I Regret Nothing: A Memoir

by Jen Lancaster

  This is my chance to meet an icon!

  I immediately download his book (having previously forgotten) so when I speak with him, I won’t be lying when I say I bought it. I start working myself into a frenzy over the opportunity, but then I realize that’s a mistake. I decide I’m not going to waste my time planning what to say when we’re inevitably standing next to each other waiting to disembark. I don’t want to sound phony and rehearsed. I hope to have a genuine, albeit brief chat while the ground crew attaches the gangway. I can’t orchestrate a moment—I need to just let it happen.

  To take my mind off of the general OMG-ery of the circumstances, I begin to watch my movie and . . . I quickly discover exactly how much gratuitous nudity The Wolf of Wall Street contains. There’s a lot. So much, in fact.

  Full frontal. Back frontal. From underneath frontal.

  Perhaps Mr. Springfield and I will discuss my penchant for watching porn on a crowded airplane, as he has a bird’s-eye view of my screen.

  Nudity aside, the movie’s kind of great and I spend the rest of the flight in a blind fury over Leo’s never winning an Oscar. Good Lord, Academy, what does that poor man need to do to convince you he’s worthy of a win? He was Gatsby, okay? He was Gatsby. And he’s absolutely been Jordan Belfort, Howard Hughes, and Frank Abagnale, Jr. to boot. What of Romeo and of Jim Carroll and of J. Edgar Hoover? Why do you discount him so? Do you not want him to draw you like one of his French women, Academy members? Because at this point, y’all don’t deserve it. I hope this kid somehow finds comfort in his millions and his supermodel girlfriends, because this shit is not right.

  Our flight goes quickly, and before I know it, I’m standing next to Rick in the aisle. I smile at him, he smiles at me, and we have a quick chat about his new book, which was released on the same day as the Tao paperback. We speak briefly about publishing and writing and book tours and at no point do I come across as a screaming, seventeen-shirt-wearing fangirl. Instead, we’re two peers ever so briefly discussing that which we have in common.

  We have only a moment, but it’s the right moment.

  I don’t ask him to pose for a selfie with me, because I want to act like I’ve been here before. I know the adage is “pictures or it didn’t happen” but I’ll know it happened.

  Because I have the checkmark on my bucket list to prove it.

  • • •

  People not only attend my furniture show, but in the first two weeks, they buy up more than half my inventory. While I’m not going to retire early due to my sales, I’ve definitely recouped all initial investments and already turned a small profit. I’m not sure I have the means or wherewithal to become a Design Mogul, but I’ve definitely started something here. There’s a photo floating around the Internet of the Beatles performing in front of eighteen people, with the caption that all artists have to start someplace.

  This is my someplace.

  Overall, I feel like I’m emerging from a long, bitter winter and I’m not sure if that’s literal or figurative. I can’t put my finger on how any one specific change has had an impact, but I feel like my whole trajectory is shifting and that I might finally be pointed in the right direction.

  Which, right now, looks like Italy.

  15.

  PARCHI E RICREAZIONE

  I leave for Italy today.

  By myself, instead of my original idea to travel with my Italian class.

  And I’m so nervous that I may throw up.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. Why did I consider this trip to be a good idea? I’m not someone who goes places just for fun. I was right not to have had wanderlust for so long. In fact, I’m all about the staycation. I enjoy being in my house to the point that I totally empathize with people who become agoraphobic. Like, I could see how it happens. Between pizza delivery, Peapod grocery service, and Amazon Prime, I find very few reasons to leave the premises and I’m fine with that! More than fine, even.

  Content. Happy. Possibly even euphoric.

  Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to say yes, only to have my plans fall through at the last minute and I can take off my regular-people clothes and redon my paint-splattered yoga pants. Dorothy Gale was onto something when she said that there’s no place like home. Granted, I’m a nursery of raccoons shy of going Grey Gardens myself, but, still, I feel like Big and Little Edie Beale were onto something.

  (Sidebar: Although a “nursery” of raccoons is the proper term for a group or pack, a “gaze” of raccoons is also an acceptable expression. Look at us, learning things together!)

  What the hell am I doing, boarding a plane that will take me five thousand miles away from everyone and everything I ever loved? What kind of Ambien-induced haze was I in that I considered foreign travel a good idea for a bucket list item? I’d like a bucket right now . . . so I can vomit into it.

  Unlike so many others my age, I wasn’t accustomed to traveling anywhere with Fletch, save for our recent trip to Florida and a couple of long weekends, because we were dead broke for most of the 2000s. When we were busy cobbling together mini-pizzas out of stale hamburger buns and canned parmesan cheese in an apartment where the lights had been cut off, jaunts across the pond weren’t exactly at the top of our agenda.

  Once we got our financial shit together, I suppose we didn’t travel because trip planning seemed like such an enormous undertaking and I am, at my core, not always motivated to put forth the effort. Case in point? I used to suggest we keep a bucket in our old town house pantry to compensate for not having a bathroom on the first floor. For some reason, this bothered His Royal Highness very much, while I maintain it totally could have worked. Plus, we hated our neighbors, so sloshing the bucket on their patios could have been a rather elegant solution, you know?

  (Sidebar: Fletch insists this is why we can’t have nice things.)

  Interestingly, planning this trip has been an undertaking, but I’ve actually relished the process. First of all, I’ve loved learning the language over the past year. The prospect of Italian travel as my end goal made the experience all the more meaningful. I paid attention to the language’s nuances not because the difference between the formal and casual way to say “excuse me” would be on a test, but because I’m going to say this phrase to real people on Italian streets and I want to get it right.

  Plus, I’ve had such fun poring over the Fodor’s and Rick Steves guidebooks and running Google searches on stuff like “Ten Can’t Miss Italian Destinations” and “A Beginner’s Guide to Italy” and “Just Accept the Fact that You’re Going to Eat Your Face Off, So Pack Elastic Waist Pants.”

  Actually, until now, I’ve been super-psyched for this trip ever since I booked it that miserably snowy day in winter. I’d been vacillating about specifically where to head because there’s so much I want to see in Italy. Until I started my language class, I had no clue how diverse the different regions of Italy are. I assumed the country was one homogenous entity and figured anywhere I’d land would be representative. But that’s like going to Fort Lauderdale and assuming the area will give you a taste of life in Seattle or Omaha or Dallas, when, really, the only commonality is our language and shared contempt for Katherine Heigl.

  Although I desperately want to experience Venice and I’d love to trace my ancestral roots in Sicily (and hit the beach in Cinque Terre, shop in Milan, tour wineries in Tuscany, etc.), I decided to visit Rome first. I could fly there directly, so there’d be no chance of me causing an international incident in Berlin when I couldn’t figure out how to change planes, plus I wouldn’t run out of sights to see in a week. I found a reasonable air and land package, and before I could talk myself out of it, I made the nonrefundable purchase and then danced around my office for the next twenty minutes, so overcome with joy that I couldn’t even sit down.

  I originally planned to visit solo, as a character-building exercise, but shortly after I booked my trip, I
realized that everything is more fun with Fletch. If I had him join me at the halfway point, I could still have my alone-in-a-foreign-country bucket list experience, before engaging in more couple-focused activities. Because wasn’t there something intrinsically off about going to the most romantic country on Earth without the person I love?

  Plus, I figured if we went to Rome together, Fletch and I could have our picture taken in front of the Colosseum, which means I’d finally have the kind of photo that all my peers took twenty years ago on their honeymoon. Everyone I know has awesome shots of themselves smiling in front of the Eiffel Tower or Buckingham Palace or holding hands on a Balinese beach. When we got married, Fletch and I had two days together in Vegas after the ceremony and we didn’t take a single picture, largely because everyone in our hotel was there for the Adult Film Awards and I really just wanted to forget the whole thing.

  But I’ve yearned for my Kodak moment, too, damn it, enough to make have a photo taken with Fletch somewhere recognizable a bucket list item. So, I checked airfares and then I went downstairs to discuss the option with Fletch.

  “Hey, how do you feel about coming with me to Rome for at least part of the time?” I asked.

  Fletch looked up from his spot at the table where he was sketching out a fix for a broken dresser. Fletch accompanies me now when I go junking and his advice on what can and can’t be repaired has been invaluable. This particular dresser had a wonky drawer, so he was trying to determine the best course of action. “Neutral?” he replied.

  “What do you mean neutral? How is neutral an option?”

  He tucked his pencil behind his ear while we talked. “I mean, in theory, it could be interesting. But if I could go anywhere, I’d pick Hawaii. I’d like to see the Schofield Barracks again.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked. “Given the opportunity, you’d rather see the place you were stationed in the army than one of the Seven Wonders of the World?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  Calmly, he replied, “Yes, and how is this an argument? You asked me my opinion and I offered it. I’d go to Hawaii.”

  What he failed to grasp was that this wasn’t the answer I wanted.

  “You’d prefer to visit the place you once did a whole bunch of push-ups and went thirty days without a shower rather than witness where the ancient Romans built aqueducts to bring water to a million citizens?”

  Fletch rolled up the sleeves of his plaid shirt, which he wore layered over a thermal shirt over a T-shirt topping an undershirt because the house was still frigid at that point. Being so cold in my office was one of the reasons I picked Rome—all the guidebooks said it was sweltering in June and I longed to feel warm again.

  Fletch explained, “We didn’t shower when we were in the mountains doing a month of jungle ops. On base I showered every day. Sometimes twice if we were going out in Waikiki.”

  “Congratulations, Corporal Clean.”

  He returned his focus to his drawing, taking his pencil and tapping the diagram. “Hey, how do you feel if I were to replace the rotten drawer parts entirely? Just toss ’em because they’re gross. I don’t have the tools to do proper dovetail, but I can craft a decent routed lock joint with that leftover maple.”

  I swear some days I married Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation. I know he’s a fictional character, but every character has some basis in reality. I gritted my teeth as I answered him. “Neutral.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I sat down across from him. “You really wouldn’t want to go to Rome? Even though they basically invented coffee?”

  He glanced up from his plans. “The Ethiopians invented coffee.”

  Was that true? That sounded true.

  Shit, I needed a new tactic.

  “Okay, fine, maybe they didn’t invent it, but they perfected it. They were all, ‘Hey-a, Luigi, what if we put a little foamed milk in-a here-a?’”

  “I’m sure that’s exactly how it happened and I’m glad to see your Italian lessons have paid off.”

  “You have no curiosity about Europe whatsoever. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Well, Europe is full of Europeans,” he replied.

  I feared this was the facial hair talking. He really didn’t go The Full Swanson until he grew the beard and mustache a couple of years ago.

  And did the Parks and Rec writers have a camera in my house? Granted, I’d never actually watched the show, but I’d seen enough Swanson GIFs to know that we may have had a case for likeness rights.

  He continued. “Besides, if we have the cash to spare, I’d rather replace the carpet in the family room. Smells like the elephant house at the zoo in there. No, the penguin house, because it’s wetter and more organic.” He shuddered. “Awful. I’m embarrassed every time someone comes over. Bet we could knock that project out ourselves in a weekend.”

  That’s when I lost it.

  “No! No one puts replacing pee-stained carpet on their bucket list! A bucket list item is supposed to be meaningful and makes you put forth effort to learn and try and grow!” He started to say something, but I cut him off. “Don’t you dare even draw a breath to tell me that replacing carpet takes effort. A bucket list item exists because once you check it off, you get to enjoy the memory of having done it forever! Plus, you’ll have a shot of yourself standing in front of the Colosseum for perpetuity and YOU CAN’T DO THAT WITH BERBER.”

  He put down his pencil. “You already bought my ticket, didn’t you?”

  I couldn’t hide my massive grin. “Let me just say this—we’re both going to need a passport.”

  “Then I guess I’m going to Rome, too. But for now, I’m going to mend this drawer.”

  The best part of planning a trip like this is that there are a million little milestones to celebrate along the way. Take, for example, the day we went to Walgreens in Lake Bluff to have our passport photos taken.

  (Sidebar: I’d planned to glam up as I do for any government ID, but at the last moment, I opted for a messy ponytail and a scowl, assuming that’s how I’d appear to customs agents after an overseas flight.)

  As soon as we told the cashier we wanted passport pictures, it’s as though we entered some underworld crime lab. We were spirited away to the side of the store, where the employee flicked a switch that raised a background screen and closed the entire store’s blinds. Start to finish, the whole process—which I assumed would be a bureaucratic nightmare—took four minutes. Then we went to the local passport office and filled out our forms, which took maybe ten minutes.

  And less than two weeks later, my passport arrived, whereupon I whooped with such intensity that I lost my voice for three days.

  (Sidebar: Thank you, US State Department, for not including weight on the passport application, as I’d prefer to not commit treason here.)

  (Additional sidebar: Fletch said it would be a felony, not treason. Potato, po-tah-to. Either way, I appreciate it.)

  For so long, I couldn’t even imagine taking a trip overseas because I assumed the process was too daunting, but once I finally found my birth certificate (more on that shortly), securing a passport was easier than going to the DMV, especially the branch in Deerfield that accepts VISA but not MasterCard. How is that possible? I was unaware these two entities could even be separated. So, everyone who needs a new driver’s license but has a MasterCard has to go down to the cigar store to use their ATM, whereupon they will immediately smell like a Macanudo for the rest of the day. The cigar store owner’s delighted with the foot traffic and the fees, so he’s happy to oblige, but that still doesn’t explain what the State of Illinois’s problem is with MasterCard in the first place.

  Anyway, I even had an excellent experience applying for Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check status. After my passport was processed, I filled out my application online, and when I passed the initial screening, I had to go t
o the airport to meet with Homeland Security. I’d envisioned being chained to a table in a spotlit interrogation room where they’d grill me for hours. The reality was that I had a terrific chat with an officer who’d dated a friend of a friend. I didn’t even have to write an essay on Why Terrorists Are Terrible. (Bit of a disappointment there, actually.) The only difficult portion of getting my Global Entry pass was figuring out where the office was located in Terminal Five at O’Hare.

  (Sidebar: The Homeland Security office is downstairs, next to a McDonald’s, and if you go at the beginning of March, you can get a Shamrock Shake to drink on the way home.)

  Having put the pieces in place so easily, I was super-elated about the trip. Given the amount of research I’d done, and considering how smoothly everything had flowed thus far, I felt confident that I could handle any challenge that came my way. I didn’t start to grow nervous until a few weeks ago at my last Italian class of the semester.

  “You know Rome is the pickpocket capital of the world, right?” one of the other students asked. (I’d been moved to a more advanced class partway through this semester, and regrettably, I hadn’t learned anyone’s names yet. And although I missed some of the other students I bonded with first semester, I appreciated the faster pace.) “You have to be on your guard every minute.”

  “But I travel to big cities all the time for work and I lived downtown for fifteen years,” I said. “I know how to be on my guard. Italy can’t be that different.” I’d purchased an ugly black canvas purse with locking zippers and a cut-proof strap, figuring that would be insurance enough. I’d also made copies of all my documents, keeping one for myself, and sending one to Joanna for safekeeping, plus I burned the info onto a stick drive. I had a money belt, as well as a little envelope that attached to my bra to hold extra credit cards. I wasn’t planning on wearing nice jewelry, either. Wasn’t this enough?

  “Oh, it is that different,” another student intoned. “They’ll bump into you and while they’re apologizing, another person will be swiping your wallet, quick as can be. They work in teams. And all those kids running around who seem so cute? They’re meant to be a distraction while their totally normal-looking parents steal your jewelry right off your arm. Boom. Gone. Gypsies. And don’t even think about taking a bus or a train—they’ll rob you blind.”