Lunch is at a hotel called Ye Harte and Garter. Vivian goes into great detail relaying the story of the knights of the garter as we wend our way into dinning hall. The table is long and elongated. With my glasses off it kind of looks like the walk leading up to the castle.
With my glasses off the table setting is a skidded blur. I am wading in the between stalks of shoulder in a slight skittering jaunt Rather than having individual domed tables the table is one long elongated slab of enjoining mahogany. There are several knights stationed on either side. I pass Charles with his gravid nod insinuates that’s its okay I sit next to my makeshift Young Columbus bride. The table just seems to sprawl on. The Big Ten has insisted on setting together for the rest of the trip. Everyone still seems to be on the Daisytrain. Justin is wearing his Michigan State hat turned around and verbally emits a comment about me being whupped as I wade through the pointillist near-sighted pond in search of the woman I am sure somehow will indubitably save me.
I hear Harmony say my name. She is saving a place for me. I bump into several chairs as I scurry around the contours of the table to sit by my beloved. From down the table Justin is referring to me as Whupped. Harmony's counselor Ahlex seems irked that I felt the need to sit with Harmony.
Ahlex always appears irked every time she looks in my direction.
I am the only lad seated in the area composed entirely of Harmony’s group. Jenifer Flood is seated on the opposite side of Harmony looking vexed that her date form last night didn’t even bother to try to find her Meg Weaver is next to me and keeps on smiling, the sun sprinkled dappled of light near her wrist.
The moment I sit down I tell Harmony good job with the Lord Mayor this morning.
"I cheered you on, you know. I was seated with my friend Sam. We were both pumping our fists in adulation when you met the Lord Mayor.
Harmony makes a motion almost universally indicative of pending vomit. She says that the Lord Mayor just reeked of booze.
“He was worse than Dimas and Longhorn last
night.”
Harmony says. Man what a lush."He seemed to really like you, Miss Harmony of Troy." Jennifer Flood bats her eyes as if to facetiously say please. Across the table Meg is smiling like she is falling in love. I turn to Meg Weaver and smile back. I avert my glance towards Meg and tell her hello.
Meg continues to smile. Her lips are a runoff sentence of smiles.
"I spoke with Josh in the elevator he told us all about how you guys ran pretty much the same route you ran yesterday."
Meg is still smiling, she is smiling the way she smiled when
we danced last night on the Thames and I told her she was beautiful. She has a
smile that looks like a carnation blushing.
"Yeah, it was good. There wasn't many of us."
Meg perhaps gives me the greatest compliment ever when she states that she wishes that I would have been there. I tell her I had planned but a certain someone kept me up on the phone last night. Without thinking I snap at Harmony's knee below the table. She lets go of a little eek accompanied by a smile.
Ahlex snares in my direction again. Just as the Counselor states that maybe Harmony's male friend should go sit with his own group at least for a portion of the meal while her Group goes over there skit for tonight the guy Jennifer Flood was dancing with last night stop next to her, asking he was hoping to sit next to her Spawning Meg and the girl with the crisp bangs to move down to spaces to make room.
Ironically Jennifer Flood's beau's name is Beau.
He doesn't go around shaking everyone hands like he is campaigning for a political position he will never win. He simply snorts and nods.
Everyone at the table goes around introducing themselves. Ahlex does something she has never done when she says hello to beau. She smiles in his direction. She tells him welcome.
When it comes to my turn for introduction I jut my hand out informing him that it is a pleasure to meet you.
"Yeah, it was good. There wasn't many of us."
Meg perhaps gives me the greatest compliment ever when she states that she wishes that I would have been there. I tell her I had planned but a certain someone kept me up on the phone last night. Without thinking I snap at Harmony's knee below the table. She lets go of a little eek accompanied by a smile.
Ahlex snares in my direction again. Just as the Counselor states that maybe Harmony's male friend should go sit with his own group at least for a portion of the meal while her Group goes over there skit for tonight the guy Jennifer Flood was dancing with last night stop next to her, asking he was hoping to sit next to her Spawning Meg and the girl with the crisp bangs to move down to spaces to make room.
Ironically Jennifer Flood's beau's name is Beau.
He doesn't go around shaking everyone hands like he is campaigning for a political position he will never win. He simply snorts and nods.
Everyone at the table goes around introducing themselves. Ahlex does something she has never done when she says hello to beau. She smiles in his direction. She tells him welcome.
When it comes to my turn for introduction I jut my hand out informing him that it is a pleasure to meet you.
I am trying to be witty.
“Hi Beau, I’m arrow.”
Meg Weaver snorts up iced-tea. Harmony looks slightly
amused. Jennifer Flood shoots me a look a la Ahlex that she doesn’t understand
why I am always seated with them. Beau
shakes my hand and says that he doesn’t get it.
He turns out to be from Jennifer Flood's home state of Michigan although he lives three hours away.
Jennifer says that they were on the same airplane out of Detroit only they didn't know each other because the YC jackets weren't passed out.
"I guess it is Kismet." I say, everyone at the table asks me what that word means. Harmony is smiling. This has been the first day where every time we see each other she is nothing but smiles
Jennifer says that they were on the same airplane out of Detroit only they didn't know each other because the YC jackets weren't passed out.
"I guess it is Kismet." I say, everyone at the table asks me what that word means. Harmony is smiling. This has been the first day where every time we see each other she is nothing but smiles
I look across the table and see Miss Arkansas. She
is wearing sunglasses indoors. You can
tell simply by looking at her that she has been crying all morning.
I turn to Miss Arkansas whose first name I will learn is Sara and whose last is that of a concerto.
"What no Nat?"
I look around. I make a flippant comment stating that I was finally hoping to hang out with and have a manly heart-to-heart the one Young Columbusian who hails from my area code.
Miss Arkansas doesn't respond. Instead she sniffles several times and gets up from her seat without saying excuse me. Jennifer Flood shoots me a why-do-I_have to be so invasive-and-can't-I-Just let-other-people enjoy this trip look. Much in the same fashion that Simone is always being summoned b some pre-ten having her first period Ahlex chases after Miss Arkansas. There is silence.
I say the obvious.
I say what.
"Her and Nat had a fight this morning. She has been crying ever since."
Meg tells me that she couldn't even make it through Windsor because she was crying so hard.
I want to tell them that I heard them arguing this morning. I want to tell them that both Miss Arkansas and Nat came down to the breakfast hall early and it sounded that Nat, the lackadaisical Lothario was trying to cajole Miss Arkansas into something she wasn't ready to do yet. I want to announce to the group what dick Nat is. I want to state that we are from pretty much the same area and that I was the city and he was the county winner, only I refrain.
The perfunctory salad is being served. I think of Greta somewhere on the far end of the table. From where I am seated I can see Jim Baker making inappropriate gestures with the bowl of Ranch dressing.
Across the table Beau is acting like he doesn't know who Jennifer is. He takes his fork and stabs it at his salad.
"Good, huh?"
Beau nods. Beau is in one of the older groups although I am confused as to which one. When I tell him that Mark is like my brother he offers what sounds like a communicative snort. When I tell him that I ate breakfast with Our Wendy and Heather and the Polite Boy from Alabama Beau blinks several times and releases a burp.
"What no Nat?"
I look around. I make a flippant comment stating that I was finally hoping to hang out with and have a manly heart-to-heart the one Young Columbusian who hails from my area code.
Miss Arkansas doesn't respond. Instead she sniffles several times and gets up from her seat without saying excuse me. Jennifer Flood shoots me a why-do-I_have to be so invasive-and-can't-I-Just let-other-people enjoy this trip look. Much in the same fashion that Simone is always being summoned b some pre-ten having her first period Ahlex chases after Miss Arkansas. There is silence.
I say the obvious.
I say what.
"Her and Nat had a fight this morning. She has been crying ever since."
Meg tells me that she couldn't even make it through Windsor because she was crying so hard.
I want to tell them that I heard them arguing this morning. I want to tell them that both Miss Arkansas and Nat came down to the breakfast hall early and it sounded that Nat, the lackadaisical Lothario was trying to cajole Miss Arkansas into something she wasn't ready to do yet. I want to announce to the group what dick Nat is. I want to state that we are from pretty much the same area and that I was the city and he was the county winner, only I refrain.
The perfunctory salad is being served. I think of Greta somewhere on the far end of the table. From where I am seated I can see Jim Baker making inappropriate gestures with the bowl of Ranch dressing.
Across the table Beau is acting like he doesn't know who Jennifer is. He takes his fork and stabs it at his salad.
"Good, huh?"
Beau nods. Beau is in one of the older groups although I am confused as to which one. When I tell him that Mark is like my brother he offers what sounds like a communicative snort. When I tell him that I ate breakfast with Our Wendy and Heather and the Polite Boy from Alabama Beau blinks several times and releases a burp.
Harmon is radiant. I am ashamed that I kept thinking about her getting naked, undressing, stepping out of her jeans as if releasing herself from a denim puddle when I was scrubbing her red jacket last night. I want tell her what happened to part of my body. How it felt like there was a space needle sprouting from between my thighs.
How I wanted to explode.
Beau takes another stab at his salad. He chews with his mouth partially ajar, a cow enjoying its last scrap of grass from Sinclair's jungle en route to the slaughterhouse.
I divert my attention back to Harmony, my makeshift bride.
“So, was your tor of Windsor everything you
fathomed that it could be?”
Harmony is smiling.
“Actually I didn’t see Windsor.”
I ask what followed by an exclamatory mark.
“I had to meet with Lynn Minton. I had to give her
the questionnaires.
“But Windsor was the one thing that you told me that
you really wanted to see on the trip. I
remember the first night when I met you on the dance floor in Stratford upon Avon. You mentioned that you just wanted to see Windsor. You mentioned that you
wanted to see Windsor more than anything else.
Harmony says yeah. She says that most of the parts
of Windsor were cordoned off because of the fire
“Yeah, but that’s important. I mean, you told me on
the dance floor in Stratford that the thing you were anticipating seeing the
most was Windsor and instead of going on the tour with your group you stay back
on the bus
Harmony is acting like it is no big deal.
“Lynn said that she really enjoyed collaborating
with me. She also invited me over to PARADE headquarters next week in New York
to meet everyone only I’m not sure that I will have time with the conference
and everything.”
I tell Harmony yeah again. Jennifer’s Beau is
snorting like he just did a line of cheap cocaine.
From Harmony’s smile tells me that she likes it that I paid attention to her. Ahlex enters back telling the girls without soliciting that Sara is fine she just needs a minute. We are seated next to each other in the building where apparently the Queen is currently residing. Ahlex looks at me again as if I am monopolizing too much of Harmony’s time and that she needs not feel so smothered by some poetic-pansy and interface positively with other members of the group. I shoot Ahlex back a look telling her with my eyes to take that gaudy engagement ring and shove it up her southern ass, maybe it will conversely morph in the hoity-toity confines of her anatomy and she will piss out a lump of coal.
Harmony takes the top of her bun, opens her ketchup bottle and makes a little heart before placing the bun back on top.
I see the heart and smile.
I see the heart and smile.
“Your jacket looks nice and shiny,” I say to Harmony, as if we have a secret between just the two of us. Across the table Jennifer Flood looks like Nat as she growls in my direction.
This evening I will have known Harmony for exactly five days.
Under the table I find Harmony's free hand and give it a little squeeze.
It takes me over a minute to let go.
It is England. I have a beautiful girl and beef for lunch.
Somewhere nearby is Queen Elizabeth.
Somewhere close is the Queen.
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