Around the World in 80 Dates (37 page)

But I was having trouble focusing. When I'd woken up this morning, I'd prepared myself mentally for a very long day of scenic traveling. What I wasn't ready for (and frankly didn't know that I could have been if I'd tried) was a Date I'd pretty much written off, reappearing and making the remaining
straightforward
days of my trip suddenly seem anything but.

I just had to tell someone before I burst.

Across the road from the railway station was an Internet café. Although I'd pretty much disbanded the Date Wranglers now (my trip was in the homestretch, and foolishly I'd imagined I wouldn't be needing them anymore), they were still my friends and there would be just enough time before I boarded the train to get an
ohmigod
message off to one of them. Whether to the Sonar Sisters, Lizzy and Grainne; my real sisters, Mandy and Toz; or Belinda, Charlotte, Cath, or even Jo, I needed to talk to someone about what had taken place in the airport this morning.

I found a free terminal, and as AOL flashed through its paces, I suddenly really hoped there'd be an email from Garry.

There wasn't.

But there was one from Gene.

 

I sat and stared at the screen. Which should I do: Get advice from one of my girlfriends, or open Gene's email and get in deeper?

I dithered for a second.

Then I opened Gene's email.

And it was light and fun. An uncomplicated and undemanding message, saying how much he'd enjoyed meeting me and embarking on our slightly surreal adventures together. Also how—like me—he wished we'd had more time to get to know each other:

I had a whole bunch of questions for you,
he wrote. And proceeded to ask me twenty fun, silly questions, like
Does every cloud have a silver lining?
I smiled as I read them: His tone was just right—conversational but with a hint of confidences.

But as I scrolled down to the bottom of the message, the last question was very different from all the others:

I pressed my fingers to my lips as I read the question, as if trying to suppress any emotion that might show on my face. Gene was raising the stakes with question twenty. I read and reread it; what was the best way to handle this? Reading Gene's email was one thing; replying, and replying to
that question,
was quite another. There'd been a real sense of
connection
at the airport this morning, both spontaneous and unexpected. But to reply to his email was different: It would nurture an intimacy—currently budlike and innocent—that would inevitably develop and grow. And however much I tried to pretend to the contrary, it would be the start of something between us.

I couldn't help being flattered, though, especially since the memory of our morning in the airport was still so fresh and real. In the end I opted to reply, but in a way that was light-hearted—friendly but not flirty—and I chose to ignore question twenty for now. As I finished typing, I hovered over the keyboard for an instant. Was this a good idea? Should I just delete it and not reply to him at all? But, stealing a quick glance at my watch and realizing I was running late, I impulsively hit
send,
and then, grabbing my bags, ran for the train.

 

The Taieri Gorge is rightly known as one of the world's classic train journeys. Nearly forty miles of track was painstakingly and gruelingly laid across the beautiful and remote center of the Otago Peninsula at the end of the 1800s. It connected out-of-the-way towns like Cromwell and Alexandra to the coast, allowing trade in and out of the otherwise isolated communities there.

The cargo the train now transported across the region—like steam trains everywhere—was tourists. Over the summer months the wooden carriages were full of Japanese and European visitors
oohhhing
and
ahhhing
at the dramatic gorges that dipped beneath the rails, falling steeply away to end in fast-flowing rivers lined by spiky clumps of yellow gorse and broom.

Today was no exception.

I love steam trains. My paternal grandfather worked on the Great Western Railway, and as kids we spent many happy afternoons either traveling up front on the trains with him or going with my parents on lines like the Bluebell in Sussex or the Lappa Valley in Cornwall. The Taieri Gorge train transported me back to my childhood, the plumes of acrid smoke streaming back to us from the engine's funnel, the soprano whistle echoing urgently through long, dark tunnels.

The whole journey had a homey feel to it. The staff all seemed to be old steam enthusiasts, volunteering out of their love for the trains. The guard gave an on-and-off commentary over the train's PA system, an introductory
“Righteo, folks”
alerting us to each upcoming point of interest. He had a butter mint in his mouth, and as he described each new feature, the mint clicked comfortably against his teeth, keeping time with his words like a spun-sugar metronome.

But as much as I was enjoying the journey, I was increasingly preoccupied by a creeping sense of wrongdoing. The heady excitement of this morning's encounter with Gene and the subsequent email exchange had dissipated slightly, and I was now able to think more calmly about what had happened and put it into a larger context.

Or, to be more specific, a
Garry context.

I'd been attracted to Gene, no question, but why? I adored Garry and—although missing him and going through a bit of a weird spell at the moment—I genuinely didn't want to be with anyone else. So why had Gene made such an impression?

I could blame it on being tired or feeling neglected or even
survivor bonding,
the way hostages unite to get through their ordeal. But where there might have been elements of truth in all these explanations, they weren't the real reason. The real reason was less noble and more basic, and it was that Gene—like Garry—was completely my type, so I'd been attracted to him and we'd clicked, instantly and powerfully.

A while ago, back in Europe before I'd met Garry and was struggling to maintain faith in my quest, I'd speculated on what my Soul Mate odds might be: one in how many dates before I met Mr. Right? Then I'd met Garry and had learned—using the Soul Mate Formula—that my Soul Mate odds were 1 in 55. Well, perhaps I should have asked what the odds of meeting
two
of my Soul Mates were, because sticking to the same formula, I'd inadvertently come up with the answer: 2 in 76.

Because I believed that Gene, Date #76, was my Soul Mate #2.

As the train puffed up hills, and grazing sheep, balancing unnecessarily on rocks, watched us pass with startled but lazy expressions, I tried to put aside my feelings of guilt to understand the chain of events that had led to them.

But no matter how much I tried to rationalize and explain away what had happened, I couldn't argue with how I felt. Gene, Date #76, was a man about whom my Soul Mate Job Description could have been written. And what did that mean? I'm no good at math—and do feel free to shout out the answer if you know it—but surely there must be some kind of Soul Mate Formula here, which, I figured roughly, would mean if I kept on dating, I would meet Soul Mate #3 by around Date #100.

Apart from all else that was going on, this was actually an incredibly reassuring and exciting discovery: that with the right attitude and effort, meeting your Soul Mate was a demonstrable and calculable proposition. And the longer you applied the formula, the shorter your Soul Mate odds became.

But my Attraction Fraction calculations were suddenly interrupted by a tugging on my sleeve. “You're for Pukerangi, aren't you, miss?” the guard was asking me urgently. He sounded slightly concerned, as well he might: I'd been staring out the window wrestling with my thoughts for four hours and hadn't even noticed the train pull into Pukerangi station. This was my stop and I had a connection to make.

Hurriedly thanking the guard, I scrambled to my feet, grabbed my bags, and in my dazed state almost fell off the train as I rushed to make the Middlemarch bus before it left without me. I found the bus, a small ten-seater minivan, easily: It was the only vehicle in the exposed, windswept parking lot.

Lloyd, the driver, noted my panic as I bustled up. “No need to worry, miss,” he said calmly. “Just you and two others getting on. We're not going anywhere without you.”

I smiled my thanks and, realizing I must be radiating a slightly manic air, attempted to get aboard in a manner that denoted both composure and dignity. But as I found a seat and dumped my bags on the floor, I realized that in my hurry to get off the train I'd left my laptop behind. My laptop, with my files, photos, emails and itineraries—my
life
—on it.
Count your bags on, count your bags off
is the first lesson any traveler learns.

Furious with myself for being so distracted and disorganized, I hurtled off the bus past Lloyd and sprinted across the gravel toward the train, which was slowly shunting out of the station. Shouting up at the driver, I asked if he could stop so I could jump on and retrieve my computer.

I scrambled on and off the train; then, laptop safely back in my possession, I meekly returned to the bus. Lloyd had the measure of me after that little display and there was no point in trying to persuade him otherwise.

All four of us—plus bags—safely aboard, Lloyd then drove the bus out of the station parking lot. And as we started our journey across the scrubland plains and stoic, weather-beaten granite of Otago's barren interior, once again I became lost in my thoughts.

So, if I'd uncovered the Soul Mate Formula, and my Dating Odyssey—leading me first to Garry, now to Gene—had been such a resounding success, why was it that I felt so confused?

The question was rhetorical, really: I already knew the answer. I was Garry's girlfriend and I shouldn't be accepting romantic overtures from anyone else. Garry trusted me. He was my Soul Mate, for chrissakes: I'd literally traveled the world to find him. And so what if Gene was my Soul Mate, too? I didn't need any more Soul Mates—it wasn't like I was looking to collect a set of them. I just wanted one, and Garry
was
that one. But by responding to Gene's email, I ran the risk of starting something I couldn't finish with Gene and having Garry finish with me altogether.

With a flash, I suddenly realized that this was why Fate had wanted me to keep traveling, to force me to realize that the journey was about more than just finding my Soul Mate. That was just the first—and, in a crazy way, the easiest—stage of my adventure.

Fate had shown me conclusively that the Soul Mate Formula worked: The right effort and attitude could and would lead to Mr. Right. But unless I wanted to keep on meeting Mr. Rights forever, I also had to have faith that I'd met The One, stop applying the Formula, and move on to the
next
stage of my journey
with him.

And the truth was, deep down, putting my heart on the line and running the risk of being hurt again felt like a gamble for this
gotta catch a plane
girl. Safer just to keep traveling.

But the journey I'd undertaken hadn't only led to my Soul Mate; it had also led to people wise about relationships and with faith in love. Having met them, I now had the tools to help me through the scary minefield of actually
being
in a relationship—if I could find the courage to use them.

Or I could just carry on hedging my bets and travel forever.

Well, as Chester, the professional gambler in Vegas, had told me: “Think about how much you have to lose…set your limit and when you reach it, get up and walk away.” I'd reached my limit now, and I had too much to lose. I had bet all the way up to Date #76, and I didn't want to play anymore. Garry was The One and I didn't want to hurt him, I didn't want to deceive him, and I didn't want to lose him.

It was time to fold. It was time to close my Date Wranglers' Little Black Books. The challenge wasn't playing the Soul Mate Odds from country to country, date to date anymore; it was taking that leap of faith and placing all my chips on Date #55.

I'd really liked Gene, and in other circumstances, who knew…? But I knew one thing for sure now: The answer to
“When can I see you again?”
question twenty, would be a tactful but unequivocal
“Never.”
I was hanging up my dating shoes and calling it a day.

 

I love New Zealand and—even in the midst of my dilemma—was enjoying Lloyd driving us along the deserted roads that crossed the bleak plains and skirted the desolate foothills of the dramatic Taieri Ridge. But I'd just made the decision to end my dating tour; this was a huge deal and I wanted to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. I contemplated my date escape route.

Middlemarch is a lick of a town—a petrol station and a general store—in the middle of nowhere. But I knew a bus went from Middlemarch to Queenstown. I had no idea how often it went, but if I could catch it, I'd be able to fly from Queenstown on to either Auckland or Wellington, and from there out of the country and away.