over $460 a month apiece, which was quite doable, even on my starting salary of $20,000 at The Orchard. Though my official job description for visa purposes was ârecording artiste,â I was, in actuality, just a general office assistant, continuing with the same duties Iâd always had.
âWhat do you do forâ¦The Orchard, Mr. Stoddard?â
At Newark Airport, I could now answer the immigration officialâs questions with confidence and candor.
âIâm in a rock band.â
For the first time Becky wasnât in the arrivals lounge to meet me after I collected my baggage. She eventually turned up after about ten minutes or so. The e-mails and phone calls between us had been shorter and less frequent on this separation. For my part, the approval of my visa meant that living and working in America was no longer bundled together with holy matrimony. Becky had been working at Bumble and Bumble for almost three months and had found a new slew of friends and distractions. My sudden abandonment of our marriage plans upon getting the visa had hurt her.
Over the phone, Becky had said that the fourth-floor walk-up apartment at 161 Attorney Street was small, but I wasnât really prepared for quite how tiny it was. The bedroom was big enough for a double bed and about a foot-wide space down one side. The living room was only six feet wide, the kitchen appliances were in miniature, and Iâd seen bigger bathrooms on airplanes.
âDonât freak out!â said Becky as I looked around. âItâll seem bigger once everything is in it.â
âNo, itâsâ¦nice,â I said.
It was certainly not a suitable dwelling for more than one normalsized person, and I immediately felt trapped. I took Beckyâs word that some hastily purchased IKEA furniture would give us a better perspective on the place and went downstairs to unload the truck.
The location certainly made for an easy commute to work. I experimented with a few routes but would usually walk west along Stanton,south down Clinton, west along Delancey, and south down Orchard; a walk of about eight minutes or so.
For me, having a relationship period was exciting. Having a long-distance relationship was extremely exhilarating. The separation engenders an incredible longing, the distance sparks creativity in communication, the time difference forces you to shift your perceptions of days, and the dayâs date is simply a tally toward seeing one another again, the clear and present danger of being refused entry to the country a nail-biting climax. The time you end up spending together is so precious, the arrivals and departures so fraught with emotion, the days and weeks of togetherness so fleeting. It was like having a protracted holiday romance. I had allowed the romantic drama of our transatlantic love connection to drive our relationship, and I hadnât realized it until it aged and suddenly ceased to exist, and, instead of our relationship being demarcated by ninety-day periods of togetherness and separation, it was now just us in 250 square feet, time stretching out infinitely before us. We got down to the day-to-day business of living normal lives and it suddenly became clear, to me at least, that the easy, breezy vacation part of our relationship was over.
It became apparent that Becky liked to hover within the margins of untidy and downright filthy, whereas I was coming out of the closet as a neat freak. At about the same time, she developed a stupefying habit of smoking large quantities of weed. Although I originally thought I might have been imagining it, other girls were beginning to take an interest in me and part of me began to resent that Iâd gone from virgin to a cohabitating malcontent with none of the fun, casual, reckless part in between.
It seemed a terrible shame to be this unhappy with my relationship situation when so much else seemed to be going well. Though it was I who sought out a
âWhat do you do forâ¦The Orchard, Mr. Stoddard?â
At Newark Airport, I could now answer the immigration officialâs questions with confidence and candor.
âIâm in a rock band.â
For the first time Becky wasnât in the arrivals lounge to meet me after I collected my baggage. She eventually turned up after about ten minutes or so. The e-mails and phone calls between us had been shorter and less frequent on this separation. For my part, the approval of my visa meant that living and working in America was no longer bundled together with holy matrimony. Becky had been working at Bumble and Bumble for almost three months and had found a new slew of friends and distractions. My sudden abandonment of our marriage plans upon getting the visa had hurt her.
Over the phone, Becky had said that the fourth-floor walk-up apartment at 161 Attorney Street was small, but I wasnât really prepared for quite how tiny it was. The bedroom was big enough for a double bed and about a foot-wide space down one side. The living room was only six feet wide, the kitchen appliances were in miniature, and Iâd seen bigger bathrooms on airplanes.
âDonât freak out!â said Becky as I looked around. âItâll seem bigger once everything is in it.â
âNo, itâsâ¦nice,â I said.
It was certainly not a suitable dwelling for more than one normalsized person, and I immediately felt trapped. I took Beckyâs word that some hastily purchased IKEA furniture would give us a better perspective on the place and went downstairs to unload the truck.
The location certainly made for an easy commute to work. I experimented with a few routes but would usually walk west along Stanton,south down Clinton, west along Delancey, and south down Orchard; a walk of about eight minutes or so.
For me, having a relationship period was exciting. Having a long-distance relationship was extremely exhilarating. The separation engenders an incredible longing, the distance sparks creativity in communication, the time difference forces you to shift your perceptions of days, and the dayâs date is simply a tally toward seeing one another again, the clear and present danger of being refused entry to the country a nail-biting climax. The time you end up spending together is so precious, the arrivals and departures so fraught with emotion, the days and weeks of togetherness so fleeting. It was like having a protracted holiday romance. I had allowed the romantic drama of our transatlantic love connection to drive our relationship, and I hadnât realized it until it aged and suddenly ceased to exist, and, instead of our relationship being demarcated by ninety-day periods of togetherness and separation, it was now just us in 250 square feet, time stretching out infinitely before us. We got down to the day-to-day business of living normal lives and it suddenly became clear, to me at least, that the easy, breezy vacation part of our relationship was over.
It became apparent that Becky liked to hover within the margins of untidy and downright filthy, whereas I was coming out of the closet as a neat freak. At about the same time, she developed a stupefying habit of smoking large quantities of weed. Although I originally thought I might have been imagining it, other girls were beginning to take an interest in me and part of me began to resent that Iâd gone from virgin to a cohabitating malcontent with none of the fun, casual, reckless part in between.
It seemed a terrible shame to be this unhappy with my relationship situation when so much else seemed to be going well. Though it was I who sought out a
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