See You Again

This is good bye. Or rather as M puts it, this is see you again. She is moving to Tokyo in less than 2 weeks' time and the gallery folks, regular customers, potters and stallholders at the weekend markets she used to have a stall at, turned up for dinner at the Dragon Den, a Vietnamese restaurant in Darlinghurst.
We ordered a banquet, that being the easiest option with 13 people at dinner, with several others popping by in the middle of the feast. The entrees came quickly enough and then there was a hiatus. We started to get hungry, wondering if more food was going to come - like tonight? M circulated amongst her friends, reminiscing old times, talking about new life events soon to come, we all took turns to share our best memories/first impressions of M.
Mine was of a partner in crime of sorts, bossing JF around his own gallery - just because JF needs bossy people like us around in his life for some counter balance. How JF will miss her when she is gone, who will tidy his desk, tell him how to run the gallery and point out to him when his decisions are not commercially viable?

I will miss her too, her other side, of her gentleness and sensitivity at sensing when I wasn't feeling all there, and quietly asking me if I was all right. How she had caught me at those quiet, pensive moments, staring out in the distance, standing by myself in the gallery, lost in my own private thoughts. I will remember her. And I'll see her again.