Three Lessons from Study Abroad
1. Book shopping can be boy shopping.
I spotted him right away, after the door jingled behind me and I stepped into the darkened and musty bookstore. The young man, let’s call him the shopkeeper (Graeme), had closely-cropped blonde hair, a round head perched on top of a reed-like body, a threadbare cardigan, black jeans (Hole in knee), John Lennon glasses, Doc Marten boots. He paid no attention to me. He kept his legs crossed, seated at his wobbly little desk, read his book whose thin pages and fine print I noted from across the room. (I had perfect vision then.)
“Excuse me,” I said.
His eyes widened, presumably from my American accent.
(This was 1990 and there weren’t many of us around Glasgow, Scotland.)
“I want a collection of Shakespeare plays. Like in one book.”
He smirked, moved from his corner, rubbed his hands together.
At that moment I observed the mug of tea on a plate, its pruny bag laying exhausted, prone on its side.
He found what I needed, easy to do in this small bookshop holding only a certain number of used books. There was no need for or possibility of computers answering the young shopkeeper’s questions about stock or placement. He had to use the old noggin, as a grandfather might say.
Pulling a thick tome from a shelf, he opened it, squinted, pushed his glasses up his nose as he surveyed a page. (Table of contents, I guessed.)
“Comedies, tragedies, histories, this should do it.”
He stole a glance at my face, placed the book in my hands.
I held it, charmed by its flaking pages and stained cover, certain I would not read much of this book. (I came to Scotland to drink legally, meet new people, escape.) I followed the shopkeeper back to his table, behind which he repositioned himself.
“Two pounds,” he said, his Scottish accent so adorable, sounding sort of like pundes. (Sort of.)
I reached in my Banana Republic Israeli paratrooper bag and pulled out my wallet, handed him the cash, attempting to hide my unease with the foreign bills.
“Is that right?” I asked every time money was exchanged.
“Do you have something smaller?”
I’d handed him a twenty. Flustered, I found a five pound note. (My hand shook a little.)
“Where are you from?” he asked.
I told him New York, achieving the usual awe-filled response.
“New York. Wow,” he smiled. (Crooked teeth) I’m sure I said a few things, asked him questions. At some point I would know where he was from (Bathgate), a place whose name meant nothing to me.
I took my brown paper book bag and headed out into the steady mist, glancing at the shop’s hours, noting the day and time of the week. I climbed the hill back to my residence, plotting my next move. I would return to the book shop at closing the same day next week, act as though it was a coincidence, help the shopkeeper close, perhaps carry in the boxes of books displayed under the shop’s front awnings. On that day, I would linger there, fixed on the cold slab of sidewalk, my Converse sneakers edging toward his Doc Martens. I hoped he’d succumb to my presence and ask me for a coffee, or better yet, a drink. I went back to my student housing, feeling a sense of purpose.
2. Sometimes we want people for no good reason.
The shopkeeper took me to see When Harry Met Sally, though I had already seen it the summer before at the Jersey shore. (Back then, movies came about six months faster in the U.S.) After that initial drink when I bombarded him at the end of his book shop shift (Say that three times fast) he was besotted with me for all of about a week, maybe two. The movie fell in that time frame. He took me to Wimpy Burger, Scotland’s answer to McDonalds, and then to the theater. He wrote our initials and the date on the paper ticket stub, a gesture even I found contrived, as though he was forcing a cliched romance on the whole thing.
The not-romantic truth: we didn’t have a chance to know anything about each other, to like or dislike each other, let alone fall in love with each other. Foolishly, I cherished that ticket stub from that one date, but I knew nothing about the shopkeeper’s life, family, interests, even his studies at the university. Back home, my brother was gravely ill with cancer, receiving a bone marrow transplant. My family was in a state of crisis, but I am sure I never shared this. (Much more fun sliding down in a movie theater seat, holding hands with a stranger.)
I was devastated when he stopped calling. Late at night, post-pub tipsy, I wandered into the echoey stairwell of my building and dialed his number at the payphone which smelled like beer even before I beer-breathed into the receiver.
“Is Graeme home?” I slurred. Of course his roommate knew it was me, the American. The (Insert adjective) American. I’d done this a few times before.
“Graemes gone to bed, they said, or “Graemes not in.”
“Goodbye, Maggie, goodbye. Cheers.”
(Please stop calling, or go back to America, or something.)
3. Walking drunk through a park, alone at night in the rain, is always a bad choice.
Tonight was the night, I decided. I’d storm the shopkeeper’s flat. Who cared if it was midnight on a raining Tuesday? Who cared if I was drunk, that I had to walk across town, across an empty park alone? Who cared that he was obviously done with me, hadn’t called in weeks?
The multiple pints sloshing around my bodily system fueled the brazen knock.
Bam Bam Bam. No answer, another knock. After that I stood listening to the tense silence (Was that breathing on the other side of the door?) I was intrigued, enraged.
Oh come on!
I kicked the door. I pressed a cold ear to a colder door deducing whispers and a clear, “No, you do it!” Finally the girl roommate, quivering voice, said, “Who’s there?”
I hadn’t meant to be scary. (Me? Scary? No way. Not possible.)
Frigid shame flattened that bravado I’d carried with me like a shield across the Kelvingrove Park, step by step in the darkness, in the goddam endless rain. Too late to turn away, I said my name. The door opened to the shopkeeper himself standing before me wearing a set of old man striped pajamas.
“I guess you expect something, to stay?”
I nodded, swiftly lowering my expectations. His face remained blank.
(I hate you, crazy American.)
I stepped into the flat, felt the gaze of the flatmates follow me as I followed him, my beloved. (Not really.)
He entered his room. When I followed he turned and gave me the internationally accepted look of “Don’t push it.” He chucked a pair of pajamas at me and pointed at the bathroom and couch, closed his bedroom door behind him. I woke up early to a pounding head, and as soon as morning light overtook the interminable Glasgow grayness, I dressed in my damp clothes and scurried out, practically running to my own flat, where I could disappear into my unmade bed.
