All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [5]
So I take off walking. Right away, I realize I’m completely unprepared for this place; everyone else seems to have a house, spouse, children, and a retirement plan, and I’ve only thought to pack sunscreen, a water bottle, and a good book. I take in the sights, the new terrain, and over there I see the loss of youthful good looks that I can no longer afford to dress down. I wander in another direction, and I see my precociousness losing its early blossoms, flowers fading; I haven’t accomplished what my young, spectacular, A+ successes predicted. I look around at the houses, and I notice that I’m still renting; I haven’t managed to own one by now. Over there, I watch toddlers chasing butterflies at the playground, and—it’s something in the air here—my eyes well up with tears.
Which direction to go in? House, husband, child? I have no idea. Since I got divorced, friends have asked why I don’t go ahead and have a kid on my own, adopt a baby from one of those Third World countries I’m always visiting. But I’m not one of those people who always knew I had to have children. I always knew I wanted to be like Brenda Starr, ace reporter, traveling the world, having liaisons with the mysterious, one-eyed Basil St. John, playing gotcha with evil heads of corporations. If I found the right man, it would be a wonderful adventure to have kids; but if that guy didn’t show up, it wouldn’t be a tragedy, it would just be a different kind of adventure. Even if, deep down, I always assumed that I’d wake up one day with a baby bouncing on the bed, I can’t do it on my own—especially given my personality, which is not the most patient and stable one in the world—because it wouldn’t be fair to the child, who would deserve two parents. It wouldn’t be fair to me, either; I would wither without some help and a little taste of freedom now and then.
I’M STARING AT my suitcase, not yet unzipped, full of dirty sundresses and jungle pants, trying to figure out where to go next. I finger my turquoise-and-amber necklace, parting gift. The truth is that I don’t have the first clue where to look for a new man or a new life; I have so sense of direction whatsoever. I feel too fragile to try to meet anyone new. I don’t want to meet anyone new. I want to rewind, go back to Oaxaca, back to that Mexican garden, where the Professor would tell me in Italian that I’m the love of his life, I should come back to Paris, learn to speak French, and we could spend summers in a little house in southern Italy. I want my vacation to go on forever, to be my life. I wonder if the Professor ever suspected that’s what I wanted; I wonder if I ever let him know.
The last thing I can do is sit here with these feelings. I have to get up and go somewhere, or I’ll explode. I know I have a habit of running away from a broken heart and that it usually tags along. Maybe it’s an addiction. But buying a plane ticket is a lot healthier than binge eating or drinking for heartache, and sometimes you can even manage to outrun it on the road.
I think about the first time I flew away from a disappointment in love, just after college. I was enchanted with a guy named Edward, who told me—kissing in the rain in Little Italy—that he was sorry, he just didn’t love me. Crushed, I had to get away. I took an inheritance from my grandmother—$1,500—and left New York to travel around the Mediterranean by myself. My more practical older sisters used the money for a car or toward a down payment on a house, but I figured Grandma would’ve been tickled to know that I took the meager savings she’d been able to tuck away as a teacher and single mom and went off to Europe, the place where she’d had the jolliest time of her retirement, accompanied by her two best friends, dressing up in hats and gloves and big rhinestone earrings and taking tea in grand hotels as if they did it every day.
I flew to Greece and stayed as long as Grandma’s money lasted, which was nine months, ten countries, Liron in Israel, Antonio in Spain, and Julian in London. Each place presented new discoveries and passions, bright