Queen of Babble

My first proper day in London-yesterday doesn’t count, because I was so sleepy I hardly remember any of it-has already started out so well (a tomato-free breakfast; a leisurely bath; sex) that I can hardly hope for it to get better, but it does: the sun is shining, and it’s too hot for Andrew to wear his break-dancing jacket!

We leave the Marshalls’ house hand in hand-Geronimo gazing sadly after us (“That dog really likes you,” Andrew observes. Yes! I’ve won over the family pet through the surreptitious slipping of food! Can the actual family be far behind?) through the glass door-and head for the Tube. I am traveling on the London Tube for the very first time!

And I am not at all frightened of being blown up, because if you let that kind of fear consume you, you have allowed the terrorists to win.

Still, I keep a sharp eye out for young men (and women-it’s as wrong to profile by sex as it is by race) wearing bulky coats on such a gorgeous day. While I look for terrorists, I can’t help noticing how much better dressed everyone in London is than they are back in A

Granted, no one appears to be as vastly overweight here as many people back in America are. What makes Londoners so slim? Could it be all the tea?

And the ads! The ads they have on the walls of the Tube station! They’re so…interesting. I don’t really understand what it is they’re advertising in many cases. But this might be because I have never seen topless women used to sell orange juice before.

I guess Shari is right. The British are much less inhibited about their bodies-although they dress them better-than we are.

When we finally reach the stop where Andrew’s got his appointment-he says there’s a bank close by where I can change money-we scramble back out into the sunshine-and I catch my breath…

I’m in London! The town center! The place where so many significant historical events have taken place, including the introduction of the punk movement (where would we be today if Mado

But before I can really absorb the richness of it all, Andrew drags me into a bank, where I stand in line (or in the queue, as Andrew calls it) to exchange some of my traveler’s checks for British pounds. When I get to the teller, she asks to see my passport and I hand it over, and she eyes my photo suspiciously.

Well, and why not? I was thirty pounds heavier when I had that photo taken.

When she returns my passport to me, Andrew asks to see it, and he has a good chuckle over the photo.

“I can’t believe you were ever that fat,” he says. “Look at you now! You look like a model. Doesn’t she look like a model?” he asks the teller.

The teller says, “Uh, yuh,” in a noncommittal way.

It is always nice, of course, to be told you look like a model. But I can’t help wondering-did I really look that bad before? I mean, when Andrew first saw me that night of the fire, I was thirty pounds heavier than I am now, but he was still attracted to me. I know. I felt his stiffy.

And okay, I was dressed in a towel since the fire department wouldn’t let us back into the building. But still.

I am distracted from thinking about all this when the teller finally hands me my money-it’s so pretty! So much prettier than American money, which is just so…green. And it comes in so many sizes-the British pound coin looks and feels like gold in my hand.

I am completely excited to go out and spend some of my new British money, so I urge Andrew to hurry up and get his appointment over with so we can get to Harrods (I’ve already mentioned that this is where I want to go first. I don’t want to buy anything there, though…I just want to see the shrine the owner, Mohamed Al Fayed, has erected to his son, who was killed in the car crash with Princess Diana).

Andrew says, “Let’s go then,” and we head toward a very dull-looking office building with Job Centre (it’s so cute how the British spell everything wrong!) written across the entrance, where Andrew gets in a long line with a lot of other people because, he says, he has to “sign on” for work, or something like that.

I am very interested in all things British, of course, because once Andrew and I are married, this could become my adopted country, the way Mado

And I think how strange it is that in England they call Europe Europe like they aren’t a part of it, but in the U.S. we all think of England as part of Europe. Probably incorrectly.

And that the man behind the counter is asking Andrew if he’s looked for work, and Andrew says he has but he hasn’t found any.

What? What is he talking about, hasn’t found work? That’s all he’s been doing since I got here: working.

“But, Andrew,” I hear myself cry, “what about your waitering job?”

Andrew goes pale. Which is an accomplishment for him since he’s already so pasty. In a sexy way…like Hugh Grant.

“Ha,” Andrew says to the man behind the counter. “She’s kidding.”

Kidding? What is he talking about?

“You were there all day yesterday,” I remind him. “Eleven to eleven.”

“Liz,” Andrew says in a strained voice, “don’t joke with the nice man. He’s busy working, can’t you see?”

Of course I can see that. The question is, why can’t Andrew?

“Right,” I say. “Like you were busy yesterday at the waitering job you had to get because the school thing didn’t pay enough. Remember?”

Could Andrew be on drugs? How could he not remember the fact that the very day I arrived for my first-ever trip to England, he was working?

A glance at his face, however, reveals that he not only remembers but doesn’t seem to be on drugs. Not if the look he gives me-a look that could kill-is any indication.

Well. It’s clear I’ve done something wrong. But what? I’m only telling the truth.

So I say, to Andrew, “Wait. What’s going on here?”

That’s when the man behind the counter at the Job Centre picks up a phone and says, “Mr. Williams, I have a problem. Yeah, be right there.”

Then he plops a Closed sign down in front of him and says, “Come with me, please, Mr. Marshall, miss,” while holding up the partition in the counter so we can pass through it.

Then he escorts us into a little room-empty except for a desk, some shelves with nothing on them, and a chair-in the back of the Job Centre office.

On the way there, I can feel the gazes of everyone else-both in line and working behind the counter-burning into the back of my neck. Some people are whispering. Some of them are laughing.

It takes a good five seconds before I finally realize why.

And when I do, my cheeks go as red as Andrew’s had gone pale a minute earlier.

Because that’s when I know that I’ve done it again. Yes. Opened my big, fat, stupid mouth when I should have kept it closed.

But how was I to know that a Job Centre is where British people go to sign up for unemployment benefits?

And what is Andrew doing, anyway, signing up for unemployment benefits when he ISN’T UNEMPLOYED?

Except that Andrew doesn’t seem to see it that way-you know, as illegal. He keeps opening his mouth to bleat, “But everybody does it!”

But that’s not how the Job Centre people seem to feel, if the look the man gives us before he leaves to find his “superior” is any indication.