Ari is a good boy. He is funny, too. At first he just sent me a smiley face in reply, but then a few minutes later he sent me another sms.
‘Your friend wrote to you “Thanks for the chat. Hope we can meet soon” … this means little Sari is falling in love?????????? See you later, sis.’
I smiled when I read Ari’s sms. I am so glad he is my friend. He always cares about me. When I told him about Charlie and the emails he didn’t call me a brave girl. He just smiled. He is a good boy. I am proud he is my friend. I said thank you to him and went back to work.
The next day Charlie sent me another sms. He sent it early in the morning and he just asked how I was. I liked it better if he sent sms and didn’t call me because I could take my time trying to understand what he said, but in a phone call it is difficult to understand a bule speak.
This time it didn’t take me so long to understand what it meant and I replied to it quickly. During the day we sent a few more sms’s to each other and then he sent one asking to meet me!!! I was very happy but also very worried. I had never spoken face to face with a bule. Maybe he would think I was a stupid girl, ugly, uneducated, nothing to talk about, couldn’t speak English well. I panicked.
I went to the toilet and took my mobile with me and called Ari.
‘Ari, what should I do? He wants to meet me. I am so afraid’
‘Ha, sis. You really are funny,’ he laughed at me.
‘Shut up, Ari. Tell me what to do?
‘You want me to shut up and tell you what to do?’ he was still laughing at me.
‘ARIANSA WIBOSO!!!!! I will never talk to you again if you don’t help me now,’ I shouted.
Then he stopped laughing and he told me to go with my heart. He said I could go and meet Charlie but just to be careful and relax and enjoy myself. I asked him to accompany me but he said that wouldn’t be good. He said that Charlie had only invited me to meet him and so if he went too it would look silly. He told me to have a nice time and to let him know what happened later.
He is so good to me. He is my best friend.
So, I went back to my desk and I replied to Charlie. I said, ‘k, wld lv 2 mt u. wr + wn?’ which meant, ‘Ok, I would love to meet you: where and when?’
I was still not sure and I was so scared I nearly changed my mind. After I sent that sms I switched my phone on silent mode and hid it in my desk. I was too afraid to look at it or to hear it beep. I hoped Charlie would reply soon but part of me also hoped he wouldn’t reply at all. He seemed so nice and I didn’t want to make him disappointed when and if we met.
For the next hour I tried to do my work but my fingers kept going towards my desk drawer. I wanted to check my messages but I couldn’t. I wanted to be brave but I wasn’t. Waduh, I really did feel like the mummy’s girl that Selvey sometimes called me.
I knew I couldn’t delay forever and so I finally opened my desk drawer and took out my phone.
I had one message.
I learnt. I learnt that Charlie is not a good boy. Sitting there, the day after our second date, I was sure of it. My mind was racing. I didn’t want to see him anymore or be his friend, I mused. I thought he was a playboy who just liked to have fun with girls.
I don’t think I am a bad girl or a silly girl, though. I don’t think I am a naïve girl or a mummy’s girl or a bule-mania like Selvey thinks, I think I am just a normal girl who was tricked by a crazy bule.
Actually, we have a name for ‘crazy westerner’ in our language. It is bule gila. Gila means crazy. Sometimes we join the words and make one new word: bugil. I think Charlie is bugil.
The next day Charlie sent me many sms and also tried to call me twice. I don’t know what he wrote because I deleted all his messages without reading them. I was not angry with him anymore but I was disappointed. I was disappointed that I was wrong about him.
I now knew that Charlie lied to me. He had many friends here. He was not a lonely boy like I thought. He was not a polite boy, either.
The first time we met we just had a coffee in Starbucks in Plaza Indonesia. It was nice and sweet, like we were teenagers. I was very nervous and polite, but so was he. I thought he was so nice then because he didn’t want to look directly at me and so I thought he was a shy boy. I remember I called him a ‘mysterious boy’ because he was so quiet and polite. When I called him that, I remember, he gave me a funny look. I asked him if I had made a mistake, but he just smiled and said nothing.
I remember he said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ a lot the first time we met and I told him he this was unusual and he didn’t have to say words like that all the time, but he said it was natural for him and he even said ‘thank you’ to the assistant who gave us our
