Around the World in 80 Dates (25 page)

But, whatever, I'd make it or I wouldn't.

When we arrived at Safeco Field, the Mariners' home ground, OB and some of Garry's other workmates came out to say hello.

It obviously wasn't just my friends who were vetting for suitability: Garry's clearly wanted to make sure I was good for him, too. And don't forget, they all knew Garry and I had met because I was traveling the world dating eighty men. That made them doubly protective of him and doubly curious about me. (In the likelihood I was an International Hussy, what guy wouldn't want to come and take a look:
Step right up, step right up, Ladies and Gents, see the freakishly loose woman
…) They teased Garry mercilessly and made me feel really welcome. I was touched they cared about him so much, and it felt good to have their seal of approval, because no matter how we met, Garry was my boyfriend and I wanted his friends to like me.

I did end up getting hopelessly lost trying to find my way back to Garry's house, but I didn't mind as I ended up in Alki Beach. Full of pert in-line skaters and deal-breakers walking their dogs and barking into their cell phones, it's a little corner of L.A. in Seattle.

I managed to make it home at last, intending to spend a quiet evening catching up on emails and American sitcoms. It was all going well until I started to get cold.

I mentioned Hal. She was the Home Automated Living (HAL) computer system that allowed Garry to operate lights, heating, and burglar alarms remotely when he was on tour. Garry had shown me a couple of days ago how to operate Hal through his computer, also by speaking to her via a microphone wired into the system.

I was sitting in front of the Hal program now, trying to turn the heating on. But as I scrolled through the various options, I couldn't for the life of me remember how to make it work. There was no way I was going to ring Garry and admit that, though, so I had to figure it out for myself.

As I drummed my fingers in irritation, I jumped in shock as, out of the blue, a woman's voice queried: “Yes?” The microphone on the desk had picked up the sound of my tapping fingers and activated Hal's listening program. “Yes?” she asked again, sounding imperious and resentful, like a beautiful cat left cooped up too long.

The Hal program allowed you to select a male or female voice for the system. It also let you pick the pitch and attitude of the voice (polite or curt). Garry had made Hal sound like a sexy woman, who, in my opinion, also sounded high-handed and high-maintenance—I hoped that wasn't how he saw me…apart from the sexy bit: I could live with that.

Picking up the microphone and trying to remember how Garry had given voice commands, I addressed the computer: “Hal, turn the heating on.” Nothing happened. I waited for a moment. Nothing continued to happen. I tried again, this time a little louder, my voice echoing around the large, open-plan, increasingly chilly house: “Hal, turn the heating on.”

Again, nothing. Hal remained willfully silent.

Don't tell Garry, my new hi-tech audio-guy boyfriend, this, but I thumped the microphone down on the desk in exasperation. It was too frustrating: Why wasn't there just a switch on the wall I could turn on, like in a normal house?

The mike was obviously a better communicator than I, though: The sound of it clunking onto the desk got Hal's attention. “Yes?” she asked again in a bored voice, calculated to inspire impotent fury in the listener (or maybe just this listener). I snatched up the mike from the desk, refusing to admit defeat; perhaps the problem was I'd been speaking too quietly. The advancing cold concentrated my mind; I spoke loudly and clearly: “Hal, turn the heating on.”

“Did you say, ‘turn the lighting on'?” Hal shot back snootily, her tone suggesting, “There really is no need to shout: it's quite vulgar and impolite.”

Thank God, the damn thing had heard me. “No,” I replied, feeling a little flash of triumph, “I said, ‘Turn the heating on.' ” I made a point of exaggerating the word
heating,
hoping Hal would feel the humiliation she'd brought upon herself. “Lights turning on,” Hal chimed smugly, ignoring my contradiction. And with that, every single light in every single room in the house snapped on.

Right.

This was an open declaration of war. That Sim-sucking bitch was wrong if she thought she was going to get the better of me; she was about to discover the hard way that she'd chosen the wrong woman to play computer games with.

Ignoring the house lights, which now blazed as harshly as a fridge opened at 4 a.m., I fixed the monitor with a steady look. In a tone as clear as it was cold (actually, by now freezing cold), my voice rang out in defiance. “Hal!” I commanded, “turn the heating on.”

“Did you say, ‘Turn the heating up'?” Hal asked bitchily, by now clearly reveling in my discomfort. Had I asked that? Could the heating be turned
up,
if it wasn't actually
on?
Was this a trick; was she trying to outmaneuver me? I wasn't sure, but didn't want to be caught out on a technicality, so I said evenly, “No, I said, ‘Turn the heating
on.
' ”

“I am turning the heating up,” Hal declared, a withering glance at my poker face as she slammed down the winning hand.

For a moment there was only silence. Then, a faint whirring noise stirred in the basement. It grew louder and louder, and as it did the walls of the house started to shudder gently. I looked around nervously, trying to work out what was causing the noise. Then, CRASH: With a terrifying roar, air—hot as a breath from Lucifer himself—blasted out from vents and ducts all over the house.

The noise was deafening, and, moments later, the house became unbearably hot. Pausing instinctively to admire the system's efficiency, I yelled, “Hal, turn the heating off, turn the heating off,” over and over. Maybe she couldn't hear me over the fans as they powered the atmosphere of the Serengeti around the house; maybe she was ignoring me on purpose. Either way, Hal refused to answer.

The house got hotter and hotter, the lights dazzled overhead: I was being cooked to death by a crazed computer-generated housekeeper, unwilling to tolerate another woman in Garry's house.

I shouted and shouted until the heat made my throat too dry to shout anymore, but nothing seemed to be working. If I was going to get around Hal, I clearly needed a different strategy. Staggering downstairs to get some water, I threw open the doors and windows to let some cool air in. And then I had an idea. I ran back upstairs through the blasting heat and resumed my position in the computer hot-seat.

Hal obviously wasn't going to do what I asked her, but I bet she'd listen to Garry.

It was tricky. Much as I adored Garry, I didn't really know his voice that well, plus there was the whole accent thing. I rang the house number three or four times to listen to his voice on the answering machine, then took a swallow of water and cleared my throat. “Hal, turn the heating off,” I said in a deep American accent.

Nothing. Okay, it had been a dodgy accent. I tried again: “Hal, turn the heating off.” Still nothing.

I tried a variety of pitches; I experimented with placing the stresses in different parts of the sentence; I truncated and elongated vowels. In short, I went deep undercover and immersed myself, blindly navigating the twists and turns of another gender and another culture.

“Did you say, ‘Turn the heating off'?” Hal suddenly inquired sweetly.

Oh my God, I'd done it; she thought I was Garry. “Yes,” I replied succinctly, not wanting to blow it now I was getting somewhere. “I am turning the heating off,” Hal replied coquettishly. And with that, the roaring from the vents stopped dead.

The house was filled with silence.

It was like someone had been pointing a hairdryer in my face for twenty minutes and the relief of it stopping was immense. Taking a moment to recover, I took a deep breath; then, trying to recall the winning pitch and accent, I attempted to cajole Hal into turning the lights off, too. Three tries later and off they went.

I sat in the dark, quiet, cooling house and let the silence wash over me. Until Garry got home, there was little I could do without lights or heating. Settling back onto the sofa as comfortably as I could to recover from the ridiculous pantomime, I started pondering for the first time what I was actually doing here. I was besotted with Garry and I thought he felt the same way about me, but, seriously, where would we go from here? How was our hothouse relationship going to survive outside in the real world?

We both lived full and demanding lives a continent apart. I couldn't bear the thought of a permanent long-distance relationship, so where did that leave us? Would I be willing to move to Seattle? It seemed insane to be even considering the question so soon (or perhaps it seemed insane not to have considered it sooner), but if my answer was
no,
for both Garry's and my sake I had to end it now before we got in any deeper.

But there was no way I could do that. The more I got to know Garry, the more I liked him; even after this short time together I'd miss him too much.

Wrestling to find an answer, I gradually realized that I was expecting too much too soon.

Being with Garry had taken a giant leap of faith. Maybe I was like Neil Armstrong and my giant leap had catapulted me so high I'd be up bobbing around in orbit for a while yet. It was pointless agonizing about it all now. I wanted to be with Garry and it felt amazing. That was what was important; anything else would just have to wait until I came back down to earth.

Damn Hal: It was her nonsense that had forced me to think about all this stuff. She was a pretty formidable housekeeper; had all this been her doing? Turning up the heat and putting me under the spotlight—I think she'd been vetting me like the rest of Garry's circle.

“Did you have a good night, sweetie?” Garry asked when I arrived wrung out and exhausted at Safeco Field to collect him.

“Yes, thanks,” I replied dishonestly. Tonight's events were going to stay between Hal and me. And, whatever else our differences, I suspected this would be the one thing we'd agree on.

 

The next morning was busy. Posh PR Emma had replied immediately:

There was no email from Ted (maybe he was out chasing the postman up and down his street). As a sacrifice to the Numbers God I'd probably see him, but I'd make him wait a bit first. I was in the middle of emailing Jason when Garry shouted down from his office that there was a phone call for me. I picked up the extension in the kitchen, half expecting it to be Jason and feeling more than a little awkward, as Garry had been talking to whoever it was for quite a while. But it was Eddie, my old friend from home. Somehow, I seemed to be the kind of person who—based on no good reason or track record—people came to for advice. Eddie was the person
I
always went to—he was tough and smart and he was also concerned and protective of me, like a big brother.

Eddie had been talking to Garry and I instinctively held my breath, hoping, for Garry's sake, he'd passed muster. “So, you've found your Soul Mate?” Eddie teased as I picked up the phone.

“Yes,” I replied happily, “I have. I hope you were nice to him?”

“Tolerably so,” Eddie replied sardonically, then suddenly becoming serious: “So, apart from fancying the pants off him, is everything okay?”

I took this to be code for
Have you picked another loser?
And I smiled, touched by his concern. “Honestly, Eds,” I replied. “He really is wonderful. And if you hadn't liked the sound of him yourself, you'd be telling me so by now.”

Eddie never gave ground: The fact he wasn't arguing was his way of agreeing. “Well,” he said finally, “I'll meet him when he comes to London so I'll tell you what I think of him then.”

Come to London? When was that happening? “Oh, I don't know that he is,” I replied, a little defensively.

“Why wouldn't he?” Eddie demanded.

I didn't really have an answer for him: I hadn't even thought about Garry visiting me, let alone talked to him about it.

Eddie and I caught up on news from home before finally saying good-bye. Garry came downstairs. “Your friend Eddie's very funny,” he said, hugging me and noting my smile.

“Yes, he's a good man. Did you get on with him okay?” I asked, pulling back a little so I could see his reaction.

Garry told me they had, then added unexpectedly: “He asked when I was coming to London.”

I shrugged awkwardly. “Yes, Eddie asked me that too. Don't worry, it's fine.”

Garry looked nonplussed. “Why? Don't you want me to?”

Now it was my turn to look blank. “Well, yes, of course I do,” I replied. “But I know how busy you are and…you know, it's expensive and…a long way…”