Chapter Ten
U.S.A.—Missoula, Montana
Me with real rodeo-ers, Bill and
Ramona Holt, at the Holt
Heritage Museum, Missoula, USA
In the heart of the Rocky Mountains that run southeast from Alaska all the way down to Mexico, Missoula was one of those places where it was hard not to have a good time. The University of Montana’s campus was here, so there was always a decent band playing, plus with all the rivers and trails dotted around, you could pedal, paddle, and promenade to your heart’s content.
That was one of the reasons I’d planned to come here on my dating tour: Missoula has always been one of my feel-good places and, even before I’d met the Love Professor, I’d known that happy people are luckier in love. The other reason was a bit sillier but no less heartfelt. Nicholas Evans’s book The Smoke Jumper was based on the Missoulian firemen who fight the huge fires that ravage the surrounding area each summer by jumping out of planes directly into the path of the blaze.
It was a classic, sappy love story full of fearless, athletic, yet imperceptibly vulnerable men doing a real and dangerous job. I was in a romantic daze as I read it and—since it was set in my beloved Missoula—wanted to see for myself if the real smokejumpers were just as dreamy.
Of course, all this was before I met Garry.
For the ten hours I’d been traveling, I could only think of two things: how much I needed a bath and how much I missed Garry. The notion that I had Dates waiting for me at the end of the journey (the smokejumper plus a rodeo rider and possibly Cam, an American friend of Jo’s) was not so much unwelcome as unimaginable.
Descending the steep mountain pass from Interstate 90 into Missoula, I was struck by the eerie brown pall engulfing not just the entire town but the mountains all around it. I already knew from conversations with the Missoula Smokejumpers’ headquarters that this summer’s fires were some of the worst on record: over 3,300 wildfires already burning out of control across 665,800 acres, with new fires taking hold every day. It was only now I was here that I understood just how serious it was, and I felt guilty for having taken such a flippant attitude.
Parking the car, I walked up the steps of the Holiday Inn, admiring the pretty Clark Fork River and bike trails that ran behind the hotel and along the edge of town. Down in the valley it was a fabulous sun-trap, but the smoke from the burning mountains that surrounded us made the hot sun hazy. I couldn’t actually see the smoke but my eyes were streaming and my throat stung; people checking in ahead of me were coughing constantly. The town really was in the grip of a disaster.
I wasn’t surprised, therefore, when reading my messages up in my room, to see one from Tim Eldridge, my contact at the smokejumper HQ and the man Nicholas Evans’s main character had been based on. He wanted to warn me that the date probably wasn’t going to happen since all the men were working back-to-back shifts trying to control the fires. He invited me to meet him at HQ the next day and said he’d do the best he could. I left a message immediately asking him to please not worry about the date: I hoped everyone was safe and, yes, I’d love to meet him tomorrow.
I opened up my laptop. On the Playa there had been no cell-phone coverage, no emails, so I hadn’t been in contact with the outside world for five days. But as AOL popped onto the screen, it quickly became clear that the outside world had indeed been in contact with me.
There were 378 emails. From Dates who had been, Dates who were to be, and friends checking the details on Dates who might be. There were confirmations from hotels; invoices for reserved flights; details for rental cars to be collected. There were also work emails: Could I do an interview about this; was I free to write an article about that; did I have the notes for a conference I was chairing next month?
My eyes blurred as I struggled to take in the details, and I finally gave up and ran a bath instead.
After five days in the desert—where I had barely washed, knowing not to waste a single precious drop—I now marveled at how freely the water gushed from the taps. It seemed an extraordinary extravagance to be able to lie in a huge tub of hot, clean water.
Undressing, I was shocked when I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror: Tanned a deep brown, my face was sprinkled with freckles and my body was caked with sand and dirt from the desert. My hair was rigid with dust, my plaits sticking out almost at right angles. It took me a moment to work out why I had angry red welts and black bruises on my bottom, until I realized I was inspecting the handiwork of Bike Mistress.
Exhausted from the last week’s excitement and lack of sleep, I caught myself dozing off in the bath, and had to drag myself out and dry off. Crawling into the impossibly huge and impossibly clean bed, I slept like a dead person for fourteen hours.
The next morning, feeling stunned like I had jet lag, I walked to one of the downtown coffee shops. Armed with a couple of strong black coffees, I planned another attempt at reading my emails and getting my thoughts into some sort of order.
“A grande Americano with space please,” I told the thirty-something woman busy taking orders behind the counter—a black coffee, cup not filled to the top. Starbucks has taught even us Brits the universal language of coffee ordering: Espresseranto.
She took my money. “I’m not sure what kind of spice you want, hon,” she noted helpfully, “but we have cinnamon over there by the milk.”
I looked at her blankly. “Spice?” I repeated slowly; then realizing she’d misunderstood my accent, I laughed and said: “Not spice, s-p-a-c-e,” putting heavy emphasis on the offending vowel.
Now it was her turn to stare blankly. Another woman, making the coffee, sensed a problem and came over to the counter. “Everything okay?” she asked brightly.
The first woman turned and said: “She wants spice but we only have cinnamon.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the barista apologized. “What kind of spice was it that you wanted?”
I was a bit too tired for this, but persevered. “I don’t want s-p-i-c-e,” I explained, enunciating for all I was worth, “I want s-p-a-c-e.” Now both looked at me blankly. I tried another tack: “Room. I’d like room in the cup, please.”
Upon hearing my request, both women stiffened visibly and regarded me with open disapproval. “We don’t have a license to serve alcohol, ma’am,” the barista said with a sniff. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go to a bar if you want to drink.”
This really was too much. Putting both hands flat on the counter and leaning toward them menacingly, I hissed through gritted teeth: “Not RUM, r-o-o-m!” A caffeine-withdrawal meltdown was barreling irrevocably toward the surface, like a great white shark with a stomach unexpectedly full of cork.
“She wants a black Americano with space,” the man behind me called across the counter. That’s what I just SAID, I thought to myself. But his American accent made all the difference and the cloud perceptibly lifted from the countenances of both women. They beamed, as all anxiety over serving the alcoholic foreign lady vanished and they busied themselves with my order. I turned to thank the man, but he spoke first: “It’s Jennifer, isn’t it?”
That threw me. Could today be any more disorienting?
“Ummm, yes?” I replied, as if unsure myself. “Errrr, how do you…?”
“I’m Cam,” he interrupted, seeing my bewilderment, “Jo’s friend? I swung by your hotel to ask if you wanted me to show you around a little. They said I’d find you here.”
God, it was a Date. I was on a date and I hadn’t even had a flaming cup of coffee yet.
Date #56: Cam—Missoula, Montana, U.S.A.
Cam was a friend of Jo’s. They’d met at a Buddhist retreat in California, where he lived. Although I was grateful he’d rescued me from my coffee debacle (it turned out to be terrible coffee, for the record), he scared the bejesus out of me right from the start.
With a shaven head and extraordinary cornflower-blue eyes (I felt like I was on The Amazing Eyes of America tour—all the men I met seemed to have them), he sat across the table from me, talking about kayaking but giving me a direct and unnerving look that said: I will take all your clothes off here and now, if you just say the word.
It was all too much. I hadn’t yet mentally prepared myself: I was still loved up and back in Garryland.
Every year, Cam came to Missoula to take a ten-day rafting trip along the Lochsa River. He’d got back from it just the night before and was excited and energized by the adventure. “Moving with the elements allows you to harness the energy of nature,” he told me, his face feverish with excitement. Apparently he’d come away believing more strongly than ever that “you can’t waste that energy. You have to store it up and channel it through everyday life; channel it through the people you meet.”
It was no good: I wasn’t in the mood for Cam and his channeling. “Cam, it’s lovely to meet you,” I said, trying to stem the flow. “And I’m glad you had such an exciting trip, but…” And I told him all about Burning Man and Garry and how I needed a couple of hours simply to absorb and understand what had happened to me. I was sorry and was very much looking forward to our date, but could we maybe have it a little later?
Cam smiled. “That’s beautiful, Jennifer,” he said, taking my hand in his. “And I can feel this man has affected you deeply: I have to tell you that you are generating some very strong, spiritual energy right now.” I nodded, relieved. “In fact,” Cam continued, now trailing his fingers across my palm and circling them around my wrist, “perhaps there is a way that you and I can channel our energies together.” Giving me that look again, he edged his chair closer, sliding his leg slowly and deliberately against mine. “It would be a very powerful experience for us both,” he added in a low voice.
Wriggling my hand out of Cam’s grip, I lurched unsteadily to my feet as I attempted to disentangle my legs from his while grabbing my laptop from underneath the table and snatching my cardigan from the back of the chair.
“So, umm, Cam, thank you for coming out to find me,” I stammered, backing away from the table and pretending I hadn’t understood his suggestion. “I’m pretty busy while I’m here and, actually, may have to go early. But, you know, I’ve got your number, so if there’s time, I’ll…uummm…give you a call.” And with that, I fled the café and went straight back to my hotel, leaving a message at reception that under no circumstances was I to be disturbed.
Back in my room, I threw myself onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling for inspiration. What was I going to do? Where could my dating tour go from here? I mean, forget about Cam and his energetic overtures, could I carry on dating any man when all I could think about was Garry?
It felt like sitting down to dinner having already eaten: I wasn’t hungry for more dates. I wanted to see Garry, pick up where we’d left off. I felt embarrassed to be missing him already—it was only a day since I’d seen him, for chrissakes—but it wasn’t just that I missed his presence: I missed the way I felt when I was with him.
But what if it was just Playa Love?
What if, outside the extraordinary, emotionally live environment of BRC, we met in the real world and…there was nothing? No spark, no wonder?
Should I give up on my trip or should I keep dating?
If I stopped dating, Garry and I would have the time to get to know each other and see if this was for real. But would I then feel I’d let my Dates and Date Wranglers down? And if I didn’t complete my journey, would there always be a quiet voice whispering What if?
From a positive perspective, would continuing to date be the test that proved Garry and I really were Soul Mates? But did I have the confidence in me, in Garry and me, and in Fate, to believe our relationship could survive the rest of my journey? Or was I being naïve and selfish even imagining that a relationship could be that flexible? Would I inevitably push Garry’s understanding too far and lose him forever?
Ugh! It was all going round and round in my head. I wanted to do the right thing, but I had no idea what the right thing was. Then it hit me. I sat up on the bed and dragged my laptop onto my knees.
This was a question for the Date Wranglers.
My Very Dear Date Wranglers,
I’m sorry to be so me, me, me (though you all know me well enough not to be surprised), but, as the inner circle of my Date Wranglers, I am in urgent need of your advice and counsel.
55 dates in, I’ve met my Soul Mate and I don’t know what to do.
I met Garry at the Burning Man Festival last week and it was pretty much love at first sight (see attached pic). From the moment he took me on the moonlit bike ride through the desert—romantic and magical—we were inseparable.
He’s my age, works in radio, lives in Seattle, and is funny, kind, and utterly gorgeous :) I’m going to stay with him in Seattle next week to see how we get on in “real life.”
But in the meantime, I’m in Missoula and the last thing I feel like doing is dating the rodeo rider or smokejumper while I’m missing him so much. I still have loads more dates to go and don’t want to drop everything at the first sign of SMA (Soul Mate Action), but at the same time, he’s just great and I don’t seem to be able to think beyond that.
Please tell me what you think I should do.
Sorry to be so melodramatic—this has completely thrown me. I always assumed I’d meet someone in Fulham when I got home! Hope you are all groovy and well. Kisses, Jxxx
P.S. Jo—we need to talk about Cam!
The moment I sent the email I felt relieved: I knew I’d done the right thing. The DWs would give me some perspective and good advice. The situation felt too big for me alone, and for the millionth time I was grateful to have such good friends to call on.
And, seeing that the decision was now percolating through the system, I felt free to get on with my day. Grabbing a coffee from reception, I jumped in the car and drove the seven miles west out of town to the Missoula Smokejumper HQ.
Tim wasn’t there, but he’d left another message saying he was sorry he couldn’t make it, he was out fielding calls. As he’d predicted, all the men were out fighting the fires, so getting me a date (Date #57) had proven impossible.
To be honest, I felt relieved, and that was nothing to do with my feelings about Garry. The fires were so bad, crews were being called in from neighboring states to help. This was clearly the wrong time for me to be turning up looking for a fun night out.
Latching onto a passing tour, I noticed a visiting crew were just finishing a tour of their own and were preparing to drill. Liz, our guide and a student volunteer, explained that drills were vital: From the time the siren sounded to being airborne, the crew had less than twelve minutes to drop everything, scramble into their 110-pound packs and suits, and be in position aboard the plane. To do this, the smokejumpers had to be fit (able to do seven pull-ups, forty-five sit-ups, and twenty-five push-ups and run a quarter of a mile in less than eleven minutes) as well as organized.
We walked through the locker room (a sign on the wall declaring STUPID HURTS), passing a couple of men at a bank of sewing machines making their own parachutes, and out into the workshop where yet more parachutes were stretched over long benches, smokejumpers hunched over them painstakingly inspecting their condition. A two-way radio sat on a shelf, surrounded by multiple containers of eyedrops and the largest collection of indigestion tablets I’d ever seen.
It was clearly a stressful life, and the room crackled with testosterone, boredom, and restless tension. The men were certainly manly, but Liz gave me a sobering insight into how life with a smokejumper would be.
Watching the visiting crew doing pull-ups on a bar, one of the women in our group asked Liz if she fancied any of the crew. “No,” Liz replied, looking uncomfortable. “I know all the wives, who spend every day wondering if this will be the day their husbands don’t make it home.”
Back at the hotel, I logged on and was amazed to see that twenty-one of the DWs had already got back to me. All had clear and strong opinions as to what I should do. Some qualified their advice before giving it, like Paula:
I want you to know that what I know about boys can be written on the back of a very small postage stamp to a very small island…however…
Reading through the suggestions, I felt like a contestant on some kind of reality game show where everyone was ringing in and voting on my next move. There were two unanimous reactions. Firstly, thrilled I’d met someone I liked so much:
OOOOOHHHHHHH MMMMMMYYYYYYY
GOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For real? He looks damn cute, that’s for sure! Grainne xxxxx
Secondly, demanding to know which of them could claim the Date Wrangler crown, having pulled off this coup:
I’ll be interested to know how the date came about (or to cut to the chase…WHO gets the credit?). Lots of love, Hec and Ang xxx
P.S. Call IMMEDIATELY if you find yourself serenading complete strangers with songs by the Carpenters and declaring yourself to be “On Top of the World” to anyone who’ll listen….
However, on the dating question of should I stay or should I go, the DWs were split down the middle.
The No Girl—Stop Dating camp was all female, and romantic:
Wallow in it. Even if he is the one and you spend the rest of your lives together, it’ll never be the same as it is for the first ninety days together…. I’m thrilled for you. Lots of love, Alison
inventive:
You’ve had 55 dates around the world, can’t you do another 25 with Garry? My advice is give it a go and forget about the singing cowboy or whoever you had lined up for subsequent dates. If you don’t, you’ll kick yourself. Sarah xxxxx
and considerate:
No need to travel any farther. It would not be fair on you, it would not be fair on Garry, not to mention those poor fellows who are waiting to meet you. Malgosia xxxx
The Go Girl—Keep Dating camp was a mix of male and female, and practical:
No matter how lovely Garry is, don’t give up now. If it’s meant to be, and if he’s the guy for you, he’ll wait for you. Simple as that. Lyn xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
sensible:
when you’re rolling round in the desert with exciting people, art installations, and dusty nipples at every turn (and I’m taking this directly from you, girl), most people look attractive/sexy/cool…but when you see him doing the washing up or queuing to buy a coffee…well, that’s the test. The mundane stuff. Cath xxx
and extremely direct:
Coxy—put the relationship on hold till you’ve finished or do the rest REALLY FUCKING FAST!! Love, S
My advice would be to stay with your Soul Mate in Seattle & let me carry on the dating game for you! Okay, that wasn’t very helpful, but you can’t give up: What if a month down the line SMA turns into GOOMFYP (Get out of my face, you prat!)? Good luck, sweetie. She MacB xx
Some brought their expertise to the problem:
Being an obsessive astro-chick—what’s his star sign/date/time of birth? If he’s an Aquarian, don’t get too excited too soon: They fall head over heels every couple of months…Glam Tan xxxx
Others brought their own problem to the problem:
Can’t talk about Cam or anything else now…am having trouble with Ryan AGAIN. Saw his ex at the pub, who “really wants to be friends again.” Of course, we had a huge fight. Why does he get pissed off with me when SHE’S the bitch who broke his heart? Ah, yes, Love…that used to be a nice feeling. Jo xxx
It was Belinda who gave the advice that was practical as well as romantic:
…You’ve worked so hard setting up this trip; you won’t be happy unless you see it through to the end. Garry has to trust this isn’t about you looking for another man: It’s about you having your crazy adventure. If it’s going to work, he needs to appreciate that that’s who you are and love you for it, as we all do. Love B xxxxx
The jury was split.
Which actually was fine with me: They’d given me tons to think about and ultimately it was my decision. So I shut down the computer, put on a pair of shorts, and went and rented a mountain bike.
I think better when I’m on the move, and now, as I cycled along the trail that followed the Clark Fork River east to the university, I mulled over my situation.
I hardly noticed the football teams dashing up and down the field, their coach sweating as he shouted instructions; or the couples—also on bikes—chatting comfortably as their dogs bounded up and away; or even the early-twenties girl dressed in black, sitting strumming her guitar in the shade of a broad tree. I was pedaling hard and thinking harder.
As I saw it, this was my situation. I’d presented Fate with a challenge: I’d find and date eighty men around the world (okay, seventy-nine dates with seventy-nine men and one date with twenty-five women), and in return she’d give me my Soul Mate. I felt pretty sure Garry was The One, so Fate had delivered.
But of course, life is never that simple.
Rather than giving me my Soul Mate on Date #1 or Date #80, Fate had come through in the middle of my journey: Date #55. It was brutal timing, presenting no end of problems, but the fact was: Fate had delivered.
And maybe there was a reason for it happening this way. Maybe I’d met Garry halfway through the Odyssey because Fate had an additional purpose for my journey that I had yet to discover.
It might sound ridiculous, but my instincts told me that I had to stick to my plans, that if I didn’t honor my side of the bargain, I’d lose Garry; if I reneged on my end of the deal, Fate would renege on hers.
I had no choice: If I wanted to keep Garry, I had to keep dating.
I’d need to ask Garry what he thought. I’d also need to tell the remaining twenty-five dates how my circumstances had changed (and accept that some might not want to see me as a result), but I’d made up my mind: I was going to keep dating.
Going back to the hotel was hard: Now that I was clear about what I needed to do, I really wanted to talk with Garry and try to explain my reasoning. I wanted to talk to him anyway; I missed him, and now that the pressure of the next step had lifted, I wanted to hear his voice and know I hadn’t just imagined the whole thing (and that he hadn’t changed his mind!).
The message light was flashing as I entered my room. My heart leaped: Even though I knew Garry was still at the festival, was it possible he’d found a way to call me?
But the message was from Chip, a friend of Tim’s and a fellow smokejumper. He was getting married this weekend, had heard my story, and did I want to come and have dinner with him and his fiancée tonight? They lived a ways out of town. I checked my watch: I’d been cycling for four hours and it was now too late to go over. I rang Chip to explain.
He was incredibly friendly and down-to-earth. The wedding—a barbecue in the paddock overlooking the river, everyone drinking and dancing to a local band—sounded fantastic and I was sorry I wasn’t going. Chip in turn was fascinated by my journey and the lengths to which I had gone to meet a Soul Mate. “You shoulda done what I did,” he told me over the phone.
“Oh, what’s that?” I asked, intrigued, imagining a barn-raising or a moonlight hike through the forests, or maybe even a dramatic rescue from the heart of a ferocious fire.
“Go on the Inner-net,” he told me, breezily shattering my fantasies. “That’s the way we meet our Soul Mates in these parts.”
Cheered by my conversation with Chip, I took my book down to the hotel bar. It was full of petrol-heads from the Mustang Car Convention, which was currently making parking impossible outside. Aware I was a date down, I let one of the exhibitors buy me a beer as a sacrifice to the Numbers God. But my heart wasn’t in it: I felt guilty and all I could think about was Garry.
The next day was the day I was going to hear from Garry, and time wouldn’t pass fast enough. I wanted him to be the one to call but feared I’d be weak and ring him first (which, as much as I liked him, was obviously out of the question). I needed a distraction: It was a good day to get back on the Dating Wagon.
First, I sent an email to my Seattle Dates, letting them know that there had been a change in my date status: one to Jason, the president of the Ukulele Association of America, and the other to Ted, a friend of Posh PR Emma’s.
Ted! :)
Hey there, matie, how are you? How’s it been since last we spoke? I’m good, really well thx.
Now, I have some good and bad news! The good news is I’ll be in Seattle from Thursday. The bad news—I’ve met my Soul Mate and he lives in Seattle!
I’d still really love to meet you, though—finally put a face to the typeface!! Let me know what you think.
Take care, Jx
I know, I know: an insane amount of punctuation and far too hearty and fake-cheerful. But let me ask you this: How do you tell a man you’ve never met—but have been in contact with for two months because you’re dating eighty men around the world—that you’ve met someone else but, hey, did he still want to meet up and go on a date?
And then have to do it another twenty-four times?
And I still had to tell Garry about popping across to Australasia and completing my dating tour.
I’m not asking for sympathy. Just observing that, for some, the course of true love ne’er runs smooth. For me, the course of true love had not so much failed to run smooth as mounted the central median of the highway and taken out three lanes of oncoming traffic, and was now burning out of control on top of a hot-dog stand on the hard shoulder opposite.
Or maybe it just seemed that way to me.
Next, I rang Sandy. She was my local contact and would be able to tell me where I was meeting Cleete, the rodeo rider (Date #58). He had apparently thrown himself into rodeo riding after his wife had left him, and I was curious as well as slightly nervous to hear more about his life.
“Oh, I was just about to call you,” Sandy said as soon as she heard my voice. Apparently, the date was off. “Cleete’s recovering from surgery,” she told me apologetically. “It’s an occupational hazard when you ride those bulls. He punctured a lung and broke his back in seven places.”
I murmured my sympathy; clearly Cleete had thrown himself into rodeo in every sense of the word.
“He’s been quite depressed,” she continued in a motherly tone, as if explaining why little Billy couldn’t come out and play football, “and really isn’t up to dating at the moment.”
Reassuring Sandy that I understood (which I did; why he would choose to do something so dangerous was what I was struggling with), I noted her suggestion to visit Bill and Ramona Holt. They ran a rodeo museum on their ranch out of town and had been in the business themselves for over forty years.
The Holt Heritage Museum housed a huge and fascinating collection of wagons, saddles, and folk art from the Nez Perce Indians (who developed the Appaloosa horse) and the cowboy ranchers who settled here alongside them. It also celebrated rodeo riding, a sport with a following as big and fanatical in the western States as soccer in the U.K.
For years Bill Holt was one of the sport’s top announcers and Ramona Holt, his wife, one of the country’s leading barrel racers (where tiny women hurtle at breakneck speed on horse-back around a course of barrels).
Ramona let me inspect the wagons, rescued and restored from the turn of the twentieth century. Cowboy life looked organized but hard: Families were isolated and forced to be self-sufficient (noting my squeamish reaction to hearing that people sewed up their own wounds, Ramona told me she’d sewn up all her children’s wounds: “When you live in the country, that’s just how things are,” she said with a shrug).
Cowboy ranching—close-knit families tending cattle on horseback—was at the heart of rodeo. Like ranching, rodeo was a family affair. Rodeo riders weren’t contracted to a team; they mostly came from ranching families, the parents and wives acting as their support units (driving the horses across the country, maintaining the equipment, etcetera).
Rodeo was divided into five major events: steer wrestling, team roping, tie-down roping, barrel racing, and bull riding. Showing me around a barn full of intricately tooled leather saddles, Bill told me rodeo was a serious business. “It’s a professional sport and the competitors are professional athletes,” he said gravely.
Bill stressed that the sport had standards. A heritage, too. “It’s the only sport that’s grown out of an industry,” he said proudly. “The cattle industry. Rodeo represents ranching and the Old West.”
It made sense that rodeo had evolved from ranching. Like being a turn-of-the-century-cowboy’s wife, life with a rodeo rider sounded like a hard, extremely full-time job. I doubted that I—riding skills limited to cycling to Starbucks every morning; animal-wrangling skills limited to a pet hamster when I was eight—would be a natural fit. I explained to Bill I’d been due to date a ranch cowboy, but he’d been too damaged (something I generally didn’t discover until the date) to make it.
“When you say he had a punctured lung,” Bill said, waving his hand dismissively and snorting with contempt, “well, he wasn’t wearing a protective vest. You’re telling me straightaway he’s not a professional.” Like a father comforting his stood-up daughter on prom night, he patted my arm reassuringly. “I’m sure he’s a wonderful guy, but, sweetie, he’s just an amateur.”
Amateur date promptly dismissed, Bill and Ramona showed me around their collection of cowboy boots.
It was fabulous: a vast array of boot couture featuring the cream of C & W instep royalty, from John Wayne, Johnny Cash, and Clint Eastwood to Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, and Loretta Lynn. I teased Bill when he showed me Tom Selleck’s boots. Shiny and showy, they were the cowboy boot equivalent of a Porsche.
“They’re surprisingly small,” I taunted mischievously.
“No, ma’am,” Bill replied firmly, without hesitation, “I think you’ll find you’re wrong there.”
I left the ranch in no doubt that—from head to toe—rodeo men were Real Men.
As I walked into the hotel lobby, one of the receptionists called me over. “Ms. Cox, you have a visitor. He’s waiting outside on the terrace.”
A visitor? My heart sank. Oh, please, don’t let it be Cam.
With a huge sense of dread and trepidation, I walked through the side doors onto the terrace that looked out across the river. But I didn’t recognize the man sitting quietly on the bench, his eyes closed as if asleep. He wore a cowboy hat and leather chaps. He also wore an extremely uncomfortable-looking corset, which reached from his waist up to his neck, holding him in a rigid upright position.
Oh, no. This had to be Cleete, the rodeo rider.
As he heard my feet on the path, Cleete turned awkwardly, winced, tried to stand up, winced again, and miserably eased himself back into a sitting position on the bench.
“Oh, my God, Cleete, is that you?” I asked, sitting carefully next to him, fearing he’d try to stand up again.
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” Cleete replied through gritted teeth, sweat trickling down his face, either from the heat of the corset or the pain of his injuries.
“Cleete, whatever are you doing here? Sandy said you were recovering from surgery,” I asked, horrified.
Unable to turn, Cleete wiggled the fingers on his left hand, as if they were doing the talking. “Couldn’t have no Enger-lish lady thinkin’ rodeo riders let a little biddy bit o’ pain git in the way o’ their datin’,” he wheezed, clearly in agony.
This was crazy.
“Cleete, how did you get here? Did Sandy bring you?” He wiggled his fingers. I took that to mean yes. “Is she here now?” Again he wiggled his fingers. Asking Cleete to excuse me, I ran into reception, borrowing their phone, and called Sandy on her cell.
She answered straight away. “I know, I know, Jennifer,” she told me in a fluster. “But he just wouldn’t listen to reason. He insisted on coming to meet you.”
“Sandy, you’ve got to come and pick him up,” I told her sternly. “The man should be on anti-inflammatories and pain killers, not on a date.”
“I’m just pulling into the parking lot now,” she said, sounding more harassed than ever. “I’ll be with you in two minutes.”
Four minutes later, Sandy and I were loading Cleete into her truck.
“Don’t be leavin’ on my account.” Cleete winced as Sandy gently buckled the seat belt over his surgical corset.
“It’s not you, it’s me,” I lied, wanting him to get home but with his pride intact. “I have a bit of a headache.”
Rigid with pain, Cleete was clearly having trouble focusing. He stared vaguely from the backseat as if a hundred miles away. “Ma’am, I sure am sorry to hear that,” he mumbled politely. “I have some pills here that’ll git rid of that problem for you real fast.”
But Sandy had started the truck and was shouting her goodbyes. I thanked Cleete for coming to see me and waved them off.
That poor man: If bull riding was helping him forget the pain of a broken heart, his heart had clearly taken quite a thrashing.
Back in my hotel room, and still no message from Garry. Like a plate, I couldn’t spin forever; my resolve not to call wobbled precariously.
I mean, it was fine: I knew he would call and it was still only 5 p.m. But in the meantime, waiting for the call was like needing to go to the toilet really badly: Until it had happened, it was impossible to do or think about anything else.
I turned on my laptop hoping to distract myself with Date Traffic. I thought Ted and Jason might have got back to me. I felt curiously guilty: almost as if by meeting Garry I’d cheated on them. I wanted to check that they were okay with my change in date status and that their feelings weren’t hurt.
Scrolling down the emails, I caught up with the news from my world around the world. Things were calmer (for now) between Jo and Ryan; Cath had just got back from Antarctica; Belinda’s baby daughter Maya was walking; my Thai date was happy I’d met someone but still wanted to go ahead with our date. I opened an email from a woman whose name I half-recognized:
Hello, Jennifer—How are you? Things are excellent though extremely busy here: We are setting up another conference and I wanted to ask Kelly to speak. I bumped into him and his girlfriend at a party last week but don’t have his email address. Could I trouble you for it? All the best, Sue
My heart started to beat really fast as I read the email. I felt my mouth go dry and I put my hand up to it, as if fearing my heart was going to leap right out.
Kelly had a girlfriend.
You never know how much you’re really over your ex, until you hear he has another girlfriend. Yes, I know I was dating stacks of people, I had met Garry, and I know it was now nearly a year and a half since Kelly and I had split up. But the shock of someone casually talking to me about him and his girlfriend was still immense.
I forgot to turn the computer off; I just scooped up my sunglasses, grabbed my bag, and went straight out into the smoke-hazed, late afternoon heat. In a daze, I got on the bike and cycled across town to the Iron Horse microbrewery. I needed a drink.
I found a table in the corner of the terrace and sat staring out across the other drinkers without noticing a single one of them.
Kelly had a girlfriend.
I hated that it hurt so much. And the fact that it did took me by surprise. For me, he was an appalling boyfriend; I was glad we weren’t together anymore AND I’d just met the most amazing man ever. So why did it hurt that Kelly was with someone else? I thought I’d got him completely out of my system; why was there still undigested Kelly clogging up my emotional colon?
All these thoughts jostled around my head, fighting to be the one that made me feel the worst. I took a sip of my honey ale and pushed my sunglasses up my nose to hide the tears that were threatening to spill over my lower lashes.
Not wanting to cry in front of anyone made me more aware of the people at the tables around me. Two women in their late twenties sat close by. Both had huge manes of bleached blond hair, billowing magnificently out like breaking waves sculpted from cotton candy. They leaned close together, talking and smoking furiously.
They had boyfriend problems. The woman on the left stubbed her cigarette out, keeping on stubbing long after the glow was extinguished and the cigarette crumpled into the filter. “…I mean, I was only out of town for a week,” she said bitterly, “it really pisses me off.”
My heart sank further as I eavesdropped. Comparing their cheating boyfriends’ misdemeanors, they complained it was hard to be a woman, yet both were standing by their man.
Two more women singing in Tammy’s choir.
Was this the course of all relationships: starting out thrilled that you’d found your Soul Mate; ending up hating yourself for being a doormat? And if that was the case, did I really want to be in another relationship? Was Garry going to turn into another Kelly? Could I trust him, or would I always be bracing myself, waiting for the telltale signs it had all gone wrong?
I took a long sip of my drink and thought hard. Suddenly I felt a surge of irritation with myself for being so melodramatic. Oh, get over it, Jenny, I told myself crossly.
If I’d come all this way only to get cold feet, well, I didn’t deserve the support of my friends, let alone to meet someone as lovely as Garry. Not everyone was a cheater. I mean, I’d cheated on poor Peter with Philip when I went to Australia, but I’d never been unfaithful again.
Let Kelly have a girlfriend (poor woman); I didn’t want him back. I didn’t want to keep looking back, either. I wanted a better boyfriend, and I could stay here and keep brooding about it, or go and find out if I’d just met him.
Jumping up and resisting the temptation to tell the women to dump their loser boyfriends, I headed for the door. Bugger being cool: I was going to the hotel to call Garry.
I cycled across town like a maniac, weaving in and out of traffic. I shot through two lights that stayed red far too long. Dumping my bike in the hotel reception, I paced agitatedly as a crowd of new arrivals slowly tried to work out the best way to fit all their luggage into the lift. Too impatient to wait any longer, I ran up three flights of stairs to my floor.
Hurtling into my room, the first thing I saw was the message light flashing on the console.
YES!
Snatching up the phone, I dialed into the answering service. An automated voice thanked me for calling and gave me the news that:
You have two messages. First message, left today at 5:23 p.m. Message one:
“Hey, baby, so I finally made it off the Playa. I am totally tired and dirty. Make me jealous: You’re clean and sleeping in a real bed, huh? That’ll be me in another seven hours. Call me when you get this message, I want to hear your news.”
As soon as I had heard Garry’s voice, I sank down onto the bed, a huge smile taking up my entire face. God, he sounded gorgeous: American accent, voice gravelly from the desert dust and lack of sleep. Ummmmmm.
Second message, left today at 7:09 p.m. Message two:
“Five crazy days on the Playa and you’ve got me thinking about you. You’re really something, British Girl. Call me.”
And I did.
I curled up on my bed in Missoula; he lay on the bed in his roadside trailer somewhere between Reno and Seattle. And we talked and talked. For two hours we talked about the Deities in the base of the Pyramid; the Booth of Bad Advice telling people not to apply sunscreen and drink less water; we talked about what our Costco friends had been up to after I left…. We talked about my continuing to date and what that meant for us. He was supportive and understanding, leaving me reassured that I was doing the right thing. And we also talked about Seattle and the time we would have together in his city.
Meeting in the desert had been magical and dramatic; it had been larger than life, like something out of a film. But now, as we talked and laughed and teased each other over the phone, I realized we could have met at a bus stop or a bar or on a blind date and I still would have found Garry intriguing and entertaining. It wasn’t the Playa or BRC that had captivated me: It was him.
You know, I blame Hector for putting Carpenters lyrics into my head, but I had the strongest feeling that Garry and I…had only just begun.