NARRATIVE TEXT-Having a Party at Cinema Bakery [After]

          Twenty eight minutes had passed. Waiting for Lia sure spent so much time, as usual. It was already 04:40 PM and I was still sitting on a bamboo bench in the veranda, waiting for her coming. That afternoon, Lia and I were going to a café near Cinema XXI Yogyakarta, Cinema Bakery, to attend a party held by my friend. His name is Sebastian, a middle-aged French who has been living in Yogyakarta for a long time. It was all started when I met him on a social media. We had some fun chats back then, perhaps because he can spoke fluently in Bahasa Indonesia, which really impressed me. Our recent communication wasn’t as intense as before, but then I found out that currently he was starting a business on airplane ticketing from an open invitation I received from his Facebook account. It seemed that he invited some of his friends and acquaintances to celebrate his debut. It was 04:52 PM and I was still sitting on the bench while wondering how Sebastian would look like until I heard a sound of a motorbike came closer. That must be Lia, the princess of lateness. I held back from nagging her and chose to ride on the motorbike seat to shorten the time. Later we made our trip to the café faster, such an unexpected thing from her who is always rode slow. Just around twenty minutes we had arrived at Cinema Bakery. To be honest we were not quite sure what to do first, but then Lia and I decided to enter the building, planning to take some seats until a waitress  approached us and asked for the invitation letter. Here it came, the thing I had been worried about. Apparently, the guests were supposed to bring the invitation letter, but since I just received an open invitation from Sebastian’s Facebook account, of course I didn’t bring one. I tried to explain it to the waitress and she just nodded, asked me to wait a moment while she confirmed my issue to someone—I didn’t know precisely who she was talking to. Lia, who didn’t know anything about the party looked at me with a questioning gaze, which I replied just by raising my shoulders. I was confused too, and a bit hesitated about our acceptance in that party. Sighing, I threw myself to the chair. Lia and I tried to stay calm, hoping there wouldn’t anything bad happen, until the previous waitress came to tell us that we were confirmed to join the party. She said that some of the guests indeed weren’t given the invitation letter before. Besides, the party wasn’t only for celebrating Sebastian’s business debut, but also to celebrate the Independence Day of France, so anyone would be welcomed. We were so relieved back then. Just a few minutes later the party started. The foods were served immediately and the guests started to gather in the hall. After the owner of Cinema Bakery gave a small speech in English, the guests gave applauses to him and started to gather with their circle while enjoying the foods. Most of them were foreigners, though, perhaps because they are Sebastian’s friends. Came to think of it, until that time I still didn’t know which one Sebastian was. Lia also asked me the same question after taking some foods to our seats. Well since I had never met him in personal before so it is common if I couldn’t recognize him. However, Lia and I tried to observe all of the guests to make sure which one he was. Knowing us looked around in a dazed way, somebody came closer and smiled to us. He greeted and introduced himself as Sebastian. There he was, Sebastian! He sure is a middle-aged man with his receding hairline, but he looked really good with his suit and glasses, somehow made him look younger than his age, 36 years old. I smiled back to him and shook his hand, introducing myself and Lia, telling him my identity on Facebook so he could recognize me. We only had a short chit chat since he was really busy taking care of his friends, so he asked for our excuse and told us to enjoy the party. Lia and I nodded and congratulated him for the debut. So as Sebastian told us, we truly enjoyed the party by trying all the food served and taking some photos. The foods were great tasted! We had so much fun at the party. It was such a nice day of us.