Encore

Landing in Warsaw after a wuthering night in Barcelona. I’m late for pretty much everything but dinner. Small talk with my corporate folks — and then there’s a surprising phone call.

I’m staring at the vibrating watch, puzzled, looking at a photo of her face I saved in the heyday of yesteryear. A call after ages of radio silence. Out of the blue, totally unexpected.

I excuse myself.

— Is everything okay, babe?

It is. She sounds happy and it's friendly. She has moved on, as have I. But maybe the call was the closure we were both secretly hoping for.

She messages me again a few nights later, I’m walking in downtown Stockholm, funny how I remember those details. The street and the direction.

— You are this song, — she’s telling me, — Routines in the Night. That is you.

And she would always be my Natalie Portman from Hotel Chevalier. I made her watch it with me ages ago, she was hardly off uni, a laughing kiddo. My hair was black back then. An unassuming hotel room, I lured her in, made her sit through thirteen minutes of Wes Anderson and drove her back to her dorm. Without a move.

Neither of us could have predicted what was to come.

Enough. Enough now.