Without Reservations_ The Travels of an Independent Woman - Alice Steinbach [76]
Actually, I rather liked it, the activity and excitement generated by all these people bustling around with their beautiful merchandise. Instead of going straight to my room, a solitary guest in a large hotel, I saw an opportunity to hang about and be a part of the festivities.
I wheeled my suitcase past more racks hung with creamy satin gowns, stopping in front of my room. I unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was dark and stuffy. After opening the curtains and raising a window, I sat down on the bed and looked around. It was a perfectly adequate room, the kind I often stayed in when I was on the road, reporting a story for the newspaper. It suits my mood, I thought, although I wasn’t sure what my mood was. Then I suddenly caught sight of myself in the mirror opposite the bed. What I saw was a woman who looked a little lost; a woman who looked as though she were missing someone. Which I was. I was missing Naohiro.
I sat on the bed thinking about the three days we’d spent together in London. After an unexpected business trip to Paris, Naohiro had stopped in London to see me. He was on his way back to Tokyo. I had just finished my course at Oxford and, although I hadn’t planned on returning to London, the prospect of seeing him sooner than we had planned was an unexpected gift. But the thought of meeting Naohiro again made me nervous. On the train from Oxford to London my head buzzed with questions. What if Paris had been a fluke? What if we met and one of us—or both, for that matter—felt nothing? Had I been wrong in feeling that Naohiro and I had connected in some deep way? The closer I got to London, the more nervous I became.
As if to summon up his presence, I pulled out from my travel case one of the letters he’d written me and began reading it. By the end of the first page—a very amusing description of his encounter in Paris with two French students who insisted on speaking to him in beginner’s-level Chinese—I was laughing out loud. I had forgotten how sharp a sense of humor Naohiro had, and how despite our cultural differences we found many of the same things funny. By the time the train reached London I had read two more of his letters. They were the perfect antidote to my anxiety, I thought, hurrying off the train, eager to meet the man I’d unearthed again in his written thoughts.
Still, when I met Naohiro for lunch a few hours later, some of my nervousness had returned. He was already seated when I arrived at the restaurant. Immediately he rose and walked toward me. Watching him gracefully thread his way between the tables, I realized there was no need to wonder any longer if I would still find him attractive. My big worry now was: would he still find me attractive?
Suddenly Naohiro was standing in front of me. For a minute or two we stood face-to-face, not speaking. Naohiro broke the silence.
“It is good to see you again,” he said, bowing his head slightly. Then he moved closer. “You are well, I hope.”
“I am. And you? Did things go well for you in Paris?”
“Yes, I am happy to say. But not as well as they did the last time I was in Paris.”
I looked at his face, trying to figure out if he meant what I hoped he meant. I decided to test the waters. “And when was that visit?” I asked.
“It was on the occasion of Les cinq jours de l’Objet Extraordinaire.” Naohiro paused. “I believe you were in Paris at the same time, were you not?”
“Yes, but I seem to remember many more days than five that were extraordinary.”
He laughed. “So do I.”
For the next three days Naohiro and I wandered through London like happy children: stopping to eat when we were hungry, popping into a shop or gallery that drew our