Authors: Gina Elle
“It’s Caroline,” she smiles and when she says it, it sounds like the prettiest name I have ever heard, coming from those lips.
“And yours?” she asks me.
I hold out my hand to introduce myself but really just want the chance to touch her skin.
“My name is Enrique, but everyone calls me Eric,” I say taking hold of her slender, soft hand in mine and trying to hold it as long as I can. Fireworks go off deep inside me. I feel it. The chemistry is there. Caroline pulls her hand away quicker than I’d like. She has a phone call coming in. She pulls out her phone and looks down at the screen.
“It’s my father, he’s calling from France. I really should take the call. I’m sorry.”
“By all means,” I say turning to look out my window. And that’s when I try to remember everything I ever learned in French class in school.
Bonjour, ca va, il pleut, merci, oui, quel temps fait-il.
Years of studying French and I remember six words.
Not bad
.
“
Oui, papa . . .” Caroline is speaking a mile a minute in an exquisite-sounding French and all I can understand is
oui
and
papa
. How pathetic is that. I’ve lived in a bilingual country my whole life and I can’t string a sentence together in French. With one ear listening to the French diplomat seated on my left and the other ear listening to the sound of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll” playing on the cabbie’s radio, I contemplate my next move. Should I ask her out to lunch? It’s already past noon. Should I leave her my business card with all my contact information on it and ask her to give me a call? Maybe I could ask for her number? Why am I so nervous about doing any of these things? If this were any other woman I’d just met, I’d probably be halfway in her pants by now.
Caroline is rattling on in French. I look over at her. She moves the phone away from her mouth.
“I apologize. It’s my father and another one of his ‘emergencies,” she rolls her eyes amusingly as she says the word ‘emergencies.’ She’s cute too. Wow.
“That’s fine. Take your time,” the gentleman in me whispers back to her. But the ass in me wants to say ‘hurry up with the emergency, old man, we’re already on Bloor Street!’ I can hear that Sweet Caroline is trying to cut the call off, her voice is sounding more annoyed by the minute. Finally, she ends the call and drops the phone in her bag. She pulls out her wallet and starts to open it. Panic sets in on my part.
“We’re almost at Runnymede. Here is some money for the fare,” she tries to hand me a $100 bill but I don’t accept it. What? She’s leaving me so soon?
The cabbie makes a left turn on Runnymede and she asks him to stop in front of a McDonalds’ restaurant at the corner of Bloor St. and Runnymede. Why is she having him stop here? Where does she live? I look around and see shops and a subway terminal at this intersection
. Shit.
It’s happening too fast. She is getting out of the cab!
Exiting from my door, I follow her out, by now in full panic mode. I meet her at the trunk of the limo. She is thanking the driver for lifting her carryon out of the trunk and hands him a tip. I swear I feel like I’m in a bubble in slow motion. The kind you see in one of those movie sequences where I’m running fast but everything around me is running twice as fast. Sweet Caroline is slipping out of my fingers.
Fuck
.
“It was nice to meet you Enrique-but-everyone-calls-me Eric,” she chuckles, “and thanks for the ride.” She pulls her tote bag over her shoulder, grabs the handle from her carry on, turns her back to me and walks away without looking back once.
Double fuck
.
Honk. Honk
. Car horns are blaring. I’m oblivious to them but the cab driver isn’t.
“Sir, I cannot stop my car here. We must leave now. ” He is addressing me. I barely hear a word he is saying. Numbly, I climb back into the car. I turn my head towards the left and watch Caroline walk west along Bloor Street.
Sweet Caroline doesn’t look back. I tune into the voices of Hall & Oates singing on the radio. She’s gone, they sing.
Is she
ever.
I unlock the door. Like me, my penthouse feels empty. I’m alone, once again. I drop my key on the front table and leave my carryon sitting in the front foyer. I take a look around. Nothing has moved. Nothing has changed, except me, perhaps. I feel different. A bit saddened and a lot lost. It doesn’t make sense, I know, meeting beautiful women in airports happens all the time. You flirt, you talk, in some cases you do more and then each of you goes your own way. But, reactions like the one I had today don’t happen very often to me, in fact, I’ve never had a response like that one before. My full body, mind, and soul were totally into her. I wanted to be near her, to listen to her, to watch her, to smell her, to touch her, to kiss her, to eat her all up. I connected with her on an instinctual level. The sad thing for me is thinking that it obviously wasn’t mutual. Caroline left with a goodbye and a thank you and didn’t look back. Gone.
As I unload the contents of my suit jacket I come across the note I passed her on the airplane. I reread it again. It’s funny and light and innocently young. I wonder if she enjoyed writing back to me as much I reveled in sending it to her. I tuck the note in the corner of my monitor on my Mac sitting on the desk in front of me. It’s like a souvenir I’ve brought back from a faraway place, on display to remind me of my time spent there. On the way to my bedroom to get changed, I flick the button on my old-fashioned answering machine. There is something about coming home and being greeted by a flashing red light on a machine. It just makes me feel like I’ve been missed.
Wanted, even
. I know in today’s age of mobile phones, we can all be reached all the time, it seems, so the need for an actual answering machine is pointless. But I’m a nostalgic kind of guy and the blinking of the light when I get home from a business trip just makes me feel better.
You have 3 new messages.
The robotic voice on the machine announces. Not bad, I think, three days away and three messages waiting. From my bedroom, I start to listen to the messages as I change out of my work clothes and into my cycling gear. With the whole afternoon ahead of me, I decide there’s no better time to get in a long ride; one of my favorite things to do is to cycle through the trails of Toronto. There is something therapeutic about breathing in all the forested air surrounded everywhere by tall trees and plush greenery. My rides help me comb through my thoughts and dust away cobwebs that lurk there. I read somewhere that people in Japan go for walks in nature which they call ‘bathing in the forest.’ A way, they say, to cleanse the body and the soul, to clear the mind and rejuvenate their energy. So I figure a ride on my bike is like a trip to a therapist. Although some days I really think I should start seeing a professional.
Beep
. First message.
“Hello, Eric. This is Dr. Leung’s office calling to remind you of your annual checkup this coming Wednesday at 5:30 P.M.”
So my doctor misses me. Wonderful.
Beep
. Second message.
“Hello, Eric. It’s your Porsche dealership calling to remind you that it’s time to schedule your next service appointment. Please call us back at your earliest convenience and we’ll be more than happy to book you in.”
Aren’t I loved? Porsche even misses me. Misses my business, that is.
Beep
. Third message.
“Hi, Uncle Eric. It’s me, David. I’m just wondering if we’re going out on Saturday. Call me back. Bye.”
Now there’s someone who truly loves me. My nine-year-old nephew David is the apple of my eye. For the past five years, David and I have had this special thing going. Barring vacations and illness, we have made it a pact to spend one Saturday a month together, just the two of us. We go watch movies, go to soccer games, take trips to the museum, and go shopping, whatever we feel like doing, we do together. Our monthly dates always end with the same ritual. Winter, summer, spring or fall, our last stop of the day before I drop him off at home is always Dairy Queen, one of the oldest ice cream chains I can remember.
When we were children, my dad would take my sister and me to Dairy Queen for vanilla cones almost every Sunday. I remember those days vividly and miss the simpler times we had back then. Without the distractions many parents of today have, my dad would just sit and listen to us. And we talked. My sister would tell him about all of her school projects and friends, and then I’d ask him questions about sports or his work. We were never rushed or made to feel like we came second or third or last in his life. Our relationship with our mother was just as special. But those afternoons at the Dairy Queen meant the world to me. And that’s why I wanted to share that experience with David. I tell you, I’m as nostalgic as they come.
Saturdays with David are priceless. David has taught me more about life than anyone else I know. Through the eyes of a child, at least through David’s eyes, life is generally simple.
Be good, do good, get good.
Through my eyes, however, that’s much easier said than done. I call David back and leave a message on my sister’s voicemail confirming our date for this Saturday. Now that gives me something to look forward to.
With minimal groceries in my kitchen, I get creative in making myself something to eat. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten a thing since the hotel breakfast in Chicago earlier this morning. I channel my inner foodie and whip together a couple of eggs. I chop up an old-l
ooking green pepper that I find in the fridge along with some prosciutto I find sitting in the cold cuts drawer. Not a shred of cheese available to include in this omelet but I make do. I turn on my iPod docked in its station, pour myself some cold water, and sit down to eat, a la one. Roy Orbison is singing to his pretty woman. Oh gawd.
Why do I feel like the stereo of my life is following me around today? Mr. Orbison, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to shut you off. I just can’t deal right now. Everywhere I turn I see Caroline. I wonder where she was going heading west along Bloor Street. I wonder what she’s doing right now. I wonder what I did wrong to make her leave the way she did.
I eat as quickly as I can and then throw my dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I put on my cycling shoes and grab my helmet from the front closet. I take a bottle of water for the road and head down to my storage area in the condo basement to get my bike, a Bianchi Sempre road bike that I just recently bought.
One day about a month ago, while I was riding my old bike down Church Street, I noticed a homeless man pulling something out of the garbage. With all his strength, he managed to pull a bike out of a tall industrial waste bin. Once he sat on the seat and tried to pedal, the bike wouldn’t move at all. I can’t tell you how much the look of disappointment on the homeless man’s face when he saw the bike was missing a chain disturbed me. I think it was the hope that I saw in his eyes as he was pulling the bike out of the bin and that look turning into one of disappointment when the bike wouldn’t move that affected me deeply. It was at that moment when I knew that my bike was no longer mine; it had to go to him. So, I rode over to him and just handed him over my bike.
End of that story.
With the light air blowing in my face, I ride and ride thinking about a lot of things. For one, the work I have to catch up on now that I just took the entire afternoon off is weighing on my mind. I think about having to pay my parents a visit sometime soon. I haven’t seen them in awhile. I think about my weekend in Chicago and then quickly brush those memories aside. Then, of course, I think of Sweet Caroline and remembering how
, from a distance, she caught my eye. Her face, like a ghost, is haunting me wherever I turn.
I look up from my bike and read the street signs. I am on the exact corner where the cab driver dropped off Caroline a few hours ago. Bloor and Runnymede. Without even realizing it, I must’ve ridden west from Yorkville along Bloor Street. I stop, take a drink of water from my bottle and look around.
Where did she go? Does she live around here? I pedal lightly and slowly, gazing all around me. There are shops, restaurants, doctors’ offices, and banks lining this strip of Bloor Street. On top of these businesses there are apartments. Could she live in one of these?
I continue to ride further along the north side of Bloor and note the number of coffee shops, flower shops, and even a drugstore along the strip. I turn my head to look at the south side of the strip and see more of the same: independent grocers, a bookstore, and boutiques. I stop my bike again and get off it. I find a nearby park bench and sit on it resting my bike beside me. Soaking in the afternoon sun, I rest there. I watch the people walking by along the sidewalk. Old ladies pulling their loaded shopping carts behind them, nannies and young mothers pushing strollers with babies in them, young boys toting their skateboards looking for just the right ramp. I see a lot of people but I don’t see Caroline. I get back on my bike and ride away.
Hours later, back in my condo, I’m showered and dressed, sitting in front of my computer ready to get down to work. I figure I’ll put in a couple of hours of work and then turn in. I have a busy week ahead of me. I sit down to work but am distracted by the airplane note tucked into the right-hand corner of my monitor. It stares at me as I read countless memos and answer endless emails. Strangely, though, I find the note is keeping me company. Its presence represents her existence. She was not a phantom. She really did exist. I feel her here with me, close to me.