Chapter One - Richard Lewis

She threw her fork at him. "The rent money that's due! The fifty million you lost
gambling!"
Nol put his hands on his hips and glowered. "Listening to gossip again, are you?"
"Gossip! Where's the money, then?"
"Come here." Nol grabbed his wife's arm and tugged her across the yard and an
into the house and through to bedroom. He flung the top off the offering basket and
gestured to the envelope.
"Fifty million," Nol said.
She tipped the envelope to empty it, but Nol snatched it away from her. "Now you
want to count it?" he said. He threw the envelope into the basket and kicked the basket
under the bed and glowered at her.
Suti sat down on the bed, hands clasped in her lap. She stared at her husband and
then began giggling.
"This is funny, is it?"
She reached out a hand to him. "I read some more of that Kosmo article," she
said.
Later, sitting at her computer, she called out, "An email from Putu. My friends
will be picking me up at the airport. Don't worry about meeting me." She sat back. "Well.
Can you believe that? Worry! Why would I worry? I've been looking forward to this
weeks."
"I wonder what friends," Nol said. "Probably those rascals from his school, those
guys who didn't get into Bali University, much less get a scholarship to Stanford
University."
"We are going to the airport."
"Of course we are. We're his parents. He can go see his friends any time. Tell him
that."
Suti typed a reply. "Worry," she muttered. "What a thing to say."
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