Year of the Chick (13 page)

“A light breeze in the air,” he continued, “the smell of the ocean sweeping over you, a few soft pastries with freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast, and the morning sun heating up your skin all the while. Are you with me?”

Yeah I’m with you, and the thought of soft pastries is making me drool. Damn diet!

“Oh yes, I’m right there. I mean come on, pastries!”

Great, now he knew I was a sugar-happy pig. Was there a way to hit rewind and start this conversation from the top?

“We’ll get back to the pastries later,” he said. “But tell me - are you a smoker?”

What? Don’t burst my Mediterranean bubble with some random question! I want pastries and sun and Barcelona!
 
Sigh...

“No. I don’t smoke and never have.”

What a strange thing to ask. Unless he was screening my mouth for a possible make-out.

I had so many questions to ask him, so I grabbed one at random from my list. “Hey James…how old are you? I hope it’s not rude to ask, but I’m wondering if you’re secretly a miracle of science, who’s like a hundred years old but only looks thirty.”

“I look thirty? Well I’m flattered. But no, I’m thirty-seven, turning thirty-eight in a few short months. Does that answer your question Roms? Is age important to you?”

“Romes,” I said between gritted teeth.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Romes, not Roms.”

“But your name is Romi,” he said, with a typical English air that instantly made me picture Hugh Grant.

“It’s pronounced ‘Romey,’ like ‘homey’ or umm…’Pony.’ Not like ‘mommy’!”
 

“Mommy? Excuse me?” He chuckled. “Err I think I catch your drift on the name now…anyway where were we?”

“You were asking if age was important to me.”

“Ah yes, well is it?”

I sighed.

“No not at all,” I said, now biting my lip hard.
Like when you’re hot and you have that accent, what else do I need to know?
“Your age is hardly relevant, I mean look at George Clooney, almost fifty and still a heartthrob, how do men do it? It’s not fair godammit!”

“Just chalk it up to a good diet, lots of sea air and healthy living,” he said, breathing in deeply before adding “the Mediterranean way.”

Isn’t the “Mediterranean way” copious amounts of sex and olive oil?
I opened my mouth to speak but luckily found the brakes.

“That’s good!” I exclaimed. My answers were dissolving into two-syllable affairs. Was I under a spell? Why couldn’t I sound cool?

“So listen,” he said. “What do you do for a real job - anything exciting? Glamorous perhaps? All red carpets and champagne parties in the snow?”

I was suddenly smiling…if only he knew. Vodka was extremely familiar, but champagne in my world rarely went beyond the five-dollar variety, bottled in an obscure country I had never heard of. So how would I explain my utterly mind-numbing corporate job? It would lead us nowhere but a dead-end street. So of course I grabbed his mention of the weather and started running…

***

“Hey James, can I ask you something?” We’d been talking for a while now, and at some point I had sprawled out on the carpet and was flat on my back.

“You can ask any question you want. I might not have the answer, but you can certainly ask the question.” I could feel him smiling as he spoke.

Always the cute comeback with this guy. Dude is driving me nuts!

I moved my left arm from behind my head, resting it now on my stomach. “Well I was just wondering, don’t you think it’s odd how we’re talking on the phone like this? I mean we’re in different countries, different time zones, different everything I guess... “

James interrupted and finished the thought. “But despite all the differences…we have this common bond of writing.”

Did he just say “bond”? As in me and him, fused together ‘til the end of time?
My cheeks were burning hot as I blushed.

“Roms you just reminded me...” he paused but I cut him off swiftly.
 

“Romes! It’s Romes.”

“Right, gotcha.. anyway look we were to talk about your writing tonight. And suddenly it’s one a.m.”

“Oh right, that pesky time-zone thing.” I frowned.

“Of course we’ll speak again,” he said. “But before I go, maybe a quick mention about your blog.”

All my brain heard was “of course we’ll speak again.”
Hallelujah!

“Go ahead I’m listening.”
Sure I’m listening, just give me a sec to wipe away the drool as I envision our second call.

“Well part of what makes blogs attractive to read on a regular basis,” he began, “is a form of consistency or a common thread. For you I would focus on: complementing your background colour with your header, keeping your word-count in the same range for every post, and writing on a schedule so readers know when to check in. Maybe twice a week would work for you.”

I had a feeling that my eyes were spinning around in that crazy, infatuated way. I had never in my life heard a man talk about my writing. If there was a form of Viagra designed for Romi, this would be it.

“So your thoughts on these suggestions?” he asked.

Oh shit, I should probably say a word or two.

“They’re great, I’ll get started right away!” Could I have sounded any more like a cheerleader?
Repulsive
.

“I am glad to hear it,” he said. “We’ll discuss things in greater detail during our next conversation. But for now I should get to bed if that’s alright with you.”

Of course that’s not alright with me! We should talk all night until the sun rises, then fall gently asleep with the phone cradled on our shoulders and a trail of drool on my chin!

“I keep forgetting it’s so late!” I exclaimed. “Of course you need your sleep.”

“Indeed, but let me say that I’ll be the one to call you next time. These calls must be expensive for you.”

You can’t call me, I’ve got privacy issues man!

“Oh it’s fine,” I said hurriedly. “It’s like two cents a minute, and you really don’t want my sister answering the phone. That’s the last thing you need…interrogation by the Bollywood Mafia.”

I tried to laugh it off.

“Right-o, fair enough,” he said. “I won’t argue with that.”

Hell no you won’t.

“Anyway it was nice talking to you James.”

“It was nice talking to you too Roms.”

“You’re not coping too well with my name, are you?”

James laughed.

“Bye Romi.”

AND??? Don’t leave me hanging without any romance!

The line started beeping.

Did he just hang up? Was that goodbye? Where is the romance?

I grabbed the phone and started dialing again, convinced that we had lost our connection. Whilst dialing I rolled over and tried to stand up, but my leg was asleep so instead I staggered across the carpet like a drunken idiot, the phone flying right from my hand. I groaned out loud. Not the ending I had envisioned.

I would need at least three hours to analyze the call. What I knew off the bat was that despite being total strangers he was so familiar. But in another way so mysterious. He also seemed to know what I was thinking. Meanwhile I had zero intuition on his thoughts. Yet every second was…pure exhilaration.

It was a strange and surprising mix.

What I knew for sure was I wanted more and I wanted it often.

That sounds slutty.

What I didn’t know for sure was how this fit into the “year of the chick.” In fact, it didn’t really fit at all, since back on that night when I’d been checking on the rice and forming my twelve-month plan, I’d promised myself to exclude any dangerous foreigners. Which meant I now was on the edge of breaking the biggest rule.

Well too damn bad ‘cause I want more...

Chapter Eleven

The next morning at work the conversation with James was fresh in my mind, but not in a very good way. The more I played it back the more negative it became. I couldn’t deny the “Jude Law” richness of his voice, or the chuckle that could melt a million hearts, but did I even say more than ten intelligible words? I was so unprepared for the voice on the other end, since I’d been free of English accents for two whole years.
And it’s not like THAT ended well
. But then he spoke, and of course, I choked. Almost everything I’d said was a variation of “great,” “yes,” or “that sounds cool!” A talking toy doll would’ve had more things to say.

Since I clearly didn’t have a lot of high-points to share, I minimized the details in my morning call with Laura. I could sense she was stressed out anyway, with her brother’s birthday party and the chance to be with Mark only three days away.

Once I finished the call with Laura I resumed my latest blog post. It was the best distraction besides actual work, and the last time I’d checked “actual work” contained zero satisfaction.

----------------------------------

Every night it’s the same. I’m in the car, I roll to a stop at a traffic light, and I cross my fingers…hoping to find a man.

I’ve been playing this game forever, with the following fantasy stuck in my head:

-I turn to the car on my left (or right), and at that very moment, I lock horny eyes with the man of my dreams. As my innards come to a boil, “Sexual Healing” begins to play on the radio.

But here’s how it goes in actual life:

-I lock horny eyes with a no-nonsense “soccer mom”…or a greasy teenage dude…or a thin-moustached pedophile. I abruptly turn away, stupid as I feel for getting pre-maturely horny.

And now, here’s my question to the lovely men:

-WHERE ARE YOU? Do you take the bus? Do you not leave the house?
 
Just quit your hiding please, ‘cause really, I’m not crazy! (But I WILL find you, one way or another…)

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In reality, of course I wouldn’t find Mr. Right in a nearby vehicle. Not when he was across the Atlantic Ocean. As my cursor hit “Publish” I felt a wave of satisfaction. At the beginning the blogging had only been a reason to write. But three months later with the comments building up, I no longer felt like a crazy person writing to myself. I felt like people were actually listening.

***

I was glad to be wrong about James finding me boring, changing his phone number, and moving to Greenland via the witness protection program.

I mean I must’ve been at least okay at this phone call thing, since we were currently fifteen minutes into our latest conversation. I’d even had some interesting things to say, though his accent continued to be a loin-rumbling distraction.

I needed to ask him if he’d ever recorded audio books. They could be about anything at all and I would listen; football, colonoscopies, my sister…

“Roms, you are still listening to me, aren’t you?”

“It’s Romes!”

“Did you ever consider I might enjoy calling you ‘Roms?’“

“No.”

“Well I do,” he said laughing.

Did you ever consider this is MY world, and the only people who dare call me “Roms” instead of “Romes” are those at a distance? In which category…you currently fall…damn.

He wasn’t finished.

“Well anyway you let me know if I’m boring you, I know I can ramble at the best of times. Here I am talking about the beautiful Catalonian beaches that lay waiting at my doorstep, and you barely have a word to say.”

So maybe I was right all along; he though I was a twit with no original thoughts.

“Trust me James I find it very interesting. Going to the beach just isn’t something I do, for a couple of reasons.”

“Reasons such as…?”

Oh great, now I have to explain…next stop crazy-town.
I clutched my pillow tighter as I lay in bed, hoping I could hold it together.

“Well for the first thing I’m not a very good swimmer, and I’m not a very good swimmer because my parents were not very good swimmers. I don’t think my parents have ever worn bathing suits, and if I ever saw them wearing such attire I would cry.”

And you said I don’t have anything to say. Pfft.

He laughed. “Well I suppose that is a fairly good reason.”

I nodded to myself. “Trust me it’s a big one, and it sort of brings me to the second reason.” I covered my mouth as soon as I said it. The train was now headed for crazy-town, was there any way to stop while he still found me semi-normal?

“Now what would that second reason be?” he asked. “Or should I guess?”

“It’s just that…well…” The sweat was beginning to gather on my forehead.
Just get it over with.
“I just don’t like being around a bunch of people so exposed. And I also don’t like having to stare at all those bodies. Because in most cases…the human body in its many forms, is gross.”