As you could possibly guess, it wasn't particularly easy falling asleep that Friday night. You probably imagine me laying my clothes out for the next morning but that's not the case. I woke up and headed downstairs to breakfast that Saturday. We usually have a big breakfast with the entire family on Saturday mornings out at the beach. Bagels, flagels (flat bagels), lox, fresh fruit, and so forth. It was most definitely overcast, but not raining, and not cold either. I had on my my white Nike tennis shorts, and light blue DeBeers (a lacrosse company) t-shirt. I ate lightly, as I was nervous. I forget who asked me, but someone in my family asked why I was wearing tennis shorts, and I simply responded by saying I was meeting a friend to play tennis. Nobody knew of this Ashley York at this point.
After breakfast I gathered my stuff and headed out the door. The drive to Sportime where the courts were would take me approximately three to five minutes. I got in my car, and drove to the courts, of course arriving early, because that's how I roll. I headed to the tennis house and spoke to the pro, gave her my name, and she told me it would be about 45 minutes to an hour. Quite frankly, I didn't care about the wait, because Ashley and I would just have a chance to sit and chill and talk. After all, I wasn't exactly looking for a serious tennis match here. I opened my phone (yes, it was a flip phone back in 2008) and sent a text. I'm sure it said something simple like, "Hey, I'm here, sitting by the courts". The layout was simple enough so that there was no way she could miss me.
Not surprisingly Ashley was late. I looked at my watch and realized that at this point she was 10 minutes late, which was fine, and understandable since she was coming from Montauk. But as I mentioned in the last edition, the directions were "straight, make a right". Straight. Make a right. Twenty minutes go by at this point and I'm starting to get worried, because that's one of my occasional hobbies. She said she's driving a black 3-series BMW, so I check the parking lot, and there's no black BMW. Then my phone rings. It's Ashley.
She sounded kind of panicked, and lost. She said she was in the lot, which I knew was impossible because I was in the lot as well. But then I remembered something...the year before Sportime merged with Dunes Racquet Club and there was a back entrance, so if she was there, there was no tennis house, and no tables by the court, and certainly no me. I told her she was probably in the other lot, and to make a right out of the driveway and another right. She was literally around the corner, and I told her that I'd come out to the entrance of the driveway and that I had on a blue shirt and white shorts. She sounded a lot more calm now, and we hung up. I proceeded to the end of the driveway to wait.
3 minutes.
5 minutes.
I called her cell. Straight to voicemail. I said something like, I think you should've passed me by now but I haven't seen you, call me.
10 minutes. This is getting strange. And all of the sudden, I start getting all these voicemails from her. Frantic. Almost scared. "Where are you? Call me back".
I call her back. Straight to voicemail. Then a text from her, "how come I dont see you". Me back to her, "I'm right here. I haven't moved. I'm wearing a light blue shirt. You can't miss me".
Then more voicemails flood my inbox. "Where are you? This is weird. I think this is a bad idea".
I call her. Straight to voicemail again. "Just stop driving and tell me what road you're on?"
Her to me via text, "I'm leaving. You are weird. I'm sorry we did this."
Me to her via text, "Just hold on. You're probably just one turn away. Try to get back to 27."
Another missed call. Another voicemail. Then a text "are you really even there?"
Me to her, "yes, I've been standing out at the end of the drive way".
Her back to me via text, "This is too weird. I can't believe this. You aren't even there. This is a bad idea. I'm going home".
Now at this point my phone is just about dead. And not only is it barely breathing, but it's hot to the touch. Like literally almost on fire. I have no juice left on my phone. I've just scared off Ashley and she thinks I'm a serial killer. Perfect. I drive home, but then I look down at my phone and it's her, live, calling me. I pull into the Aboff's parking lot on 27. I wished I never picked up the phone.
Ashley proceeds to verbally light me up. I don't remember exact words, but "creep", "asshole", "sketchy" seem to ring a bell. She said she couldn't believe I could do this to her and that she was so dumb to think this actually was a good idea. And what did I have to say back to her. Nothing. All I could say is that I was there. And I was there. I had been there since 10:15. I was coming on 11:15 now. It was a brutal hour of missed calls, missed connection, and misinterpretations, and I'd basically screwed up what I was hoping would be an unbelievable first date with an unbelievable girl.
Tail between my legs I drove back the few minutes back to the house. For whatever reason, my Dad and sister were on the front steps. I stepped out of the car, and I remember my Dad saying that I looked like someone had just killed my dog, and then I explained to him that basically someone had just killed my dog, except it was worse. So I'm relaying this story to him and also to my sister. Quite presciently, my Dad's first reaction, "no, I'm sorry, but this doesn't make sense". I was crushed. It hurt. It burned. Actually, it didn't burn, that was just my cellphone, and then I realized "Land Lines" and I ran inside and jumped on a landline. I called Ashley, and by some strange miracle she picked up.
I said something to the effect of, "I don't know what just happened, but you can choose to believe me or not. I know I was there. And that's the only thing I'm sure of today". She sounded skeptical, and basically said that we shouldn't talk anymore. She had to head to the airport because she was going to Wimbledon. Yes, that Wimbledon. The epic finals Federer vs Nadal Wimbledon. She hung up. Two weeks of build up flushed in one hour. I don't know how it was possible, but the absolute worst possibly outcome happened.
I went back out on the porch and sat, dejected with my Dad, and I'll never forget what he said next. He put his hand on my shoulder and he said, "how serious are you about meeting this girl?". I replied "serious" and told him about all the time we'd spent talking and how I'd been looking forward to this for a few weeks. He said, "if you really are serious, you get back in your car and you drive to her. Drive out to Montauk. Tell her that you'll be waiting for her, just like you were this morning, and if she choose to stop and meet you then great, but you put the ball in her court".
Yes. That was exactly what I was going to do.
I ran back to the landline and I called Ashley. Again, she picked up, and I read her the riot act. I said, I'm coming to Montauk to see you because I want you to know that I'm for real about this, and I would never flake on anyone like this, ever. Ashley pleaded with me not to come, telling me it was too late, and what's the point, and that she needed to catch a flight. I told her I didn't care. I was coming out, and I was going to park at Cyril's and if she wanted to stop for 30 seconds and say hi, I'd be there. And even if she wanted to drive and just see that I existed I'd be there. I ran back to my car and started out on 27 East...
...Bumper to bumper literally doesn't even do it justice. Shit. I text her. Change of plans. I'll be at La Fondita, also right on 27, and I'll be standing in front of my car, waiting for her, in a light blue shirt and white tennis shorts. She writes back, "ok". So a few minutes later I pull into La Fondita and get a prime parking spot facing 27. I see every single car passing by. Now, Ashley had told me she was going to be driving with her brother, so I'm on the lookout for a blond girl and a guy in a black 3-series BMW. I wait. And wait. Nothing.
Twenty or thirty minutes go by at this point, and I'm antsy, and slightly aggravated. And then my phone buzzes. It's a text. From Ashley. It reads "just drove by. you weren't there. sooo shady. enjoy the weekend, creep".
Well, I dug deep into my Oxford English dictionary and fired back, "fuck you, I've been here and you didn't drive by". And as I turned to get in my car I see a black 3-series drive my with a guy in the front driving and a blond in the passenger seat. Out in the Hamptons you see that probably more than you would in Missoula, but still the timing didn't make sense. I was even more confused now and decided to drove my sorry ass home, but first eat a taco at La Fondita, obviously. At this point I'm just emotionally spent. For those of you who know me well, it takes a lot to fire me up. I just needed a rest. Hell, I might've even napped.
And of course I know you all are wondering, where's Krista Marks. Well, at some point I got on facebook, and Krista had written to my saying, "what the hell happened today. I spoke to Ashley and she was so upset" etc etc, and kept urging me to call Ashley, which was literally the last thing I wanted to do, since I'd more or less told her to take a long walk off a short pier not hours earlier. And I'll let Facebook take it away.
Hell of a time for "LOL"s Krista. I understood what Krista meant though, and you know me and my writing. I was supposed to go meet Eric Chelsea and Eric's sister and brother-in-law at The Lodge for a drink, but first I needed to just email Ashley, even though I knew at this point she was either in the air flying to London, or perhaps already across the ocean. And here is what I wrote, in an email with the subject line "Not a Good Saturday". Thank you Yahoo for preserving such horrific memories. Enjoy...
Hey, I got this email address from Krista. Facebook didn't seem like an appropriate place for this email. I don't know what went down this morning. I know I was there, you know you were there. And despite not seeing me at La Fondita either I assure you I was there too. I spent the better part of the morning rehashing everything, and no matter what I tried to figure out, the end result was the same shitty end result. There's no sense playing CSI with this anymore. I was trying my hardest to not get in touch with you today, but this has been eating at me and I couldn't help writing. In my heart of hearts I know you cannot possibly think I did not show up at all. Based on everything we've spoken about and the plans we made the night before it is highly illogical that either of us would have flaked. It makes no sense. I'm upset that 40 crappy minutes of missed connections and confusion has seemingly negated what has been countless hours on the phone getting to know one another. If I knew when I woke up this morning that today would've gone the way it ended up going I would've burrowed in my bed for the rest of the weekend.
I tried losing myself in a movie this afternoon. I decided to watch James Bond: Casino Royale since i hadn't seen it. As you can imagine, the movie was chock full of beautiful British women with accents so that basically was a 3 hour reminder of what transpired in the morning. After the movie, I showered up for dinner and was feeling a little better. The meal was good, but then dessert came, and it was strawberries and cream, which again was like a swift kick to the mid-section. I wouldn't be surprised if when I get back to my apartment tomorrow there's a complimentary copy of Elle on my desk.
I was venting my frustration to my friend this afternoon and he pointed out that this isn't how I typically act when I'm interested in someone. I'm always saying "it is what it is", and I kind of let the chips fall where they may, but for whatever reason I don't feel like that now. I'm writing this email because this is important to me, and I try to speak to you every night because it's important to me, and I wanted to meet you in person because that was important to me. So in a sense this whole thing is doubly frustrating because I put aside the whole "it is what it is" thing and put myself out there.
If you've made it through this far it probably means that you're either really bored and nothing good is on TV, or maybe there's a part of you that was hoping, like I was hoping, that today would've been a lot of fun. If there's any interest in giving this another chance, even one iota, I hope you can acknowledge that and at least consider trying this again. It doesn't need to be drinks, or dinner, or certainly not tennis. If you wanted to meet up at a starbucks wearing tube socks that's cool. If you wanted to show up with oreo crumbs all over your shirt, again, cool. Conversation with you comes so easily, especially for a pretty reserved guy like myself, and I am still looking forward to talking to you in person.
Bottom line here is that today sucked. Could not have gone any worse. Today is over in about an hour (eastern standard time), and I'm going to try to move on from it. I hope you will try to do the same. I know you may be tired when you get back tomorrow, but I'd be more than happy to just meet somewhere to say hello, even if for 5 mins. Even if it's to walk Marly with you. Ashley, I'm telling you, the absolute last thing I would want is to hurt you in any way, and I really and truly hope you can believe that. Think what you want and believe what you want, but I just had to write this and get it out there. What I really want is to just talk to you and hear your voice at some point, but I'd settle for a text or even a smoke signal, of course as long as the text doesn't say "eff off and ps your blog sucks" and as long as you are offsetting the carbon created by the smoke signal. I'm prepared for the worst though, but I'm hoping it doesn't have to be that way.
Enjoy the match.
John
Ok, so now that you've vomited in your cereal/soup/whatever from cheesiness, just realize that there were some jokes in there I haven't alluded to, but the sentiment was real. It's embarrassing as all hell to read this now, but that's what I came up with. I shut down the computer and headed out to meet my friends for drinks.
Naturally at drinks I'm telling this story, and everyone is loving it, which was a lot of fun, because it was entertaining, suspenseful, and it was the first time I think I'd laughed all day. Telling the story was a healthy way to get over it. Mid story my phone buzzes. It's Ashley. I pause, and tell the group, "it's Ashley". We're all on the edge of our seats. "What does it say. What does it say", they ask...one word...
"Poof"
Obviously, in reference to my line about the smoke signal. I'm happy, but I'm going to let this rest for a few days. I still hadn't the faintest idea of what the hell happened. I wanted an explanation, and I'd get it, but it would be an explanation that was not even close to anything I could ever have imagined.
I just gave myself the goosebumps, and I'm the one writing this thing. Jesus. Next up. Conjectures, confirmations, collusion, Team Krashley, and the Department of Homeland Security. Enjoy your week, and thanks for keeping up with the blog.
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