While we waited for Thala to return, the rest of us cleaned up the room service dishes and moved the plate of cookies to the table. Ivan put on a kettle for tea, and soon, the common space looked like a cozy living room with the lamps lit and the darkness growing deeper outside. Add in the cookies and tea, and it felt like my grandmother’s farmhouse on a winter’s evening, never mind that it was still almost eighty degrees outside, and we were in a country that was largely made up of desert.
When Thala returned, she helped herself to a cup of mint tea and a cookie, then sat cross-legged on the ground beside me. I’d vowed a few weeks back to work on my core strength since my new job was proving to be more physical than I’d imagined. So sitting on the floor and keeping my back straight was a
