I'm going to have a heart attack if I don't fly anywhere for more than two weeks."
"I don't know. I went on a trip to Nantucket. So, we flew to Boston to visit some friends of family there and do a little trip. But that's pretty much it."
"What about Florida? What about Europe?"
“Nope.” I shake my head.
“I would love to travel but especially to Europe or anywhere like that, but the opportunity had just never come up. It costs a lot of money to travel. I don't know if you are familiar with this concept.”
He tilts his head slightly in my direction, making fun of me, but also giving me a sympathetic pitying look that makes me feel bad.
"We're going to have to remedy that situation as soon as possible."
"Well, tomorrow morning I am flying to Seattle and I've never been to the West coast."
"You're breaking my heart, Jacqueline. I hope you know that."
"Look, I know that you have been all around the world everywhere, but that hasn't been my situation. I was in college and then during breaks, when everyone went skiing in Colorado or to the Swiss Alps and in the summer had their internships in Paris, I had to work. I had to have a real job. A real job that paid really bad and didn't get me anywhere, but it sustained a roof over my head. So that was my reality for a long time."
"I know, I'm sorry. I was being a jerk,” Dante says. "I don't mean to make fun of you. I shouldn't have said that."
"No, I appreciate you wanting to expand my horizons. And in fact, I'm kind of into that."
I smile over at him sitting in the passenger seat of his car. He's a fast driver, but there's too much traffic ahead of us and too many red lights to really let him fly.
The rain starts to fall almost sideways and I wonder if they postpone flights over rainstorms. When I ask Dante about it, he says only if there's a thunderstorm and lightning.
So far we haven't had either.
Besides, the weather will probably shift by tomorrow or in a few hours, so who knows what's going to happen in the morning.
We drive for a while without saying a word and I imagine what it'd be like to travel with Dante.
Where would I even want to go? Paris is right up there on the list.
Perhaps it's cliche, but given the fact that I've never been there and it is the most romantic city on earth. It's definitely a priority.
I can just imagine it, Paris in the summertime sitting by the Seine River, eating croissants at a cafe.
"You know, they actually sit with their bodies facing out,” Dante says when I share my dream.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"I don't know if you've ever noticed it, in movies and that kind of thing. But when you're there in real life, it's very disarming. All the cafes, the chairs, instead of facing inward toward the establishment, people face out. They sit on the side, they sit with their backs to the restaurant or to the coffee shop and everyone watches people walking down the street. They smoke and they drink black coffee and talk about the pedestrians, or at least it feels that way. In reality, they’re probably just discussing philosophy and politics in that abstract sense the way that French people do."
I laugh and toss my wet hair, which has started to dry in sad little clumps around my shoulders.
"What about London?" I say. "I'd love to go there. See the Tower, the Palace, just walk along the Thames, all that stuff. It's so romantic. And the British Museum! I’d love to see all of the archeological artifacts."
"You mean the ones that they took illegally from all the countries they colonized?” Dante asks, raising an eyebrow.
He jokes and I laugh, but we both know that he's saying the truth.
“I would also recommend only visiting in the summertime since it gets kind of rainy. I don't know if you've heard of that.”
He’s being sarcastic, of course.
"Oh, yes, but that's part of the charm, right? Rainy, foggy day in London, maybe stop into the Charles Dickens museum. Get a copy of Sherlock Holmes."
"Charles Dickens didn't actually write Sherlock Holmes."
"I know. I'm just naming things that are British."
He laughs and I laugh along with him.
I like having this banter and the ease of it.
We've had a lot of pressure in our relationship so far and suddenly it