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attracts friends with constantly late personalities? Closing time approached. She wasn’t going to show up. I bent to pick up my purse from the floor where I had placed it forty-five minutes earlier.
    A young man—tall, thin, dark-complexioned, dressed in white from sandaled feet to turbaned head—walked up to the table.
    â€œI have time to give your reading now,” he stated in a quiet voice.
    â€œOh, I was waiting for a friend. But it doesn’t seem she was able to make it today. I’ll be back.”
    â€œSometimes that works out for the best,” he commented as he pulled out the chair across from me at the small round table for two. He sat down and took my hand in his. Turning it palm up, he began his reading. He didn’t look at my hand; his eyes remained fixed looking into mine.
    â€œThe reason you have come to this place, not this tearoom but this continent, is destiny. There is someone here you have agreed to meet for your mutual benefit. The agreement was made before either of you were born. In fact, you chose to be born at the same instant, one on the top of the world and the other here, Down Under. The pact was made on the highest level of your eternal self. You agreed not to seek one another until fifty years had passed. It is now time. When you meet, there will be instant recognition on a soul level. That is all I can tell you.”
    He stood up and walked away through the door I assumed went into the restaurant kitchen. I was speechless. Nothing he said made any sense whatsoever, but he spoke with such authority, somehow I was compelled to take it to heart.
    The incident became more complicated when my friend called that evening to apologize and explain why she had not kept our luncheon appointment. She became excited when I told her what had happened, and she vowed the following day to seek the reader and receive information about her own future.
    When she phoned the next time, her enthusiasm had changed to doubt. ”The tearoom has no male readers,” she told me. “They have a different person each day, but all are women. On Tuesday it was Rose, and she doesn’t read palms. She reads cards. Are you sure you went to the right place?”
    I knew I wasn’t crazy. I have always considered fortune-telling as purely entertainment, but one thing was for certain; the young man was not an illusion. Oh well, Aussies think Yanks are flakes anyway. Besides, no one seriously considers it anything except fun, and Australia was full of fun things to do for entertainment.

5
GETTING HIGH
    T HERE WAS only one thing about the country I did not enjoy. It appeared to me the original people of the land, the dark-skinned natives called Aborigines, were still experiencing discrimination. They were treated much the same way as we Americans treated our native people. The land they were given to live on in the Outback is worthless sand, and the area in the northern territory is rugged cliff and scrub brush. The only reasonable area considered still their land is also designated as national parks, so they live sharing it with the tourists.
    I did not see any Aborigines at social functions, nor any walking along the streets with uniformed schoolchildren. I saw none at Sunday church services, though I attended different denominations. I did not see any working as grocery clerks, handling packages at the post office, or selling goods in the department stores. I visited government offices and saw no Aboriginal employees. I couldn’t find any working at gas stations or waiting on customers at the chain fast-food shops. There appeared to be few of them. They were visible in the city, performing at the tourist centers. Vacationers observed them on the Australian-owned sheep and cattle paddocks working as helpers, called Jackaroos. I was told when a rancher occasionally finds an indication that a wandering group of Aborigines have killed a sheep, he does not file charges. The natives