Chapter 20: Su-zanne and Hinry

"Oh, wow, you're from Brooklyn. Do you know Jennifer?"

On this inferno of a late afternoon, I am sitting by a courtyard fountain reading a Spanish phrasebook, and there must be something about another person reading a book when you are bored out of your mind that makes you want to talk to them. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her leave a perfectly good conversational huddle with a fellow Ozzie and a guy from Texas (OK, so I myself have been eavesdropping.) She scrapes a plastic chair across the entire length of the courtyard to sit next to me.

After the first chair I’ve managed to keep my head intently in the book without looking up, but then she starts moving a second plastic chair into the conversational theater. I buckle. I have to see why two chairs, so I look up. I kick myself for exposing myself to eye contact, but at this point the battle is over. I’ve been flanked.

As I look up, the woman, an Australian named Debbie, gives me a big wide, friendly smile that was not going to take no for an answer, and I can’t help but smile bac…