was cut so low it showed her cleavage and the curves of her voluptuous figure. It was rumoured that she had her breasts enlarged. After the surgery, it turned out to be too large and disproportionate to her very short figure that she decided to have them reduced. I wondered how she looked and dressed now. I hadn’t seen her for years.

~~~~

Wednesday, the 20th of March

It was ten o’clock in the morning of Wednesday when Sonia called me, I talked to Anna last night and said that you wanted for her to come and discuss the repair of some of your jewelry. She told me that she was in Legaspi and would stay there till the Holy Week. She would be coming back at the end of the month, on Sunday afternoon, and will surely come to your house to see you on Monday afternoon, the first of April.

About one o’clock Monday afternoon that week, Anna called me up. Her identity did not register on my cellphone so I was hesitant to answer the call. She then sent me a text message: gud pm ms lisie dis is anna sonia told me to come to u i am in legaspi n b back sunday after holy week so i wil go to ur house monday pm tnk u.

Okay, Anna, I replied, amused at the text message she sent me. No capital letters, no punctuation marks!

~~~~

Monday, the 1st of April

I was having my siesta Monday afternoon of the first when somebody knocked at my bedroom door. It was my maid,

Anna wants to see you, ma’am.

Okay, let her into the living room and give her something to drink, I said.

I got the necklace to be repaired from my closet and went down to the living room to meet Anna. What my sister-in-law had said was very true. Anna had not changed a bit.

I am glad to see you again, Anna. I am happy you still do jewelry repair, otherwise I would have found it difficult to get somebody else who would be trustworthy enough to do the repair of this necklace that my mother left me.

Speaking in Taglish¹, Anna replied, Yes, Miss Lizzie, this is the only thing I know to do. Thank you for trusting me with this necklace.

Why not, when all the people in the club trusted you—except for that unfortunate incident that may not have been your fault. So just let bygones be bygones.

It only took a few minutes to wind up our business transaction. I showed her the necklace to be repaired. She explained to me how she would do the repair and also how much it would cost. I was satisfied.

She seemed to want to chat some more or maybe she was just trying to befriend me. I have always been hesitant to talk to people who are not close to me, so it was Anna who dominated our conversation. She talked about her life and her business. She was still very much active in the Quota Club² and has remained friends with most of the members. I presumed she was telling me this to vindicate herself from the accusation of Susana. Susana was my childhood friend. She was a good customer of Anna’s in her jewelry business. Susana had accused Anna of running away with her money and that of her friends.

I did not talk about myself or my personal affairs or my private life. Anna was not that close to me. Though I have known her for years in the club, I just did not find her trustworthy enough for me to share my life story with. She was more of a friend of Susana’s, Marissa’s, and Nerissa’s who were her loyal customers. They even accompanied her to visit her husband in Japan and were able to see his small jewelry factory there. I only trust my life’s secrets with just a very few relations whom I grew up with and have known all my life. My parents imbued me with this mindset that I must be careful of people who try to befriend me, so now people find me distant and hard to reach; some even find me snobbish.

Anna told me about her Holy Week vacation in Legaspi, Albay³, at the beach house of her friend, Cecilia, whom I had met casually in club district activities. She also talked about a male friend who owned the adjacent beach house and who she wanted me to meet. She raved about his beach house. She said it was very beautiful, well-furnished and well-kept, resembling a structure in the movie Titanic. Though I found her stories fascinating I refused her offer to introduce me to the guy. Since I am separated from my estranged husband, I try to avoid any involvement with the male species. In Anna’s simple stories told in Taglish, she tried to convince me to meet the guy.

"Miss Lizzie, I want you to meet him. He is rich, smart, and lives in nearby Ayala Alabang Village⁴. He is tall and handsome. He would be a good match for you because you are pretty. He wears his clothes well and wears only branded clothing."

It makes me wonder who this guy is. I have never let myself to even think of or make myself meet somebody new. I am not keen any more about developing an especial relationship. As a casual acquaintance, maybe, but if you mean a suitor, I am not at all interested, I told her bluntly.

"Miss Lizzie, he is different. I have known him for four years and he is decent and kind. He is an Ateneo boy⁵. He is a widower. I am sure you will like him."

But why me, Anna? If you and he have been very close for over four years, it would not be too farfetched to think that he would be interested in you. The way you talk about him I know you like him. So why not you and him?

But Miss Lizzie, he will like you more than me. He is smart and English-speaking. Sometimes I do not understand what he is talking about.

How did you come to know him? I asked.

"Through Cecilia. Remember her, the president of Quota Legaspi? She introduced Deke to me. Deke has a factory in Albay. Cecilia was the president of PCCI ⁶ in Albay where they met. I told him already when I was in Albay that I would introduce him to you. He was very excited to meet you."

What is his name? I asked.

Deke Singson.

What Deke? D-E-K-E?

Yes, Miss Lizzie.

What a peculiar name, I said.

To stop her endless tales and end our conversation, I said, Okay, call me next week, I will think it over.

And so that ended our talk. She left me assessing my life. I have been living alone for over twenty years but I can confidently say I am happy. I was very young when I got married. My marriage did not last and after another failed relationship, everything that pertained to affairs, liaisons or even friendship with the opposite sex as being proposed by Anna no longer crossed my mind. I did not trust Anna. What kind of guy in his right mind would have Anna as his friend and with a friendship that would last them four years? I have known decent, educated, and accomplished men in my life and the kind of woman like Anna would be the last person they would befriend and trust. So I dismissed this proposition as one of her fantasies.

~~~~

My name is Elizabeth but people call me Lizzie. I am over sixty but people say I look no more than fifty. I am a mother of two married children. My youngest son is still a bachelor. I am also grandmother to three young girls and a young boy. You could call me successful in my career and financially well off, if having a big and beautiful house and riding in a chauffeured BMW luxury car can be called successful. I worked as a Certified Public Accountant during my younger days and ended up having a business company of my own. I excelled in my studies when I was young, smart in everything that pertains to numbers, a writer, a poet, and passionate about everything that pertains to art. I am compassionate, very religious; I read the Bible regularly and have deep faith in God. I had a conservative upbringing with high moral values. Because of these values ingrained in me by my very conservative parents, I grew up in an environment where swearing was a big crime. Uttering vulgar language and talking about sex outside marriage was taboo.

This latter part of my life, after I retired from my business, I entered into politics. I ran as Barangay Chairman, the highest position in a Barangay. (Barangay is the lowest local government unit in the country after a town or city.) My barangay was one of the biggest in the country, with a population of 130,000 comprising of twenty thousand households. Running my barangay is a full-time job and not an easy one. I have my office in the barangay hall, which is located just five hundred meters from the city hall of Muntinlupa City and five kilometers from where I live in Alabang. My Barangay is only a small barangay of Muntinlupa City but there are more than two hundred employees under me.

2

Getting To Know You

I saw everything as fantasy and did not expect Anna to be serious. But she did not stop and called me nearly every day. She said that my name was not new to Deke. He had heard many things about me and seen me in public gatherings a long time ago. He was thrilled at the idea of meeting me in person and was very persistent. But I asked myself what kind of a guy would have the courage to meet a woman with eyes that dissected and cut you open with her looks, a woman with a cutting tongue to smash you to smithereens? Intimidated was more likely how he would be.

"Wow! You really are serious! I never imagined it was so; I thought it was just a joke," I said laughing.

"He doesn’t believe I know you. I said I would introduce him to you. He asked me if you are pretty or looked like your sister Christina. I told him no, she is prettier and is a mestisa⁷. He kept texting me asking when you would meet him," Anna replied.

I will be very busy these coming days. I will try to find time to meet him for lunch, perhaps on a Saturday or Sunday. I finally agreed just to stop Anna’s ceaseless badgering.

Is that the first Saturday or Sunday of April? Anna asked me excitedly. Thank you, Miss Lizzie.

Later that afternoon she confirmed that Deke would meet with me for lunch on Sunday, April 7, at the Mona Lisa Ristorante in the Commerce Center in Alabang. I shrugged in annoyance. I have always had an indifferent attitude when it came to what Anna wanted me to do. It was normal for me to see people on official business or at various civic and business club meetings. There I met lots of new people with whom I became good friends. But when it comes to this personal thing, I had no interest at all and I treated it with indifference. I might just as well stay at home and read or write.

Before the appointed date with Deke, I had dinner with a female friend, Norma. I casually mentioned to her the blind date I would be having with a guy. She made a sarcastic remark, He must be weird, setting a blind date at lunchtime. Why not at dinnertime and make it more romantic?

I don’t really care, I said. I have no interest at all in meeting him. Besides I think it would hardly be a romantic date since there would be three of us including the woman who set up the date.

~~~~

Sunday, the 7th of April

It was Sunday morning. I was dressed for church and ready to go directly to my lunch date, when Anna called up. She said Deke could not make it for lunch so would like to change the date to dinner at six o’clock at the same restaurant.

I was irritated so I told her, I thought he wanted very much to meet me? So why is he now rescheduling to a later time? We had better call this off.

"No, no, Miss Lizzie, please, I am sorry. Deke has a house in Tagaytay⁸ and goes there every weekend but comes back here on Sunday. He is excited to meet you but something happened to his car, so he had to get a mechanic first. Lunch would be impossible but he could make it for dinner."

Okay, I will have dinner with him, but tell him he’d better get rid of his car. If he were as rich as you say, he could easily afford a new car, I jokingly replied. Or he could float it out to sea to culture oysters. He would surely get his money back, ha ha ha ha, I laughingly told Anna knowing she would not have the guts to tell him what I said. Naughty I was, so how could a man be attracted to me?

Because of the change to a dinner date, I ate lunch instead at home with my children, who were surprised to see me, knowing I had a lunch date. They were happy to know it had been changed to dinner as it meant I could rest and be fresh for the night.

After lunch, I changed into more comfortable clothes, read a book while leisurely reclining on the sofa until I was lulled into sleep. I woke up at four, took a shower and prepared for my date. I decided on a white and beige sleeveless shift dress as it would be cooler in the summer heat that was starting to be unbearable. I also wore white pearl earrings and pendant finishing off with a white-gold and diamond watch. I hate loud and elaborate jewelry.

At the exact appointed time of six that Sunday afternoon I was at the Mona Lisa Ristorante. Anna was nowhere to be found. Since I had no idea what Deke looked like, I did not know if he was already there. I decided to call Anna but the phone just kept on ringing. After a while a recorder came on, The phone is out of reach. Please try again. I was frantic so I called her again. This time, Anna finally answered.

Hello.

Hello, this is Lizzie. Where are you? I have been waiting here at the Mona Lisa since six o’clock.

I am so sorry, Miss Lizzie, I will be there in five minutes.

Ten minutes passed but still no Anna. I called her up again. I heard her taking the call.

Hello, Anna. Where are you? You said you would be here in five minutes.

I am here at the corner, Miss Lizzie. In five minutes I will be there.

I was exasperated but I couldn’t do anything. Anna was well known in the club for being tardy. Here she was again, but I had no alternative but to wait. I was in the elevator lobby when she arrived at half past six and I was furious. She was dressed in a very short, beige knitted jersey dress, the hemline of which was way up to above the middle of her heavy thighs. The front of her dress was cut so low it showed her cleavage. It was so tight-clinging, revealing all her bulges. I am always amazed at people who are not shy to dress in this way.

We went into the restaurant. My date was seated alone at the very far end corner. He said he had been there since half-past five. He apologised for going ahead and ordering an appetiser as he was getting hungry. I explained that I too was there on time; it was Anna who was late. A wrong start makes everything wrong, I said to myself. That’s what my father used to say.

He stood up and shook hands, Hello, I am Richard. Friends call me Dicky.

Hi, I am Elizabeth, Lizzie for short. I gave him my business card which he accepted with a smile. So his name was Dicky, not Deke, as Anna had told me.

He was seated on the sofa facing the window so I sat down on the seat in front of him. Anna took the seat on my left. The waiter came with the menu. I looked at Dicky suggesting he order first.

It’s okay. Please go ahead and order, he said.

I ordered the grilled sea bass but asked the waiter to split it into two. I asked Dicky if he did not mind sharing as I could not finish the whole plate.

Anna ordered something I cannot remember. I found Dicky a bit shy so I broke the ice by starting to ask questions.

Are you married? I asked.

No, I am a widower.

Oh, I am sorry. When did your wife die?

Five years ago.

What did she die of?

Cancer.

Do you have children?

Yes, I have two boys. One is married and lives in Australia; the other is still single and stays with me.

The orders came and we started eating and I continued to talk.

Oh I see. I was married but am estranged from my husband. We have been separated for more than twenty years. I have three grown children. My eldest is married with two children; my second is a doctor and married to a doctor as well. They have two children. My youngest is also still a bachelor. So I am now a grandmother of a young boy and three young girls. That is my life in brief, I smiled.

He did not answer. Maybe he was avoiding more questions from me. Instead he moved closer to Anna and looked at her with beguiling eyes. He whispered something to her that was not audibly clear to me.

She giggled like a teenager, No, not yet, Deke, tee-hee-hee-hee!!!!!.

She whispered to him and he again whispered something back to her. They went on like this for some time.

No, Deke, tee-hee-hee-hee!!!!.

This was my first close encounter with Anna. Although I have known her for quite a while in the Quota Club, I had never sat down with her nor talked to her. I did not know how I developed this attitude towards her. Maybe it is because she always arrived very late at meetings, with different guys in tow, whom she would introduce as her boyfriends. I found her to be loose in morals, the kind of woman I hate associating with. But even so I was still shocked by the way she conducted herself with Dicky. Thinking of how she had described him as highly educated, having finished college at Ateneo University, I assumed he would be a very decent guy. So it was disgusting to see him act in this way. I had no idea what he whispered to her, which excited her and made her lose control of herself. She giggled, lifted her hands over her head, tousled her hair with her fingers, undulated her head and body and rolled her eyes. For me it was very improper and suggestive, almost an invitation for a sexual encounter. This cavorting between Dicky and Anna went on for a while; all this time I just kept quiet.

The first time I saw Anna was when my sister Christina had invited the Quota Club to have dinner at her house in a select community in Las Piñas. Christina saw her giggling and undulating her body whenever a male staff was introduced to her and found this vulgar so she asked me who she was. Since I was not familiar with Anna then, I told Christina to ask Sonia, my sister-in-law.

Dicky must have noticed my silence; he suddenly became rigid and formal. He asked me, Do you still have your parents?

No, my mother passed away in 1988 and my father, seven years later in 1995. How about you? Are your parents still living?

No, my father died in 1989 and my mother preceded him by two years.

So your mother died very young? I asked.

Very young and very lonely.

Why very lonely? I asked.

My mother and father separated when I was still very young.

I am very sorry to hear that. I said.

Anna brought out a diamond-cross necklace she was selling and showed it to Dicky. Anna told Dicky in a very flirty way to put it on her. Don’t you find it pretty? Look at the diamonds—they are very clear. Tee-hee-hee-hee!!!!!

Anna moved closer across the table so Dicky could reach to put the necklace on her. Seeing him having a hard time, she stood up and moved even closer showing her cleavage, giggling and rolling her eyes while he was raising the necklace over her head. Looking at them with amusement, I saw Dicky again look at Anna with his beguiling eyes. Wicked he was enticed by Anna. I heard him again whisper something into her ear. She giggled, replaying her body language and following it with her teeny laugh. Oh, yes, Deke, yes! Tee-hee-hee-hee!!!!!

What is this? I asked myself. ‘There is something going on between these two, the guy whispering something to the woman and the woman giggling. What am I doing here?"

Anna and Dicky then talked about a person named John and their adventures on the beach in Albay. Do you remember when John and I were swimming on your beach in Albay? We were so happy playing in the water and I was calling you to join us but you did not want to. Why Deke? Tee-hee-hee-hee-!!!!.

Were you jealous of John? Tee-hee-hee-hee. She paused, looking at Dicky waiting for an answer. Was that the reason why even when I kept calling you to join us, you would not? You just looked at us. Were you really very jealous, Deke? Tee-hee-hee-hee!!!!

Dicky did not answer but just smiled. Through all of this I remained silent. I found this encounter a waste of time, meeting a supposedly very shy guy who was only good at ogling and vamping, weirdo woman with no brains at all for an interesting conversation.

Dicky must have been embarrassed sensing my disinterest and excused himself to go to the restroom and, I presumed, to pay our bill. When he came back I said to him, I have to go.

Anna offered to pay the bill but Dicky said. Don’t worry; it‘s been taken care of.

I stood up and prepared myself to leave; Dicky did the same. He took my hand to guide me out when Anna interrupted asking, Miss Lizzie, when will you see Deke again?

I didn’t answer and continued to walk out; Dicky followed me downstairs to the driveway to wait for my car.

When can I see you again? he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

Next Friday at six in the afternoon?

Ok, I said.

"At Hussein in Alabang Town Center⁹?"

Okay. I got into my car and left him standing at the curb looking after me.

Two days later I had dinner with Norma and she asked me how my blind date went. I told her that the description Anna gave about the guy was bullshit. He was tall indeed, but handsome? I did not think so. He did not dress very well—lousy was more like it. I told Norma the dinner was disappointing. I told her about how he and Anna acted, whispering and flirting.

Wow, you should have seen how she flirted with the guy, living up to her reputation. The two acted silly for much of the dinner. I found everything demeaning. I am very sure that there was hanky-panky going on between the two of them and I was being used as a pawn.

Whatever for? Norma asked.

I don’t know. But is it normal for a man and a woman to act that way? The guy whispering to the woman and the woman giggling back as if they were really intimate with each other? Oh forget it; maybe I’m just being priggish. But I was wondering why he asked me out again.

And you agreed to see him again? Norma asked.

I did and I hate myself for it. I don’t know why I could not say no even though our first dinner did not turn out too well. So we are seeing each other again on Friday.

Anna called up to say she could not make it to the dinner with Dicky. She would be in Legaspi and would not be back in Manila in time. Anyway she said Dicky assured her he would be there.

So that was it. I will have dinner with the guy alone. Not that it bothered me; not a bit. I was used to going out with guys alone. At least now there would be no annoying amorous exchanges.

Friday, the 12th of April

It was six o’clock on Friday night and I sat in the Hussein Restaurant in Alabang Town Center. The waiter who knew me had seated me. There was no Dicky in sight. It was a quarter-past six and I decided to wait. He had not given me his cellphone number so I could not call him. But he had my cellphone number and could have called me, but he did not call to let me know if he was coming or not. I said to myself. So what if he doesn’t come? I can still enjoy dinner by myself. Who needs him?

After another five minutes, Dicky came.

I am very sorry, Lizzie. I came from Makati and was caught up in traffic.

I thought this appointment might have been a misunderstanding on my part and you were not coming. Anna told me she wasn’t coming so I thought that perhaps you did not want to have dinner with me without Anna, I said.

Of course not! I assured Anna that I would come. Did she not tell you?

She did, I replied.

Dicky seated himself across me at the table. The waiter came to get our orders. We agreed to start off with a platter of appetisers. For drinks, I ordered water and he had a cup of coffee and a tall glass filled with ice.

He asked the waiter, "Who owns