LOS ANGELES: December, 2000 (Part 3)

And what if, in two years, we discover we aren't successful as partners? I don't want to give up my great apartment, move across town, and end up looking for another place.

If we break up, find another apartment and I'll pay your rent for a year.

Why are you suddenly ready and willing, and spending? Why?

Because I want us to be together all the time.

I took his hand then looked away, because I didn't know what to say and my eyes were dripping. Finally. This time, he meant it. Time was no longer an issue because we were on the same calendar page and dangling from the same clock hand. I was sure of this and threw myself full-speed ahead into renovation plans.

We interviewed contractors and drew up layouts. I clipped pictures from magazines, wandered through design stores and Home Depot, and collected the paint chips he did not wish to see. And then, as we were getting ready to sign a contract with the building contractor, William said—

Maybe we should wait....This is a little fast....Maybe we don't have to do this right away....

On...off...light...dark...on...off.

And I lost it. I gritted my teeth, threw my hands up and wept.

Fine. Let's not do this. It was a crazy idea and I'm sick to death of getting my hopes up. You have ice-cold feet...keep 'em, I'm done.

I had lost it...and then the country lost it. Planes fell from the sky, buildings collapsed and, like so many others, we cried, lit candles and watched the endless stories on television. On the dining room table, our folders of house plans sat abandoned. Our conversations were silenced by news announcers and people far more lost than us.

I made spaghetti and mashed potatoes. Comfort food. We ate ice cream and drank wine. Comfort, comfort. We were mixed up, tumbling and raw from this terrible reality. William would pick me up at my apartment after work and we'd drive to his house. Along the roadside, flags rippled and candles sat lit on porches.

We're going ahead, William suddenly announced.

I ignored him and watched other houses out the car window, wondering about the families in them. Were they eating spaghetti every night too?

We're going ahead, he said again. We don't have time to fuck around waiting for things to be perfect. Call the contractor and let's get to work.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I'm not even sure why; I was just so full. I shrugged, surrendered and floated into a new chapter. My body was limp and my mind limper.

I suspect the whole country measured time differently after 9/11. People compared the attack to Pearl Harbor and the assassinations of President Kennedy, Reverend King and Robert Kennedy. Already, a sense of before and after was setting in — as well as a serious reconsideration of how we used our time.

We proceeded with the renovation, signing paperwork with the contractor. I painted the living room myself, relieved to get away from the television and images of a burning New York City burnished into my brain.

And then William received a promotion at work. His boss took another show, leaving the project in William's hands. The director made him a full-time editor, and he was ready for the opportunity. William's editorial ambitions had begun to come true.

The studio planned to test the movie near their offices...in New York City. The entire filmmaking team would fly out to attend the screening.

And so, the day before a construction crew started work on our house, William and I flew to New York.

LOS ANGELES: December, 2000 (Part 2)

What would it take for you to move into my house?

My head nearly came right off. I readjusted the bolts on my neck and ignored him because I wasn't at all certain I'd heard him correctly. I carried on as if he hadn't said a damn thing.

You really should examine your relationship with your parents. I mean, there's loads going on there. Your withholding shit seems pretty angry, if you ask me.

Okay, but that's not what I'm asking you.

Where's this coming from? Seriously, you're making me nervous. I don't want to go there until I'm really sure you're going there.

Mel, I'm going there. We should do this. What would it take?

I definitely wasn't ready for this and had to think...fast. I took a breath to calm down. And another, and another, followed by a swallow.

Well, I guess making some physical changes. Expanding the house, painting it...stuff like that, to create a space that would be ours. Otherwise you might feel invaded and I wouldn't want that.

I stared out the passenger window. I studied a carpet store bright in primary colors, and next to it a seedy bar in faded pastels. I wondered who was buying carpet, and who was drinking tequila shots. There was life outside this car, and there was life inside this car. Which did I want?

Okay, he said. What if I gave you a chunk of money to renovate? You could do whatever you wanted to the house. Expand it, paint it, whatever — as long as you stayed on budget. You'd be the director and I'd be the producer. I wouldn't want to see paint chips. I wouldn't care what you did. What do you think?

I squinted and tried not to scream. I'd been chosen...cast, if you will. The part was mine, and it was the leading role. My resignation to single life disappeared as easily as cotton candy melting on my tongue.

Well, I answered, in a tone cool and sophisticated, that...should...work. There's just one more thing. One tiny thing.

What's that?

We were lit by intermittent by street lamps. On...off...light...dark...on...off.

Within two years of our living together, I would want us to get married. If that doesn't seem possible for you, then we should shelve the idea.

On...off...light...dark...on...off.

LOS ANGELES: December, 2000 (Part 1)

William arrived home from Berlin right before Christmas. I met him at LAX and ran into his arms. We hung on to each other, laughing and kissing as if he'd been away at war. My concerns after our final dinner in Berlin were distanced by excitement and joyous anticipation.

I'd decorated his house for the holidays. As we drove slowly up the street, I glanced over to catch his reaction as he spotted the house, trimmed in icicle lights with a tree aglow in the window. He smiled and entwined his fingers in mine, and I decided this delight was worth every hazardous, one-footed reach I'd made from high atop a ladder to hang lights from the eaves.

We ventured into 2001 with me busy coaching on a television series while William worked on his movie. If my short film was going to make an impression at film festivals, I knew I would have to write a screenplay, sell it and attach myself as director. So I dialogue-coached in television during the day and at home labored on what would surely be a spectacular feature-film script.

I was independent, creatively energized and had a boyfriend. On weekends we took turns driving twenty miles across the city to stay at each other's places. As it turned out, the entertainment-industry strike was averted, and our hearts settled into more secure beats. Like the rest of the country, we didn't know we were living in a cocoon that would soon be ripped away.

One day we were driving home from a visit with William's parents...maybe this was the trigger. Trips back home to spend time with parents can do strange things to the head.

Listen, I launched, it would help me a lot — as in a great deal — when we socialize with your folks…if you actually joined in.

What do you mean?

I mean you go all monosyllabic around them. You give one-word answers and the conversation stops until, like some kind of court jester, I pick up the balls and start juggling.

Really?

Really. I'm all by myself asking about your dad's work and your mom's journey from Hong Kong to England to New York, where she met your dad, who had arrived there from South Carolina. I mean, an immigrant in South Carolina during the civil rights era...what was that like? And all that before having kids and moving across the country?

You know more about them than I do.

Don't you think there's something odd about that?

And then William changed it up.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 12)

The buzzkill on our Charlottenburg experience had me tossing and turning under the Madison's downy comforter. I thought about all the places I'd been in the last month and all the times I'd missed William. My cheeks burned. I'd miscalculated. I'd come rushing back to Berlin believing we both wanted the same thing. That we were on the same page. That we could go forward.

An emotional life of skyscraping heights — and falls — had become tiresome. My acting career had worn me raw, with as much drama offstage as on. Too many near-misses. Too many "you got the job" triumphs, followed by months of perilous bill-paying. A jagged confidence, and angry glances at a telephone that refused to ring. Too many auditions. Too few auditions. Hopes attached to the short film I had directed getting into film festivals. Too many rejection letters.

I didn't want to be in a movie of my life anymore. I wanted stability and staidness, and I wanted us to be together in the same kitchen or in the same living room watching the same television show. And I wanted it yesterday, or soon, or sooner.

But one person alone couldn't make this happen, and if he wasn't with me, then perhaps I was best living alone with a quiet routine, and not racing my heart around the world. I looked over at William's face, lit by a waning moon. He was fast asleep and I envied his peace. His only clock was the morning alarm to get him up and off to work on the types of movies that held the promise of the life I longed for.

In the morning, we showered, dressed and took the elevator downstairs. We hugged and whispered "Six weeks." I waved good-bye from the bus window. William stood on the sidewalk in a grey drizzle, blew me a kiss and mouthed I love you. I smiled with my mouth in a quivery line.

I wanted the driver to be the same burly fellow who brought me here thirty days previous, but he was not. Life does not bookend itself into such clean completion. I wandered around Tegel airport...more lost than when I'd arrived a month ago.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 11)

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....

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 10)

On my last weekend in Berlin, William and I wandered along Unter den Linden, a wide boulevard closed to traffic at the time because it was occupied by an army of plastic bears. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the fellows, each about two feet tall. Separated into blocs of yellow, green and blue, row upon row of the animals stood facing the same direction, as if frozen in a military parade.

They could have been a symbol of reunification, or a precursor to the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the Berlin International Film Festival, or something else. We never found out why they were there, but there was no missing them. We stared agape at this fantastical menagerie of plastic beasts.

Across the street, a mother wheeled a stroller and stopped to show her toddler the bears. The tot struggled out of his carriage, careened on chubby legs towards a blue bear and wrapped his arms around it. With a hefty tug he picked it up and dragged it back to his stroller.

The mother caught up to him, pried the prize from her child's clutches, and replaced the statue back in line. The boy broke loose from her grip and raced back to grab the bear. Once again he got his arms around the bear's tummy and pulled the bear along the ground. That bear was going one place and one place only. The mother spoke what could only have been useless logic. She picked up the screaming, bereft child and plopped him back into his seat with tears streaming from his eyes. He stretched his arms to his blue friend.

Seriously, there are hundreds here....Who would miss one little blue bear? I suggested. I know, William said, we should grab one and stick it in the back pocket of the stroller. Otherwise, he'll never be able to look at any blue plastic bear without trauma.

As we watched this picture of loss and longing, William and I were holding hands. I kissed his cheek. He turned to me and our mouths met. The afternoon sun was warm. The bears stared away and we smiled at the whimsy of this happenstance discovery. The mood of the afternoon was more tender because it was time for me to go. William brushed tendrils away from my eyes.

You're growing your hair.

I touched my head. Yeah, I guess.

Women always cut their hair after a breakup or when they're depressed.

Oh, that's your little theory, is it?

It's true. You're in love and you're letting your hair grow. That's no accident.

Hmmm. Just me in love?

Nope, not just you.

BERLIN: October, 2000 (Part 9)

Back at our home base in Berlin, I tugged William out of the apartment on a Sunday afternoon and we visited the neighborhood of Charlottenburg. We left our Potsdamer Platz location via the S-Bahn.

Emerging from a station stairwell, we viewed tree-lined streets with enchanting nineteenth-century apartment buildings. The air, October-crisp as a Macintosh apple, warmed up enough to keep us comfortable. We held hands and strolled under maples dripping in red and gold leaves. We window-shopped and settled on an Austrian restaurant for an early dinner.

Back home in Los Angeles, William and I had explored our city's restaurants a couple of times a month. On other dates I cooked. I love cooking and William is an unfussy audience for whatever cuisine I set before him. Perhaps too unfussy — he wouldn't think twice about making a meal of beef jerky and Coca-Cola.

Does this broccoli have lemon on it?

Yup.

Hmmm.

I'd order two glasses of red wine to his one beer. I'd rattle off exotic menu items and he'd order steak and fries. I'd whip up a sandwich with roasted peppers, fresh tuna and arugula knowing he'd enjoy it as much as he would a McRib.

Seated at a picture window of the Austrian restaurant, we were lit golden by the setting sun. Classical music floated around the hexagonal room that could well have been a family's parlor in another lifetime. White tablecloths and large matching napkins signaled an elegant meal. We were the only customers and grateful for the courtesy of our highly professional waiter. Genteel in his black suit, white shirt and navy tie, he did not look askance at our bourgeois early arrival.

William drank a beer, amber and foamy, in a frosty glass. I sipped a German red wine and we chose an appetizer to share. Warm, breaded slices of duck lay atop braised red cabbage. The meat tender and the salad tangy, and...oh Lord, bring on more wine, this was delicious.

I was in a mood for schnitzel and this was the place to have it. As with the duck, the veal was sweet and the breading light and crispy. My entrée came with boiled new potatoes and a green salad dressed in a lemony vinaigrette. William ordered a beef dish served with horseradish and a freshly-made applesauce.

We took bites, shared forkfuls across the table and savored exquisite flavors. I would always remember this meal as one of our best, in part because we happened upon it at the end of a long walk, but even more because we were far from home and experiencing it together.

And I would remember this dinner forever because of the light. A caramel-colored October light found its way through tree branches to lay its long fingers across our tablecloth. As the sunlight disappeared into twilight, we stirred cups of cappuccino and spooned up a fluffy pancake-type dessert simmering in a warm plum compote. So, so far from home.

It was Auschwitz, in all of its beauty and sadness, that gave even greater value to this dinner in Germany. The idea of together had deepened for me. My awareness of time and how I intended to spend it grew in importance. William took my hand and I could not explain why my eyes were wet. I squeezed his palm with a rush of love.

Time. Together. Home. I turned these words over in my head as if I'd only just learned them.