Medieval Banquet a faretheewell (b)...

 Harmony's group is already seated at the first table up front. It appears to be the proverbial couples' table.  There is her roommate buxom Jennifer Flood and her beau simply named Beau who appears to have nothing between his ears with the possible exception of a Lite beer and meaningless sports stats.

Two seats down are Nat and Miss Arkansas.

 Jennifer Flood is dressed to kill.

It is more or less the same seating arrangement last night during the skit when I got into it with Nat.

 Harmony has a place saved just for me.

I place my glasses in the side pocket of my vinyl Young Columbus jacket. I am wading through the foreheads and scent of those who were strangers to me all of less than ten days ago. Sam is wearing the emerald jacket he purchased from Harrods earlier in the afternoon. Vinny is blowing into the lens of his camcorder and rubbing it counter-clockwise Karate Kid wax-on/wax-off style with a tie he seems less than thrilled to wear.  I see Elbert, one of three African' American's to win the Young Columbus. Longhorn is not wearing his leather cap for the first time this entire trip only Dimas is still inexplicably wearing the polo derby cap even though we are in doors. I am shocked when I see Paul McCartney circa Wings not wearing the Trench coat for the first time this trip. For a second I swear I see Lois Lane, the high school reporter whom I met the first day at the hotel in Newark. Perhaps because I got her confused with someone in the elevator every other girl kind of resembles Elias Das. I pass Harmony's friend Kazu who doesn't speak much English who just appears to be lost. From the corner of my eye.  Harvard bound Tamera is scrutinizing the vacant porcelain of the dinner plates as if mulling over the calculated radius of the human condition.

Daisy is seated on the opposite side of the Hall, with her group, practically hand-cuffed to Simone for what Liz Madigan has stated were insurance reasons.

Even with my glasses off I can tell that Wendy Cummings looks ravenous in a different dress that, although not the prom dress she wore on the Thames that was later used in the skit, is almost equally as ravishing.  Near-sighted Sheila is nothing but a gushing fountain of fumes. Lord knows why Rose is still wearing those ubiquitous sunglasses in doors on the last night, granting her the unseemly semblance that she is more blind than I am.  Chocatawhatchee Heather smiles and wave even though I offer  a half-wave back mainly do to wondering why she always seems to take a pertinent interest in me.

I note that Eagle Scout Josh is also disobeying the unwritten mandate that the Big Ten break bread together on the last night and is also seated with his girlfriend with the excessive rogue which, judging by her fingers he has still yet to give her the promise ring he purchased at Harrod's with his Grandfather's credit card earlier this afternoon.

Nor do I see Rita, with the sexy dress she was wearing earlier that afternoon.

There is still no hint of Vivian.

Mark again has blended into the bulk of bodies like a chameleon and is nowhere in sight.

I find Harmony.

It is the final night of our tour of England and Harmony has a place reserved just for me.

Harmony is seated. She is wearing the same flower-dappled dress she has worn on the previous two discos. For a second I wonder if there will be dancing here tonight. When I arrive at the table Harmony stands up. She then presses her cheek against my cheek. It is not quite a kiss. It is more like a beckoning greeting.

“You look nice. I would kiss your forehead but I’m afraid I would clang into the top of your halo.”

Harmony erupts in a pearl string of giggles.

Jennifer Flood offers a semi-wave as if she is annoyed and I semi-wave back without looking in her direction. Beau grunts with an overt Adam's apple. Nat seems to be telling Miss Arkansas that everything is going to be alright. That they still have tonight. That the night is young. From the way he is talking it sounds like he has a hotel room waiting them after prom. Meg Weaver is She smiles when she sees Harmony and myself together. I could kick myself again for not going running this morning one final time, if just to be next to Meg one final time.

“Hey, I tried calling your room earlier only you weren’t around.” From the opposite side of the table Jennifer Flood is blinks and looks up. I wonder if she told Harmony about the tiff that erupted between us earlier this afternoon.

I look at Harmony's dress. Nat makes it known that I am the only male in this side of the room that isn't wearing a tie for crissakes. I look at Harmony's dress and tell her that she looks nice. It. It is the third time she has worn this dress. Somehow it still looks good on her.

“Oh,” Harmony says, looking down blushing. She is exactly like Dawn Michelle in that she looks down every time she blushes.

“I’m not like (she pauses, looks around) What’s your friends name? She was in the interview today. The one who brought the evening gown to the dance cruise on the Thames?"

I say that’s Our Wendy. Harmony points as if she has her fingers into a miniature shotgun and says bingo.

“Yeah, Wendy. Anyway, I mean, I only brought one dress on this trip and Jennifer only brought one dress on this trip so we had to wash them.

Harmony said that she actually washed her dress last night when she was on the phone with me.

“How did you wash them?” I ask. I am confused.  I have not seen the inside of her room. I wonder if there is somehow a washing machine in her room.

“We used the sink in the bathroom.” Then we hung them in the bathroom with the  drying light on that you have on after we take a shower.

I try not to think about Harmony in her bathroom, the bottom half of her anatomy clad only in panties bent over the sink in oblique angles. 


There are rolls on the table. Apparently the loaf made the rounds before I was seated and is reclining directly in front of Nat. I make a motion towards Nat asking if he could please pass the bread and butter and he consciously crosses his legs and turns the opposite directions.  

Jennifer Flood just seems plain vexed every time she glances in my direction. It is like we are seated at the couples table. Loverboy Nat is two heads away from me and his girlfriend keeps looking down into her plate and chewing, looking like she is about ready to miscarriage. I offer him a wave and he turns the other direction. Even though has he treated me like what the British punks this afternoon would classify as Shite as still have one more try to rectify everything with Nat. Once I arrive back to Peoria the only person I will have to share this memory with will be a person who does not want me in his.

The room is coming to life.  What looks like either medieval paige's with bad haircuts walk to the side of the room brandishing elongated phallic horns.  In the front of the room a semi-portly man with three day stubble beard  wearing a crown is holding the hand of fair maiden in some sort of tiara that look like a diaphanous dunce cap.  There are two succinct jugglers and a jester who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in front of Simone's table learning how to stand. 


I try to be witty with Harmony. I ask her if after her interview she had time to squeeze her David today. She she looks at me perplexed.

"The Teddy bear. The David. remember, 'It wasn't a Bobby it's-a-David."


From down the table I can hear the sounds Nat makes when he looks in my direction and rolls his eyes.

"Oh, I already packed that already." She says

Harmony is smiling but it looks forced. Even when she placed her lips on my cheeks in a manner that was not exactly a kiss there is something about her that feels sad.  I want to know more about meeting with the British youth. Harmony says that’s the only part of the trip that actually felt like work and she’s rather not talk about that right now.

"It was kind of crazy. I was on top of St. Paul's Cathedral which my cool English teacher Mr. Reents told me that I needed to go to the top of because of the unbidden view of London. There was over a thousand steps so most of the Big Ten didn't want to go but somehow I cajoled Trevor and Justin to go to the top and the view, I mean, it was like being on top of a skyscraper in Manhattan or something. It was the most panoramic view of London I have yet to see."

There are nods at the table. Jennifer Flood is looking at me as if I am in special class. I tell Jennifer Flood that St. Paul was the church where Princess Di got married. She responds by saying  that everyone on this trip already like knows that fact.

"And the crazy thing is, out of all this when I was at the top of St. Pauls Cathedral I just started looking out and taking all these pictures, and there was this old man who works for the church and he looked like he could either be CS Lewis or TS Eliot of JRR Tolkein or some other British writer with initials for a first name and it was really weird because I kept looking at him as if I knew him from somewhere  before. I mean, it was like we had an avuncular rapport or something and its weird because it has happened at least twice already on this trip where I am talking to someone and they are looking at me like they already know everything about me. I wouldn't even classify it as being De Ja vu. It's like something deeper. It's like parallel worlds or something.

Much to her chagrin Jennifer Flood's boyfriend seems interested in my couple's table ice breaking personal anecdote.

"It was crazy. He seemed to know who I was and started inquiring about the trip and I told him how, pretty much this trip to London was everything, it was everything that I hoped it would be, but in a way it was almost like an older variation of myself in a way I just can't put into words. Like he was me sixty years in the future or something. In fact he had even been to Peoria and studied at the university close to my house. It was crazy."

There are several nods. Again I look down and ask the Young Columbusian nearest to my inhabitant in Central Illinois to please pass the dinner rolls and again he blatantly ignores me by looking in my direction and asking Miss Arkansas if she heard something. 

Surprisingly Harmony doesn’t inquire about Harrods or having fish and chips at Flanagan's.

I don't know why Harmony doesn't wan to know about any of the highlights that she missed today.

It seems like something else other than the interview with the columnist from PARADE is weighing on my bride.

For a second I think about telling Harmony all about my earlier tiff with Jennifer Flood. For a second I think about telling her how I was irate. How I slammed down the phone. How I was about to pull a Mark and jettison the cultural niceties and posh comforts of the trip and leave, just dip into the cosmopolitan nest that is London. For a second I think about telling her how I mis-identified  Elias Das in the so-called lift. How I for a second, this trip wasn't about Harmony, how I found something in the subtle smile of Rita even though every time we have two seconds together it feels rushed that I never could have had with Harmony. How I saw Daisy dressed up looking like she was going at a celebration at a local mosque and followed her and then got loving accosted by some local Punks and chastised by Liz Madigan upon our return to the Gloucester.

How I only have a few scattered hours remaining with Harmony. And with Mark. ANd with everyone on this trip.

How in a way, I wonder if I will ever see any of these people again and in a way no one around here seems to be nursing that question accept for me\ and I don't know why.

The overhead lights resmebling a wago wheel begin to dim.

This is our finale. This is our curtain call. This is our last night in London.

Tomorrow all of this will be gone.

Harmony nods. I wonder who the boys were in her hotel room earlier in the day.

I am still trying to make what passes at small talk when I spot Meg. Meg Weaver is wearing a blue dress the color of an ornithological-toting egg and seated at a table with mostly males although they are all wearing glasses and have bad haircuts The semi-nerds of bus three. Whatever they are saying are making her laugh. She is being lavished.  She is being romanced. When she stands up and does the wave  her body undulates like a willow in a spring zephyr.

I will never go running with Meg Weaver again.


I again ask Nat if he can please pass rolls and he again pretends that he doesn't hear me. 

There is the heralding brass rip of a bugle.

The banquet is about to begin.