Summary

Pages 141 – 167. Third-person narration describes how mid-thirties journalist Talia, living in Tel Aviv and working at an unimpressive, poorly paying job, flirts with an attractive man in a coffee shop. After she leaves, the man follows her. Talia feels “the day breaking open” as she and the man walk together to the nearby school where he is scheduled to have a meeting about his daughter. He introduces himself as Tomer, and he and Talia agree that he can call her, which he does, and they arrange to have dinner.

Narration then sums up Talia’s adult life to that point: her lifelong ambition to be a journalist, in spite of her traditional parents’ belief that she should get married and raise a family; her finding a job in Kiev (Russia), where she worked her way up from researcher to reporter; how she...