Janelle LaFlaneur

When I get back to the hotel room the first thing I do is call Harmony. Her hotel room phone reverberates several times before Janelle La Flaneur picks up.

“How’s my little mermaid doing?” I ask, mistaking Jennifer for Harmony.

Janelle  seems vexed. She tells me that my little mermaid is still swimming with Lynn Minton and should be done in and hour or so.

“Well, how was the interview? What was it like hanging out with the British kids?”

There is music playing in the room. Also several voices. I can swear what sounds like Harmony’s voice.

Janelle LaFlaneur remains silent. For a second it sounds like she has her other hand muffled on the lower end of the receiver.

“Do you know when Harmony is going to be back? I’ve been wanting to talk to her all day.”

“I told you she’ll be back in an hour or so. In fact why don’t you just expect to meet her at the medieval banquet going-away-thingie that we are scheduled to have later on tonight.”

I hear more laughter. There is what sounds like several males in the room. Again I swear I hear Harmony’s voice somewhere in the room. Before I can inquire further Janelle LaFlaneur interrupts me.

“Yeah, you should just meet Harmony at the banquet tonight. Bye.”

There is a click. There is silence. Justin walks past.

“Dude, I told you. You’re whupped. Why don’t you call some other chick instead?”

I tell him that it is because I want Harmony. Justin tells me dude, several of her roommates have even flirted with you. And that Rita chick always seems to be following me around like a silhouette. 

“She’s twice as hot as Harmony.” Justin says. “I mean, what do you see in her?”

I get confused. I say Rita. He says Harmony. Justin asks me again just what I see in Harmony or why it seems like I am more interested in trying to find Harmony then trying to find out more about the city of London. 

“Because,” I state slowly, as if giving my speech for the last time, trying to persuade the journal star judges the reason why I am the best candidate:

 “Where there is Harmony there is always joy.”

Justin states that that may be nice but dude you still seemed whupped. There is a knock on my door. When Justin gets it Baker props it open, lowers his pants and farts and then leaves, drowning back into the merlot-carpeted hallway leaving the door ajar. I pick up the phone. I dial out the number again. Justin has the audacity to inquire if I have anymore of those Fig Newtons that my mom packed as stacks still in my suitcase.

I tell him to shove it. I tell him that you and the bulk of the Big Ten ate them.

I am sure that Harmony is in the room. I pick up the phone and dial her number again.

 The phone reverberates several more times. Janelle seems to know it is me. She answers the phone with a What. I can tell that she is nothing short of irked.

“Listen, sorry to call you back. I just need to know..”

I pause. Janelle says know what Harry as if I am epistemologically supplicating for the yarn of knowledge in the known thread of the universe.

“Do you know who she’s with?”

I don’t mean to sound like I am obsessive. I don’t mean to sound as if I am intentionally spying on her.

Janelle LaFlaneur tells me Lynn Minton. I sound like I have just graduated third grade and tell Janelle. 

No duh.

“No I mean, did you see, was she with anyone else?”

“Oh yeah, she was with someone else. In fact, they are going at it right now. She is beating his meat. In fact they going at it hardcore. She is totally slobbing on his knob. He is about ready to cum all over her face and she is screaming out your name."

This is the third time I have tete-a-teted with Janelle. The first time was in Stratford when she   quashed me, she was talking dirty. It was the night of Warrick’s castle, the night of the Butterfly farm and meeting the mayor of Stratford. The night I had prepared to call Harmony and even got down to my knees before Jennifer went all porno on my poetic heart. 

“Janelle I’m being serious. I don’t have time for your shenanigans.”

“And I don’t have time for any of your shit.” La Flaneur says while hammering down the phone.  

      

Justin is looking at me like it is a three way conversation.

Without thinking I pick up the phone and dial again. The television is giving British premiership scores during a commercial.

As I am dialing I think about the conversation I had with Tamera inside Harrods. Tamera who is headed towards Harvard in the autumn. I think about pruning dendrites. It seems Harmony has broken my heart a hundred-thousand times before.

A voice picks up. Without asking me who it is it heralds back QUIT CALLING and then hangs up.

I don’t know what I did wrong. In the hallway I can hear Baker talking about how you should have seen how he just punked Daisy in Harrods. For a second I turn my head and it looks like four members of the BIG TEN are leering in the open door looking at my phone conversation .On the television screen the British populace is still calling the Waco Massacre a travesty to the American commonwealth. They use the word commonwealth. They use the word Fiasco. They use the word incendiary blaze and disgusting. A British commentator with three chins and no hair states that this sort of mindless barbarism is disgraceful.

I think about the other females on the trip. I think about Meg Weaver. I think about Rose who was fawning over backwards to ferry my ever warm-Pepsi caffeinated whim the other night on the cruise.

I think about the hot Italian girls who I initially mistook Harmony for trying on lingerie in Harrods.

I think about Rita and how every time we get a change to communicate we are interrupted.

I think about Daisy and how the Big Ten just won’t leave her alone.

Again I dial Harmony's number. On the third ring Janelle picks up. Before she can verbally scowl at me I try to supplicate. 

"Janelle, wait. Just give me a second. I just want to--"

“No!” Janelle La Flaneur is screaming at me again. S

"Yeah, but if you could just__"

I am interrupted again. Janelle tells me to listen.

“ Listen Harry or Tony or David. I mean , Jesus you don’t even know your own name and here you are trying to win Harmony like she a Geography Bee trophy or something. You have no clue how she even feels about you. Besides in only what will be a handful of scraped hours this whole London thing will be over and we will be jet-lagged and on a plane and return to that place from which we originally came from."

“Yeah, but if you could just tell me—“

“Tell you what, Harry? That she never really liked you all that much to begin with? That Lord knows why with the exception of Meg everyone in our group especially Sara and even our Counselor Ahlex finds you annoying as hell? That everyone laughs at how you sculpt your hair. That Harmony just got out of a semi-serious relationship back home and she really had her heart broken and that she just isn’t in the mood to get her heart hardcore whipped again right now especially when she is on vacation? That she wants to enjoy London without the burden of always being anchored by some Freshman’s affection?”

There is a pause.

From behind the phone I can hear what I am sure is her boyfriend Beau snort.

“That she is fucking some guy’s brains out right now who will be more successful than you will ever be. I mean, is that what you want to hear?”

Another pause I can hear the traffic out the window offering a series of klaxon exchanges.  The dual-chinned British man on BBC news looks like Veruca Salt’s father from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who inquired if Willy Wonka was into Butter Scotch and Butter Gin says that the Waco fiasco is a political tragedy of almost Shakespearean proportions.  Justin seems to have paused and is string straight at me as if she can hear every syllable that Janelle la Flaneur is  conveying.

“I mean, is that what you want to hear? Do you want to hear all of that?”

“Is that the truth?” I ask very simply, everything inside my chest is toppling apart as if the sound of Janelle La Flaneur's voice ignites some form of controlled demolition inside my chest.

My ears no longer register Beau's apish grunts. It sounds like Jennifer Flood is crying. It sounds like she is deluging her cheeks in emotion.

I want to ask he why she has ripped on me from day one.

I want to ask her if she is okay.

I want to ask her if there is anything I can do to make her crying cease.

I glance to the far corner of the room and see Justin.  He is looking at me with his moth stunted open.  

It's like he can tell that we have just had an argument.

I feel like crying. I have given everything to this elusive creature and she still will not even say hello.

From the interior of the phone I hear a voice. It is a squeak at first. I cannot discern what Janelle La Flaneur is stating.

"What?"

"Go home David," She says, calmly. She is no longer cursing.

"Just go back to that place where you came from. Just don't ever think about Harmony ever again in this lifetime.

Just go home David."

Go home.

There is a click. The sound British phones makes when someone curtly hangs up on you is different than the dangling punctuated reverb american phones make when someone hangs up on you. Justin is packing his suitcase, folding each of his clothes into three corners like the american flag after taps.  I am holding the phone. for a second I think about dialing back her number one last time For a second I think about defying mandates and walking up to one of the exclusive all girls floor and knocking on the door.

I carelessly hurl the phone back on  what is now my bed near the window. Justin says just go ahead and break the durned phone why don't you so that we will both be charged.

I rhetorically ask Justin if he realizes that he's been a real pain in the ass to room with this entire trip.

I wish I could find Mark. I wish I could speak with Harmony.

Justin is on his bed on the far side of the wall. Justin states that just for the record it hasn't been a proverbial bowl of cherries rooming with you either this entire trip with you always saying things that no one understands and moping around over some girl.

"The entire Big Ten even feels the same way. You are just plain weird. It's like you don't even belong in our fraternity. It's like all you wanted to do this entire trip is just meet the one girl that would somehow add meaning to your life.  This trip didn't even have to be to London. It could have been a random outing to Topeka, Kansas or Wilmington, Delaware or Botswana or whatever. You make a big deal about Boys just trying to be boys. You act like you are way more mature than everyone else when in essence you are really just the same age."

I gaze at the Tanks on the television screen. At the billowing whips of smoke. At the destruction of New Jerusalem.

Without thinking I reach into my back pocket an hurl the Gideon bible that I always keep with me and throw it  against the wall.

Justin becomes even more chagrined.

"What are you doing?"

I refuse to answer. Justin tells me that I shouldn't be taking my pent up romantic frustration out on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I tell Justin that I am not,

For the first time I wish that I hadn't won the Young Columbus.

For the first time I wish that I was not here.

I am leaving. I am ditching this bitch.  There is no Harmony. There is no anything. I am leaving. Justin asks where I am going.

I tell him to fuck off. 

He tells me that I don't need to curse.

                                        

"Anywhere but here, brother." 

. The door seems to echo a close as I slam it begin me and head out into the carpeted avenues of the Gloucester.

Anywhere but here.