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34 Shimran Café Adventure You are twelve. Your full-bosomed aunt has brought you to this red velvet draped café. She has a rendezvous with her“man-friend.” You are both supposed to be out shopping. She gives you a pen and a ruled journal, says: Write a story for me— but not about me. She winks, puts a bowl of ice cream on your table, with hips swaying, moves towards the man with the Clark Gable mustache, slicked-back hair, and moss-green eyes. You want to write about him: that he is in love with you, and somehow he must break the news to your poor aunt. Instead, you watch the man and the woman framed by pouring window light.You don’t know much about people like them.Your parents never go to cafés, never hold hands, eye to eye, like that. 35 The man leans across the table, whispers something, she flings her head back and laughs like no woman you have seen.You want to know what he just said. You want to laugh like that. Someday, you will break your word and write a poem about her. But today you eat ice cream. ...

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