“Well…we’ll have to decide how and where we take on each other’s customs. We’ll have…er…negotiations.” I unwrap my towel, hoping to distract him from the subject of dogs. “But meanwhile, let me introduce you to one of my most important customs. In Ava-land, this is what a bath should be like.”
I get into the full bath and sigh with pleasure as my skin responds to the water. It’s hot. It’s restorative. It’s a proper bath.
Matt comes over, and as he feels the temperature of the water, his eyes widen. “Are you for real? That’s not a bath, that’s a cauldron.”
“You can get in if you like.” I grin at him, and after a moment he strips off his T-shirt and boxer shorts. As he gingerly steps into the water, he looks genuinely pained.
“I do not get this,” he says. “I do not get this at all. Ow!” he exclaims as he sits down. “It’s hot.”
“Love me, love my bathwater,” I say teasingly, and tickle his chest with my toes. “You’re in Ava-land now. Enjoy.”
Twelve
It’s nearly three weeks later, and as I shower in Matt’s bathroom, I’m pensive. Not in a bad way. God, no. Of course not. Just in a thoughtful way.
I keep picturing Matt—and it’s almost as if there are two men in my head. There’s Dutch, the man I fell in love with in Italy. Dutch, with his kurta pajamas and smoldering eyes and general air of being some sort of hunky artisan carpenter. Then there’s Matt, who gets up every day and puts on a suit and sells Harriet’s House dolls and comes home and putts golf balls.
And they’re the same exact guy. That’s what’s quite hard to reconcile.
I do still see glimpses of Dutch; he’s still there. We’ve started doing tai chi together most evenings before bed, which was my idea. I told Matt I’d love to learn more about the ancient tradition of martial arts, except I wasn’t going to fight anyone. So tai chi was the perfect solution—and we do it in our kurta pajamas from the monastery. (Also my idea.) We follow this great YouTube video and Harold joins in sometimes—at least, he tries—and it’s such a happy time. We both spend the whole ten-minute routine smiling at each other and laughing when we get it wrong. It’s fun. It relaxes Matt. It gets us in sync with each other. It’s exactly like we should be.
So that’s good. And sex is still great. And the other night, when Matt told me this long story about his friend learning to ski, he was so hilarious I thought I would die laughing. When he loosens up, he’s funny.
But we can’t do tai chi all the time. Nor have sex, nor tell funny stories, nor wander romantically through the streets, hand in hand, as though we don’t have a care in the world. (We’ve done that twice.) The trouble is, there’s life to deal with too. Actual life.
On the plus side, I’m getting more accustomed to Matt-land. I can now approach his ugly building without flinching, which I see as major progress.
However. Being a fair-minded and unbiased person—which I definitely am—I would say that whereas my life is quite straightforward and easy to learn, his is a tortuous maze. Every time you think you’re getting somewhere, you find yourself faced with a socking great hedge, usually in the form of his family business. God, it’s intrusive. How can one international toy company with a presence in more than 143 countries be so intrusive?
OK, maybe that’s not exactly what I mean. What I mean is, why does Matt need to work so hard?
The more I learn about Harriet’s House, the more I lurch between awe at its stature and frustration at the way Matt’s parents run it. They seem to have this pathological need to call Matt every night. They run tiny decisions past him. They make him read all their emails. They make him take people out to lunch. They make him wear stuffy suits, because it’s “tradition.”
They’re very old school, that’s no secret. I’ve explored the Harriet’s House website a bit, and the rule appears to be that every sentence will contain the word “tradition,” except the ones that contain the word “legacy.” There’s also quite a lot about how the Warwick family will never tire in its dedication to Harriet’s House fans all over the world.
I mean, I admire that dedication. I admire Matt’s strong work ethic. I admire his family