The night before my flight home to Los Angeles, William left work early and we had a final dinner at a pizza parlor. The pie was savory, its crispy thin crust topped with fresh tomatoes and ribbons of basil. Icy German beer sent each bite on a frothy journey down my throat. All seemed right with the world. And then....
I missed you in Prague. I missed you in Paris and when I walked through the concentration camp...and in little Olomouc. It would be like this, in some pizza restaurant, and I would want to talk to you about these places. About what I'd seen.
William reached his hand across the table.
You know what I love? he asked.
Me?
It's true. Know what else?
Tell me.
I love that you got to go to all those places. I love that I was able to give you this because you're so happy when you're traveling. But I don't crave it like you do. It just makes me happy that you were happy on a train to someplace new and having an adventure.
Blink. Here's what I love: a man who can say what he means.
I flushed and adored him and figured it was time to revisit a distant conversation. As I'd passed through those landscapes on trains and ate alone in restaurants, I'd thought a lot about our conversation back home and my reluctance to even entertain moving in together. I assumed this was as prevalent in William's head as it was in mine. I assumed as I was spending days in travel and contemplation, he was busy at work thinking about...well, moi, and making plans. I assumed all that.
I'm ready to reopen the talk about our future, I started.
He took a bite of pizza and furrowed his brow into a question mark.
You know, the one about living together. The one where you couldn't believe we would never make that move, and how I thought we were fine in our own places. That conversation.
Okay...?
Well, it seems obvious to me now that we should consider how to make that happen. Because I want to be with you and I'm sorry I seemed ambivalent about that.
That sounds good. I can't see it happening any time soon, though.
William took another bite of pizza while a snake of angst crawled up my gut. This clammy coolness would repeat itself several times with us. He, perhaps to please me, perhaps simply speaking off the top of his head, perhaps voicing fantasy, would express a concept — like living together — then backpedal as soon as I came around to the idea.
What do you mean...any time soon?
I can't see buying a new place...and because there might be an industry strike, I can't depend on getting jobs in the future. We can't just jump into a renovation on my house....You said yourself moving in might be too invasive.
What do you mean...any time soon?
Maybe five years.
Five years? I whispered.
And in an instant, the golden romance of our Charlottenburg repast vanished. In its place I imagined a giant clock. Like the clock in Grand Central Station. Like the clock Charlie Chaplin clambered over. A huge ticking monster laughing at me.
Since I had wrestled with the age-difference factor, I thought I was over any misgivings about our relationship...until this particular pizza-pie dinner. For William, five years meant something different. I valued time differently than he did. I hadn't seen this and the knowledge kicked me hard.
William is a careful shopper. Meticulous. Painstaking. It drives me crazy that he deliberates so long before making a final decision. I am quick and impulsive and spontaneous, and had closets full of junk and two divorces to show for it.
But now I felt like a puppy in a store window waiting to be purchased. My flush of love morphed into a rosy fury.
Okay, let's take it right off the table. The whole idea. I'm not waiting around for you to get onboard with this one. Five years. No way. So, we'll continue to date, but no more commitment than that and if I get bored with us sitting on a fence...well, I'll be on my way. because I think five years is ridiculous.
William looked as if I'd slapped him in the face with the remaining pizza. Because of the dramatic tone in my voice and the "I'll be on my way" 1940s movie-type threat...he was close to correct.
He paid the bill and we meandered back to the apartment as if the conversation had never happened. I pretended. I acted. I sucked it up and chatted on about how I loved my life in my apartment back in Los Angeles and heigh-ho, heigh-ho...you're quite right...don't want to rush into anything...don't want to make any more mistakes...had enough of those....
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