Lovefool (Introduction)
Page 9
#8 TODAY HAS BEEN OK
The next time they met again in the teahouse. He checked her translation and was happy with it, as it was really good. He didn't expect her to call so early, and he was a little bit surprised about her speed of work. He tried not to show any further emotions and limited himself to a friendly smile. But her eyes couldn't be betrayed.
Compared to the their first meeting he wasn't as much stunned, he was happy and feeling lucky, but he managed to focus on her words and sentences. He enjoyed this more controlled way of being in love more than the former inability to react. He wasn't paralysed; he was just deeply in love.
Again, she was the first to stand up and leave the teahouse. The third and the fourth meeting went the same way. They talked a little, she took work papers from him or handed back her work and then at some stage she just said “it’s late enough” and then she stood up to shake his hand for goodbye. She had very delicate hands, almost like a pianist's. Her fingers were long and thin, but she shook his hand quite determinedly.
Two weeks later the waitress asked him if there was something going on between them. He didn't know what to answer and said it was just business. On the way home he thought not for the first time that it wasn't just business. He wanted to spend more time with her. He wanted to ask her so many questions. Until now, all he knew was that she wasn't a student of English language, probably she wasn't even a student. She was apparently a High School girl with a calm and classy way of living. She seemed to be sportive. As she was standing up it was energetic and powerful, but with the grace of a prima ballerina.