It was a week after I stopped sleeping with Paula and accepted that my writing would have to be put on hold that I saw Sara again. She was at a bodega on a side street where a small market met each Saturday until the afternoon. It was there I had been able to buy a large number of records that seemed to be unavailable in most of the music shops around town. I frequented it often and would buy my produce and assorted groceries in the mean time. Sara was there buying limes from a Romanian who had sold me bad fruit when I first arrived in Poland.

“Don’t buy from him,” I said standing behind her. It took a moment for her to recognize me, I was wearing a white polo and green canvas shorts with my regular brown leather oxfords, sunglasses and a hat. She was wearing a simple floral sun dress and white canvas shoes. The left shoe had a red drop of paint on the toe and the dress was splattered slightly with assorted colors. She looked refreshing. I had thought about her often.

“And why not?” she asked, acknowledging me and turning back to the bodega to order more fruit for her bag. 

“I don’t trust him.”

“And why is that?” she asked with a smile and perfect American teeth. She was gorgeous. 

“Ty zone?” asked the Romanian. Is she your wife? He recognized me. 

“Yes,” I said. He began to put the fruit she ordered back into the piles. 

“Nie, nie,” Sara said waving her hand. I placed my hand at her waist and led her across the street to George, the other bodega owner who was slightly more expensive but much more honest with the quality. 

“So what have you been up to?”

“Painting,” she said. 

“Really? Are you any good?”

“I’d say so.”

“And would others agree.”

“For the most part. How about yourself? Paula has not spoke about you for some time.”

“Do you see much of Paula?” I asked.

“No. We are not that close of friends. She prefers the company of men.”

“And yourself?”

“Not so much.”

“Why, are we so terrible?” I asked as I picked out fruit and paid for the both of us. I thanked George and began to walk through the market with Sara. 

“Some of you.”

“And myself?”

“I’m not sure.” She smiled at me again. I fell in love.

“Would you like to get a coffee?”

“Yes.”

We spend the rest of the day in the market then in an art gallery and then at a late lunch in a square near the river. We fed the pigeons, and every time she smiled I fell for her more and more and the longer I spent with her the more she smiled. She took my hand late in the afternoon and led me to a small walkway between a barber shop and an office building. She kissed me there. She then smiled once more and took her bag of fruit and went in a red door behind the shop. 

I went back the next morning. We ate breakfast. She showed me her paintings and they were good, not just by her word. For that day I was happy and Sara was happy. I stayed with her that night.