She was really beautiful.
Stunning.
She had one of those faces that make you forget you’re in an airport.
I noticed her at customs — or rather, I noticed her passport. She was standing right beside me, paging through it the way you do when you’re bored and killing time, and her name was right there on the photo page. Sarah. British.
I weighed my options for approximately half a second.
“Hi, Sarah.”
She looked up. I held out my hand. “Ramon.”
The smile she gave me was the kind that makes a man consider rerouting his flight.
We fell into step together through the terminal. She was heading to Mumbai — worked for a hotel chain, managing properties across Asia. Three weeks in Bangkok, now back to her apartment in India, which she was looking forward to in the way you only look forward to your own bed and your own things after too long in other people’s rooms. I told her I was heading home to Cambodia.
“Cambodia,” she repeated, as if testing whether it was a real place.
There was a Starbucks at the end of pier F. We had time. She had an iced coffee. I had an iced mocha and tried not to stare.
She asked what brought me to Bangkok. Business?
This is always the moment. I have learned, over years of answering this question, that there is no version of the truth that doesn’t require at least one explanation. I decided to just say it.
“I flew in yesterday to do a stand-up comedy set. I’m going home now.”
A beat.
“You’re a comedian?”
Not professionally, I said. Well — sometimes I got paid. But I hadn’t done it in a while, and last night was the first time in—
She cut me off. “How did it go?”
Actually well. The set felt solid. The audience was with me from the first minute.
“Nice confidence,” she said, and she meant it as a compliment, which meant I’d threaded a needle.
I told her there had been an offer to perform in Mumbai the same month. She raised an eyebrow. I told her that Cambodia had to come first — that I ran a cinema there, an art house, one of three actually, and things needed my attention.
This is the other moment. The one where a fresh conversation partner does a quick recalculation. Who is this man, exactly? What does he do? I have watched people land in one of three places: quietly decide I’m a fantasist, find me suddenly interesting, or feel vaguely destabilised by someone who doesn’t have a one-sentence job title.
Sarah set down her coffee.
“Hold on.” She looked at me. “Are you the guy who runs that cinema in Cambodia? I’ve read about you.” A pause while she pulled up something in her memory. “Didn’t you do a crowdfunding campaign to save it? And you’re Dutch. And you once — didn’t you travel the world and write a book about it? People putting you up for free?”
I did not say anything.
“I’ve read about you,” she said again. “That’s so cool.”
In twenty-odd years of conversations like this, I still don’t know what to do with that one. I just smiled.
Her gate was already boarding. She stood up, pulled her bag over her shoulder, and held out her card.
“You should come to Mumbai,” she said. “Do a gig. We’ll have a drink.”
She picked up her coffee cup for one last sip, then turned back with that smile.
“I hope you still write,” she said.
I can’t believe you’re nervous telling a girl about your cool life.
In fact I don’t believe it!
wow ! thats something to look forward ! will see if she e-mails you tsk… tsk…
Nice one Ramon …… Now get writing!
cute story..
that’s how I need to seduce someone during the loooong waiting hours at the aiports..
with a smile .
This is so true it brings a tear to my eye – and makes me feel it is too long since my last travelling!
I hope my long-time girlfriend will join me on my adventures soon, we have to play the waiting game until her two children are old enough to come with me too, there is no time to travel as a family at the moment.
I am off on my own to travel Central America again soon, so that should ease my feet’s desire to leap off to places all the time.
That’s fucking nutz! 😛
Freaking awesome! 🙂
Hey Ramon. Thanks for all of your genuine encounters in life and honest openess in accepting all life has to offer. I personally was in the 1st gulf war , studied to preach up in seattle, wa. And currenty in a small town u.s.a. freelance prose which I share with friends and beautiful women! I don’t feel as odd knowing there are other guys like me that take the same approach to life! One request tho in your blogs, can you enlighten the rest of us into your.sense of humor???!!? Thanks!
Ramon, yes you can …women need to hear that … 🙂
mizu
Hi! Thanks for sharing this story!
Funny thing is that I had my own airport encounter January 7, 2014.
and I feel like the meeting changed us both forever. So, don’t despair, true connection really does exist and we are not nearly as weird as we may think .