At 24, I impulsively threw away a respectable but boring life in suburban California for a stint as a London based flight attendant. A whirlwind of parties, clubs and pubs had me yearning for something real, and a down-to-earth connection proved ever harder to find in my fashionable fast lane crowd. Enter Jimmy, the owner of a new Chinese restaurant adjacent to my flat. He seemed to be flirting, as he more and more frequently forked over a free wonton here and a side of jasmine rice there. A few months into this valuable courtship, I agreed to go out with him.
Yes, I could probably do better than a thirty-three-year-old man who still went by “Jimmy,” but consider my most recent dates:
An over-hyped blind date with an Italian named Barney who turned out to have a voice at least an octave higher than mine and sopping yellow stains that expanded by the minute under the arms of his thin white oxford shirt.
A pilot who boldly informed me that to be with him, I’d have to enjoy frequenting strip clubs.
And a gorgeous French attorney with land and a title who turned out to be gay.
Through all this, I had remained a fairly timid and polite young thing. It seemed rude to just get up and walk out, so I’d suffer through tedious or even revolting conversations until the date naturally ended. Jimmy Lay would change all this.
Normally I would think meeting a date at 11 p.m. was a bit late, but he had to close up the restaurant, and I was willing to make allowances. I’d been eating at his shop for the past month or two and had never been poisoned. He’d been patiently flirting for months. How much more do you usually have to go on for a first date? Not to mention that, at 5’4”, he didn’t seem too threatening.
We went for a walk along the Thames where I quickly realized I wasn’t attracted to him. Maybe it was when we stood side-by-side for the first time and I truly noticed his diminutive height. Or maybe it was when he grabbed for my hand and I felt his own disproportionately tiny and disturbingly rough palms. But the pleasant conversation turned to how much I missed living on the ocean, and when he said, “Let’s go nice place on coast. You love it,” I found myself agreeing. I lived for adventure, and I lived for the ocean. Chemistry be damned, this would be a great night.
His car, a small Volkswagen Polo, was clean and well-maintained. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary except his poor taste in music. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to conjure a time 15 years earlier when perhaps he’d been cool, or if he was trying to seduce me when he put in a cassette tape, obviously a homemade compilation with its telltale clicks and abrupt stops, that featured love songs from the likes of Luther Vandross, Richard Marx, and Stevie Wonder. “They’re my favorite song for karaoke,” he said. I rolled my eyes, and psyched myself up for the beach.
The drive was longer than he’d let on, and after about 45 minutes we pulled off the motorway when I asked to find a toilet. We found a run-of-the-mill chip shop and queued up for the loo. When Jimmy finally took his turn, I thought someone else was already in the men’s room, but wasn’t sure as I’d been distracted by an attractive leather-clad guy in the line for fish. Maybe he was just waiting in the small washroom outside the toilet stall. I went back to looking at the guy in line. Damn, he had a girlfriend.
When Jimmy and I walked out to the car to continue our journey, a burly gray-haired Scotsman lunged forward, towering above us, and began shouting. Through a drunken slur of mostly indiscernible cursing, I deciphered this much:
“You f’ing chinaman bastard….blah blah blah.….you peed in the sink!”
What!? My date did not just pee in the sink. It just did not happen.
Although stunned, Jimmy ignored the man and got in the car without confirming or denying the allegations. I convinced myself this man was just a drunk with a grudge against innocent Asian immigrants. What a Nazi.
I refused to consider this new side of Jimmy, but a little voice kept reminding me that he had after all gone in and out of the washroom while I believed the toilet to be occupied.
We finally reached the town of Southend on Sea, which wasn’t much more than a dilapidated boardwalk lined with slot machines and cheap bars. It must have been at least 1a.m., and the streets were full of trashy young locals stumbling away from second-rate clubs.
We walked along the “sea,” which was more of a bay, with empty beer cans and fast food wrappers in the place of cresting waves. He reached out to me, but I lightly batted his rough little hands away. He leaned in for a kiss, and I turned away, hoping he’d taken the hint. Now tired and disappointed both in the ocean and this pathetic date (who may or may not have just contaminated a bathroom sink) I yawned and turned back for the car.
I looked to my right, where he sat in the driver’s seat, and wondered why he hadn’t started the car yet. He quickly leaned over and with a very impressive and fluid, probably well-rehearsed motion, my seat was instantly lowered to a full recline. Just as my head jerked back against the headrest, I felt his lips on mine. I shoved him away, brought my seat back to its full upright position, and had to restrain myself from slapping him. I’d found that in London although it was harder to get a first date than in the states, once you did, it wasn’t unusual for things to move rapidly. Considering this, I opted for a little tact.
“Jimmy. You’re a great guy. I’m having a wonderful time, but things are just moving too fast for me.”
He backed off saying “sorry, I’m so sorry.” So he wasn’t exactly smooth, but when I asked him to cool it, he did. I put the angry Scotsman out of my mind and looked forward to going home.
Now remember, I was young and stupid, so when he pulled up to his new house on the outskirts of London, I foolishly agreed to take a quick tour before heading home.
The moment I walked in, I knew something was wrong. I had this sick feeling like when you’re watching a murder flick and you see the unsuspecting heroine calmly heading to her doom and you just want to shout run, Run, RUN. I should have run. I couldn’t point to one thing that led me to this feeling, but immediately upon entering his lair, the hairs on my neck, honest to God, stood up on their own volition.
I reached for the lights. Jimmy whispered “don’t turn on lights.”
“Why?” I asked loudly in defiance of his intimidating whisper.
He didn’t answer. Instead he offered me a drink. Which I refused. He insisted. Again, I refused. I was ready to go.
“Jimmy, I’m really tired. It’s just so late. I’d like to go home now.”
He finally turned on a lamp, revealing a meticulously stocked wet bar. Although he was a restaurateur, this elaborate bar still seemed peculiar with hundreds of bottles ranging from Chambord and Drambuie to at least six different whiskeys and perhaps ten tequilas. All of them unopened and all together a little fishy for a single man who lived alone.
He opened the door to the living room, and as I rounded the corner from the hallway, huge brown eyes glared back at me from the center of the room. I froze. Perched on the sofa and angled toward the door as if to welcome each foolish young girl that happened through this nightmarish household, was an enormous doll. It wasn’t a blow up sex fetish type thing, that would have somehow seemed more acceptable. This was a four-foot-tall baby doll in a pink silken pantsuit, which except for its extraordinary height and black plastic bowl cut, had frighteningly realistic features.
He went on about his liquor collection making absolutely no reference to this large stranger in front of me.
I blurted out with an accusing rather than curious tone “Why do you have a doll?”
I hoped the answer would have to do with a rather tall young niece staying for the weekend, which would also explain why we had to whisper and keep the lights out. I stood aghast, nearly shaking from the chills sprinting up and down my body when he calmly walked over to the couch, and in all seriousness picked up the plastic child, brought her over and said nonchalantly, “Tiffany, I want you to meet my doll, Betsy” and held out her hand presumably for me to shake.
That was it. I’d had enough. I darted for the door, but he was right behind me, overgrown dolly in hand. He then released poor Betsy and grabbed me, sat down on a chair and pulled me onto his lap where he started trying to kiss my ears as he mumbled “you driving me crazy baby.”
Once again, I pushed this strange little man away and this time shouted “Back off.”
I grabbed the door handle, but in England most doors lock from both sides, and without a key, you can’t get out. I pushed and pulled frantically but the door wouldn’t open. Jimmy was at my side laughing quietly.
“What? D’you think I’m going to kidnap you?” he whispered only inches from my face.
“Yes” I replied in all honesty.
Then as calmly as ever, he opened the front door and let me out. He apologized for being too aggressive, “so so sorry” and seemed like a normal responsible man once again. It was past two in the morning, and having no idea where we were, I saw no choice but to assume he was weird but safe and let him drive me home.
During the drive he broke down.
Although he barely knew me, and we certainly hadn’t made a love connection that night, he cried and whimpered saying “I’m afraid I move too fast and scare you away. I feel like I’ve know you my whole life. I’m so afraid you won’t contact me.” Tears poured down his face as he shook uncontrollably.
As we neared my building, I feared for my life with this psychotic chef behind the wheel. To keep him calm, I reassured him that I’d had a wonderful time but was just so tired I needed to go home. We’d definitely do it again.
He bought it and let me peacefully leave the car. As I strolled away, I turned back to smile and wave. Then as soon as I rounded the corner and was out of sight, I broke out into a wild sprint. I pushed the security door closed behind me, ran four flights of stairs up to my flat, slammed the door, clicked all three locks behind me for the first time and pushed a chair under the knob for good measure.
For months, I walked a block out of my way to keep from passing his restaurant on the way to my tube stop. Finally nearly six months later, after I had avoided dozens of his calls, he was right in front of me at the station. We’d made eye contact, and there was no way for me to pretend I hadn’t seen him. He wasn’t angry, or whimpering, or strange, just polite and happy to run into me. He was surprised he hadn’t seen me in so long and wondered if I’d been away. After a moment of polite conversation, I moved to board the train, and he nervously asked “Can I ring you sometime? Maybe we can go out.” I guess he still hadn’t found the right girl. Shocker.
“No.” I said bluntly, as I no longer left room for politeness in my dating search.
As I made my escape, he called after me “Why not? I thought we had brilliant time?”
I remembered his friend Betsy and could clearly see why a pulse wasn’t high on this man’s dating wish list.
Buy the book this story appears in – What Color is Your Jockstrap? Funny Men and Women Write from the Road.
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