Photo reblogged from C Jane Run.

Continued from A Transatlantic Love Story, Part III …

I was standing in the heavy rain, waiting for a cab with a group of new friends, when he ducked beneath my umbrella. We were going to a club in town.

“Can I borrow a cigarette?” he asked. I hesitated.

“Uh,” I stumbled. I reached into my purse and pulled out my Camel Lights, knocking it to one side. Three left. “I promised myself this was my last pack.”

I didn’t want to give him one. I did, but he never forgave me for the hesitation. Boys are so fickle. We each smoked four cigarettes everyday for the rest of the semester, always smoking the fourth one together. But that’s getting ahead of the story.

We shared an umbrella in the rain a lot those next few weeks. We danced a lot and talked a lot. Something more must have been going on, though, because I remember lying in a hostel bed in London, getting ready to fly out to Dublin for Valentine’s weekend, and chattering non-stop to a sleeping friend about thinking I might be in love, maybe for the first time.

Ireland didn’t impress me; it didn’t have him in it. Fields and rain and cold weather. Redheaded people kept insisting that my hair was brown. I went to the Guinness factory, ate lunch at a pub, and spotted, for the first time in my life, a Claddaugh ring in the window of a little shop. I wanted one, badly, but didn’t know which way I should turn the heart. I bought a plain silver one, packaged it up in a box at the local post office, and sent it to my friend back home who would surely marry the Accountant she’d been dating (The Accountant’s Wife.) Then I bought an Irish coffee mug for the “friend” who had stolen my heart. Later, we’d use it as an ashtray.

I got back to campus late on Monday, Valentine’s Day. I pulled my suitcase down the sidewalk, bumping along the uneven cement in the late winter frost. I climbed the stairs, probably in a bad mood like I always am at the end of a trip, and stopped when I saw my door. A bouquet of bright red tulips leaned against the wood, a card tilted next to it throwing a diamond shadow across the door. I rushed into the room, leaving my suitcase sitting outside. I turned the red envelope in my hands for an instant before opening it. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” the card read. I opened it to find little ink question marks written in the shape of a question mark where a signature should be. A secret admirer.

I had two guesses. That sounds horrible now, I know, but I did. The American guy downstairs seemed keen and had access to my building. The filmmaker, whom I’d given one of my last cigarettes to, would have to be clever to get past security and place the flowers at my door. I saw neither suitor for days. It turns out the one who had the charm of Casanova also had the nerves of Cyrano de Bergerac. He went into town early each morning and stayed at the movie theaters all day to avoid me. When I finally saw him, three days later, we were scooting into theatre seats at a student play. His friend pushed him in next to me. I whispered about a gift I’d recently been given. He would not admit to knowing anything about tulips against my door, but when the stage lights dimmed and all eyes narrowed on the single white light of the stage, he reached out for my hand in the darkness, folding his fingers into mine.