Phil seemed stressed. It was clear that my visit was happening at the worst possible time for him. I told him not to worry. After all, I know my way around the city, and I'm rather self-sufficient. I'd take as much of him as I could get, but I didn't want to make any demands on him that would throw off his world.
The truth, of course, was that I'd already said my goodbyes to London. More than anything, the reason I was excited to return was that I'd have more time to say goodbye to him.
My flight from Milan to Gatwick mysteriously got in twenty minutes early. Around 8:00pm. I texted Phil to let him know. He seemed ecstatic. But I told him that we had some things to take care of before we left the airport, and it would still be a while before I was on my way.
Two-Shots-Up and I had taken turns paying for our reservations to things like hostels and boats (some in pounds, some in euros, and some in dollars), and had to get everything evened out. In order to do this, we had to pay for the internet at side-by-side airport computers, and trust each other's math. It took awhile, but it seemed like a good idea to get it all out of the way. In the end, I think she owed me about 3 Euro, and I told her to just forget about it.
But then the second problem: somewhere in Greece, Two-Shots-Up had lost her mobile phone. And she was going to be staying in her friend's flat in London while said friend was out of town. And she couldn't get in touch with the friend's flatmates (any of the ten -- yes, ten -- of them). And my mobile, which we were both relying on, was low on both batteries and credit (I had a pay-as-you-go phone). She was worried about getting to the place and being locked out. I said I'd go with her if necessary, or that she might be able to come with me. She felt guilty for keeping me away from Phil. But eventually, she got in touch with the right person, and I began the tube journey to Phil's place alone... two hours after I'd landed.
He said he'd meet me at Angel station. I got there first. I'd taken a train, a train, a Milan subway, a bus, a plane, the Gatwick Express, and a couple of tube lines to get to him. The last water that had touched my hair was the Mediterranean Sea. I was frustrated from the stressed conversations with Two-Shots-Up. Sweaty. Dirty. Tired.
And then he walked down the street. And I nearly cried.
He had dressed up to meet me. He looked incredibly handsome, even more than I remembered. And when he hugged me, I breathed deeply. He smelled so nice.
And I felt like I was home. My journey had led me back to him. Back to his arms.
I don't think I knew how much I'd missed him until I saw him.
He helped me with the luggage that I'd managed all over Europe. Part of me felt silly for that, but mostly grateful. As we walked to his flat, I just kept staring at him. I had to keep noticing the moments as they were happening. I had to make sure they were real.
He kissed me in the elevator. And he led me into his flat.
I put down my suitcase in the hallway. And I saw rose petals.
Yes, rose petals.
The kind of thing I'd normally laugh at. I've never been a romantic. I roll my eyes at cheesy things. I don't watch chick flicks and yearn for a man to treat me like a princess. I actually told my first boyfriend about how I thought it was condescending that he insisted on opening doors for me. And I usually forget when it's Valentine's Day.
But in that moment...
I realized that I
am a romantic.
I just never knew it.
Maybe it's one more example of me talking myself into wanting things I have, and talking myself out of things I think I won't have. Maybe the reason I never wanted romance is because I thought I'd never had it.
But I had it. And I hugged him. And I cried.
The rose petals were everywhere. And roses around his room. An ice bucket with champagne, and two champagne flutes (all of which he had purchased that morning in preparation for my arrival). And a plate of strawberries (echoing the memory of grapes that he had once suggested we should feed to each other in a park "in a decadent manner").
I thanked him. He held me. And he said he had one more surprise for me.
He had finished the draft of his episode early so that he'd get to spend more time with me.
And I felt... lucky.
He told me that we didn't have to do the whole champagne and strawberries thing if I didn't want to. He had a feeling I'd be tired, and I could just go to bed if I wanted. Or we could watch a movie. Or talk. Whatever I wanted to do. It was up to me.
So I told him that I wanted to take a shower. (Seriously, it sucks to feel gross when someone is pouring affection over you.)
Once clean, we talked. And ate strawberries. And I gave him at least one of his presents from my travels.
I don't remember what I gave him when, in retrospect. (It's been two months since this happened... can you blame me for being foggy on the details?)
I know I gave him a small elephant statue from Delphi (a reference to the movie
Frankie and Johnny, which we had discussed). And a snow globe from Riomaggiore (which is quite funny, as it doesn't snow there... and was a reference to the play we'd met at,
The Real Thing). And a silly hat. And some Italian pesto. And a funny postcard I found that blended political sentiment with a safe sex message: "YES WE CONDOM!" (He put it on his fridge.)
In the morning, we went and got breakfast at a little café down the street from his place. We sat outside. I was happy. And simultaneously calm and excited.
We went to the Study Centre to retrieve the two bags I'd left there during my travels. I saw Deron (one of the men whom I thought was interested in me... but I did not reciprocate feelings for). I tried to rush Phil out of that situation, grabbing my own suitcase and saying, "No, I can get it. I'm stronger than you." I meant it jokingly, but realized my error as soon as it had come out of my mouth. (Word to the wise: NEVER emasculate a man like that. I apologized profusely, but Phil is still giving me a hard time about that one...) But at least I got us away from Deron before Phil and I had to have the "who are we to each other" explanatory exchange... We hadn't had it with each other yet, and I seriously didn't want to have to answer the awkward question that I felt coming from Deron.
I said goodbye to Blake as Phil waited downstairs. I brought him olive paté from Cinque Terre, which he seemed pleased with. I gave him an awkward hug, and told him I was sure I'd see him in Florida.
After dragging myself back to his place, Phil and I got sandwiches at a Caffé Nero to eat on our way. He told me that the strange soft electric violet-blue on the bags was his favorite color (so I saved the bag and took it with me back to the States to try to identify it, which is NOT the blue on the website... the closest I've come so far is
Majorelle Blue). We ate on a bench by the Millennium Bridge as he complained about work. It felt very couple-y.
We walked over the bridge and went to the Tate Modern at my request. I had been in 2003, but somehow had not made it in the six weeks of this summer. I got to visit my favorite Dalí. Phil made friends with a strange sculpture. We saw great some Jackson Pollocks and a Monet. And we were both thoroughly confused by some of the art. (read: "art")
(Me with "Metamorphosis of Narcissus" by Salvador Dalí)
(Phil being goofy with a sculpture he liked.)We ended up in an exhibit called
"EXPOSED: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera". It was seriously cool. I loved the celebrity room, which did a great job of showing how sick and obsessive we are as a culture. The room about sexual voyeurism was a bit of a turn-on, but Phil went off missing around that point, so I never made any move toward becoming an exhibitionist in a room of voyeurs. I found him around the war surveillance tapes and photographs.
(Stupid accidental photo-bomber guy ruining a perfectly good picture.)On the way back we stopped at a cute milkshake place. I can't remember what candy-bar concoction I ended up with. It might've been Snickers. I just remember that it wasn't as good as Phil's cookie dough shake.
And then the calls and e-mails started coming. Despite his efforts with getting the draft in early, Phil was being harassed by the Big Bad Company. They began bombarding him with notes about the script. I told him not to worry. I had to repack my suitcases in a way that would make them all under the plane weight limits, and this would give me time to do that. He seemed amazed that I was okay with him having to work. But I was.
I dressed sexy that night. I kept on the blue and white polka-dotted dress that I'd acquired from the Hot Topic-inspired section of Camdentown that I'd been wearing all day. I added thigh-high hold-up stockings with a sexy open weave pattern in the back and lace tops. I put on glamorous makeup. I held back my hair with a white rose pin. And I put on the killer lace-up heels that I'd been dying to wear. I looked seriously hot.
Phil wanted to go out to a restaurant initially. I can't remember why we didn't. (Maybe I looked too hot?) I remember ordering a pizza online, and then going out to get mixers for the Raspberry Stoli I'd gotten at an airport duty-free shop. We chatted with his roommates. We watched an episode of
30 Rock. We ate pizza.
We played some sort of drinking game version of Scrabble. I got a bingo on my first play, making the score about 15 to 75. Phil wasn't thrilled. I'm not an expert in Scrabble, but I played online with my coworkers in Chicago a lot as a way of making the day go by faster. So on an on average play, I aim to get 20-40 points. Phil was aiming to get over 10. We quit about halfway through the game due to his increasing frustration. Luckily, he was in a pretty good mood despite that.
We had considered going to a bar or a club, but we never did. We just stayed in and enjoyed each other's company.
Eventually, we had a conversation. A "let's be realistic" conversation. A "this isn't going to work" conversation. An "it's been fun while it's lasted" conversation. While we lay next to each other on his bed.
I didn't cry. I knew it was coming. I couldn't help but thinking of the conversation I'd had with Brian, while laying next to him on his bed, in which he said he didn't love me anymore. Or the conversation where Michael came to my place, sat on my bed, and promptly dumped me.
(I really need to stop having relationship conversations on beds. They don't turn out well for me.)
He was right, and I knew it. This couldn't be. It was too hard. It was too scary. It was too unlikely. It would end in heartbreak. So I smiled and said it was alright, and that I knew this had to be how it ended. I was glad that I'd gotten to spend as much time with him as I had.
My subconscious brain took it out on him with a vicious attack of flying fists in my sleep.
We got up in the morning. We ate cereal with bananas. He made me one last cup of tea.
Phil let his new roommate into the building with his belongings in tow. And he escorted me out of it, lugging half of mine.
We stopped at the post office so that I could get stamps for the postcards I'd been writing one at a time on my trip, but had as of yet to send. Phil promised to mail them for me. He asked permission to read them on his way back home. I granted it, feeling silly... After all, I had quoted him on a couple of the postcards without crediting him. I had quoted the text message he sent me the day after we met.
Phil
06/06/2010
8:28pm
Wouldnt it be nice to bottle this feeling ... X
That is, after all, what I wanted: to bottle the feeling of London, and take it with me. Not just Phil, but all of it. The circus friends who gave me hope. The liberation I got from seeing
Hair. The sense of culture everywhere, and the appreciation for art that everyone seemed to have. The history and the ambience. The cold rainy days, and the sweaty summer ones. The chaos of the markets, and the solitude of the river. City-watching from Greenwich, and people-watching on the Tube. I want to drink it, inhale it, and bathe in it. I want to carry it with me wherever I am.
He brought me to Paddington station so that I could catch the Heathrow Express to the airport. We hugged. We kissed. We thanked each other. We stared into each others eyes with the kind of silence that says more than words. The train was there waiting for me with open doors. I knew I could take a later one. I could postpone this and drag it out. But I knew it would be just as hard to say goodbye in another 15 minutes as it was then. Besides, he had more notes on his script from the Back-Breaking Creeps, and they wanted him to get in touch with them ASAP.
We got my bags on board. I stood on the train saying a last goodbye as he stood on the platform, inches away from me.
And suddenly, I felt lightness. I looked at him, and I wasn't afraid or sad anymore. I smiled. And I laughed. And I felt hope.
"This isn't the end," I told him, still smiling. "I know there's more."
The sliding door closed between us.
He waved. I walked to a seat. I watched him walk up the stairs, texting. He stopped on the landing and looked back at the train. I wondered which of his editors he was writing, although I secretly hoped that he was actually writing to me. As the train pulled out of the station, he stood there waving to me.
And then I got his text message.
Phil
07/01/2010
12:12pm
We just had a battlestar moment! Like the episode with starbuck interrogating that cylon at the end. But you got it. I will miss you so much. Im supposed to be a writer but words have failed me. you are a beautiful human being and my life has been so enriched because of you. X
And I cried.
I don't know why I turned into such an insane crying lunatic over this whole situation. Crying over a boy whom I'd known for three weeks and had in reality spent very little time with. But he watched
Battlestar Galactica at my recommendation and referenced an episode in his text (proving that he's the very sort of geeky, awkward Sci-Fi lover that I adore). And he just... *sigh*
Angela (to Phil)
07/01/2010
12:22pm
You have made me the sentimental romantic that I never thought I'd be. You are the magic that I thought movies lied about. I found a piece of myself in you.
I made it to the airport. I got through security. I noticed that I had a long, long time before my flight was taking off. And then I sat down on the floor near the entrance of the British Airways exclusive-sounding club, and bummed Wi-Fi long enough to write an e-mail to Phil.
Why e-mails are better than text messages:
1. They don't cost 10p every time you want to send one. (which is a pain when you're down to 76p in credit on your mobile)
2. You can send them even in airports with no mobile phone reception. (if you can bum Wi-Fi off of the neighboring Galleries Lounge with your handy dandy laptop)
3. You're not limited to 160 characters (or whatever ridiculous amount they put on there).
4. You can type with your eyes closed and let your brain do the talking, instead of trying to hunt down which numbers correspond to various letters and pieces of punctuation, and calculate how many times you have to press them (or wait between pressing them).
5. You can attach songs. :)
5. Less guilt if there's lag time between the received message and the response to it.
That said, even now that I have a better medium on which to communicate my emotions, I don't really know what to say.
Part of me wants to say goodbye, but I think we've taken care of that.
Part of me wants to say all the things that I almost did and said, but didn't... Like how I considered making some grand gesture, like jumping off the train, interrupting the text message you were composing as you smiled and paced on the stairs, kissing you until time didn't matter any more, and not caring if all my luggage went off to Heathrow without me. (That idea, by the way, is insanely uncharacteristic of an OCD worrier like me... so the fact that it even went through my head shows how much of an effect you've had on my psyche.)
Part of me wants to express joy over every text message and e-mail you've sent me, including (and especially) that last one.
Part of me wants to type up every moment I've spent with you, just so that there's a more permanent record of our time together than the memories I keep in my heart (which will surely grow more idealized and hazy with time).
Part of me wants to recite every thing about you that I think is wonderful. Not only because I want you to know what you are to me, but also because I think you need someone to tell you how fantastic you are. As much as you say that you're big, busy and important, and as many times as you slide remarks into conversations about your being intelligent and talented, I still think my conviction regarding your favorable qualities is stronger than yours.
Most of me wants to thank you. But that almost seems silly. You know how much happiness you've brought me over the last couple of weeks. If you don't know, then you haven't been paying attention.
By the time the woman came to check my ticket, my cheeks were tear-stained. But they weren't tears of sorrow; rather, they were tears of joy. And I thanked God for bringing us together.
I wasn't wrong that night when I said that I thought my life had just changed. You have changed me. You have made me feel interesting, intelligent, lovable, and beautiful. You have opened me up, given me hope, and showed me that sometimes life really does play out in a romantic and cinematic fashion. My life was good before I met you, but you turned it into something magical. I'm the protagonist at the very beginning of a story, and I've been waking up every morning excited for the next chapter.
Today wasn't really a goodbye. I couldn't possibly say goodbye that easily to someone who has infiltrated my life the way that you have. We will meet again. We will speak soon. We will be able to write whenever we wish. And we will continue to help each other out on our journeys through life. I'm sure of all of that.
Good luck with the script. Good luck with the new roommate. Good luck with the Ball-Busting Cankers, Big Bad Criminals, Beastly Barbaric Cannibals, Bane Belligerent Cows, and the Brow-Beating Cursed.
I wish you all good things.
All good things come to an end.
~A~
I attached Shawn Colvin's cover of "Every Little Thing He Does Is Magic". He had been magic to me from the beginning. It seemed fitting.
I sat on the floor of Heathrow and pouted for awhile. I decided I wanted a fun, silly, pointless chick lit book to cheer me up on the flight, so I went through the (frequently warned against, but actually usually successful) process of choosing one by its cover. I ate a banana. I goofed off on the internet. I wrote a couple more postcards. I consoled myself. I started reading my chick lit book. And I nearly missed my plane, because it turned out I was in the completely wrong terminal, and ended up running like a madwoman even though I'd gotten to the airport with hours to spare.
As I ran with my luggage, part of me wanted to miss the plane. Have an excuse to stay just a little bit longer. But no. I'd inconvenienced him enough. He had work to do. He had a life to live. And I had... Connecticut, I guess.
The line to get on the plane was long and going at the speed of honey, so I made it in plenty of time. I saw my classmate O.D. on the plane, already asleep, two rows ahead of me.
I couldn't stop thinking about Phil. Would it be overkill to send a text (with some of the last remaining change on my phone) to tell him I had sent an e-mail? Was that stereotypical over-reacting girl stalker behavior?
Angela (to Phil)
07/01/2010
3:39pm
Boarded. Sent you a frivolous, superfluous, sappy, pretentious, honest email. Still not wholly convinced that I'll be waking up without you tomorrow.
Probably stereotypical over-reacting girl stalker behavior. But I decided I didn't care. I sent it. And my phone buzzed quickly with a text from him.
Phil
07/01/2010
3:39pm
Have read it and replied with an equally if not more sappy response. bon voyage my darling. x
I felt better.
I pulled out my book with the cute cover art and generically chick-lit title. The one that I thought would be a light-hearted read for my trans-Atlantic journey. As it turns out,
Single in the City is about a 26-year-old who moves from Connecticut to London, and then falls in love. I might've known that if I had picked it for something other than the cover art, but as it was, I had picked it up by coincidence. Having woken up in London that morning, and knowing I'd be going to bed in Connecticut that night, nearly-26-year-old Angela got a little emotional.
It's actually an entertaining book. But it wasn't ideal timing for me to be reading about adventures in the place that I was unhappily leaving.
So I put the book down and turned on the television implanted in the seat-back in front of me. I found a limited selection of mediocre entertainment to choose from. (Yes, I'm aware how spoiled that complaint makes me sound.) And since I wasn't in the mood to watch the anime that had taken over several channels (or to watch the latter half of the movie
Valentine's Day, which, by the way, seems to be just as bad as you might imagine), I ended up tuning in to
Dear John.
I don’t watch a lot of films in that über-chick sappy romance genre. It’s not my thing. If it’s a romantic comedy (especially one that’s mostly comedy), that’s one thing (e.g.
The 40 Year Old Virgin). Dramas that contain romantic elements would also be on the list of exceptions (e.g.
Atonement). I’ll even accept musical theatre (e.g.
Moulin Rouge). But romance for romance sake? Not something I seek out.
Additionally, I find Amanda Seyfried overrated. And I had heard nothing but bad things about Channing Tatum.
So really the only situation in which there would be a chance of me seeing this movie was the scenario involving me being strapped into a seat of a pressure-controlled cabin for 9 hours with limited options for entertainment.
In spite of my preconceived notions of how much of a disaster this movie would surely turn out to be, I watched the entire thing (minus the first few minutes, during which I was desperately seeking a better alternative on the other 12 channels, to no avail).
Why?
Because it was about two people who met, spent two weeks together, and were separated.
(Direct quotation from the movie:
“Two weeks together. That’s all it took. Two weeks for me to fall for you.”)
If I had seen that movie a month ago, I would’ve either laughed or rolled my eyes before turning off the television and choosing to attempt the impossible act of sleeping on an airplane seat.
It’s too cheesy. Too naïve. Too Hollywood. Too romantic-movie-plot. Too unrealistic.
But sometimes the universe laughs at us, and life becomes like the movies. After the time I’d spent with Phil, I couldn’t turn that movie off. It was too connected to my immediate experience. It was one more coincidence in the collection that had surrounded my time with him. So I watched it.
(Also, the movie contains a conversation in which the girl says that she doesn’t smoke, rarely drinks, avoids cursing, and implies that she might very well be a virgin. After that, there was no way I could stop watching.)
I know I wrote this in my e-mail to him, but I think it bears repeating: being around Phil turned me into more of a romantic than I ever remember being in the past.
I won't pretend it was a good movie. It wasn't. And I won't pretend the story told in the movie was ours. But it did make me want to write him a letter. I started composing one on the plane.
And as I wrote, I realized how much of myself I had discovered in my time abroad. I found a little piece of myself in the mountains of Delphi. I found a little piece of myself as I wept at the Parthenon. I found a piece with Stratos the Greek man, who gave me wisdom and confidence. A piece in Santorini, where I found my sense of adventure and lost my fear. A piece in Cinque Terre, where I learned how to vacation. As I'd said in my text to him, I found a piece of myself in Phil: the romantic that I never knew was there.
And then, there's London... I found more of myself in London than I knew was lost. In fact, there was so much of me over there that I couldn't fit it all into my suitcases that night when I sat rearranging their contents on Phil's living room floor as he worked. I took a lot from London, but I think I need to go back and be with the rest of my pieces. I think going back to London might be the only way to be whole.
Eventually, the plane landed. I had an awkward conversation with O.D. at baggage claim (during which he failed to mention that he had gotten engaged since the last time I'd seen him). I got in the car with my parents. And I talked about Phil the whole way home. And the whole time, I kept reminding them that Phil and I were not dating. We were not doing the long-distance thing. Even though we fit so well together. Even though I was crazy about him. Even though he was my favorite thing in the world at that very moment.
I only half-believed myself.
When I got back to my parents' house, I read the e-mail Phil had mentioned in his text. He had sent me his blog post about the day we met.
He warned me that it might be uncomfortable or weird to read it, just as it had been when I'd read him a few posts from my own blog a couple of weeks before. But that he was sending it in its entirety anyway, as it was the truth of his experience.
I don't think he'd like me attaching it here in its entirety, as he's a far more private person than I am. But here's a little tiny bit of it:
It was a hot June day and in the lobby I noticed a stunning woman in an elegant blue summer dress. She looked stunningly glamorous – dark flowing hair, strikingly beautiful features, terrific figure…there was an air of the exotic about. I thought that she was perhaps Brazilian, Mexican or Spanish. She reminded me a little of the girl that Chandler meets (again, ironically, at the Theatre, to see Joey in the musical Freud!) in the first season of Friends, and whom he is convinced is a million miles out of his league. She seemed to be from another entirely more glamorous universe. There was I in my khaki combat shorts and cheap checked shirt, looking like a German tourist.
Anyway, when I eventually took my seat (on the aisle, naturally) to my great surprise this stunning creature was in the seat next to mine. Futhermore, somewhat astonishingly, she was on her own (I would imagine her to be accompanied at all times by some Greek God type figure, some bronzed Adonis called Marco who has been her boyfriend since birth). Despite her good looks, she seemed warm and friendly. At the interval, she even sparked up a conversation with me about the play. (On a side note, ‘The Real Thing’ is one of my favourites, and appropriately enough it deals with the various romantic entanglements of a passionate playwright – [...] art and life bleed into one another). I discover – of course – that she was
A) An actress
B) American
C) Going back to the USA in less than two weeks
(For the record, he did not look like a German tourist.)
He was right: he had written some things that were hard for me to read. That it was an adjustment for him to be dating a virgin. That he's learned his lesson about long-distance relationships. That he'd be an idiot to not have spotted a pattern in his love-life (of dating Americans and the heartbreak that follows).
But there were other parts that made me melt.
"It was like the world stopped. She leant over to me, a stunned look in her eye, and told me that she felt like her life just changed. It was one of the best days of my life. My romantic streak [...] had been re-awakened."
After reading it, my heart fluttered. I wanted to get on a plane and go right back. I wanted to Skype him right that very moment. Even though the difficulties were there and there was an ocean between us, it still seemed like maybe things could work.
I had hope.
Maybe it was silly. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was dangerous.
But it was there. Hope.
I guess that's just the romantic in me.
P.S. I love you all. Thank you for reading. Thank you for the comments and encouragement. Thank you for your love.
P.P.S. The Whirled World series is over, but this story certainly isn't. I have so much to tell you. Some good, some bad, and all of it surely to be long-winded.
