The Rose that Cannot be Loved

In Belton City, rumor insists that Murray Owen has loved Pola for over twenty years, though she never answered him and once went abroad to refuse his proposal. She always treated the talk as her friends' invention, until she learns that Murray is now accompanied by Julia Brown, a woman who looks like her.

Three years later, Pola returns home. Her friends are already betting on which woman will keep him, and Murray himself is the one waiting to collect her from the airport. He takes her to a small restaurant near their old junior high school, where he orders nothing and she orders almost everything.

Pola cannot tell what he wants, or why he chose a place she loved and he never visited with her.