by Unknown
‘Matinée?’
I hope not. It’s not that I don’t like the theatre; Siobhan’s birthday surprise was wonderful. But it’s generally risky to leave a decision about how to spend two-plus hours in the dark to someone else.
I’m no less in the dark when Barry picks me up. At least there’s no picnic basket or abseiling harness in sight. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispers, gently kissing me on the lips.
I could get very used to this flattery, though in this instance I think there’s some basis for it. I am the epitome of a demure English rose, with flowing skirt and strappy wedges. I even contemplated a hat but didn’t want to risk tipping into parody. In any case, my ensemble covers me for every eventuality except walking, which, if our relationship is going to work out, Barry will be well-advised to limit anyway. ‘Thanks. So where are we going?’
‘Vinopolis.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s a wine-tasting. You do like wine, don’t you?’
Do I like wine!
Vinopolis is a museum for drinkers. It charts the history of wine around the world, with ample stops to sample the local product. If all museums had this sort of thoughtful set-up, we wouldn’t need to despair about the state of American education. We might become a nation of alcoholics but we’d know our way around a map.
When we get out of the taxi, Barry grabs my hand. If this is what being the object of affection feels like, I don’t mind being objectified.
‘Here you go.’ He’s holding a headset.
‘Uh, no, that’s okay. I’ll just read the little plaques.’
‘But you’ll learn a lot more this way.’
No doubt this is true, but I’m not going to wear them. Remember, I vowed to talk to my date. ‘No, really, I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep, thanks.’
He kisses me on the nose and adjusts his own headphones. Well, now how am I supposed to talk to him? I guess I could ask him to take his off. But that’s not fair. Look how engrossed he is in the tour. He’s stopping at every display…What’s he listening to? He’s taking for ever. I can read the board in two minutes. Maybe I’m only getting the Reader’s Digest condensed version. Perhaps he’s learning all kinds of wine secrets that I’m not privy to. For once I don’t care if I’m missing out. My stomach is rumbling for lunch and we haven’t even left Europe.
After about 600 years, we get to the first wine-tasting table. ‘Wasn’t that interesting about Portugal?’ he says.
Was it? I can’t remember. ‘Uh-huh.’ This isn’t a lie, per se, since I’m sure that whatever the Vinopolisians had to say about Portugal was fascinating. In any case, it’s a harmless fib that I’m unlikely to get caught out at.
‘Which part did you like best?’
‘Uh, the Italian wines?’
‘Me too. Here, let’s try one.’ He hands two tickets to the girl at the table and takes two little glasses. ‘Cheers.’
My belly grumbles in response. ‘Sorry.’ This is no ladylike gurgle. The Concorde taking off caused less disturbance.
‘Are you hungry?’
‘A little.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize! Let’s go have lunch, then.’
‘Don’t you want to finish the tour?’
‘Not if you’re hungry. We can come back after lunch if you want.’ He takes my hand again and leads me to the restaurant. My hero.
Headphones safely stowed, I finally get the chance to talk to my date. By the time we’re sipping our coffees, I’m convinced he’s the nicest man on the planet.
Barry David Kaplan was born and raised in North London, within sniffing distance of the kosher bakeries in Golders Green. This, he confides, accounts for his greater than normal sweet tooth. Either he has an iron will or he works out a lot, because his love of the rugelach doesn’t show. On a scale of one to ten bodywise, he’s at least an eight. He has one brother, older, named Gabe, who used to beat him mercilessly until Barry punched him back and knocked his front tooth through his lip. He still feels guilty about it and hasn’t hit anyone since. He says he’d only use his fists again to protect someone close to him. Talk about a knight in shining armour! And I bet he’d never fart on the couch. When I asked him what other deeds of derring-do he’s performed (kidding, of course), he told me he volunteered every summer in high school and college to build houses in third-world countries. And now he’s a mentor to some kids from a council estate.
I can’t claim any charitable acts of my own. I can’t even count the ones on my résumé, because they’re lies. Barry puts me to shame. He’s an investment-banking Mother Teresa. He was just promoted last year, he says, so he thinks his boss is pretty happy with him. This is the same boss who’s schtupping his ex. I asked him again if he’s bitter about that, but he wishes them the best of luck. If I’d been in his shoes I’d say the same thing, but I’d be secretly trying to poison them. Mental note: check his medicine cabinet for toxic substances…
This really may be the perfect man. ‘Is there anything wrong with you?’
‘Are you kidding? What’s right? I’m hopeless.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Oh, it’s true, believe it.’
‘Example?’
‘Well, I wasn’t a great student. Or great at sports.’
‘But you play football.’
‘I’m not very good.’
I hope he wasn’t the kid who was always picked last. The thought of team captains fighting on the playground over who had to take little Barry makes me sad. ‘But at least you play.’
‘I do love it. But I’m hopeless at other sports.’
‘Well I’m no…’ I can’t even think of a sportswoman. That’s athletically challenged. ‘No good at sports either.’
‘And I hardly ever read books.’
Is that a bad thing?
‘Or go to the theatre.’
Which I’m glad to hear. ‘Movies?’
‘Yeah, I love films. Do you?’
I assume he means romantic films, which are the only kind I see without coercion. Now, on to what I really want to know. ‘Relationships?’
‘Ah, case in point–my ex running off with my boss.’
‘But that’s not your fault. She’s a bitch.’
‘Thank you. She is kind of a bitch.’ He has a nice laugh.
‘Other relationships?’
‘Hmm. Yes, I had a girlfriend at school.’
‘For how long?’
‘Two years. And I had a college girlfriend, also for two years.’
‘And your ex?’
‘Uh, two years.’
‘What do you do to them on your two-year anniversary?’
He rests his chin in his hand. ‘I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary. I bring her flowers, we go out to dinner, I give her a gift-wrapped human heart, then dessert, dancing…’
‘Hah, hah.’ See, I told you he has a sense of humour.
‘I have a theory that there are make-or-break deadlines in relationships. I think I just hit the same one every time.’
A man with relationship theories? I’ve never heard of such a thing. ‘What are these deadlines?’
‘Well, there’s the first date, obviously. Then I think there are decision points around a month, six months, a year, two years. And maybe after that, though I’ve never made it that far.’
‘So we passed the first-date hurdle.’
He takes my hand across the table. ‘I’m very happy about that.’
‘Me too.’ And I mean it. I could really grow to like this guy. Maybe I don’t have a sweaty lip yet, but he is really perfect for me. More importantly, he’s the kind of guy I should be dating, not the kind of guy I have been dating, and he’ll be good for me.
‘Stacy’s been calling,’ Adam informs me when I stumble back into the apartment, slightly the worse for wear from my culturally enriching afternoon. ‘I let the machine get it the last time.’
‘Thanks. Sorry s
he calls so much.’
‘Not a worry, cupcake. You’re lucky having a friend like her.’
‘Han,’ booms the machine, ‘ your phone’s not picking up. Are you out of juice again? I had sex with Tye last night. I even slept over. You know I never do that. But he was so sweet, I couldn’t say no. Besides, I’d already told him I was sleeping in this morning. Didn’t plan to do it in his sheets! Hah, hah. But we had a really nice time, and I did drink a bit. But that’s not why I had sex with him. Han, he’s not a bad kisser. He’s no Greg’–Greg’s the one who got away. I think they actually only had sex once, but she mooned over him for years. Then he went off and married a Japanese woman he met on a cruise with his parents–‘but he had some moves. And he likes oral sex, yay! I mean giving, not getting. Anyway, call me. By the way, the answering machine is in your bedroom, right?’ No, Stace, it’s in the living room, delighting my flatmates at the moment. I can’t begrudge them Stacy’s dating exploits, given that Sarah’s sexual opportunities are 10,000 miles away and Adam’s are possibly non-existent.
17
We haven’t had sex yet. Should I be worried that we haven’t had sex yet? I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but first Potential, and now Barry. It’s not like I haven’t given them ample opportunity. I can’t have turned undesirable in only six months. (I don’t include Mark’s interest, because he’s a horny bastard who can’t be relied upon to uphold standards.) And yet…I haven’t been whistled at once here. Not even by builders, and while I’m not looking for that kind of attention, it does seem to be a universal benchmark. Maybe my appeal doesn’t translate well across the ocean after all. Or maybe the explanation is more complex.
Do I really want this to work with Barry? Remember, I wasn’t overwhelmed on our first date, and though I’m really growing to like him, I can’t deny that my mind is often hijacked by you-know-who. I’m afraid my preoccupation is getting stronger and I don’t know what to do about it. It’d be much easier to put him out of my mind if I didn’t have to see him in the office. Like mercury poisoning, toxicity builds up with prolonged exposure.
‘Without wanting to pry too much into the details, and please don’t feel the need to share them with me, tell me the facts.’ Chloe’s talking about my relationship with Barry. I haven’t confessed my other thoughts to her or anyone else. I can imagine the response. I’ve been asking myself the same question. Why would I let myself fall for the same kind of guy I could have fallen for at home, a guy who is already with another woman? If I’m just going to do that, I should have saved myself the airfare.
This verbal autopsy is being made easier by the copious amount of rosé we’ve been quaffing. I didn’t know pink wine existed outside of Ernest and Julio’s screw-top jugs. Moving to a new country really does expand one’s horizons. The French are actually quite proud of it (but then, the French are quite proud of everything they do). In a tribute to their Gallic cousins, Londoners all over the city tipple the pink stuff at the first sign of summery weather. For Chloe’s benefit I’m recounting each date in detail. After Vinopolis, Barry organized go-cart racing, for which I have to give him credit for originality. I didn’t mention that I’m not a great driver, but within half an hour I didn’t have to. Luckily everyone involved wore seat belts. Then we went to a special late evening at the Victoria and Albert museum, which was much more my speed, so to speak. A little jazz band in the foyer accompanied our roam around the museum with wine glasses in hand. It seems that the English do like to combine museums with drinks. I’m not sure that Cabernet and priceless textiles necessarily go together, but I suppose those thousand-year-old Bedouin carpets must have seen a few spills even before I got there. We had a late dinner at the same restaurant Potential took me to (which of course I didn’t mention). I still didn’t touch the fetid cheese. And then dinner at his place. I nearly fell off the chair when I tasted his cooking, not being used to guys making edible food that doesn’t come from the freezer. We drank two bottles of wine and ended up making out on the couch. But no matter how Basic Instinct I tried to be, he just wouldn’t move past the kissing. Finally, he stopped altogether and told me he’d have to take me home.
‘It sounds like he’s just taking things slow. He’s a real gentleman.’
Real gentlemen are over-rated. I want to be ravaged.
‘You know he’s gagging for it, right?’
I assume this means he wants to have sex too. ‘Ah, physically speaking, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But why doesn’t he make a move? I mean, I’m throwing him every signal I can think of.’ Short of stripping off and straddling him, I don’t know what else to do. ‘Maybe I should ask him what’s wrong.’
‘God, no!’
‘Why not?’
‘Hannah, we just don’t do that. He’d be mortified.’ Chloe believes that less is more when it comes to talking to her boyfriends.
‘Well, what do you do when there’s a problem?’
‘We go to the pub, get drunk and ignore it. We might give each other the cold shoulder if it’s really serious.’
And to think, we Americans spend all that money on couples counselling when all we really need is a good bartender. ‘Don’t Brits like sex?’
‘Of course we do. We just don’t like to talk about it.’
So I’m at a loss, caught between a rock and a hard-on.
True to her word, Felicity has left Mrs Read-Hutchins’s soirée completely to me. And she’s been nothing but supportive of my plans. Perhaps I’ve misjudged her. Last week, I found out that she’s up for partnership, so I guess it’s understandable that she took credit for Hermione’s party. She did do a superb planning job, and couldn’t have anticipated the drunken bandleader or unfortunate dress clone. My little contributions were merely Band-Aids on an otherwise healthy patient. I’m proud of my graciousness. Maybe I’m mellowing with age.
I’ve booked the perfect venue for my career debut. The Crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields may technically be a restaurant, but is literally a crypt. Brits don’t have the same squeamishness about the dead that we do. They’re happy to live their lives right on top of the dearly departed. Just look at all the playgrounds in the cemeteries here. I guess in a millennia-old country that’s smaller than Texas, eventually a certain amount of stacking is necessary, like an ancestor trifle with a delicious layer of the living on top. So I shouldn’t have been surprised to see weary tourists resting their bones over lunch, and bones, in the Crypt. Tables and chairs stand on marble tablets that start with phrases like ‘Here lies…’ What could be more perfect for a divorce party?
Sam is already in position. He flashes me a smile while manhandling a couple plastic boxes of wine glasses to the bar. ‘You look pretty.’
‘Thanks.’ I’m blushing, but he’s right. I’m very Sophia Loren in my swingy dress and heels (yes, my dress. Felicity guards that closet like it holds the secret to El Dorado’s gold). Pencil skirts just don’t have the same allure as a pink silk butterfly-print strappy dress. When I spin around, as I did in my room till I was a little sick, the skirt flares out and makes dippy little waves. It’s the perfect dress to be taken dancing in.
‘No speeches this time though, right?’
No speeches, and hopefully no screw-ups. There’s no way Felicity is going to give me another chance to be brilliant. There she is in the doorway. She’s stopped in front of the flower arrangements, obviously stunned by my genius. A giant wreath sits on a stand at the entrance. RIP is embroidered on the sash draping the black roses. It was a little expensive but you won’t get much more tongue-in-cheek than a funeral bouquet. Besides, I saved money on the armbands.
‘The what?’ she says, tentatively picking at one of the black fabric swatches in the cut-glass bowl.
‘Armbands. Here, take one.’
‘Uh, what is this for?’ Her doubt about my ability to pull this off is evident from her open-mouthed surprise. I can practically taste that promotion!
‘All in good time.’ The im
pact of the evening depends a lot on the element of surprise.
‘Well, it’s your show.’
Sam does look cute in his black suit. The staff are all wearing undertaker suits, even the girls. I’d hoped that Janey would look butch but she’s obviously wearing her own clothes instead of the institutionally poor-fitting rental I arranged. They’re all in character too, coached to say ‘I’m terribly sorry for your loss’ every time someone puts an empty glass on their tray. The guests are already getting into the theme. It’s as if they’re respecting the dead, whispering quietly together. Some even look sad. Obviously the decorations are having their intended effect. I couldn’t have asked for a better start!
‘Who’s in charge here?’ A thin woman with leathery skin is scanning the room.
‘I am! Mrs Read-Hutchins?’
‘Formerly. What is going on here?’
I have to say, for a woman who’s spent the last month in an island paradise, she doesn’t look very well rested. In fact, she looks…kind of mad.
‘It’s your divorce party. What do you think?’
‘What do I think? What do I think?!’
Uh-oh. Where’s Felicity?
‘I think this is the most tasteless, tactless thing I’ve ever seen! Just what do you think you’re doing?’
‘Well, I thought I’d go for, uh, tongue-in-cheek humour?’
‘Do you find this humorous?’
‘Well, yeah. Maybe not in a hah-hah way, but in an ironic way.’ If this is any indication of the English sense of humour, then I’ve been sorely misled.
‘Ironic. I see. You find humour in the irony that my ex-husband has late-stage prostate cancer?’
Well now, that would have been worth knowing before I peppered the room with RIP flower arrangements, made the guests wear mourning armbands and, oh god, ordered the cake. A six-foot coffin-shaped cake is about to be wheeled out by pallbearers. It’s the second-to-last surprise, followed by the symbolic burning of the armbands and handing out of little urns (filled with candy, not ashes–I’m not completely lacking in taste). ‘Uh, I’m so sorry, Mrs–I had no idea.’