“Mr. Dennis, you’re coming over for dinner tonight aren’t you?” Mario asked.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be there by 6:30.”
“Good. Maria will start the escabeche around noon so it should be about ready between 6 and 7.”
“O.K.”
My friend Mario is very poor but he specifically wanted me to come over and try his wife’s escabeche. I have done some favors for him over the years and I know that’s his way of paying them back. Besides, I love that Mayan onion based soup called escabeche and I hate to pass up the chance to eat it.
“Hello, Mr. Dennis,” Maria said, when I knocked on the door. “Mario went to get some bread. Have a seat and he’ll be right back.”
Her phone rang and she took it into the other room to answer it.
When Mario got back he asked, “Where’s Maria?”
“She had a phone call,” I told him. “She in the other room.”
“Oh, no!’ Mario said. “Mr. Dennis, we might as well go down to the taco stand and get something to eat.”
“Why?”
“When she gets on that phone it is usually for two hours. I never see anybody that loves to talk on the phone like her.”
“Oh, let’s give her a while,” I said. “She probably won’t be long.”
After half an hour Maria came out of the other room.
“I’m proud of you,” Mario told her. “I told Mr. Dennis you would be on the phone for at least two hours.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” she said. “It was a wrong number.”
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