Around the World in 80 Dates (29 page)

The chatter seemed to grow from a mutter to a rumble, until it swelled into what felt like a soccer chant reverberating around the stadium. Any moment I expected to see people waving scarves and blowing on their hands to keep them warm, singing to the tune of “Blue Is the Color”:
“Garry's her boyfriend, Kelly is her ex, they're here together, and Jennifer is stressed…”

I fought my way through the inquisition and finally made it to where Emma was standing: “Ohmigod, Jennifer, did you know—?” I held up my hand to stop Emma saying any more. She squeezed my arm sympathetically and signaled the barman to serve us. “I just couldn't believe it when I saw him,” she said, shards of incredulity splintering from her cut-glass accent.

“Ummm, me neither,” I said grimly. We both turned in synchronized disapproval to glare at Jo, who was now deep in conversation with Kelly about ten feet away. Kelly's body-language said
Get me away from this madwoman,
but I had no intention of rescuing him.

Emma frowned and gave a little huff of irritation. “You know, darling, this nonsense of hers over Ryan really has been going on far too long. That Jo is making a mess of her life doesn't give her the right to make a mess of yours, too.”

I smiled at Emma fondly and gave her a hug: “I got Garry…” I whispered in her ear, and we both looked over to Garry, chatting easily with the organizer and a couple of the delegates. “…my life has never been less messy.” She smiled, happy for me.

Jo and Kelly had spotted us and started making their way over. But in the crush, Jo ran into another friend and fell into conversation. Emma's phone started ringing (PR people are never off phone duty) and she took it outside to talk. Kelly arrived on his own and stood next to me at the bar.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked. I shook my head politely and pointed to the wine Emma had just bought me. “You're looking well,” he said.

I smiled graciously. “You too.” It was true: He never looked anything less than amazing. I was tempted to ask about his girlfriend but decided against it.

“It didn't work out with that woman I was seeing,” he said, as if reading my mind. I nodded neutrally. I wasn't going there; I didn't want to have any opinion about his love life, or any other part of his life. He was in my past and that's where I wanted him to stay.

But before I consigned him to Another Country, there was one last thing I needed to do: introduce him to Garry. I felt awkward about it but for some reason compelled to, not for Kelly's sake, but for Garry's. I didn't know what the etiquette was, but if he found out (or indeed already knew) Kelly was here and I hadn't introduced him, he might read something into it. I left Kelly talking to other people and fought my way back to Garry. “Kelly's here,” I told him quietly, linking my arm through his. “Do you want to meet him?”

Garry looked a little surprised and an expression I couldn't read flickered across his face. He shrugged (it really was my day for shrugging men). “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

I could think of any number of reasons
why not,
my friends and peers having front row seats at the premiere of
When Garry Met Kelly
being one of them. I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure?” He nodded.

I had such a bad feeling about this.

On my way back to find Kelly, I bumped into Jo. I gave her a look but didn't say a word.

She burst into tears. “I know, I know,” she blubbered. “Ems has already told me what a despicable person I am. I didn't mean it,” she cried miserably. “I bumped into him and he told me he'd split up with whatshername and I wasn't thinking and I just…” She faltered, looking at me wretchedly, then, “Sorry, Jennifer,” she whispered plaintively, looking down at the floor.

What could I do? I gave her a hug. “You are such a twit,” I told her exasperatedly as she continued mumbling apologies. “Go and introduce yourself to Garry; your punishment is to be there when I introduce him to Kelly!” She looked horrified and I gently shoved her in Garry's direction.

Back at the bar, Kelly was talking to Paula. I asked him if he wanted to meet Garry and we pushed back through the crowd to Jo, now animatedly talking with Garry. It was the moment of truth, and I could tell people were watching.

But when we got there, something completely unexpected happened: Garry ignored us. Jo chatted and laughed and fluttered her eyelashes. Garry smiled, asked her questions, and generally paid her a ton of attention that kept Jo—delighted to sparkle for a change rather than be miserable about Ryan—spinning like a top.

Kelly and I stood waiting for them to stop talking and acknowledge us, but Garry kept talking and Jo kept spinning. After waiting like idiots for a couple of very long minutes, Kelly turned to me with one eyebrow raised. “It seems your man is busy,” he said, the sarcasm clear in his voice. “I'll be at the bar if you fancy a drink.” And with that, he walked off.

I was mortified and furious, furious, furious.

I instinctively looked over at Emma and Paula, who were looking back with expressions of disbelief. This wasn't right. What the hell was Jo doing, inviting Kelly here, and then hitting on Garry in front of everybody? And why was Garry chatting up Jo? And doing it in front of the man who'd broken my heart being unfaithful?

And all this on Garry's and my last night.

Suddenly it was all too much. I grabbed my coat and marched over to where Emma and Paula were standing. “Sorry, but I have to go.” On the way out, I stopped by Garry and said: “I'm going home, I'll see you later.” And without stopping to see his reaction, I stormed out.

 

Outside, the weather was cold, wet, and miserable. It fitted my mood perfectly as I whirled down Upper Regent Street toward the tube. I hadn't got far before I heard someone run up behind me and then grab my shoulder. It was Garry.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted in exasperation.

“What the hell am
I
doing?” I shouted back. “
I'm
going home so you can stay and ignore my ex and flirt with my friend,” I exploded.

“What are you talking about?” Garry retorted, his coat flapping in the wind that blew wildly all around us. “I wasn't flirting with your friend, I was trying not to get in a fight.”

Not get in a fight?
Whatever was he going on about? “Garry, I'm tired and I can't be bothered to talk about this. You have a key, stay or go, the choice is yours, but I'm going home.”

And now, although at the entrance to the subway, I marched straight past it: I needed to walk off my anger.

Garry next to me, we walked together in silence. It was the Misery Walking Tour of London. We tramped furiously down Oxford Street; angrily around Piccadilly Circus; heatedly down Haymarket; bitterly past the National Gallery and speechlessly around Trafalgar Square; irately along Whitehall; unhappily past Downing Street; and miserably over Westminster Bridge to Waterloo.

About halfway over the bridge, I'd walked off enough of my rage to be able to listen when Garry tried to talk to me. We descended the steps onto the promenade along the South Bank and sheltered under a tree as the rain grimly lashed the marble lions stoically waiting it out.

I knew I was punishing Garry for something that ultimately Kelly had done, but at the same time, I didn't understand why Garry had ignored us and got so wrapped up in Jo.

“Jen, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings or embarrassed you in front of your friends,” Garry said. “But seriously…Kelly? What did you think I was going to do?”

I looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?” I asked in spite of myself.

Garry suddenly looked as angry as I'd felt moments earlier. “All I know about this jerk-off is that he cheated on you and treated you really badly. I love you and I think you're the most beautiful, kind, loving, and giving person I've ever met. He totally fucked you over and you think, what…? That I'm going to stand around and make small talk with him? How did you think that was going to go?”

Now it was my turn to look amazed. I hadn't even considered that.

But Garry, who had just been forced to march across London in the pouring rain, was not happy and had not finished. “And as for your friend Jo…” he continued heatedly, “…she said some guy called Ryan had just walked in and could I look like I was having a good time talking with her to make him jealous.” He shook his head as he talked. “I thought it was weird, but she's your friend and you'd been over at the bar for ages talking to that jerk….” Garry looked at me exasperatedly. “It's our last goddamn night: I had dinner reservations and was trying to get you out of there, but I didn't want to take you away from your friends….” He spread his hands in a gesture of frustration and looked out across the river, clearly trying to control his temper.

I listened quietly as Garry talked. When he finished, I scrunched my face up in a half-smile, half-frown. “Really?” I asked. Garry didn't answer, he just looked off into the rain with an impenetrable expression.

Oooops.

Ryan
had
walked in. I'd seen him but hadn't paid any attention to him. And it was exactly the kind of stunt Jo would pull—their relationship thrived on drama and make up sex.

I sighed. I didn't want to be a doormat again, but what Garry said made sense. I'd dropped him into the middle of a really difficult situation; finding a clear path through tonight's social minefield would have been virtually impossible. But he'd tried anyway.

It seemed I wasn't the only one blasting off on an intergalactic leap of faith.

I shuffled closer to Garry on the wet bench and tried to work my hands into his, which were clamped down hard on his wet legs. “I'm so sorry, Garry,” I told him penitently. “I can only imagine what tonight must have been like for you. I really, really appreciate you sticking it out.”

Garry continued to stare out at the water for a few more moments, then, breathing out slowly, let me slide my hands under his. We looked at each other and both smiled wryly.

 

And so the moment passed. It was too late and we were both too cold and wet to stay out any longer, so we went home and curled up in front of the fire with a pizza, happy to watch TV rather than talk any more. But in among the pizza and sitcoms, there was a strange feeling of closeness, having resolved and survived such a bizarre, emotional evening together.

By the next morning, our first row was not so much forgotten as one more thing we'd shared and experienced. Garry had an early afternoon flight back to America. Although seeing each other soon in Tokyo made it slightly easier to say good-bye, I was still in such a daze afterward I had to text him from the parking lot to ask if he remembered where I'd parked the car.

 

So Garry went back to America and I finalized the Australasian trip. We quickly fell back into our emailing, instant messaging, and two-hour-phone-call pattern. But this time as well as being able to ask about Garry's friends I'd met in Seattle, Garry asked how my family was; what Paula was doing…if Jo and Ryan were still up to their old tricks?

And three days after Garry left, a huge box arrived from Amazon. Mystified, I opened it and laughed out loud as I pulled out a brand-new coffee grinder, a coffeemaker, and a note from Garry:

“Coffee in the house!”

I was thrilled and very touched, so putting some beans in to grind, I went into my little office to email him a thank-you. But in my befuddlement, I hadn't put the lid on properly, and as I typed the coffee beans rattled against the blades and fresh grounds whizzed out the top of the machine, spraying every surface in the kitchen.

Coffee in the house indeed.

Tokyo love charms

And now, final dates lined up, accompanying logistics locked in, I was ready in all senses to embark on the concluding leg of my journey. One Soul Mate and nineteen dates in nine cities and six countries, spread across Japan, Indochina, and Australasia.

It was the final stage of a long journey and, mission partially accomplished, I was setting off on my Date Odyssey facing a completely new set of challenges and experiences.

I'd needed to go to the Date Wranglers one last time to ask for their help rounding up the remaining Dates. I was slightly nervous about approaching them since I suspected they might be ambiguous about helping me. Not with my decision to complete the journey. All big travelers themselves, the Date Wranglers would feel the same way I did: that to end it now would be like Jason and his Argonauts heroically battling through to Colchis, then, on finding the Golden Fleece, checking it as hand luggage and flying home with British Airways from Tbilisi.

No, what I expected to be the sticking point was me still needing their single friends to make up the rest of my dates. I braced myself for a reaction of:
“Well, great, Jennifer, you've met
The One
and I'm happy for you, but what about my friend? He's still out there looking. Why would he get his hopes up and go to the trouble of dating a woman who's not even available?”

In fact, worse than unavailable: newly and—almost certainly annoyingly—in love.

But, as it turned out, I couldn't have been more wrong. The Date Wranglers were actually even more into my journey than before.

This was partially due to the fact that they'd been emailing regular progress reports to the Date
Wranglees,
including the fact that I had now met The One. And as a result, rather than being put off meeting me, Wranglees now
really
wanted to meet me. It seemed they saw a date with me as the chance to learn the mysterious secrets of Soul Matery, presumably so they could use this hard-won knowledge to track down Soul Mates of their own.

I also got the impression they believed once I turned up for their date, I'd take one look at them and realize I'd got it terribly wrong: Garry wasn't my Soul Mate after all,
they
were.

And, in a strange way, I think the Date Wranglers encouraged this kind of thinking. I'd picked up little undercurrents of displeasure in their ranks—they seemed a bit piqued that after all their matchmaking efforts, I'd found Mr. Right almost by myself.

It's not that the DWs didn't want me to meet The One—they did—but they wanted just as much to
be
the one who found The One for me. They loved a challenge, and appeared determined to have one last shot at winning the Date Wrangler crown. Like supermarkets tailoring special offers to your buying patterns, the DWs seemed to be operating on an
If you liked that…you might also be interested in these…?
policy. There was the journalist in China, the environmentalist in Kuala Lumpur, the Chief of Sydney Harbour Police in Australia, even a
mystery date
in New Zealand:

But that was fine, I wasn't worried: I loved Garry and felt confident in our developing relationship. That's not to say I wasn't expecting the journey to throw all sorts of unexpected surprises at me. I was, but I was sure whatever it was wouldn't be in the hands of the Date Wranglers, it would be in the hands of Fate.

But although Fate may shape your life, she doesn't book the airline tickets or arrange the visas.

As ever, the task of tying all the unconnected strands of the journey together had been an exercise in logistical gymnastics. I was meeting Garry in Tokyo, but wanted to go via India because I had the chance of a great date in Calcutta.

After Tokyo, I was flying to Beijing, where I hoped to make a little detour to Shanghai:

And although it was still mind-bogglingly stressful trying to pull it all together, I felt incredibly energized and enthusiastic about both the traveling and the dates. Out from under the
God, am I ever going to meet anyone?
yoke, I was free to do what I did best: travel the world having adventures, meeting lots of interesting, entertaining people along the way.

But there were limits to what could be achieved in the time I had left, and trying to work Bhaskar and Tom into a trip that already jumped from Tokyo to Beijing, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Perth, and ever onward, was—despite my best efforts—impossible. Reluctantly I crossed their names off my dance card.

But that was fine—there were so many things I was already looking forward to and, best of all, it would be summer again. I was flying to Tokyo, hitting the Southern Hemisphere just as the weather had gone to hell in a handbasket here in London.

 

The Seattle SuperSonics basketball team was in Tokyo playing a couple of preseason games against the L.A. Clippers. Although not quite as big as baseball, basketball is a very popular sport in Japan and the games were long sold out.

It was all new to me: basketball and Japan. So as the shuttle bus inched for two hours through traffic, solid from the airport to the Four Seasons in Chinzan-so, my eyes scoured the people, buildings, and streets outside, taking in as much information as possible. The elevated expressways were built what felt like mere inches from the housing complexes and office blocks that sprouted up from every inch of ground. You could virtually read the computer screens in front of row after row of office workers—a unisex uniform of black hair, white shirts, and a black jacket hanging from the back of every chair. The offices were full even though it was close to 9 p.m. With working hours notoriously long in Japan, I wondered how the staff unwound in the small window between one working day ending and the next beginning. I hoped for their sake it wasn't by hanging out in the café-pub we passed, neon sign advertising
DANCING AND FRUIT.

Although flying in separately from London and Seattle respectively, Garry and I arrived at the hotel within moments of each other. It felt a little odd to be in a hotel, but we picked right up from where we'd left off in London.

Rather than succumb to jet lag, we joined Garry's co-workers JR, Jon, Doug, Bob, and Bobby (all of whom I remembered fondly from Seattle) for a night out with JR's Japanese friend, Toshi. We piled into two cabs and fought to get the best views out the windows as we inched through Tokyo by night.

Miniskirted teenagers chatted in private huddles as they waited to cross the road. Their bodies flickered with light from the billboard video screens and neon signs suspended from every building around, giggling mouths hidden modestly behind cupped hands and long fringes. A couple of feet away, tired-looking businessmen—shoulders drooping, suits crumpled, briefcases held limply in their slack hands—stared off into space, seemingly aware of nothing but the red crosswalk light that stood between them and the remains of their evening. Behind them all, in brightly lit alleyways, streams of people disappeared into bars that seemed too small to contain the numbers pouring in.

In Tokyo, it seemed
packed
was the norm, whether in the office, traffic, or bar.

We arrived at our destination, a teeny noodle place in Shibuya. The waitress led us three short paces from the door to the bar and gestured that we should sit on the stools squeezed in front of it. Heads bent low over their steaming bowls, all around us locals scooped soba noodles into their mouths, chopsticks swooping rapidly and efficiently from bowl to mouth in a movement that was both graceful and (to our Western eyes, at least) a bit greedy. Jet-lagged, disoriented, and bigger than all the other diners there, we clumsily clashed knees and prodded elbows as we swiveled around on our stools and gulped down every movement and moment being served up around us.

 

The next morning Garry and I had a couple of hours to explore a little of Bunkyo-ku—the ward or district the hotel was in—before he headed off with the rest of the broadcast crew to the arena where the games would be played, two days from now.

After Garry left, I lost no time heading back out into the city on my own: My traveler's instincts were tugging—like a dog on a leash—to be free to explore. The first thing I liked to do in a strange city was to find my bearings; I didn't feel comfortable until I knew where I was in relation to everything else. Also, I wanted to know as soon as possible what was out there to see and do. Tomorrow there was the date with Will the journalist; three days from now I had a date with Kylie's friend Rob, a Brit working out here for one of the big airlines.

So today I wanted to explore Bunkyo-ku.

I peeked into rice cracker bakeries, watching old ladies deftly wrap long, pungent strips of seaweed around little bricks of puffed rice, or lay hand-lacquered wafers on yards and yards of bamboo mats to dry. I braved the deafening racket of the pachinko parlors, where businessmen sat for the duration of their lunch break compulsively feeding ball-bearings into slot machines: a dexterous and addictive mix of hard concentration and soft porn.

After a long day, Garry and I arrived back at the hotel again at the same time. Too jet-lagged and weary to do much, we lay in the hotel's spacious steam room and caught up on each other's day. Garry had never seen me with my Road Head on and was eager to hear my stories of the world around the hotel, as he'd been working in the arena for twelve hours. Swathed in towels and steamed near insensible, we lay in the sauna and sweated companionably together.

And the next morning, like an old married couple, we had breakfast, kissed each other good-bye and went off in separate directions to work: Garry to continue setting up for the broadcasts at the arena, me to date Will the journalist.

 

Although I'd walked as far as the subway station at Edogawabashi, I hadn't yet traveled on the subway.

The first cut may be the deepest, but the first hurdle for solo independent travelers in a new country—whatever it may be—is always the highest. Until you have a sense of how routine things operate, a city remains frustratingly inaccessible. Today was no exception. All the ticket machines were in Japanese, and although countless locals were kind enough to stop and ask
“Can I help you?”
since it turned out that that was the full extent of their English, I remained stuck on square one.

In the end I just randomly bought a ticket. Through the barrier, I stood in front of the huge wall-mounted subway map to work out which lines would take me to Shibuya-Ku. Although the color-coded lines meant I could easily figure out where I had to go, it was going to be a complicated journey and I spent a few minutes looking for the shortest route. A student stopped and asked:
“Can I help you?”

Thinking it was another well-meant but ultimately pointless offer, I gave the briefest answer, only to be surprised and delighted when she replied: “Ah, Shibuya-Ku is on my way. Come with me and we will travel together.”

I didn't discover her name, but the young Japanese woman was a fascinating guide and we chatted all the way to my destination. She worked hard: In her fifth year of studying to be a doctor, she was also working in a bar to pay her tuition fees. I asked if that was how she had learned such good English.

“No,” she replied earnestly. “I spent last summer studying in New York.”

“Oh,” I said curiously. “On a medical program?”

“No,” she answered gravely. “I was training to be a cheerleader.”

As my eyebrows shot up in surprise, she gave a little moue of alarm, instinctively covering her mouth as she did so. “Here is your stop,” she said, bowing her head urgently as she gestured toward the closing door. “I hope you have a good stay here in Tokyo.”

I thanked her and jumped off the train, joining the crowd heading for the exit onto the street.

I was in Harajuku ward and was meeting
Will (Date #62)
here, at the entrance to Yoyogi Park. It was next to the square where the Japanese teen fashionistas bused in from the surrounding towns to show off their
look
(running the entire subcultural gamut from Ninja nurses to Goths and skate punks). Although curious about the phenomenon, we weren't meeting here for that reason: Will wanted to show me the Meiji Jingu shrine.