Julia Lelieveld and the fifth element
~12~

I looked at Daan questioningly and yet also expectantly.

As he looked at the road, I saw his eyebrows twitch for a moment.

He turned his head and looked at me.

"Yes, why not. I like it," he said, nodding his head. It seemed as if he meant to say that he also had to persuade himself to do something fun, but that he deserved it.

Wow, he just said yes.

"Do you know anything nice around here? Since I've been living here for less than three weeks, I'm totally ignorant of all the fun stuff here," I said, making quotes as I said fun, raising my eyebrows.

"I'll have to think about that for a while," he said with a small smile.

He had to think about that, I was curious.

"Do you mind if I change at home first?"

He looked at me again and nodded.

"It's fine. What number do you live in?"

I looked up and saw that we were already driving in Eikenlaan.

"76".

We stopped in front of the door and sprinted into the garage.

"Come on, you can hang your coat by the heating, it will be dry in no time." I opened the door to the kitchen and he followed.

I always left a light on at home, I liked that better if I came home alone. I quickly turned on the heating and I immediately heard the pipes filling with the hot water. I took his coat and hung it by the stove.

I looked at Daan and saw him looking around.

"Isn't anyone home?"

"No, my father is still at work."

"Okay."

And he happily left it at that.

"I'm going to get changed. Make yourself at home. There's drinks in the fridge and the room's that way." I pointed towards the living room.

"I'll be fine." And he laughed a little.

I quickly ran upstairs to my room.

I'd love to take a shower, but then I think I'd be gone way too long. I put on my dark blue jeans with a beautifully falling cream-white sweater. Over the jeans I put on my dark blue boots. I grabbed my gray leather jacket and I was done. I looked at myself again in the mirror. I put my hair back in a ponytail and put a little Vaseline on my lips. If I were to put on lip gloss right now, it would be so noticeable. I didn't want him to get the wrong idea.

I rushed down. I just saw Daan step away from the photo wall. I stood in the doorway for a moment and looked at him. A stab of pain went through me.

In the first week I hung them with difficulty. With tears down my cheeks I hung the pictures there, and since then I've tried to avoid the wall as often as possible. I knew it wasn't right, but I just couldn't do it yet. I thought if I really started to feel a bit at home here, it would get better.

When I see them now, the big gaping hole in my heart only starts to hurt more. She was gone and would never come back.

I knew I would have to keep remembering the beautiful moments, but they would never leave my heart. I would always remember her. I tried to put the good memories first, but with a lot of pain in my heart I still often saw her when she died.

Trying to breathe slowly, I walked into the room and stood next to him.

He looked at me for a moment.

"Your mother is no longer alive," he said with great emotion.

I looked at him, his eyes were genuinely sad. I got a lump in my throat, afraid that my voice would refuse, I just nodded.

He looked back at the photos. I couldn't and kept looking at Daan.

"You look like her."

I cleared my throat for a moment. "Thank you."

It always made me feel good when people said that to me. I took it as a compliment, I always thought my mother was a beautiful woman.

He held out his hand. "Come on, it's time for us to have some fun." He smiled weakly at me. I looked from his hand to his face and then back to his hand. I took his hand.

"Yeah, it's time to have some fun." I was surprised, but I managed to conjure up a small smile.

We ran to the car, it was still raining. Daan connected his own playlist to the stereo. Without saying a word, he turned on his own chapter of rock music and went for a drive. Grateful that I could put my mind to something else for a while, I leaned my head against the headrest and closed my eyes. He had a lot of songs on it that I also had on my playlist. I moved my head gently to the beat of the bass guitars.

After a few minutes he turned off the music. Surprised, I opened my eyes and looked at him.

"It's great to think about nothing for a while and just enjoy the music", he said from experience.

"Indeed," I admitted. It would have done me good just to listen to the music for a while.

Okay Julia, I had to enjoy tonight.

I looked around and saw that we were in the old part of town. I recognized the street. The police station was close by.

"And what fun are we going to do?"

He smiled and raised his eyebrows mischievously.

"You'll see."

And with those words he got out of the car. He quickly ran around and opened my door and helped me out of the car with ease. Like I was as light as a feather. He took my hand and we ran to the other side of the street. He opened the door of a building unknown to me.

We walked into a sort of reception area with tables and a bar. A large television hung in the corner of the room.

An old man sat at the bar. He had gray hair and large glasses on.

We were still holding our hands, which made me feel good.

I gave Daan a questioning look and he smiled and nodded his head towards the old man.

We walked over to him and when we were almost there he heard us and turned around. He looked at Daan and immediately began to smile.

"Daan, boy, how nice to see you." His gaze went from Daan to me. "And who is this beautiful young lady?" he asked with a big smile on his face.

"Bertus this is Julia, Julia this is Bertus." He made the familiar gestures with his hands toward us.

Bertus held out his hand to me and I shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Julia."

"Nice to meet you, sir."

He pointed his finger at Daan.

"Daan is a good boy, you have to be careful with that," he said proudly as if it were his own son.

Daan gave a little laugh and shrugged.

"I'll remember that, sir."

And smiled at him.

"But boy, what can I help you with?", Bertus asked Daan.

"Is the recreation room in use tonight?"

The old man glanced at Daan's face and began to laugh again. He got up from his chair with some difficulty and grabbed a key from behind the bar.

"Do you remember everything?" he asked Daan teasingly.

"I learned from the best", Daan retorted.

Laughing, the old man handed Daan the key. "Have fun kids."

"Thanks Bertus."

"No thanks boy, I've been young too." And again a big smile appeared on his face.

Daan laughed and led me to a door on the other side of the room. This door opened into a long hallway. We walked all the way to the back in the dark and Daan stopped at the back left door. I looked at him questioningly.

"Want to do something fun?" he asked me mysteriously.

I was very curious. "Certainly!" I said with conviction.

"Good, come on."

He opened the door and we stepped inside. He hadn't let go of my hand all this time. Geez that felt good.

"Wait here, okay?"

I trusted him. So I just nodded with a smile.

He walked into the dark room and I heard a door open and close.

After half a minute, small colored lights on the ceiling came on. Simultaneously with the lights coming on, a large disco ball started spinning in the center, making it seem like thousands of tiny fireflies were flying through space. As the thousands of lights danced through the room, music came from the speakers hanging on the walls. It was old soul music. It reminded me of a school dance from an old movie. I couldn't help it, but despite my emotions from just now, Daan had really made me laugh.

I heard the door open and close again and I looked to the side. Daan came over with a big smile.

"I knew you'd like this," he said with a big wink.

"And what do you think of it?"

I glanced at the space. It was a large hall, to the right was a stage with a large red curtain. In front of the stage were tables with chairs. To the left was boules. Further up were two pool tables. At the end of the room hung a large red curtain. If I put everything together, you would say that this was some kind of activity center for the elderly.

"It makes me laugh, that says enough", I told him.

"What kind of place is this?" I looked at him questioningly.

"This is the elderly person in the neighborhood building. During the day, the older people can come here. They love it." As he spoke, you could see his face was open and honest. He smiled as he spoke.

"And every now and then there is a party." He raised his shoulders.

"Impressive. And what role do you have in all of this?"

I looked at him curiously.

"I worked here as a volunteer for two years. My parents wanted us to do volunteer work."

I looked at him for a moment. Gosh, he's a really good boy.

"And what's the big surprise tonight?", I asked him, laughing but also somewhat curious.

"Come with me."

He took my hand again and led me to the big red curtain at the end of the room. He let go of my hand and walked to the side where he tugged on a heavy tie. With that movement, the curtain opened.

I had to give my eyes a chance to get a good look at the dark space emerging from behind the curtain.

I started laughing. Geez, it's been a really long time since I've done that.

"Bowling?", I asked incredulously.

"Certainly, and I warn you, I'm very good." And he made an exaggerated gesture to say he wasn't really well at all.

"That's good, because I happened to be the track record holder in my old hometown," I said seriously. He looked at me for a moment and then I started laughing.

When he realized I didn't mean it, he laughed too.

"Okay braggart, would you like a gin, bitter lemon or something else?"

He had a sense of humor, I had to admit.

"What are you taking? A malt beer?"

He wrinkled his nose for a moment. "Luckily they also have real beer here."

He went to the bar and grabbed a beer bottle from the large fridge.

"There's all kinds of things, just call something," he shouted from the bar.

He was half bent over looking into the fridge and at me.

Let's go crazy.

"Give me a beer too." He looked at me incredulously and shrugged.

"You ask, we deliver." And with those words he walked to the bowling alley with two beers.

He handed me the bottle and held up his to toast. I clicked my bottle against his.

"To the win," he said sarcastically.

"To the win," I said affirmatively.

We sat down at the control panel and with a few button presses the track came to life. The skittles came down and the balls emerged from the floor.

"Ladies First." He pointed to the track.

Well there I went then. The last time I bowled was at a children's party when I was 12.

I picked up a pink glitter ball just for looks. With as much momentum as I could give I threw the ball onto the court. After five meters he was already in the gutter. I burst out laughing. Behind me I heard Daan chuckle. With the second throw I chose a green ball, I even managed to knock over four skittles.

"Well, beat that."

He looked at me smiling.

"Easy." Rubbing his hands, he picked up a matte black ball and deftly tossed it onto the court, and sure enough, knocked down seven pins straight away. On his second throw, he picked up a yellow and black ball, but missed. Also into the gutter. This time I was the one who chuckled at him.

"Do you like that?"

"Frankly, yes."

"Luckily, that was the intention, right? A nice evening?"

I thought about that for a while. It was indeed the intention. If I had thought this afternoon that I would have such an evening I would not have believed myself. It had been a very long time since I had laughed like that. I had to do this more often. Just get out there and laugh. That did me good.

"That was certainly the intention," I agreed.

"It is only successful if it is also a nice evening for you, of course."

"It's a nice evening," he said affirmatively.

I nodded and grabbed the pink glitter ball and showed my skills again.

It was nice to go bowling in such a casual atmosphere and chat a bit with each other. I was amazed that it was so easy. We talked about anything and everything. Just light-hearted topics, all safe.

After an hour and a half and a few drinks we had finished two jars. Daan had won both times. At one point I realized that he let me win, but of course I didn't fall for that. Very sweet.

I was also glad that after two beers I had switched to Coke. Just like Daan, because he still had to drive.

After closing the track, he looked at the large clock. It was already eight o'clock. Suddenly I realized that I was very hungry.

While I was thinking about it, Daan said it.

"Shall we go get something to eat?"

"Like you can read my mind." He laughed and closed the bowling alley curtain.

"I just have to put out the lights, okay?"

"Okay."

He went to the side room where the light and sound system were for the whole area. When the lights went out it was as dark as night. It was still dusk when we drove here, but it had become dark in the meantime.

He took my hand again and we walked back down the hall to the reception area.

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