I didn’t question it as a teenager, but at fifty-one I am accustomed to negotiation and agreement.īut then I remember that this is what I came for: I want someone else to lead. Why can’t he meet me where I’m comfortable instead of in the stupid parking lot? When we were together, he always chose the destination for our dates, often not even telling me where we were going or why. I wait in the pub, thinking critical thoughts. “Just walk back across the bridge,” Nelson repeats. Petulant, I say, “Why don’t you meet me here?” I’m calling him from a nice old pub with a small, cushy bar overlooking the river. It’s late on a chilly afternoon, and I don’t have a sweater. “I’ll be there shortly, fifteen minutes at the most.” “Walk back to the coach station,” he tells me. I know he won’t like it: the short cut makes me look more like the middle-aged lesbian I am and even less like his teenage lover from 1976. “I’m afraid you won’t like it,” I murmur, as coy as if we’d just met. I refrain from telling him, I’ll be the one with thirty extra pounds, but I warn him about my short hair. I’ve spent the summer traveling in Europe, and now, at the end, I’ve arranged this spontaneous, short rendezvous with Nelson. His last lady friend has meandered back to her ex, and my last lady friend broke up with me in May. Thirty-five years ago he was my first lover, and I am coming back to visit him because I’m alone in England, where he lives, and so is he. His voice on the phone is low and hesitant, but he’s coming to pick me up right away. “I’ll be the one with the long white beard,” my old boyfriend tells me.
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