Shalom in the mall.

Last year Brenna left her wallet in the mall after they had closed and we had to go get it.I remember the night very well, we were getting sbarros and bringing it back to Andee's house to stay up late eating junk food and watching Anastasia. I think we all remember that night well, mostly because of things that happened later, not the missing wallet fiasco; but I remember the missing wallet fiasco.Brenna got out to her car and looked in her purse for her keys, she found her keys but she also found that her wallet was missing. She kind of freaked out a little about it, so I walked back in the mall with her and tried to calm her tears and torn nerves by helping her calmly retrace her steps, I remember distinctly saying something to Brenna that calmed her down, and it was about a little foreign man in a cute sweater.
I said:"Now, if you hadn't have left your wallet over on the other side of the mall then we wouldn't had a reason to walk through the middle, and if we hadn't have walked through the middle we wouldn't have gotten to see the beautiful boy at the kiosk!"
It was true, we wouldn't have.
But, like all good things, the little Italian disappeared and only the awkwardly hairy israeli men who accost you with head massagers remained. I didn't really pay attention to the kiosks after that.Avoided them like the plague, maybe, but give them other attention no.


The kiosks now are run mainly by Israelis; the same ones that used to be there, the loud ones, very foreign looking, with thick accents, chest hair and cologne. They come to the beanery and drop four quarters and a nickel on the counter wink and expect me to know what kind of coffee they like. I'm learning, but it was kind of annoying at first.There's one though, Boris, and he doesn't look like the rest (because, he's part russian); he's only about as tall as me, slender and has a lot of sandy blonde curls that he wears pulled back with a headband. I first came in contact with Boris last week when he took a fancy to me and asked to explain things like Bananas and Caramel to him. I'd get half way through an explanation and he'd say "I know that one! I know that one! Okay okay okay." in this thick slavic accent, and walk away. Only to come back 15 minutes later to stare at me until I had this attention then ask me what a frappalatte was.
This went on all night, and I was kind of weirded out by it. He was kind of hard to understand and I didn't really like all the attention, I felt like I was making him feel stupid or something, because he knew what everything was just not the words, I didn't know if I was giving him the answers he wanted. And Why didn't he ask anyone else?

The next time I worked he came and got coffee a few times, smiled at me but didn't accost me anymore. He would walk by every so often and say hello to any of us working; I could tell his job was boring, especially then, I mean, we were dead and we were a coffee shop, more people buy coffee than people buy remote controlled helicopters. FInally when it was just Dave (my manager) and I standing there I was introduced to him, He was Boris and he was from Israel, and he thought his job was very very "Boooring."
He asked me my name, "Hannah," I say.
"Hannah?! AHHH!! YOU ARE JEWISH!!"
He was very excited, he raised his hands above his head and everything."
Oh, no no," I say "I am Christian. And my family is mostly German."
"No Jewish? A name like Hannah!"
"Well, actually my mom's maiden name was Wolff, that's kind of Jewish, I think there is some jewish there."
"You Muh-zay-err?"
"Yes."
"YOU ARE JEWISH!!" He got excited again.

The rest of the night he would walk by and talk to me, about this and that, his boring job, how he was confused by america and english, about my glasses.
He also told all the other Israeli boys that I am the jewish girl at the coffee shop.
We're friends now. Boris gets excited to see me and asks me how work is. Today I decided I enjoy this a lot; Mostly Boris is adorable, but even more so, Boris is very attractive.Boris gets all smiley and asks for more coffee and says "ahh, Hannah, the Jewish one." And I smile and ask him how the skate shoes are selling. It's fun.
So now, whenever I think of the kiosks I think of my friend Boris, and how he likes me so much.



You know, because I'm jewish.