Two weeks later it was Wednesday again, and it was still May, and a little before one o’clock I hung the clock sign on my door to let the world of book lovers know I’d be back at two. Ten minutes later I was at the Poodle Factory with lunch for two.

I opened containers and dished out the food while Carolyn locked up and hung her own CLOSED sign in the window. She sat down opposite me and studied her plate. “Looks good,” she said, and sniffed. “Smells okay, too. What have we got here, Bern?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“It’s the daily special,” I said.

“And you didn’t even ask what it was?”

“I asked,” I said, “and the guy answered, and I have no idea what he said.”

“So you ordered it.”

I nodded. “‘Give me two of them,’ I said, ‘with brown rice.’”

“This is white rice, Bern.”

“I guess they only had white rice,” I said. “Or maybe he didn’t understand me. I didn’t understand a word he said, so why should I expect him to understand everything I said?”

“Good point.” She picked up her plastic fork, then changed her mind and chose the chopsticks instead. “Whatever it is, it tastes okay. Where’d you go, Bern?”

“Two Guys.”

“Two Guys From Abidjan? Since when do you get chopsticks with African food? And this doesn’t taste African to me.” She picked up another morsel of food, then paused with it halfway to her mouth. “Besides,” she said, “they closed, didn’t they?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“And just reopened yesterday, under new management. It’s not Two Guys From Abidjan anymore. Now it’s Two Guys From Phnom Penh.”

“Say that again, Bern.” I did. “ Phnom Penh,” she said. “Where’s that?”