Can't Wait To get There

It'll be weird meeting him. After all, I only met him for ten
minutes, and that was a whole two years ago. He gave me his number, but
I never called. And then we became friends, quite good friends
considering. Good enough for me to get in touch with him on the evening
of 9/11, to make sure he hadn't been in New York. And now I'm
thirty-thousand feet up and three hours into my flight to LA from
London. By the time I meet him at LAX, it'll be two-thirty a.m. my time
and I'll have wilted. I check out the location of the nearest washroom,
not caring about the emergency exits. A fat lot of good they'll be if
we're ever in trouble nowadays!

"Oh, he liked you!" said my sister. She'd been watching us chatting, me
going into heavy metal overdrive while he packed his acoustic into a
hardcase splashed with Leonard Cohen stickers and American flags. It
was my sister's birthday and our dad had given us a fistful of dollars,
and told us to bugger off for the day. We went to the Cow's End, a
Pacific coast coffee shop, and I wondered why the caf? in Brixton that
I worked at couldn't be more like this joint. Plush velvet scatter
cushions, oil paintings of Fresian cows and stress-free ambience. There
was even a bloke sitting on a stool singing a song, though God knows
what about. We hadn't been listening, chatting instead to a bunch of
Brits from Morden, one of whom was about to go for US Citizenship. I
took some pictures to show my co-workers the conditions we deserved,
including one of the singer.

And after the show, he came over.

Now I remember where I've seen him before, I thought. His face was on a
poster at the Novel Caf? near Venice Beach, advertising his gigs. Stuck
to the door. Not a bad boat, I'd thought. Except for that pair of
stupid glasses that made him look like Olive from 'On the Buses'. Why
oh why, in a land that has spawned Calvin Klein, do Americans persist
in wearing comedy eyewear? Not even their confidence can carry it off!
But maybe us women are too picky.

"I've seen your poster, at the Novel Caf?" I tell the singer.

"Huh, I've seen you in there too, hun" he answers, in a voice deeper
than Brooklyn. He asks me how long I'm going to be in the US. Another
week, I say.

"Hey girl, wanna hang out?"

Later on, I look at the bright pink card, complete with gig itinerary,
that he's scribbled his phone number and his address down on. He's
penned a pointy arrow to the photo of him which accompanies the gig
dates, in case I forget who he is. 'Joel Novak - singer-songwriter,
nice guy, poet.' (So... he's a nicer guy than he is a poet, huh?) On
the flyer, he looks like he's just left a Positive Thinking class. But
there's something far more disturbing about all this. The phone number,
apart from the Santa Monica area code 310, is identical to my mum's
back home in London. I put the flyer in my pocket, knowing I wont call
him. After all, nice guys don't play rock and roll.

***

There's a middle-aged man at the back of the plane, doing some yogic
body pumps. A young couple who are walking up and down the aisles look
as if they think they should join in, before thinking better of it and
sitting back down with the papers. I ask him if these are the exercises
for deep vein thrombosis that are recommended in the BA in-flight
magazine. He nods with a pant, but he doesn't really understand because
he's German. Of course I don't know this yet, sitting down with the
Guardian I bought at Heathrow. I might give it to Joel. After all, it's
always said that Americans don't know the first thing about what's
happening outside their borders.

Joel. I spoke to him last night. It was six p.m. Pacific time, two in
the morning mine. He was excited to hear my voice. What did I want to
do when I got there? What should he buy me to drink? For some reason,
he had the idea that I drank like a fish. He knew what it was like
finding a hotel in LA, so I could stay at his. If I wanted to.

Since another sister suggested that I stay in touch with Joel - after
all, it's fun having friends abroad -we have exchanged regular e-mails.
I ended up on his mailing list, so whenever he gigged at the Coconut
Teazer on Sunset Blvd, I would hear about it on Brixton Hill. He was a
cute little pen friend, with whom I exchanged small talk and a bit of
mild flirtation.

And then I found out that he was a Scorpio. Maybe he wasn't such a nice
guy after all!

***

Looking on the bright side, I'd say that the flight is half-full. I'm
glad that the two seats beside me are empty, as I spread out for the
eleven hour stretch. Bottled water, novel notes and Body Shop Aloe Vera
moisturiser within easy reach. Slingbacks, every bit as daft as Joel's
glasses, but far sexier, are finally off my feet and under the seat in
front. It's an attempt to look smart when I go through US Customs. I
don't know why I've bothered putting them on this side of the trip,
because I know I'll get stopped at LAX.

"I was asking you earlier if those are the exercises that the cabin
crew advise us all to do" I say to the middle-aged man, who has
appeared in his track suit again. He's using my row of seats for his
press-ups and it's inevitable that at some time on the flight a terse
exchange will take place, so that we can go back to what we doing
before. Ignoring each other. We're class at that, us Brits. I used to
think we were an unfriendly bunch, but now I love my little bit of
solitude and my blinkers fit like gloves. A few seats across from me, a
party of young Anglo-Asians are laughing and larging it. One of the
cabin crew keeps coming over to them to large it with them. I guess
they're BA staff, or friends of, and have flown over for next to
nothing. I wonder if they'll get stopped at LAX, by an America in
terror of non-WASP faces.

The middle-aged man leans over and remarks that the flight is very long
one and it can be dangerous not to exercise. I agree with him, getting
up for another stroll around the plane. When I sit back in my empty
row, the man leans back into the conversation I thought had finished.
It was a very cheap flight for him, he explains in broken English,
prompting me to say that it had been a very cheap flight for me as
well. He's a grey-haired man with bright blue eyes and a Scandinavian
smile. I'm from Germany, he tells me. He's the only German I've ever
met of under sixty, whose English isn't perfect, but I don't tell him
this, of course. We talk about keeping fit during the flight, and I say
how I'd like one of the cabin crew to bring me a bottle of water.

"Ah, but there is a water container here" says the man, offering to
hand me a cones worth.

"Thank you" I reply graciously, silently hoping that he doesn't offer
to pour me any more. Because then I'll be obliged to chat some more to
him, and the conversation has already run on too long. When he says
that he heads a big German company however, I seize the moment to talk
about my work. After all, I'm a stained glass artist who has been
trained in executing big, public projects. I must tell this corporate
keep-fit type about my work, so hand over a business card. AND...
here's a book with photos of my work!

"Aaaah, Emily..." he says, looking at my card. "That is a nice
name."

"Thank you. What is your name?" I'm really only being polite, and one
of the reasons that I'm coming to LA is to make connections with my art
work. I may as well start on the plane!

One of the reasons? Well, if the truth be known, I would probably have
been better off in New York, and I've got a sister living there who I
could have stayed with. She's the sister who said go on, e-mail that
American guy. He sounds like a laugh. And I know it's crazy and
un-British, but it's not un-me and I'm intrigued to meet this pen
friend. It's an adventure! Oh, I'm not on some big e-romance trip,
though that would be great if he's great. I'm just heading where I
don't know anyone, where I can write and promote my art, but where I
can still be guaranteed to make instant friends if and when I want
company. And Joel's become a nice little pal who says kind things about
my work, and always asks me when I'm coming back to California. So a
month ago, I went ahead and booked a flight over.

Then Joel e-mailed to say that he'd done the West Coast and he was
leaving. The day after I arrived in Los Angeles.

I'm not gonna pretend I'm not fucked off. Really fucked off! Not with
him, because how was he to know part of my coming back was to meet him?
I never said that, and why would I have? Most guys I know would freak
if that happened to them, and I don't want to give him the wrong idea.
But what's the right idea?

I wasn't 'allowed' to be fucked off about this, at home with the Brits.
They're the ones who know me so well, who tell me how it's "all right
to be disappointed", but that I'm overreacting about someone I don't
know. They tell me that I wasn't coming over because of a guy anyway,
and that I will meet plenty of other singer-songwriters, as if that was
more important than the actual man. I've been paralysed in my British
shell, in a word of broadsheet readers and therapy-junkies.

It worked for us, they told me.

I'm becoming what other women want me to be, instead of ME at my own
pace. And so another dimension to this trip has been added, for by
travelling over vast expanses of water and land, I'm leaving behind
emotional subservience, political correctness and groups I've outgrown.
I know that when I come back, I wont be able to go back.

"Guess my name" says the German man. By now, I know that he is meeting
friends for a week in LA. He has two sons and he's been married twice.
I have my limits, and a once-divorced man is okay. But a twice-divorced
man...!

(Hang on, what the heck am I thinking this for? Should I bloody care
how many times this bloke's been married?)

Now he's looking into my eyes and saying that he can see my soul. That
I have a beautiful spirit and beautiful eyes. You're crossing a border
without a bleedin' visa, mate!

"My name is English means Freedom of God" he says. "Do you know what it
is in German?"

"No" I tell him. I could probably work it out, but I just want him to
go away. The showing-him-my-work ploy has only encouraged him. I wish
they'd teach you reading body language at theose blessed 'Feel the Fear
and DO IT ANYWAY!' classes. Surely he can tell I want him to fuck off
back to his seat...?

"My name in German is Gottfried" he announces. "You want more water?"
He hands me another cone, which I accept as I'm parched. A girl across
from me, as comfy as a well-fed lioness on savannah scrub in her
middle-of-an-empty-row seat, looks over and smiles, as Gottfried
witters on. Poor cow, she could well be thinking about me. She thought
that she was getting a seat at the back on her own, and she's got
lumbered with the in-flight bore.

"Well, it's been interesting talking to you" I lie, "but I'm very
tired, and I want to be wide awake when I meet my friend. He's
collecting me from the airport." He.

Gottfried goes back to his seat and once I know he's gone, I surface to
read the paper. Just as I thought, he returns at regular intervals to
do his on-the-spot jogging, conveniently picking the spot at the back
of the plane every time. And every time he's there, I pretend to be
asleep. I can just make out the Rockies from the plane window if I open
my eyes a nick, just in the nick of time to see Gottfried peering over
my shoulder. I'm still asleep.

One day I may think of this over-friendly Continental, old enough to be
my father, and regret not getting his LA number. Just like I regret not
calling Joel two years ago, for these next few hours will be over far
too quickly. But just in case I was too coy to take his details,
Gottfried e-mails me two weeks later:

SUBJECT Do You remember - flight BA 269 LHR to LAX ?
MESSAGE Hi EMILY, do You remember our talk in the plane? I remember You
pretty and wonderful, You are a beautiful woman ..... I remember the
last view at You outside of the plane ..... I saw You from behind ....
Your beautiful legs !
I remember my view in Your wonderful eyes ! I remember You and think
about
You and I hope You are o.k.
I think about You .... :-) Gottfried
p.s. I hope You understand my "German thinking and English
writing"

When we land at LAX, it's dusk. I locate the washroom and chat with a
friendly stewardess, telling her that I'm about to meet some boy I met
in a bar, a long time ago. She's says that I look great. After I get
pulled over by US Customs, I pull out the bright pink flyer with the
number on it. But I already know it. It's my mum's number, but with 310
at the beginning instead of 0208.