Love Your Life(48)

I glance at Matt, and he seems to be brooding too. I bet he’s thinking along similar lines. He’s probably thinking, She’s turned out to be a vegetarian whose dog mangled my shirt. And she doesn’t like Japanese punk. Can we make this work?

The thought gives me an unwelcome jolt. We’ve only been back in the UK for a few days and already we’re having doubts?

As I turn off the bathwater, I say impulsively, “Matt?”

“Yes?” He looks round warily, and I can tell, he is having the same thoughts as me.

“Listen. We have to be honest with each other. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” He nods.

“Things are…We’ve had a couple of hiccups. But we can do this. We can make it work. After all, we built a pebble tower together, remember? We leaped off rocks together. We both like ice cream. We’re a great team!”

    I shoot him a hopeful, encouraging smile, and his own face flickers, as though with fond memories.

“I want to make it work,” he says firmly. “Believe me, Ava. I do.”

He wants to make it work. I want to make it work. What’s the problem, then? My brain is whirring in frustration.

“Though I guess my life is like a foreign country to you,” Matt adds—and something twangs in my brain.

A foreign country. That’s it. I remember thinking that Matt was a wonderful new land waiting to be discovered. Well, now I’m doing the discovering. And so is he.

“That’s exactly it!” I say with new animation. “That’s how we need to look at things!”

“What is?” Matt doesn’t seem to be following.

“We’re like two different countries,” I explain. “Call them Ava-land and Matt-land. And we need to acclimatize to each other’s cultures. So, for example, in Matt-land it’s perfectly reasonable to keep phone chargers in a tub labeled ‘chocolate rolls.’ Whereas in Ava-land that’s a capital offense. We just have to learn about each other,” I emphasize. “Learn and become accustomed to each other. You see?”

“Hmm.” Matt is silent for a few moments, as though taking this in. “In Matt-land,” he volunteers, “dogs sleep on the floor.”

“Right.” I clear my throat. “Well…we’ll have to decide how and where we take on each other’s customs. We’ll have…er…negotiations.” I unwrap my towel, hoping to distract him from the subject of dogs. “But meanwhile, let me introduce you to one of my most important customs. In Ava-land, this is what a bath should be like.”

    I get into the full bath and sigh with pleasure as my skin responds to the water. It’s hot. It’s restorative. It’s a proper bath.

Matt comes over, and as he feels the temperature of the water, his eyes widen. “Are you for real? That’s not a bath, that’s a cauldron.”

“You can get in if you like.” I grin at him, and after a moment he strips off his T-shirt and boxer shorts. As he gingerly steps into the water, he looks genuinely pained.

“I do not get this,” he says. “I do not get this at all. Ow!” he exclaims as he sits down. “It’s hot.”

“Love me, love my bathwater,” I say teasingly, and tickle his chest with my toes. “You’re in Ava-land now. Enjoy.”





Twelve




It’s nearly three weeks later, and as I shower in Matt’s bathroom, I’m pensive. Not in a bad way. God, no. Of course not. Just in a thoughtful way.

I keep picturing Matt—and it’s almost as if there are two men in my head. There’s Dutch, the man I fell in love with in Italy. Dutch, with his kurta pajamas and smoldering eyes and general air of being some sort of hunky artisan carpenter. Then there’s Matt, who gets up every day and puts on a suit and sells Harriet’s House dolls and comes home and putts golf balls.

And they’re the same exact guy. That’s what’s quite hard to reconcile.

I do still see glimpses of Dutch; he’s still there. We’ve started doing tai chi together most evenings before bed, which was my idea. I told Matt I’d love to learn more about the ancient tradition of martial arts, except I wasn’t going to fight anyone. So tai chi was the perfect solution—and we do it in our kurta pajamas from the monastery. (Also my idea.) We follow this great YouTube video and Harold joins in sometimes—at least, he tries—and it’s such a happy time. We both spend the whole ten-minute routine smiling at each other and laughing when we get it wrong. It’s fun. It relaxes Matt. It gets us in sync with each other. It’s exactly like we should be.

    So that’s good. And sex is still great. And the other night, when Matt told me this long story about his friend learning to ski, he was so hilarious I thought I would die laughing. When he loosens up, he’s funny.

But we can’t do tai chi all the time. Nor have sex, nor tell funny stories, nor wander romantically through the streets, hand in hand, as though we don’t have a care in the world. (We’ve done that twice.) The trouble is, there’s life to deal with too. Actual life.

On the plus side, I’m getting more accustomed to Matt-land. I can now approach his ugly building without flinching, which I see as major progress.

However. Being a fair-minded and unbiased person—which I definitely am—I would say that whereas my life is quite straightforward and easy to learn, his is a tortuous maze. Every time you think you’re getting somewhere, you find yourself faced with a socking great hedge, usually in the form of his family business. God, it’s intrusive. How can one international toy company with a presence in more than 143 countries be so intrusive?