Cherry in London

I'm in London
Because Robert will be here
In five days

In five days
He will be returning to the city
Where he fell in love
With my best friend, Jenna

Jenna was...

Well, I think that actually sums it up

Jenna was

Jenna's just one of those people
Who is a memory
From the minute you meet them

Jenna is always leaving
Wherever it is
That she is

Restaurants
Relationships
Hemispheres

That's just Jenna

And Robert met her here in London

She and I and our friend Jessica
All came here for Spring Break

Jessica was studying theater at Brown
Now she's running this theater in Providence

It kills me to think my friends have such grown-up jobs
And I still can't decide whether or not
To go back to grad school
Or what I would go back for

My degree from Brown was in lost cities

No, I'm not making that up

If I went back to get my masters
I don't know which part I would delve further into
The cities or the lost

Jenna wasn't studying anything either
Which made it much easier for her to drop out of school

When we got to London
She put down her bags
Looked at me and Jessica
And said--

'Girls, I'm staying'

We thought she meant at the airport

We were a little confused
It was the first time either of us
Had heard Jenna say she was 'staying' somewhere

But she meant London
She was going to stay in London

And after three days
I was ready to stay with her

But a lot of that was Robert

We met him at a pub
Near our hotel

He told us he was an exchange student
But he was actually just a tourist
Visiting London with his mother

He was also younger than us

He was from Providence
And he was supposed to be attending BC
In the fall

I fell in love with him instantly

Jenna needed a few beers in her
Before she could make that leap

We spent the rest of Robert's week in town
Just walking around
Being sight-seers

I remember it raining
That London sort of rain
The very first time
And the three of us stood out in it
Because we wanted to be pelted
With London rain

We held hands
And ran around in a circle
Singing 'London Bridges'
And, as you've probably guessed
We were incredibly drunk

We were drunk most of the time

And when we finally sobered up one morning
On the hardwood floor of a flat
That belonged to none of us
But to some guy we met at a club
The night before

We realized that our trio
Was not some lovely friendly triangle
But rather a creepy third-wheel situation

And guess who was the third wheel...?

So I came home

It seemed like the right thing to do

Robert told his mother he was in love
And that he and Jenna were going to stay in London

His mother and I sat next to each other
On the plane ride back
And she kept giving me dirty looks

As if it were my fault he were staying
Because Jenna was my friend

Or perhaps she thought if he had fallen in love with me
He would have returned to Providence
And then gone on to BC
And now he was surely going to take up poetry
And die in London or Paris
Or some place poets go to die

I used to get postcards from the two of them

First from London
Then from a variety of other cities
Until finally it became clear
That Jenna had stopped having anything to do with the postcards
And Robert was now signing both names

Jessica and I used to get lunch
And discuss Jenna and Robert

We'd imagine them backpacking across the Alps
Or auditioning for films in L.A.
Or shooting up in an abandoned warehouse in Jersey

Jessica loved imagining these things
Because it helped her get over the fact
That her life was in the arts
And yet compared to Jenna's life
There was a notable lack of excitement

I liked imagining Robert

In all my scenarios
He was unhappy

And his droopy 'o's on the postcards he sent me
Seemed to back me up on this

Then last week
I got the postcard
That placed me here

'It's over. I'm going back to London. Meet me?'

Signed Robert

Just Robert

. . . . .

I hope he doesn't ask me to stay here

I want to stay with him
With him would be...

Wonderful

But I don't want to stay here

I'm not like Jenna

I like where I am

I know that sounds terrible
I know I sound like something out of 'Our Town'
But I've been living in Providence now
For so many years

And it's...

It's sort of like being married to someone

I don't always love it
But I miss it
When it's not there

Today when I arrived
It was raining

And I went outside
To stand in it

There was a boy from Providence
Sitting next to me on the plane
And when he walked out of the airport
And saw me standing in the rain
He said--

'They have rain in Providence too, you know.'

Sometimes I think you go on vacation
To see the same things you have at home
Rearranged on foreign streets

As I was standing out in the London rain
I thought of Robert

Was he my London rain?

The same sort of man
I could get anywhere
Just with a better back story?

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself

Maybe he'll get here
And tell me
He doesn't want me at all

That he was just joking
About meeting me here

And how could I do something so rash
As to hop on a plane to London
And wait for him to arrive?

Maybe this was all a mistake

Or maybe he'll get here
And I'll pull him out into the rain
And it'll be just the two of us
Covered in foreign precipitation

And maybe we'll go somewhere unique
And see things we can only see here
And toss American coins with American Presidents
Into a fountain somewhere

And then maybe it'll start to rain again
And I'll turn to him and say--

'Robert, let's go home'

And we will

But before we do
We'll stop at a gift shop

So I can pick up a postcard
To send to myself

And it'll be waiting for me
When I get back