#Leonie is a woman over 40, she could be your neighbor. After her divorce, she builds her new life. With neighbor Mandy she has dinner appointments of the good kind: Mandy cooks! Love also comes around the corner, with all the consequences that this entails.
When she came home, she dropped herself on her bed and cried. She cried until she ran out of tears. It was halfway through the night. She dragged herself into the bathroom, undressed and went back to bed. She couldn't sleep and eventually she stood restlessly in front of her bedroom window looking out. Mandy's car was still in the parking lot, she had seen that and part of her wanted to go back to Mandy, but she knew it was pointless. Mandy and her, that was over. Shreds of memories shot through her head, but all the time that moment came back, the moment Mandy told me she was going away. Definitely. Abroad. Leonie had no idea how to proceed. Where she had to get the strength to get back to her life. To go to work and take care of her children. Where she had to find the strength to ever be happy again, to laugh again. She doubted if she could.
The next morning, she called in sick. She called and got Judith on the phone. She had reacted alarmingly and asked if she was okay. Leonie assured her she had a flu. Judith had accepted it, although Leonie suspected she didn't quite believe her. But she didn't care. She had a few days before the children would return, and she hoped that by then she would have swept herself together again, that she would see a bright spot somewhere. She had put her cell phone in her hand to send Mandy an app, but she didn't know what. It was perfectly clear that Mandy wouldn't respond anyway.
At half past ten, Leonie heard heels on the gallery. She stood in front of Julia's window to look outside. She just saw Mandy put two suitcases in her car and get in her car. She didn't look at Leonie's window. There she went. Mandy gave gas and drove off the parking lot. Leonie's life out. Leonie felt empty. She turned on her laptop and looked on YouTube for Barry Manilow's song, the song that was about Mandy. Her Mandy. She listened to the lyrics, so appropriate all of a sudden... “yesterday is a dream... I face the morning... crying in the night... I never realized how happy you made me... Oh Mandy...”
I remember all my life; Raining down as cold as ice; Shadows of a man; A face through a window; Crying in the night; The night goes into Morning, just another day; Happy people pass my way; Looking in their eyes; I see a memory; I never realized; How happy you made me Oh, Mandy; Well, you came and you gave without taking; But I sent you away; Oh, Mandy; Well, you kissed me and stopped me from shaking; And I need you today; Oh, Mandy I'm standing on the edge of time; I've walked away when love was mine; Caught up in a world of uphill climbing; The tears are in my mind; And nothing is rhyming; Yesterday's a dream; I face the morning; Crying on a breeze; The pain is calling
