Part I: Ask, Alice
The following is Part I of V. The story began in mid August.
Costa Rica was the first and only place that I drove a manual transmission. On the highways deep sink holes are denoted by a single cone, 4×4 is mandatory, and fording crocodile infested rivers is not an uncommon practice. But that was Costa Rica, and this is England… a far more sinister place.
Everyone except me drives on the wrong side of the road, the roundabouts induce nausea, the car seating is all messed up, and a variety of very observant cameras make me anxious. In the first ten minutes upon departing from the rental agency I managed to clip four side view mirrors, hit a curb at high speed, lose two shiny hubcaps, melt the clutch, and played a few accidental games of chicken with oncoming traffic.
The navigator was pissed. “You’re going to kill me; you’re driving too close on the left! You keep hitting mirrors!” She glared at me with her giant eyes. I had only known Alice for a number of hours; we were off to a great start on our five day adventure.
Allow me to elaborate. Alice, the navigator, works in a hotel. On a daily basis she books rooms, handles disasters, thwarts the attempts of married men to get her number, and dreams about living out of a backpack. Her personal goal: save $20,000 and get lost somewhere on the planet. Monetarily she’s halfway there; mentally she’s been penning her own global version of “On The Road” for years. She speaks four languages, has been to 24 countries, and until a few days ago, didn’t know how to read a road map. Why? because she always had boys to do that for her…
How we met is a bit of a story on its own.
My dad once told me: “When the whites of a woman’s eyes are pearly white, it means she’s ovulating. These are the ones who are who are ready for your attention.” I couldn’t help but notice her dark brown iris surrounded by porcelain white, and then I couldn’t help but stare, and then I couldn’t help but wander up to her as she worked her hotel desk. I stated the biologically obvious: “You look like you’re ovulating.”
She looked me straight in the eyes with intention, “How did you know?” she responded while fiddling with a BIC pen.
After a pregnant pause I continued, “I just know these things.” Without hesitation she took my hand and dragged me to the laundry room. In a sea of clean linen we had the most mind blowing, juicy, and loud four minutes of sex ever.
Wouldn’t that have been lovely? Oh the joys of an active imagination. I don’t actually remember our short interaction. The Today Show had put me up in Alice’s Rockefeller hotel in NYC for a morning news spot. As I was checking out we said some witty things to one another. It wasn’t as cheesy as “so you come here often” and certainly not as dashing as “You look like you’re ovulating.” –But certainly somewhere in between. I distinctly remember a good fifteen seconds of staring contest that took place.
I left a business card with one of her co-workers with the instructions, “Tell Alice she was lovely, I would love to get to know her better.”
A week later, back in Montreal, while pondering my existence and eating ice-cream my phone rang: “Kosta? This is Alice.” she said. With a full mouth I responded: “Who’s Alice?”
As we chatted it became more and more apparent that this girl was about as nutty as I was. Her lone travels through Eastern Europe, Brazil, Portugal, Spain were inspiring. She made a proposal late one evening “You’re going to Amsterdam at the end of August for that hacking camp. I want to go to the Creamfields festival in England around when you’re finished there. Let’s meet up.” Without missing a beat I replied: “Sure.”
Five days of travelling with an almost complete stranger. Sounds like a lovely idea.
