After our coffee we walked around Plaza Indonesia for a while and he held my hand. It felt very nice and then we watched a film in the cinema. Charlie paid for most things, like the coffee and movie tickets, but I bought us some snacks. Charlie didn’t talk very much the first time we met, but he was nice.
After the film I told Charlie I had to go home and so he and I walked to the taxi rank and he wanted to give me some money to pay for the taxi, but I said it was ok and I would pay myself. Charlie smiled and kissed my cheek and said goodbye. Nothing much happened on that first date, but he was nice. Charlie is nice, I thought. I like him. He is a good man.
I was wrong.
After our first date we chatted a bit by sms and also by YM (YM is Yahoo Messenger) but didn’t meet again for a few days. When we did meet again we went to the cinema again. Charlie still seemed like a quiet boy, but he looked at me more this time. I could see him looking at me in the cinema even though it was dark. I was a bit surprised, but thought it was ok.
He saw that I had seen him looking at me and then he smiled and I smiled too. He seemed to move a bit closer to me in the cinema and then he held my hand again.
I felt ok now, still a bit nervous, but ok. Charlie smiled more than before, but didn’t say much more. After the film we walked around the mall and had something to eat. Charlie talked to me a bit about his life in England. He said he had one brother and one sister and that they were both married. He said that he didn’t think he would ever get married. I was surprised when he said this because in my country everybody gets married.
I asked him why he didn’t think he would get married. Do you know what he said? He said he wouldn’t get married because he didn’t think any girl would ever want him.
Crazy, right?
I told him many girls would want to be married to him and when he asked why, I said it was because he was funny and smart and handsome.
I felt a bit shy after I said that to him, but he seemed to look a bit happier. I think I understand now what he was doing. He was just playing with me.
Ha! I am a stupid naive mummy’s girl who needs her bottom smacked, just like Selvey said I do!
I think you can guess what happened next. I am shy. I don’t want to tell you, but I want to write down everything that happened and then maybe I won’t feel so crazy.
Ha! Crazy, stupid, Indonesian girl!
After I said I thought he was funny, smart, blah blah blah … he smiled and said nobody had ever said anything like that to him before and that I was a special girl. He said that he felt ‘humble’. I didn’t know what that word meant and so I asked him to explain it. When he had I think I probably went red again.
After we finished eating, we went to the front of the mall to call a taxi. I thought he would order two taxis, one for him and one for me, but when we got to the taxi rank he asked me if I wanted to come back with him to his apartment.
Well!!! I am not a bad girl! I was scared when he said that and I didn’t answer directly. He looked at me and held my hand, but I was scared, scared, scared, you know?
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘What for?’
He looked down to the floor and I thought then I had hurt him because I suspected him of something. I felt sad. He said,
‘Just to watch a DVD or talk, or something. I just don’t want to say “goodnight” to you yet, that’s all.’
He looked so sad then and I thought I had hurt him. I felt guilty. Isn’t that crazy? ME feeling guilty!!! It should be him who felt guilty for what he did to me later!
Anyway, I felt sorry for Charlie and so said I would come with him to his apartment but not for long. He smiled and we got into a taxi.
In the taxi we didn’t talk much but Charlie held my hand. I was nervous but I trusted Charlie. Charlie is a good boy, I thought. He won’t hurt me or do anything I don’t like. He smiled at me again and then I felt relaxed. I was safe, I thought.
Hey, do you know what happened when we got to his apartment building? Well, we went into reception to get in the lift and there was a young man there behind the desk. He smiled at Charlie but he looked at me very badly, I thought. I just scowled at him. I gave him my fierce look. Ari calls it my galak look. Galak means fierce in my language.
When we got upstairs to his apartment the first thing I did was to take my shoes off. In my country it is always polite to take off your shoes and leave them outside. (Ari says there are some people who go round stealing people’s shoes and that’s why you sometimes see people going home from the mosque with no shoes on, but I don’t think that’s true. I think that is one of Ari’s jokes.)
Charlie said I didn’t have to take off my shoes in his apartment, but I said I didn’t feel comfortable wearing shoes in his house. His apartment was very nice and I could see he had a big living room
