"It's so cheap!" she says, very pleased.
I spend my meal picking chicken innards and cartilage out of my soto and bite my tongue to keep from saying, cheap or not, bad food is never a good deal.
I go back to the Corner, with my notebook this time, to drink and write, but as much as I need them to, the words won't come and when Nathan shows up late from a dive I am grateful for the company.
He tells me stories, we talk about genetics and psychology. He tells me he doesn't date, that when he asks girls out it's to go snake hunting. I remember him saying he was going snake hunting when we got back from Rinca and I wonder if he was going out with Hat Girl, but I don't ask. I tell him instead, from the studies done on the psychology of love, this is a very good strategy.
"Girls are easily seduced when they're scared out of their minds."
He shrugs. "I just figure, that's where I'm in my element."
At the end of the evening one of his diving friends comes over to introduce himself.
"There's a party tomorrow night if you and your 'friend?' want to come," he says extending his hand.
I shake it, tell him my name and Nathan answers, "She, is going to Bali for New Years."
The lights go off and we are the last one's to leave.
"Well," he says as we walk down the stairs, "I guess that's it. It's over."
I guess so. I tell him I'll miss him, he tells me to take care, gives me a hug, then a kiss on the cheek and finally a punch on the arm and I walk back to the hotel alone.
There are two skeevy men sitting outside the room next to ours and as I walk past one of them says, "You are a very beautiful woman."
I slide the key into the lock and say, "I don't know about that. I make babies cry," before closing the door behind me.
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