by Romi Moondi
But had it?
My laptop greeted me with an always stirring desktop photo. One side of the picture was a handsome man with sandy brown hair, bright blue eyes, and the smile of a distinguished gentleman. Right next to him, snuggled up to his cheek and feeling oh-so-proud to have scored such a catch...was me. My long strands of hair from that windy day were slightly obscuring the backdrop, but the scene of Central Park wrapped in a blanket of fresh snow was unmistakeable.
This man, the ever-charming and screenwriting Brit James Caldwell, was living proof that accidental encounters on the Internet didn’t always lead to the dreaded kidnap/murder scenario. At least not yet...some killers take time.
And what about James, anyway? The man of “Jude Law wishes and Daniel Craig dreams.” He’d put New York City right on my map, and left me with an imprint slightly more elegant than an “I Love New York” tramp-stamp, but equally as permanent.
And yet...he’d been back in Barcelona for months, a place that could’ve been the frickin’ moon if stone-cold reality had anything to say. As I looked around the café, I spotted a young couple with interlocked fingers, which somehow made me think of my parents. Weird. They were planning my sister’s wedding, and would make sure I stayed on my leash until they planned out mine (with an Internet-ordered groom...free shipping!).
Score one for stone-cold reality, score zero for Romi Narindra.
But I wasn’t a victim anymore, oh no! I shook my head firmly like a psycho at a table full of imaginary friends. First of all, I had learned to deflect Indian suitors discovered by my father via meddling matchmakers (quick-fix solution: faking illness and vomiting-on-demand), and secondly...I had a book! I pulled the stack of pages from my bag, this manuscript getting more and more creased (and latte-stained) by the day. My barely legible notes were the result of James’s instrumental feedback. Because of all that scrawled-out advice, I’d gone from inconsequential blogger to someone with a story to tell. And all I’d needed was a gin-and-tonic-drinking, green-olive-popping, foreign-language-speaking debonair artist on my side.
But was he even on my side anymore?
He definitely wasn’t on my literal side, made perfectly clear by the vacant seat at the table, but I wondered where he’d be once my book was out in the world. Cheering me on from across the sea? Like an invisible sailor on a “Pirates of the Caribbean” ghost ship? That surely wouldn’t be enough, nor would anything in the realm of love, if I couldn’t reach out and touch it.
New rule: no more dates that require airplanes!
The conversation in my head ended quickly, when I noticed the nearby couple massaging each other’s wrists in a face-to-face soul-mate moment.
“What if a lonely widower saw this display?” I wanted to say. “Show some consideration!” All caught up in this inner outrage, my elbow slid off the table, and all my precious pages scattered to the floor. As I crouched down to gather them up (with the love-struck couple looking down at me from their pedestal of supremacy), a card popped out of the stack.
The birthday card from James.
My manuscript suddenly turned into a pile of junk mail, as I flipped open the card to read the message I’d already memorized.
Four lines later I was done, once again amazed at how something so simple could be a bonus scene from “Gone with the Wind.”
My gaze switched quickly from the pages of my book to the card. Then to the totally obnoxious couple. Then back to the card. Imagining myself as a huge bestseller who would one day own a jet to visit all her lovers, I gathered up the pages and tossed the card into the bag. For bag’s eyes only.
Settled back in my seat now, I chugged my latte like a hockey player chugs a bottle of water in-between shifts (minus the part where I spray it all over my face). Next I returned my attention to the laptop, and opened up the document that awaited all the edits. This story, a quest to find love and avoid arranged marriage, was somewhat auto-biographical...and entirely embarrassing. The worst parts to recount were the pressures of arranged-marriage doom, since for me those were the facts of real life.
One day I’ll look back and laugh.
I gazed out the window for a moment, this ritzy stretch of Bloor Street lined with Prada and Chanel displayed before me. Fashionably-dressed women in their forties walked by, popping out like gemstones on a cloudy day.
“Must be nice,” I muttered, suddenly feeling inspired. What IS IT about rich people?
I stretched my arms and began the final re-write of my very first book, the novel called “Year of the Chick”…
***
When I opened the big glass door to the Royal Ontario Museum, street sounds were replaced with the excited chatter of museum revelers. After several hours spent writing and now this, there was no nerdier way I could’ve spent my birthday (barring a game of chess against myself). The lobby was packed with school children wrapping up their field trips, and tourists just now piling in. I pushed past all of them, heading straight to the VIP queue.
A middle-aged woman with a long-forgotten grown-out perm (she’s obviously not getting bi-annual perms from her daughter like my mom gets from me), an oversized navy museum blazer, and a thin-lipped smile waited patiently, as I fumbled through my bulging wallet. Having a bulging wallet always made me feel important, like a pimp who couldn’t keep his stack of cash in a tidy bank roll, since his ho’s had been working so much overtime. Unlike a pimp’s commission though, my wallet was empty on cash and full of useless “points cards,” ones that would earn me a trip to Paris in approximately eighty years. I eventually filtered through the plastic, finding my membership card and handing it to the blazer-wearing lady.
“Most of our year-round members are seniors,” she mused, as her gaze switched from my photo to my not-so-senior face.
She handed back the card and nodded in approval.
Or pity.
It was unclear.
I shrugged my shoulders and smiled as I took in the possibilities. Dinosaurs to my left, South East Asia to my right, and my personal favourites up above (Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt).
I decided to skip the elevator, opting for a curvy stone staircase next to a totem pole. I stared at each face on the totem pole as I climbed the steps, with the full curiosity of the book-reading nerd I used to be. At home I had a bookcase stacked with everything from a giant book on Van Gogh, to about twenty different books on Ancient Egypt. Meanwhile I’d completely forgotten they existed for the whole of last year, so obsessed I’d become with finding a man. Now that the quest for love was on hold (or up in the air...or on hiatus...or hopeless?), I was finally getting back to my roots. Which apparently made me the only Torontonian under seventy with a museum membership.
I made it to the third floor and entered the hall of Ancient History. Everything smelled a bit dead, but it wasn’t the kind of “dead smell” that would emanate from the home of a lonely person missing in action. Instead it was a “dusty mummy linens” and “disintegrating ancient bones” kind of dead. It was basically my aphrodisiac, right up there with a medium-ripe mango.
Usually I would stop to admire the Roman busts of Trajan and the like, but this time I zipped down the massive corridor to the dimly lit area beyond…Ancient Egypt.
Part of me was disappointed by how this exhibit hadn’t been updated since I was in high school (I expect more from you, Canadian government!), but the other part of me thought it was convenient to know exactly where everything was.
My power-walk slowed down when I spotted her several feet ahead.
Cleopatra.
I’d always preferred the Ancient Egyptian depiction of this icon, and even though most of the paint had caked away from this ancient bust, she appeared resplendent.
“We meet again.”
I didn’t find it odd that I was speaking to a bust, as I’d already come to see her three times since I activated my membership. We’re on speaking terms now. Besides, if there were ever a statue to talk to y
ourself in front of, it had to be the legendary Cleopatra. It was the little-known things about Cleopatra that impressed me the most, like how when she and her brother Ptolemy ruled as teenagers, she had his name removed off all important documents and coins so she could rule alone. I could definitely admire a badass move like that, and I would totally do the same to my lazy brother if we found ourselves ruling Toronto.
On a larger scale, I was more than impressed by Cleopatra’s way with men. “Did you really roll yourself into a rug and get delivered to Caesar?” I asked. “Alexandria to Rome seems far. Toronto to Barcelona is farther. Should I move?”
She wouldn’t say.
“Seriously that’s a damn grand gesture.” I sighed. “Why can’t I be that bold? And is that what it takes to get noticed? The rug ‘n roll?”
Cleopatra wasn’t very good at giving advice.
I knew I was being a little crazy, but in my defense, I was fitting in just fine with the senile demographic of the average museum member.
“Do men even buy rugs these days? Like what if I roll myself in a rug, but the guy’s all like ‘No, you must have the wrong person. I just got my hardwood floors put in.’” I shook my head. “See? You had it easy.”
I scowled at Cleopatra for a moment, but quickly remembered she was on my side.
With a smile now, I stroked her stony tresses of hair when no one was looking, and then I made a secret birthday wish: In the next year, please help me find the courage to make a Cleopatra-worthy grand gesture...
(If you liked what you read, the full-length version of “Last-Minute Love” is available at any e-book retailer!)
And now for some thank yous…
Acknowledgments
Even though this isn’t the first book I ever published, it’s the first book I ever wrote to completion. Therefore, attention must be paid:
To Ms. Fioravanti: as my eleventh grade English teacher, you threatened me with detention if I didn’t write articles for the high school newspaper. Thank you for setting off my favourite thing to do in life.
To Juveria Collins: who sat me down in 2007 and told me I should write a blog, even though I was offended and disturbed by the suggestion. Given that this book was inspired by one of my blogs…you were obviously right. Thanks.
To Laura Guida: thanks for being an amazingly encouraging friend, the best shoulder to lean on, and the best person to talk to about the craziness of everyday life. Everybody needs a Laura.
To Emily Robertson and Laura Tashjian: for adventures, wins, disappointments, dance parties, liquid courage and moments of “random” over the years, thank goodness for you two!
To the great reviewers at “The Next Big Writer” workshop site: if not for the peer-to-peer reviewing and constant feedback which helped me post a chapter a week, I never would have finished a full-length novel. In particular, thanks to: Bisi Adjapon, Tirzah Goodwin, K. L. Brady, Rachel Hamm, David Hunter and Marc Kovacs.
To David Levine: thanks for burning your eyes with the task of proofreading my book, and for being the best blog-dad ever!
To DC: thanks for standing beside me as the boat rocked back and forth on the Hudson River, to tell me I should never give up on writing. You were more than right.
And last but not least, to Paul DH Baylay: there’s a million reasons why this story would have never been written without you, and only you and I know them all. For the amazing help with the re-write, for the ideas, for the encouragement, for the “telling me what I didn’t want to hear when I needed to hear it,” I’ll never forget any of it. Thank you.