Goodbye, Bup!

I'm leaving for the airport in two hours, back to New York, back to my own life -- tangerine juice with cranberry packets of Emergen-C, sleeping in the middle of the bed (or, um, futon mattress), brewing coffee for myself, peeing with the bathroom door open, yoga classes and writing classes and subway rides, running along the East River, talking to Liz three times a day, Feldenkrais, therapy on 54th Street, a tiny class of eighth and tenth graders in Queens. I have to turn in 30 pages of writing tomorrow morning and I have no idea what it will be.

On Saturday, in Paris, Robert and I went out for a walk and he was acting kind of strange, kept suggesting that we "sit on a parkbench by the river" (which, I know, doesn't sound that strange but it's not something I can recall his ever having previously said). Walking across the Seine, I reached to tuck my right hand into his pants' pocket and he almost jumped -- and then stuck his own hand into the pocket and offered me his elbow to hold. I knew. I knew even before I glanced at his pocket that I would see a bulge there -- the shape of a tiny box, holding an engagement ring. And I didn't say anything. We strolled, we sat on a bench, we read the Herald Tribune and the Financial Times. We split three pieces of gum and had a brief bubble-blowing contest. We kissed and laughed and talked about Thomas Friedman's editorial and my maybe moving to London and our maybe living in Paris and we talked about the teenage couple sitting near us, the Chinese tourists -- four men -- taking turns posing for the camera, the boats floating past us, our dinner plans that night with his friends Kasper and Shirin. And then we stood up and walked home, his left hand in his pocket and my arm looked through his arm.

Last night, on the train back to London, I said, "I know you were carrying the ring in your pocket on Saturday." And he denied it. Five minutes later he said, "You notice everything, don't you?" But no, I said, not everything.

Saying goodbye makes me crave ice-cream and dark chocolate. Please, please, this is my penny-toss-wish thrown out into the hinterland: grant me the willpower to abstain from eight hours of airplane food...