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My
bus pulled up to the kerb, its headlights flashing off the
misting rain that seemed to saturate this humid city.
Its brakes squealed as it slowed to pick me up, an
irritating sound through my mind that, though unpleasant, felt
familiar. The
dirt and grime on the bus rolled past me as the driver rather
typically missed the stop by about fifteen feet.
I strode through the rain to where the doors stood
open, waiting for me to enter and allow the bus to continue
its journey.
I dropped a £1 coin next to the driver and went to my
seat without a word. I
didn’t want to degrade my mood by engaging someone in
conversation, especially someone that didn’t care about what
was going on inside my head.
I ignored his mumbled response, instead taking my
ticket and walking to the back as the bus lurched forward.
I sat behind a couple with their arms around each
other’s shoulders. As
I watched, the boy reached up and smoothed her hair.
They whispered to each other in the murmured voices of
two people sleeping together.
The girl suppressed a giggle at whatever he told her,
and her hand stroked his face.
I resisted the desire to smirk as they kissed; I could
hardly stomach the inconsistency of the scene.
Even as their tongues caressed, the guy’s eyes
wandered to a woman sitting in front of the bus, wearing a
tight dress. The
imaginative, sadistic side of my mind toyed with the idea of
following them and beating the pulp out of the idiotic boy.
Love was more important than sex, a fact his raging
hormones ignored. Some
people would kill for what you could have! my mind raged
at him. But the
thought sprang from my anger, and I knew that with my
self-control, I had no intention of carrying it out.
In life-altering situations, I usually preferred
abstractions to action.
Would I have the courage to carry other actions out?
I wondered as my attention shifted to where the bulge in my
pocket pulled against my coat. Hidden in that pocket rested, concealed from the world, the
solution to my biggest problem, a personal dilemma that I had
given thought to, lying awake at night for the past several
months. Above the pocket, on the inside, a smaller, less weighty
bundle held my passport and plane tickets, dated for the next
day. I found it
funny how things could change so fast: a week ago, I’d been
almost blissfully happy. Now, my anger and frustration seemed to control me,
especially after my confrontation this morning.
My self-control began to slip, dark thoughts penetrated
my mind, and I couldn’t get past the hostile emotions to the
kind person I knew lived inside me.
I turned my gaze from the couple before me and
detracted my attention away from the contents of my pockets.
Instead, in an attempt to calm myself, I looked out the
windows, watching the misting rain swirl around the bus as it
roared through the evening.
The rain was typical London rain – enough to get your
clothing wet and make you feel miserable, but not enough to
justify using an umbrella.
Instead, it hung like a thick fog over the ground,
spinning and spraying as the wind played with it. I felt very close to the rain, the thick perpetual nature of
it, the way it always seemed to be there, irritating or not.
The rain would always be there, at some point during
the day, hanging in the air and adding to the humidity that at
first had been so stifling about this city.
As I watched the haze of water outside, I let it remind
me of the rain on that day… the day I met her, three years
ago. A former
professor had recommended me to some freshman students at
Regents College, my alma mater, and I’d come to the school
every evening to help them with their more difficult
assignments. She
had approached me and asked me why I was on the school
premises. It
seemed so funny at the time: I worked at an investment firm
and had built up a lot of respect in the London financial
community, and yet a senior in university accused me of
misleading trusting business students.
After a brief conversation, we helped out the students
together: she answered questions about professors and campus
life, while I answered questions about the application of what
the students studied, as well as professional life as a
business major.
Soon, she and I started having coffee together in the
evenings after our freelance tutoring sessions.
Then, our evening drink turned into dinners together.
Finally, after almost a month of growing friendship, we
started dating. It
was raining like this outside the café that night as well.
Sitting inside, at our table, we joked and talked into
the night, longer than we’d ever talked.
Finally, I took her hands, looked into her eyes, and
told her.
“Cathy,
I love you.” Other sappy, romantic nonsense came out, but once I’d
gotten those first words into the open, I could have been
babbling for all I knew.
She gave me her sweetest smile, the one that still
makes me want to wrap my arms around her and protect her from
everything.
“I
was wondering how long it would take you to say that,” she
replied.
Up
to this point today, my mental barriers had managed to control
how I displayed my emotions; to present the cold, unmoving
face I put on for professional use and dismissed only around
people I trusted. But
remembering her voice, seeing the joy in her eyes that night
at the café, I finally let a tear slip from one eye and fall
onto my coat, where it looked like just another raindrop,
glittering like a diamond in the streetlights.
Why
couldn’t things have stayed the same?
When I met her parents last week, I was understandably
nervous, but I had thought the meeting went well.
After recovering from the shock of learning that I
worked for her father, I was my usually polite self: holding
doors, adding ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ to my words, and
listening politely. Perhaps
I was too polite. Perhaps
her father had mistaken my courtesy for spite.
Perhaps it was because I worked for him, not knowing
before tonight that I was dating his daughter.
Perhaps I was just American.
I cannot figure out what went wrong that meal, but her
father decided that I was unacceptable as a boyfriend for his
daughter. Perhaps….
In
my mind, I was back at work again this morning.
I stood in front of his door, hands behind my back,
waiting for him to call me in. Last night, his daughter had told him that we were in love.
Several weeks ago, we’d eaten at that dinner where I’d
somehow upset him. I
felt nervousness like bile in my chest as I waited outside his
corner office; my hands sweated despite being in their open
and relaxed position.
“Come
on in, Mr. Jackson,” he called through the door.
After I entered his office, I stood across from his
desk and waited. “Why
don’t you sit down, Wesley?”
I took my seat and looked up at him, meeting his snide
gaze. A slight
smile played across his lips as he spoke.
“You’ve known for some time that we’ve been
looking for someone to fill a position in New York,” he
began. My
co-workers competed vehemently over the position – it not
only meant a huge promotion, but it also let the British
members of our office live in the ‘exotic’ United States
for a few years. The
job held no interest for me; I didn’t need the money that
much, and I knew that America held nothing for me.
Everything I loved was in London.
I thought of it as my home.
“After exhaustive looking, Wesley, we’ve decided
that you’re the perfect person to work there.”
I
stared at him. It took several seconds for the announcement to sink in.
I had ambition, but was it worth sacrificing all my
friends? Everyone
I cared for? I
saw his smirk again, and understood.
He must have assumed that I would sacrifice my
relationship with his daughter to further my own ambition.
When I said nothing, he realized his misjudgement, and
changed gears.
“Before
you respond, let me know that our office currently has one
person too many for our budget.
You’re now considered surplus.
You can either take this job, or find another.”
And again, he gave me that confident smile.
“The dinner we had convinced me that this was the
right decision. You’re
great in this field, Wesley.
One of the best we have.
You’re a perfect representative of England: you’re
stuck up, you’re stiff, and you’re formal even at casual
affairs. Basically,
you’re right for this job.”
He paused, leaned forward on his deck.
“But you’re not right for my daughter.
You need to be as far from her as possible. So I gave you a good performance rating and petitioned hard
for you.” He
grinned across the desk at me.
“You’ll love New York, and when you come back in a
few years, there’ll be a senior position waiting for you.”
I
swallowed, trying to think.
“When would I be leaving?”
“Tomorrow
morning. We’ve already arranged to have your stuff moved, assuming
you accept.” He
seemed to gloat over me, proud of his apparent victory.
“I
don’t see how I could pass up on this opportunity,” I
mumbled, struggling to control the anger I felt surfacing in
my stomach. I
wanted to give the bastard the finger and storm out, but I
couldn’t do that. I would not let him win, and I wouldn’t let him take my
life away from me.
He
pushed an envelope across the desk.
“Housing has been arranged, and as I said, we can
have you moved out by tonight.
You get tomorrow to fly there, the weekend to find your
way around and recover from the jet lag, then start work
here,” he tapped the ticket, “on Monday.
Everything you need is in this envelope but the plane
ticket.” Another
smile accompanied his next sentence.
“After all, we want this to be as comfortable for you
as possible.”
I
reached my hand across his desk to take the envelope, my mind
already racing. If
he was going to try to take Cathy away from me, I could
respond in kind. I’d
toyed with the idea of trying to make her mine forever for a
few months now, and had even gone so far as to buy what I
needed to do it.
“I’ll
even tell Cathy for you,” he called, as I left his office.
“Oh, and take the rest of the day off, try to get
your things together. You wouldn’t want to leave anything behind.”
I
left the office seething, after collecting my things from my
cubicle. I
exchanged good-byes and addresses with my friends, as well as
promises to host them if they came to visit.
The next few hours passed in a blur: I first went to a
travel agency and picked up the tickets I’d need.
Once I had those, I went home and sorted the contents
of my small apartment to ease the moving process.
The efficient British moving companies arrived at my
apartment an hour after I got home, and packed my things in a
two-hour period. All
I kept was a week of clothing, packed into my travel suitcase,
and a bundle from my desk.
Everything else, I’d been told, would be shipped
quickly, or provided. I
left the suitcase in my apartment for the next morning, while
I put the bundle in my coat.
I’d already thought about my relationship with Cathy.
I’d been thinking about it for a month now, when I
had the time to think and not have to work.
She and I were in love, and we seemed perfect for each
other. I wanted
to keep her forever. Once
I’d made that decision, I’d taken my money out of the
bank, and bought it. I
didn’t know if I’d ever work up the courage to use it,
much less make things work out. But I kept it in my desk, in case I ever felt brave enough to
make her mine. Now,
even though I was given the courage through desperation,
nervous butterflies beat their wings in my stomach, making me
feel queasy. But
between self-control, courage, and love, I stood for an hour
in the rain, waiting on my bus.
By
the time I caught the bus, the day had faded into evening.
I had to see Cathy before I left.
The memories repeated through my mind until the bus
pulled up to my stop. I
got off, thanking the driver out of habit rather than
courtesy, and walked to her apartment through the London mist. I swallowed, trying to calm my stomach. The butterflies were still there, almost two hours later.
Would I have the courage to do it?
Would I have the courage to tell her?
Would I have the courage to even knock?
She
opened the door on the second knock, her hair wet and wrapped
in a towel. As
soon as she saw me, her expression changed. First, her eyes flickered with the happiness she usually
showed around me. Seconds
later, they turned into tears, and she stepped away from me.
“Is it true?”
“Which
part,” I responded. The
butterflies were still there, and they didn’t feel like idle
conversation, when they needed to be exorcised.
“That I was promoted and am leaving everything close
to me behind, or that your Dad threatened to sac me if I
didn’t accept this job?”
She raised her chin, looking at me with those beautiful
eyes of hers, brimming with tears.
My heart melted into wax and dripped down over the
butterfly-nest of my chest. “Come on, Cathy. You
knew he didn’t like me.
He made pretty obvious to me when we ate with him that
something was wrong with me dating you.”
She
shook her head a bit, but she knew I was right.
She’d told me about her last boyfriend: her Dad had
scared him off very early in the relationship.
“Cathy, do you think I’d leave you?
That I’d let something keep us apart?”
My voice cracked on the last word, and Cathy noticed.
The butterflies were spreading, the cocoon in my torso
opening.
“Wes,
what’s wrong?” she began.
I didn’t let her finish the question; instead I
reached into my pocket and pulled out the innocuous-looking
box. I opened it,
and she gave a little gasp.
Then the tears intensified, diamonds running down her
cheeks and sparkling in her hall light.
Inside the box, another diamond glimmered, winking at
her from its nesting place on top of a slim band of 24-karat
gold.
“I
have two plane tickets, Cathy.
I want you to come with me.
I need you to go.” Our eyes locked, and the butterflies in my stomach turned
from beating wings into objects of beauty.
“Cathy,
will you marry me?”
She
didn’t have words to answer me; all she could do was nod her
head over and over again, tears running down her face, as the
rain poured around us. And
from the wet windows of cars, the falling drops of
precipitation, my rain-spattered jacket, her tear-streaked
cheeks, and the ring in my hand, diamonds winked at us.
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