Chapter 12: Le Cellier, Part Deux

Emily smiles at me. "I guess now is a good time to present you with a little something."

She reaches into her purse and retrieves a small envelope the color of parchment. There’s a distinct crease pattern in it, indicating something somewhat more three-dimensional than your average card is inside.

I take the envelope and carefully lever it open with my thumb. I’m not sure why I’m so OCD about envelopes, but I’ve always opened them with an eye towards having as little mess and tearing of paper as possible. Emily, ever supportive, has pretty much decided to live with it, and she waits patiently. Her eyes, though, belie the excitement behind them.

Before I can retrieve the card, a small brass pin falls from the envelope to land in my palm. The fastener on the back is dull from age. I turn it over to find a worn emblem, like that of a compass rose.

She knows I like Disney pin trading; it’s an unfortunate hobby that I fall into when I visit this place. It’s funny, though. I get Really Seriously Into pin trading when I’m here, only to completely forget about it once I leave. I guess you could call it Schrodinger’s hobby – its existence depends on how it’s measured.

That said, though, the icon of the compass rose is a very interesting choice – and to understand why, I need to rewind a bit, back to February of this year. 

See, back then, Emily and I went to the jewelry store in Atlantic Station and I tried to explain to the salesman exactly what I was looking for in a ring. (This means that the concept of marriage had pretty much always been on the table. It’s just the execution of the proposal that’s a surprise.) I spent the next hour and a half explaining to the extraordinarily patient salesman just what I wanted, which is to say, a ring carrying the motif of a compass rose. 

While the jewelers weren’t able to make that happen, right now, I’m sitting across the table from someone who remembered our motif months after it was mentioned. It hadn’t been brought up since. 

Before I can articulate my inability to process this, our waiter Robert reappears. He’s carrying a splendid dessert tray laden with two ceramic bowls and two little squares of chocolate. Each one is, upon closer inspection, a note written in gold lettering upon a dark chocolate backdrop. One reads “Happy Birthday,” while the other reads “Happy Anniversary.” 

As cool as this is, I’m a bit confused. “Wait, I didn’t tell him it was our anniversary and your birthday, did I?”  

“Or, you know, he just read your pins,” Em says. I look down and I’m still wearing the button they gave us at the hotel lobby. 

“Oh, that. Right.” I’m wearing a sheepish expression. 

The ceramic crockery turns out to contain crème brulee. “Maple crème brulee,” Robert says, after watching this little episode between us. “Give it a try.”

As with so many things this trip, we dig in to this new experience. Now, I’m no great connoisseur of fancypants French desserts or anything, but I’d have thought the addition of a maple syrup flavor would have overpowered the taste of the cream and the crystallized, torched sugar crust atop it. It doesn’t. Sure, it’s sweet, but not much more so than any other crème brulee I’ve had, and the maple adds a nice, aromatic and woodsy heft to the crust. Which, I might add, is properly thick – there’s no replacement for a good thick crust on a crème brulee. 

Somewhere in the melee, the bill gets paid, and yes, it’s expensive, and you know what? So what. This has been brilliant, this entire day. Here I am, towards the conclusion of this first part, with an amazing meal inside me and one last mystery left to work on. 

I dare not say it, for fear of breaking some imperceptible spell, but the thought hasn’t left my head. Is Emily on the same wavelength as me? Is she thinking in terms of us as a couple, a unit, an abstract concept that extends past the now and into the forever?

“This is Pin,” reads the card. “Pin needs your help to find his brothers Cuff and Link. They will be presented to you by your Bride on your wedding day, but everything else is uncertain.”

As thick-skulled as I can be sometimes, that’s a pretty strong hint towards yes. And it’s all the tacit acknowledgement I need to press on with the plan. 

“Em,” I say, looking across the table into those big, steel blue eyes, “you are amazing.”

A grin, equal parts the facetious and the affectionate, plays across her face. It tells me everything before her words confirm it.

“I know.” 

Chapter 11: In Which Our Narrator Stuffs His Face with Steak

If nothing else, our little excursion into Morocco earlier certainly freed up some time to go exploring.

“Hobbit, just how long did we just spend in there?”

I have that idiotic grin on my face, indicating I’ve just spent an embarrassing amount of time in the Living Seas. Full disclosure here – I love aquariums. Leave me unsupervised and I turn back into a five-year old and leave nose prints on the acrylic windows.

“Long enough,” I say, without the least bit of shame.

Leaving me poorly supervised is worse, because then the supervisor has to listen to the supervisee talk his or her ear off about whatever marine fauna is before us. The unwitting supervisor will therefore be in for multiple hours of a Wikipedia-esqe infobarrage: long-winded, poorly edited and largely factually correct but displaying a distressing tendency towards open-source exposition. 

The cool thing about the Living Seas (or at least the part that I sold Emily on) was the ride in the beginning. It’s one of those “OmniMover” attractions like the Haunted Mansion or Spaceship Earth that all employ a long chain of seats creeping along the ride’s track. This one is Finding Nemo-themed, and when it takes you in front of the aquarium sections, it employs some pretty clever projection technology to create the illusion that the Finding Nemo characters are swimming among the Living Seas. 

It’s awesome.

And it drops you off in the heart of one of the world’s largest aquarium complexes. 

“Oh god!” Em says. “I can’t believe I ever got you out of there.”

For the record, she’s still dragging me by the arm. Yes, this is necessary to prevent me from detaching and drifting back into the marine abyss that is Disney’s Living Seas like so much plankton and krill. We all have our vices; zoos and aquaria are two of mine. 

“Are you…hungry?” she asks. Finally, something to snap me out of my idiotic stupor. Now that I think about it, I’m starving. 

I clutch at my stomach. "Okay, yeah, me too." Dear god, I'm ravenous. It's not until Em mentioned it fifteen seconds ago that I realized I haven't eaten anything since I had a piece of chocolate in Italy.

Instantly we're up and moving. Nothing motivates us as a couple faster than food, and Disney food in particular.  There is a pervasive stereotype in the public mind about Disney food, that it's all about sodium-laced mutant turkey legs and undercooked fries. Charcoal-briquette burgers whose extraterrestrial surface is pockmarked with craters and grease.

To be fair, you can get that if you really want it. There are plenty of  chicken fingers and burgers and the like, because let's face it, kids are picky eaters and there tend to be a lot of those at Disney.

You have to look past these artifacts of the 1970s, and when you do, you'll discover that there's actually pretty great food all around you.  This past winter, at the (unsurpriseful) Harry Potter world trip, we'd regularly drive onto Disney property and sample the restaurants. You can get spectacular Spice Road specialties like tandoori meats and bread and dipping sauces at Sanaa.  You can go to Ohana for some of the best bread pudding I've had ever - and this includes places like the famous Bon Ton in New Orleans. 

There is gastronomical wonder all around you, and all you have to be willing to do is look for it.

Or, in my case, have an Emily with you. She pretty much planned all the meals before we ever hit Florida, and believe me when I say that there have been graduate-level theses with less research put into them. The upshot is that we never find ourselves wanting for good food when visting the House of Mouse. 

Let's focus on our late-lunch destination: Le Cellier. Travel down the winding path of the Canada pavilion, through the courtyard and down past the pond, whereupon one finds a wine cellar and steakhouse in the castle's depths.

   

"Eesh. It's officially dark in here," I say. 

The name of the place is accurate. It's a darkened wine cellar, all stonework and heavy unfinished oak and candlelight. The ceiling is buttressed with thick wooden beams which hold minimalist chandeliers. "Cozy" best describes the place; our table is against one of the walls, secluded and romantic. 

Emily plunks straight down in the chair and snatches up the menu. I'm not far behind. We're dizzy with hunger and the prospect of food is driving our animal brains mad with anticipation. 

"I'm getting the filet," Em says, after all of five seconds of deliberation. Just then, our waiter appears. He's a genial middle-aged chap with a spectacular mustache, with 'Robert' on his name tag. "Hey, welcome to Le Cellier! What would you like to drink?" he asks. 

"I'll have a Coke-" I start.

"Sweet-tea-and-we're-ready-to-order-thanks," says Em, sporting the same face your cat gives you when you're holding the treat bag out of reach. 

Not missing a beat, Robert jots our order down in his mind and presses on. "Coke, sweet tea and what would you like for lunch?" he asks.

"Filet with the mushroom risotto," Emily says, biting her lower lip. She does that on occasion and I have never ceased to find it adorable as hell. "Medium rare."

I look back down at the menu. I have to have a steak - it's been ages since I've eaten one. Why not live a little, especially since Le Cellier is supposed to be one of the best steakhouses on Disney property? "I'd like to get the New York Strip, 10oz please," I tell Robert. "Ah, medium rare also."

"Great!" Robert replies. "I'll get those started right now. You two seem pretty hungry, huh?" 

He's back one minute later, carrying a basket made of black metal wicker, with four pieces of steaming-hot bread sitting upon a sheet of butcher's paper. The aroma of freshly baked bread fills the air, one part steam and one part flour and one part wheat.

The bread is all different. One is obviously made of pretzel dough, smooth and browned on the outside and a creamy white within, heavy with moisture and salt and it's gone before we know what's gotten the better of us.

"Wow," I say, with the tiny remainder of the pretzel loaf between my fingers as Smeagol would clutch at the Ring, "that didn't take long."

Emily nods and tears open the next one, a tangy, pleasantly chewy sourdough. It's followed by a couple of different multi-grain rolls, and before we know it, we've emptied the basket. 

"Usually," Emily says, taking a pull on the tea that somehow materialized during the carnage, "eating all the bread tends to fill me up."

I nod, my eyes fixed on a rogue chunk of salt from the pretzel bread. Do I eat it? Would I maintain self-respect afterwards? "Yeah, usually it fills me up too. But I'm still hungry."

Em and I find ourselves pouting across the table at each other. 

"This is gona feel like forever."

Indeed, when you're hungry and in a place like Le Cellier, time seems to warp upon itself. We watch the activity of the servers, peeking through the door into the kitchen when the door swings open. All the activity and speed dilates time for them, while outside observers like the two of us at our table perceive time at a normal rate. As in: sloowwwly. 

After a tiny eternity of waiting, Robert reappears with a tray in his hand. How strange we must look to him, like a couple of rangy feral cats sizing him up, calculating whether or not to pounce. (Well, maybe we don't look that strange to him, considering he probably gets the stray cat face a dozen times per day. Call it an occupational hazard.)

Robert distracts the savages (read: us) with an offering of lightly-warmed cattle...and some other stuff which is promptly ignored as we tear into the bovine before us. Quietly and efficiently, he makes his escape.

Nothing gets said for a solid five minutes.

My steak is excellent. It's a flavorful cut of NY strip seared an oaken brown on the surface. The juices rise between fissures in the fibers of the meat as I cut into it. Throughout, it's a hot, red color with deep red juices which stoke the primal fires somewhere back in the caveman brain. The XY chromosome is made happy by this bovine offering.

Across the table, my cavewoman wreaks havoc upon an eight-ounce filet sitting atop a mushroom risotto. It's a beautiful creation, with creamy truffle butter sauce cascading down its seared exterior.  Below the foothills of the risotto, truffle oil pools with butter and red juices. Catching me staring, her eyes flick upwards. Her head doesn't move. 

"Hobbit," she says, "if you want to taste this steak at ALL you need to move quickly."

She's not kidding. Even the morsel she offers me across the table looks like it's going to get snatched back at any second. 

"Thanks love." I recognize just how hard this is for her. I haven't had the decency to offer her any of mine yet - a practice we're usually really good at.

If my steak was good, Emily's filet is incredible. As in, it makes my already perfectly-cooked steak feel a little amateurish in comparison.

Let's start with the obvious - it's laden in a creamy yellow truffle butter, savory and gorgeous with aroma that melts into you. The bite of steak itself has that texture characteristic of a brilliant filet, putting up enough resistance to prove satisfying to chew while still sublimating into complex little notes of flavor. Coupled with the truffle butter and the motes of mushroom risotto? It is life altering.

"Hobbit, wake up."

There's a hand waving in front of my face. Emily's polished off the rest of her steak in the meantime. Together we sit, with big dumb steak-fueled grins on our faces. It's probably a good few minutes before either of us can work up to saying anything - which gives us time to finish everything else. 

"That..." I begin, before my brain loses track of progress, forcing Emily to step in.

"...was incredible," she says. "So, Le Cellier, good idea?" 

"Y-yeah. Good idea."

Chapter 10: Very Definitely Not Getting Distracted

I look down at my watch. "Quarter past twelve. We got time. Wanna walk around?"

"Sure," Em says. "Fifteen minutes to travel the world? Sounds doable."

We strike forth in the direction of France, which (illogically enough) requires passage first through the US, followed by Japan and then Morocco. Coming from Italy. Go figure. 

The US pavilion is never terribly exciting. It's quite large and open, and suited for hosting events, but in the middle of the day, the large music stage lies dormant upon the lake. While the colonial-era city hall is impressive and beautiful, who comes to World Showcase to see where they already live? The exotic pagodas and koi ponds of Japan beckon. A trio of drummers, their tanned skin weathered with age and stretched over toned arms, thrash their drums upon the steps of the pagoda. 

As soon as we enter Japan, though, Em accelerates towards its exit.

"Oh look, Aladdin and Jasmine!"

Morocco, right next door, is the closest that World Showcase gets to having a Middle Eastern-themed pavilion. (There were originally plans for an Israel-themed set, and there's certainly room, but it was cancelled. I'll leave you, dear readers, to speculate on why.) 

Morocco is therefore the de facto home of Aladdin and Jasmine in Epcot, and these two do little to alleviate the crowds that tend to pile up here. Morocco is already a neat pavilion. Its architecture and design were, according to lore, actually sponsored by the Moroccan government, and there's a lot of history and beauty hiding behind those earthen walls. Its counter-service restaurant, Tangerine Cafe, stands front and center at the front of the pavilion and pumps out the agonizingly delicious smell of roasting kebab meat and honeyed baklava. People tend to stop here.

Em takes off pretty much at warp speed to stand in the "meet Aladdin and Jasmine" line. I shrug - I mean, we've got time, right? No big deal. I take a glance down at my watch just to reassure myself.

Big mistake. We've got about nine minutes until the next event on her adventure starts, and this line isn't going anywhere fast.  This wasn't supposed to happen - we're going to miss the show with this little excursion.

"Em," I tell her, "we need to make it to France."

"But I really want to see Aladdin and Jasmine," she says, effecting a well-practiced pout. 

I feel weirdly stressed out by this, more than I feel I have any right to. Deconstructing it, is it really rational to allow yourself to be stressed out that you won't get to see a couple of Frenchman stacking chairs because you're meeting a couple of actors portraying Disney protagonists? 

But that's not really the issue at hand, is it? That's on the surface. I feel that what I'm really stressed out about is that my plans are being derailed. It wasn't really about seeing one thing or another, it was about following the plan I had laid out. And that loss of control is what's really getting to me right now. On a conscious level, I realize the absurdity of how it appears on the surface, but I also recognize that the surface elements aren't really what's stressing me out.

I mean, these are the introductory stages to something much, much bigger. And a lot of my plan depends on getting various pieces moved into various squares at exactly the right time. Anna has been an exceptional assistant chessmaster for me, and has already debugged many of my plans, but right here, I'm all alone. Is this a harbinger of bigger things to come? Will Emily derail more and more of the plan without even realizing it?

"What's wrong?" she asks, and gives my hand a squeeze. "You're being kinda silent. We can go if you want to."

We're at the head of the line. I snap out of my fugue and fumble for words. She caught my brain off guard. In an effort to reassert a little control over my malfunctioning larynx, I fall back on rote muscle memory: I check my watch.

Five minutes late. We've missed it.

"I'm sorry love," Em says. "I ruined it didn't I?"

Seeing her being so penitent over an issue that, to be honest, puts the trite in contrite, well, it finally jogs my brain to action. The moment I'd been hoping to set up is over, but in its place, hey, at least this'll make a great story. I try to wrestle my anxiety under control, feeling wisps of stress bleeding out of me, issuing steam to lower the internal pressure. It's not a bad feeling, letting it go.

A smile finally plays across my face. "No, love - how could you have ruined it?" I squeeze her hand. This whole plan is for her, after all, and sometimes you have to accept that what you think someone wants and deserves just isn't what is right for them. 

Aladdin and Jasmine await. They're portrayed by a young actor and actress who are all smiles. It's early enough in their tour that the hordes of kids haven't worn them down yet. They seem relieved, though, to be talking to grown-up kids like us instead. Funny. I'd half expected the whole experience to be kind of awkward, dealing with a character, but these two are really natural at performing their roles and our thirty seconds are more relaxing than anything. 

But our new friends are getting a rather pointed look from their handlers (the lady with the camera and her assistant) so back to the script it is.

"If you could wish for one thing, what would it be?" Aladdin asks me.

It's not often you're served such a slow pitch in the game of Most Nauseatingly Romantic Line of the Day, so who am I to refuse? I smile in thanks at Aladdin, then look at Emily. If I had a pair of sunglasses, now would be donning time.

"I've got everything I could ever want."  Aladdin and Jasmine swoon, and Emily's smile is beaming with enough radiance to wipe out Alderaan.

"...but I bet I could rock a flying carpet."

"Good man," Aladdin mutters to me, through his big cheesy grin. 

"Thanks!" I tell him, and then we're on our way. Awesome roleplayers. 

Emily is hanging off my arm. "That was without question," she says, "the sweetest and the most sickeningly romantic thing I've ever heard."

Chapter 09: Bacio e La Principessa

The human tide that swamped World Showcase earlier is beginning to subside. 

"You wanna finish it?" I ask, swirling the last dregs of the black and cider around the pint glass.

"Nah, it's okay," she says. With her head resting on my shoulder, I can feel that she's smiling, and I know that expression - she's got her eyes closed like a cat in a puddle of sunlight. Her voice is as happy and as soft as that sun on a warm carpet. "You can kill it."

"Suit yourself," I tell her, and knock back the rest of the black and cider. "Ready to go?"

"Maybe in a few minutes," she says. "It's nice right here for now."

We're doing all right on time, so we spend a little while relaxing in the pub. Frankly, it's nice not to have to hurry around. We exit about fifteen minutes later, and the crowd has thinned considerably. Lines are backed up around rides and shows, leaving the two of us more than enough space to cruise World Showcase.

"Okay," I say, "I forgot just how pretty the Italy pavillion was."

Before us is, in miniature, la piazza di San Marco - San Marco's Square, transplanted and distilled down for its placement in Florida. There are no rides, nor are there any shows - it's just a very beautiful, very romantic Venetian piazza with restaurants and shops and smiling Italians conversing rapid-fire with one another from behind the counters. 

Emily squeezes my hand as she smiles up at me. "Are we gonna get un bacio?" 

I know that's just the lead-in question. The follow up is, of course, going to be, will you be ordering it in Italian? 

"Of course!" I respond, taking care of questions both said and implied. 

The Italy pavilion store is dark and cool. It's not the dry, oppressive cold of overcranked air conditioning, but rather the cool of old stonework, like you'd find in an old Italian building that had been repurposed many times over the years. (I'm not sure how Disney managed this illusion, but it's a good one.)

"Hello welcome to ee-taly," says the girl behind the counter, all one word, no punctuation. 

"Buonasera!" I say, unable to keep the grin off my face. 

"Buonasera!" she says. "Parli italiano?" she asks - do you speak Italian? 

"Solo un po'." Just a little, I reply. Emily is absolutely soaking this up. "Ho studiato un po' in Perugia." I studied a little in Perugia. 

"Ah, Perugia," the girl replies. "Ti piace il ciocolatto Perugina?"  She asks if I like Perugina chocolates - the company that makes Baci. 

"Si, mi piace molto il ciocolatto Perugina. Un Bacio, per favore!" Yes, I say, I like it a lot - and I would like two of them. My Italian, while rusty, is holding up well enough. The girl - Carla, says her nametag, from Firenze - laughs and rings up a Baci chocolate kiss. Emily takes it with a "Grazie!" while Carla smiles and replies "Prego!"

"That was so cool!" Em says, bouncing beside me. "I like it when you speak Italian." 

"But I'm rusty," I say, and add with a grin, "I bet Carla was just humoring me."

"James Alfred Cotton the Third, you speak great Italian and you are the most wonderful boyfriend in the world. Now c'mere and let's share this Baci."

Standing in the middle of the San Marco square, Em and I unwrap our Bacio. It's a much different sort of confection from the chocolate kisses we have here in the States. It's larger and softer, with a hazelnut sitting just under the chocolate skin on top. Best of all, inside the silver wrapping is a little wax-paper fortune or saying.

"Ask a toad what beauty is," it says, "and he will answer you that it is his wife."

Em and I laugh. "So we're toads then?"

"There are worse things to be," she grins, and bites into the candy. I take the other half and pop it into my mouth. The chocolate is softer and meltier but it encases a sort of whipped hazelnut-Nutella-chocolate nougat. It's gorgeously delicious.

"Oh man," Em says around a mouthful of chocolate. "That was fantastic." 

"Mmph," I reply, still chewing on mine. "Not a bad stop on our adventure," I say, and pull out the next envelope.

#4

This whole thing certainly does parallel a particular favorite book of yours, doesn't it?

There will, however, be no night train to Paris. Why would you need one when you can simply walk?

I want you to go see the 12:30 showing of Serveur Amusant in France. Until then, you are free to explore France and the surrounding countryside. You must stay in Europe, however, or perhaps go view the wonders of the ocean in the aquarium. You know your humble travelling companion very well - humor me kindly! 

Unlike in the book, there are no cemeteries, but there are little outdoor cafes, and there is wine! I think you will find something to take home to your family. 

Following Serveur Amusant, you are free to explore Europe and Future World at your leisure, but you must be in place at 2:30 in Le Cellier for lunch.

See you there!

- The One Who Moves

"Off to France, then!" I say, and give Em a kiss on the nose. "Ready?"

"Sure!" she says. "Next stop France!"

Chapter 08: Something New

The hot, sticky mid-spring air never feels quite so oppressive as when you're waiting for World Showcase to open, while standing among a Mickey-ear-wearing throng at 10:59AM. Choked with guests, the walkway through Epcot is a dammed river as more people pile up behind us.

 "I swear all I want is something refreshing," I moan. "Like a freaking kaki-gori." (Side note: if you are in Epcot, you must stop by the Japan pavilion and try the flavored shaved ice known as "kaki-gori." It is the most delicious fruity brain freeze to which you will subject your cortex.)

 Emily shakes our clasped hands.

"We're here to get the cider and black," she says. "Something new, remember?"

While in this sort of weather, one wouldn't be surprised to hear a phrase such as "I could use a beer" - and the large, sweaty gentleman whose left armpit is perilously close to my nose has just uttered such a phrase - it's not exactly common to hear someone pining for a beverage from our most special of Special Relationships.

I smile at her. "Yeah. Something new."

In truth, something new quite accurately describes this entire experience for me. I've spent the better part of the past year planning this grand game and I know I still have much more to go. It's not every day one proposes marriage, and it's not everyone who's lucky enough to propose to their best friend. Right now, though, I'm barely beginning the ride. There are eleven envelopes left and each one, I hope, will encapsulate the experience I'm going through, distilling it down to a memorable moment between myself and Emily.

The clock finally ticks over to 11AM and, like clockwork, the cast members swing the wrought-iron gates to World Showcase open before us and the crowd begins to move. The game is afoot.

Or underfoot, I think, dodging a posse of five-year-olds waving massive lollipops at one another.

The crowd breaks up, little by little, as we move into World Showcase. For every few people breaking away from the herd, those on the outside move apart. We're like the particles of a gas, spreading to fill its container. (Of course, Sweaty Armpit Man to my right takes the gas metaphor perhaps a bit literally.)

Disney's version of London awaits us after Canada. We're traveling counterclockwise (anticlockwise, I suppose, if we're going to be Commonwealth about things) around World Showcase and soon enough we're greeted by red phone booths, Old Wold stonework and carefully manicured gardens. Mary Poppins has been hewn from a hedge, complete with umbrella, the picture of restrained perfection.


 "Okay," Emily says, nodding towards the red phone booths, "we have got to get our pictures taken in those things someday."

Our stop is the Rose and Crown pub, a more than welcome respite from the madhouse outside. It is every inch the charming old English pub - or at least what we in the colonies picture as one. The atmosphere is cool, the lighting is best described as 'sufficient,' and the serving area made from richly lacquered wood, slightly chipped and dented from many a pint glass. Luckily for us, relatively few people are inside, so we manage to snag one of the coveted tables for ourselves.

The gentleman behind the bar greets us as Em sits down. "Hello there; welcome to the Rose and Crown!"

"Hi there," says Em, waving over at him. I give her a kiss on the tip of her nose - she blushes - and walk to the bar for the black and cider. The old man has a wry grin on his face as he balances a Guinness glass on a dime, suspending it practically in midair on only a sliver of its base. His name is Carl, from Leicester, England, and he's drawing a pint of Guinness.

"'Ello there! What can I get for you?"

"Something new," I say, a smile playing across my face. "I'll try the Black & Cider."

 Carl's eyebrows raise a little. "Not a lot of people who order that one," he says, drawing a pint of Strongbow cider. I'm not sure if it's authentic British pub fare or something that Disney made up, but hell, it's worth a shot anyways.

He draws a measure of blackcurrant cordial with an alchemist's precision, lowering it over the cider. In the brass-upon-wood atmosphere of the Rose and Crown, he's practically straight out of a Victorian penny dreadful, a chemist mixing up a brew. The blackcurrant drops explode into soft billows of garnet as they hit the cider, and before long the whole thing has taken on a deep red hue.

"Here you go!" Carl crows. "Enjoy!"

"Thanks!" I make sure to include a generous tip as I pay.
Back at the table, Em is waiting patiently - and by that, I mean playing on her phone.

I lower myself into the booth next to her. "All right, you. Here's your something new - cheers!"

She takes the pint glass in both hands and lifting it to her lips. Her expression is tough to read. She may as well be analyzing a thesis document - it's the same face she wears when she tastes wine or beer.
"Oh man," she says, smiling. "That is awesome. Give it a try."

The cider and black's tones play across the tongue, two opposing energies in balance. The cider is tart and crisp, while the blackcurrant adds a sweet, smoky mellowness to counteract it. Taken by itself, the cider would perhaps be a bit too acerbic, while the blackcurrant would be cloying. In tandem, they are delicious.

"That is good."
She takes the glass back and has another pull, laying her head down on my shoulder. We sit there in the pub, safe from the crush of the crowd outside, relaxing together with nothing to bother us.

After a while, I give her a nudge. "Ready for the next envelope?"

"Sure!" she says, and pulls the next one out.

#3 
 Let's play that old game again. 
"Today I Live In Italy."

What does Italy represent? Like England, it revels in its beautiful past. Italy is a place of elegant architecture and sun-dappled streets. It is not a particularly ergonomic place to be. Yet people flock there. 

I think it's because, more than anything, Italy is romantic. And not just in the bad-movie kind of way, my dear, nascent Time Lady. Italy is romantic, for better and for worse. Everything gets romanticized. Everything. From music to football to food. Everything must represent the attitudes of those involved and represent their personalities. It is the lens through which you can see the character of the Italian people - one perhaps clearer than any other culture. 

Italy is a place that is happening in the moment. It certainly does demand more italics than any of the rest, that's for certain. 

 So what do I want you to do? I want you to find a candy shop. 

In Italian, a kiss is un bacio. (Pronounce it "bah - cho." Trust me.) This next task will be the lens through which you and your traveling companion see and are seen. It is a clearing of the air. It is sweet and it is timeless. 

To tie this together, I want you to find a candy Bacio - a chocolate kiss - and share it while strolling through beautiful Italy. Because what is a clearer and more romantic lens than that? 

See you there. 

 - The One Who Moves 

"Next stop, Italia," I say, squeezing her shoulder.

"Of course, mio principe," she grins.

Chapter 07: The Launch

The intervening weeks have blown by since Taco Mac. Our worn, but trusty, Outback (cheekily dubbed "Moya" after a spaceship from an old sci fi show) sits ticking herself cool in the parking lot of Disney's Yacht and Beach Club resorts. In a way, that old wagon has come to symbolize some aspects of our relationship. I expressly bought it, used, with the intent of driving it forever, and indeed I've already racked up an impressive twenty thousand miles of highway blasting in less than a year.

Nevertheless, we like the Outback. The old girl hauls more than enough freight for our vacations and served as our crew's urban assault vehicle of choice in New Orleans over New Year's. The seats are almost exactly at Emily Butt Height (EBH); when I bought the car, perhaps my subconscious steered me towards a vehicle that would be appropriate for Emily and I starting our lives together?
What the car does not have, however, are a few critical pieces of my plan. I've forgotten them. Notably, the disposable cameras have vanished. I've also forgotten to bring a halfway decent set of trousers with a cargo capacity of their own. As a result, the intended Birthday Surprise clanks with jolly, sadistic abandon within a suspicious rectangular outline in my pocket.

Yes, it's a jewelry box in my pocket - but let's face it, who wouldn't be happy to see Emily?
She's radiant in her white-upon-red-upon-pink flowery sun dress, an escaped pixie from Titania's court flung through Atlantic Station, magnetizing bits here and there to look positively gorgeous. Her dark hair, cut into a pseudo-flapper-girl bob, frames her face, drawing attention to those steel blue eyes of hers. A wisp of gold upon her necklace and her rimless glasses complete the ethereal look.
"Ready?" she asks. I'm rooting through the bags with one hand while attempting to hold Moya's tailgate low enough to camouflage my intent. It's not working.

I resign myself to cramming my jeans pockets with as much of my paraphernalia - wallet, phone, keys, etc. as I can fit. Her present clanks in my pocket again. I turn, having nothing to offer but a big smile. A used-car-salesman smile.

"Right! Ready!" All pearly whites. It's about two hundred feet down the road when I realize it's just not going to work. The blasted jewelry box in my pocket is simply not cooperating, clanking louder and louder and forcing me to contort my gait into something out of a cheesy horror flick to quiet it.
Finally, halfway across the bridge to the Beach Club resort, I halt us. Better to blow the gig now than to suffer through lunch due to poor cargo-management choice in trousers.

"Hey Em," I say. "Surprise."

Out comes the box.

Inside are a pair of cherry blossom earrings that perfectly complement her sun dress. They came from the Washington DC yearly festival, something I was fortunate enough to attend with my sister Cristina. We'd strolled up and down the waterways of DC while I was there, and when opportunity presented itself - in the form of an absolutely perfect set of earrings for Em - who was I to turn it down?
She grins up at me, feigning, well, surprise. I'm not a terribly subtle person, and I suppose it really should have occurred to me that she would have noticed me being a bit ridiculous trying to camouflage her present in such a shoddy manner. Now, to be fair, she only knew she was getting something, not specifically what that something was.

That said, she knows I'm terrible at subtlety. Paradoxically, I can use that. After all, if she's expecting nothing greater than me doing a bad attempt at hiding her present from her, there's a good chance that she won't see the real thing coming.

Regardless, she lights up. "Oh my gosh Jamie those are amazing!" she chirps. Spaces between words have been added for the convenience of the reader and without regard for historical accuracy.
Immediately, on they go, and the box disappears into the caverns of her purse. A new indentation upon my thigh thanks me.

Em throws her arms around me, locking the two of us together, standing there on the bridge between the parking lot and all the crab legs we can eat. "I am SO happy," she says. "Thank you so, so much for this. You are the best."

"No worries, love - let's go to Cape May and clean house." The Beach Club is a study in relaxing pastel colors and old Maryland architecture. It's quiet for a hotel lobby, but not the stifling quiet of a museum; more like the quiet of relaxation, soft wooden walls and white-painted beams absorbing the harsher notes of the conversation.

We stroll into Cape May Cafe and immediately - "oh god I'm so freaking hungry" - the jury's out on which of us said that first, but if it helps, just imagine both of us saying that simultaneously. My stomach grumbles audibly at the smell of steam and crab legs in the air, the mildly sweet notes of the meat mingling with the sharper aromas of seasoning and salt.

In the middle of the cheery New England clambake shop are the enormous stainless steel boilers into which three men are unloading entire platters' worth of crab legs. Quantities measured in the dozens of pounds apiece, coral-upon-white and steaming as they come out. Corn steams on the line's nearby platters and a fat potboiler holds savory beef and vegetable soup.
Em looks up at me and makes a face like the first cat must have made upon walking into that first cave at the dawn of time. It is the face of impending - if temporarily stalled - pure animal gluttony.
"Feed me."

I glance down at her. "Yeah no problem." No punctuation there either.

As it turns out, it takes us about twenty minutes to get the table we've reserved. Sitting there, right outside the source of the maddening seafood smells, time dilates to a crawl. Ironic, isn't it, how I'm themeing this whole series of shenanigans around Emily's adventures in time and space and here I am at its mercy, right at the very beginning.

After the longest twenty minutes in the history of the universe, in we go. It's hard to express just how fast Emily rockets to the line without using a modern physics textbook, but she's practically on her way back before I'm halfway through the line.

The arthropod holocaust is swift and severe. In surprisingly little time Emily sits behind an oubilette of crab shells, with one mostly eaten half-ear of corn sitting off to the side for presentation's sake.

She's wearing the world's most satisfied smile.

I'm still going. I always have a difficult time pinning down just why crab (and its various arthropod cousins) happens to be so immensely satisfying to eat, but it's not just down to how delicious the meat itself is. (And it is.) Perhaps it's having to work for it, using that hidden talent of popping the leg open at the knuckle using a fork, without having to resort to that specialized plastic doohickey spawned from Joe's Crab Shack. (Surprisingly, the metal cracking tool is nowhere to be found. Perhaps Disney doesn't want kids trying to crack their siblings' hands in it.)

Emily toys with an Oreo bonbon while I stuff my face with crabmeat.

"You know what I like about these?"

"Mmhmmpf." I use my incisors to strip a chewy hunk of crabmeat off the sinew. The mild buttery-spicy-sweet flavor melts within my mouth. "Y'like'cndy."

Em giggles at my caveman speech. "These are great because they're Oreos that someone stuck in a blender and somehow mixed with cream cheese and then coated the whole thing in chocolate. And I'm going to eat every last one unless you get one," she grins.

"Fine'by'mhee," I mumble, still chewing as I crack open a particularly meaty knuckle. The carapace jabs me in the flesh of my palm but I have the last laugh as I extract the meat.
Five minutes, and about two entire marine ecosystems (and an Oreo bonbon) later, we're both sitting relaxed in the booth. "That...was amazing," Emily says.

She rolls her eyes and lays her head on my shoulder. Oh crap. I know what that means - like a satisfied housecat, Emily's threatening to pass out asleep in warm, content bliss. But she's got another envelope to open. I yank the second little blue envelope out of her purse and hand it to her. "For you, madam. Before you pass out on me."

#2
I am so glad you made it to Cape May Cafe! Kindly sit back and enjoy your steamed crab legs and mussels. This is something I know you have been wanting for a long time.

It's okay. You don't have to have a long flowery explanation of the place or anything like that.
This illustrates one of my favorite things about you - you enjoy simple pleasures in life, but are not ashamed to appreciate the more elaborate ones. This is the first step to your mastery of time - and that is recognizing what you want to prioritize.

The future is an uncertain thing. That is just the way of things. But all good plans must start from good intel, and all good intel must come from a reliable source. You, my dear, are this reliable source when it comes to the things you enjoy. You thread together the simple pleasures of life - a seafood meal at a warm and comforting place like this - with an appreciation for the craftsmanship and the level of attention to detail that exists in a place like this hub - world in which you stay.
Now, for the next part of your adventure.

The first world we will be journeying to, appropriately enough, will be England.
Here is what you must do. Find the "Rose and Crown Pub" and try something new. Why? Because of any of the worlds in your multiversal hub, England is the one most tied to tradition. Upon the surface, it looks most towards bringing the past into the present. Certainly, America has a quaint recreation of the 1700s, but England most elegantly strings the threads of the past together with those of the present.
I want you to share a "Cider and Black" with your traveling companion. Why? The drink might be terrible, for all we know. But it might be glorious. It is the uncertain future. It is acknowledging the past while taking calculated risks in the future.

And let's face it, if you want to learn how to master time and space, England is pretty much the place to start.

See you there!
- The One Who Moves

Chapter 06: Taco Mac Part II, Or Em Discerns her Part in the Game

“I have this book.”
Leave it to Em for the first words out of her mouth to be something like that. Then, a beat later, she quirks an eyebrow at me. “Did you…?” she asks, before trailing off.

“What do YOU think?” I ask.
“I’ve been trying to get you to read this for -”

“Ages,” I finish. “I know. Open up the back cover.”

Inside, written in gold ink, is a little message for her.
“I have this book.”

Leave it to Em for the first words out of her mouth to be something like that. Then, a beat later, she quirks an eyebrow at me. “Did you…?” she asks, before trailing off.

“What do YOU think?” I ask.

“I’ve been trying to get you to read this for -”

“Ages,” I finish. “I know. Open up the back cover.”

<3 Love, Jamie 

On top of that, there are five little blue envelopes tucked away inside the package, as well as a disposable camera. Anna and David are cracking up at Emily’s ever-increasing grin.

“This is so crazy,” she says, taking the envelopes and inspecting each one.

The first one

For Emily

My Adventure Co-Pilot

You have never been a great follower of rules. I know this.

It is, believe it or not, one of my favorite things about you. So it's going to be a little odd that the following will not only ask you to follow some rules, but follow them for an extended period of time. How extended are we talking? That's something you'll have to see for yourself.

Rule #1: Document your progress. Included is a pair of disposable standard cameras. You may, at your leisure, make use of digital photography just so long as it's something higher resolution than an iPhone camera.

Rule #2: You must not peek ahead. This is a Very Important Thing. I know that this is a lot to ask of someone who can't measure out her cotton candy intake, but I ask you to do this for the purposes of the game.

Rule 3: Complete the tasks in order. Do not be surprised if tasks take some legwork (or wheelwork, as it will) to accomplish. Do not be surprised if there is something of a stretch between tasks.

Got all that? Good.

Here, then, is your assignment.

This is a game in which you will achieve mastery of time and space. If it sounds like a tall order, you're simply not thinking forth-dimensionally enough. Think of this like your Jedi training. Think of this in terms of The Doctor and his companion. What you will achieve, however, will be something greater and more subtle. Curious? I hope so.

First, you must travel to a space in which you can access multiple worlds and lands. This "hub" world will be central to your adventure. You will not be able to complete the entire adventure at once. Your brain may be stretched somewhat.

It's all right. All part of achieving mastery of time and space.

The next part of the adventure awaits you at a place dubbed "The Cape May Cafe."

See you there.

 - The One Who Moves

"Cape May Cafe!" Emily bursts out. Except it sounds more like "Caymaycafe" when she's really excited.

“That part is not a surprise," I grin. "You planned the Cape May Cafe trip like a month ago.”

“I know,” she says. "But it's still awesome.”

I'll let her have that one. It'll come in handy later, for obfuscating the details of the unfolding plan. Remember, Emily is the Grand Master God-Emperor Champion of Ruining Surprises. I need all the help I can get.

“Sure it is, love. Sure it is.”