I’m aware that this kind of thing is way too bold for me to actually speak aloud, but that’s the best thing about imaginary conversations. You can give yourself lines that are much more eloquent and daring than the inarticulate fragments you’d stutter in real life.
“You reckon they’d approve?”Alexander says, frowning with a flattering sort of fret.
“No doubt. Mom will love you right away, making you say all these words in your accent while putting you to work peeling potatoes. And Dad and my brothers will start out skeptical of a foreigner, but they’ll come around when you go snowshoe rabbit hunting with them and don’t wince in the hypothermia-inducing air.”
“Snowshoe rabbit hunting? That sounds capital!”
“We’ll see what you think when you return with blue lips.”
“Well, perhaps you could be so kind as to help me warm them up?”
“I think I could do that.”
“My apologies, that was rather cheeky of me …”
Raindrops land on my lips, which are split into a blithe smile. I’m brought back to the scene before me, where the busker is now playing The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” as the clouds drizzle with that dry English humor.
I find myself thinking about how Mateo never visited Kalamazoo. We’d spend vacations in Florida, or with his family in California.“Why would we go to that place? It’s a right-wing echo chamber in the Arctic, like you’re always saying,”he’d shoot down whenever I’d broach the idea of paying Michigan a visit.“Let’s just fly your folks to Miami.”
While dating Mateo, I’d actually liked how his veto gave me an excuse not to return to my hometown, not to have to relive those cringeworthy years before I found my footing. But looking back, I see it differently.
Mateo’s version of me was someone who’d always been a confident city slicker who could afford Ritz-Carlton weekend trips. He had no interest in seeing the shy country girl who’d clipped Meijer grocery coupons at the kitchen table and built forts in the woods, making friends with the voices in her head because she hadn’t been invited to the sleepover.
In a way, I think this has actually been one of the things that’s helped me get over Mateo. I can only miss him with the parts of me that he really saw. And it turns out he didn’t see that much of me after all. He just wasn’t that curious.
“I’m curious,”Alexander murmurs in my ear.“I want to see all of you.”
I’m perfectly aware of my insanity, but the benefit of being alone all weekend is that I don’t have to rationalize it for anyone. I can just bask in its glow and follow it to the ethereal ends of the earth.
Still half in the dazzle of my daze, I seek shelter from the rain at The Bath Bun, a traditional, floral-patterned tea shop tucked away in a sycamore-tree square. A waiter greets me, dressed in a lace apron and old-fashioned bonnet. “Is it just you today?” she asks with a pitying smile.
“Yes,” I say, self-aware enough of my crazed state to abstain from explaining the whole story about how I’m actually accompanied by the living phantom of a prince who’s working up the courage to make a move after we’ve made eye contact exactly once while he was passing by on public transportation. “Just me today.”
CHAPTER SIX
Back in London, I scamper out of bed on Monday like a little kid on Christmas morning. It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve seen Alexander in the flesh, and I’m frothing over with the anticipation of seeing my prince again, of catching his eye and holding on for dear life.
I start to temper my expectations in case he’s not there. But then I say to hell with it. I’d rather crash from a great height than never have seen the view at all.
Perched on the edge of my ergonomic chair, I sip my tea with my pinky gracefully outstretched, sitting up straight and elongating my torso to give the appearance that I’m taller than the puny five foot two that I am. I practice my most effortlessly charming oh-hello-love-of-my-life-didn’t-see-you-there smile. My teeth are bright and straight from years of braces and annual whitening sessions, but my lips are on the thin side, so I keep them coated in liner, which leaves them dry and chapped. I’m always dabbing on new brands of lip balm, each as ineffective as the last.
My eyes flit between my computer screen and the window. Then, at seven forty-five on the dot, he’s there. And not just that, but he’s looking out the bus window, gazing up at me with that chiseled countenance and pensive passion. His deep brown eyes intertwine with mine in one fell swoop, and my body freezes and breaks out in sweat at the same time.
It’s all the corroboration I need to confirm that he feels it too. That he’s equally aware of, and enthralled by, our otherworldly connection. That his dreams and desires align with my own.
I try to wave or smile or stand up, but I stay stiff as a scarecrow, having as little control over my appendages as I do over my emotions. Our eye contact breaks with a terrible clatter as he looks down at his lap, like he’s embarrassed to have been caught spying.
Damn the English and their propriety.
But even amid the agony of our truncated ocular conversation, I can’t help but admire his manners, his restraint. He’s clearly a gentleman who doesn’t want to come on too strong. Anyone with lesser breeding would be crawling through my window by now, hoping for a quickie before work. This proves he’s looking for something serious, not just a casual fling.
The bus leaves the stop, and Alexander is out of sight, but certainly not out of mind or out of heart.
I feel lighter all day, like there are springs beneath the warped hardwood floor of my flat, sending me upward into the reverie that just might become my reality after all. While on mute during Zoom meetings, I flip-flop between gleefully humming Disney tunes and furiously chiding myself for not being more flirtatious while he was looking my way.
“You need to give boys some encouragement.”I hear my mom’s advice, back from my high school days. It feels equally relevant now since I’ve basically become a bashful, besotted teenager once more.“They’re intimidated by you.”
That was always the reason my mom would use to justify why I was single for every school dance. It couldn’t have had anything to do with my acne or ACT books or overall awkwardness. I was simply too beautiful and brilliant for my own good. And the best thing was that she genuinely believed it.
