Broken Hearts On Boulevard Unirii novel Chapter 70

"Yes," I told her. "I'll be waiting for your phone call. But no more than two days."

With that I said goodbye, and went out into the street. Although the temperature was 1°C the sun and the bright blue sky gave the feeling of spring. The puddles of water that had frozen overnight had become dangerously slippery and I had to be careful as I navigated around them. "I have no desire to spend time in a Romanian hospital with a broken leg," I thought.

I went to Café Bonjour in the old mall. Despite the fact that it was rather close and I could have walked, I decided to take a cab because of the cold. As soon as I got into the cab, my phone suddenly rang. It was obviously a wrong number, as the person on the line spoke Romanian. I hung up, put the phone on my lap and thought to myself that as soon as I get out, I would call Oana.

The cab dropped me off in front of the mall; I paid the fare and left. When the taxi was already some distance away, I noticed that my phone was gone. It had probably fallen off my lap in the cab.

I looked around and saw a young girl walking down the street. I stopped her, pulled out a ten-euro note and asked if I could use her phone to make a call. She immediately handed me her phone. She spoke English, so I explained to her why I needed the phone and what I planned to do.

I dialed my own number and it rang several times. When nobody answered, I dialed it again. This time a man, the taxi driver, answered and began talking in Romanian. I asked the girl to talk to him, and explain to him that I had left my phone in the cab and if he could please return to the spot where he let me off. He said that he was on his way. He was there ten minutes later and handed me back my phone. I pulled out a ten-euro note and gave it to him. He thanked me and left.

At that moment, my phone rang. Oana was on the line.

"I have something to discuss with you," she said. "Where are you?"

"I am in Café Bonjour in the mall," I answered.

"I'm coming over. I'll be there in fifteen minutes max," she said.

I went into the café, chose a front table, sat down and ordered a coffee. From my vantage point I was able to observe all the pretty girls passing by, as top models in an ongoing fashion show, one more beautiful than the next. I slowly sipped my coffee, which tasted close to Italian coffee. I enjoyed every minute of it.

"I'm here," Oana said as she came to my table and sat down. "You look like you are enjoying yourself."

"What would you be looking at if you were sitting on Via Veneto in Rome in a coffee shop? Would you not be examining the muscles and shapely bodies of the handsome young men passing by?" I commented with a smile.

I told Oana that I wanted to be alone this evening.

As I was walking home my phone rang. It was Dorina.

"I have something for us," she said. "It requires a major investment, but you are going to faint when you see it. I must warn you that you must forget about the prices you saw in 2000. Prices have recently risen to insane heights."

"May I come over now?"I asked, deciding not to meet Angelo the same evening.

"No," she answered. "I set an appointment with them for ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Come to my office and we will go together, as the place is a bit out of town."

That night I couldn't sleep. I lay in bed thinking about everything that had happened to us ever since our first trip to Romania.