Laughter

iTunes is playing: La Vie Dansante - Aaron Neville - Warm Your Heart

We met in junior college. And we took a stroll along the bleachers one day when we were both excused from PE (I had rugby training and she had, you know). We spotted a toad on the ground and I expected her to scream in horror. Instead, she took three steps and landed a kick smack on the toad, sending it flying onto the running track. I think I fell in love then.

She laughed when she was nervous. The more nervous she got, the harder she laughed. She laughed a lot when she dumped me for the canoeing captain. She laughed a lot again when we bumped into each other a few years after we left college. And then some more when she called one day when I was in Sydney, asking if she could come stay for a week.

She called again a year after, asking me to visit her in London where she was doing her MBA. And I went to London, spent a lot of time with her, and decided to tell her on New Year's Eve over the phone how much I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life. She laughed the loudest I had ever heard her laugh. She laughed till she stopped.

Then she asked what I was gonna do now that I had the answer. I said 'stay in and cook dinner'. She said 'me too'. Then we hung up.

Then I took my coat and scarf and headed out to Bayswater for duck rice. And as I approached Hung Toa's Chinese Restaurant on Queensway, I saw her standing outside the restaurant. Before I could turn around, she saw me, and we both looked at each other sheepishly at twenty paces, through the wet London sleet for dramatic effect.

I finally approached her and expected her to laugh. She didn't, and asked if I had dinner, and if I'd join her. I said yes, and duck rice never tasted so bitter.

Six years later, she calls again, from Boston, and tells me she got my number from a mutual friend, hahahahahaha. She wants to see me hahahahhahaha. Because she's getting married hahahahhaha. And I tell her I can't see you hahahahhaha, because I am going on a business trip hahahahhaha. Have a good life hahahhaha. Good bye. I mean it.