Pierre and I sat on the river on a beautiful, Swiss, Friday afternoon sipping our 1 euro Proseccos talking about life. We were not back together but the fact that he was being calm and nice gave me hope for us. Perhaps it was butterflies in my stomach, something inside was feeling odd…
Pierre: So, you do all that work for nothing? Everything always got stolen?
Me: Well not, everything. But pretty much. Anything I have tried to do to launch or get out of this pickle I end up somehow deeper.
Pierre: in a pickle, like inside it?
Me: not an actual pickle, like a puzzle where for every piece I find two more go missing
Pierre: Ah, so basically, you’re fucked.
Me: Something like that
It was comforting to confide in a human for once that I could trust. I couldn’t believe this amazing man dumped me for dealing with this B.S and at the same wouldn’t blame him either. Maybe it was my emotions boiling up, it happened so fast, before I could patch together the other thing I wanted to tell Pierre it hit. Bleh.
I was vomiting off the dock into the Swiss river.
What?
That’s a Wrap
After wiping my hair from my face and Pierre scooping me up from puking, he grabbed my bags and we headed to the train station for home, “Ella re you okay?” It’s just nerves I say, although it didn’t feel like nerves.
As the sun set a few trains stops before home I trouble-shooted myself: what did I eat recently? Was it nerves? Maybe an allergy? I flowcharted until a painful data point in my calendar surfaced—my period was missing.
Getting off at the home train station I broke away from Pierre for a minute, told him I wanted a soda leaving him with the bags. At the vending machine I ordered two things: a pregnancy test, a soda. Slipping the pregnancy test into my side pocket I walked back holding out my arm with a soda
Me: this should help my tummy
Pierre: good idea
Back at the house Pierre unloaded my bags and started boiling water for tea. I immediately went to the toilet to use the vending machine pregnancy test. After doing the deed, I stripped my clothes off and took a quick shower, long enough for the test to sit flat on the sink to do its thing. I stared a the white plastic through the shower glass as it fogged up.
Stepping out of the shower I hear Pierre, “Hun, do you want honey in your tea or milk…” he yells from the kitchen across the apartment. “Just plain danke” I yell back.
Drying my hair with the towel I look down at the test on the sink. Its positive. Just like that a plus sign as if a totally casual thing. Despite total shock, it didn’t seem much of a big deal until I started doing the math; It takes two weeks min for a plus sign, Pierre and I have been broken up for three weeks, I haven’t seen him in four weeks. Most of my nights have been either nodding off at my desk or at a hotel near my office. That would only give me a certain four day window and I would have had to have Se…….
And then it hit me. The night.
That one legendary debaucherously magical night on the Amsterdam town with the girls where I may or may not have made a one-night friend. It was the weekend after Pierre dumped me. What a night, but also. F**k.
Hiding the pregnancy test and box under my shower towel, I walk across the house and slipped the completed test into my laptop bag in the hallway closet, zipping it up like a magician, before snuggling with Pierre on the couch.
Pierre brings over two mugs of warm tea, “Rooibos, your favorite.”
Was it Really Positive?
The next morning I snuck out of bed tip-toeing as not to awake Pierre, went down the hall to the large closet and slid the doors for my laptop bag. Maybe it was negative and I was just super jetlagged? I unzip the top as quietly as possible, keeping my eyes on the bedroom door, reach my hand in, pull the test up. Sh*t. Still positive. I throw it back, zip the bag, close the closet, and pretend to read a book on the couch. An hour later Pierre wakes up and enters the room
Pierre: how are you feeling? Any better?
What was that other thing you wanted to talk about?
Me: I’m thinking about an American Comeback, a trip to the US to help fill my launch with American investors and do a little damage control since the Derch are making me look stupid. Since you can’t re-break up with me, is it okay if I go to the USA for a couple weeks?
Pierre: When?
Me: um…. Soon? Maybe in a couple weeks? I’d have to stop at the Amsterdam office first so I’d be gone a few weeks
Pierre shows zero surprise and also a bit of relief. He takes a moment to reflect
Pierre: I think right now you should start trusting your gut, that might be the only way out. As for us… well… obviously I’m always going to care about you, but it sounds like us staying on a break for a bit is the best thing for the both of us.
Would you agree?
Trust my gut? My gut has both gotten me in and out of the biggest messes of my life and he’s telling me to follow it?
I wanted to start crying and telling him about my “crazy stupid” night in Amsterdam that’s added another complexity to this situation, but I could tell he was physically here for me and that was as far as he was going to be available or give.
Me: my thinking is if I go back to New York I can do a bunch of liaison meetings, build up good rapport, maybe a media thing or two. It would help at least buy me another six months until my Nellerland contract is up without looking totally incompetent
Pierre: and then what? Move back to the US?
Me: Well, I don’t know. I could maybe move here, be fulltime Swiss?
Pierre uses every skill in his body to give zero body language or indications to me. This man is tired of my shit.
Me: but you know… we are not together so I don’t mean it that way. I just meant it’s time to start phasing out of Amsterdam and not look crazy in the process.
And eventually I do still need the respect of New York if I plan to continue to have a career regardless of where I live.
Pierre rubs the blanket atop my legs before stepping into the kitchen, he is mentally tapped out as he loses hope on me regaining sanity.
Pierre: At the end of the day Ella this is your life. You can plan it all out while not planning a thing. Eventually life happens and you will live your way into the answer.
The Great Comeback
I arrive to the office in Amsterdam after a week of snuggles with Pierre and many servings of fondue, except now I’m more pregnant and even more sick. If I’m lucky throw up water every hour, or I’m peeing every hour. My body has become a factory that no longer works for me. My cheeks are rosier than normal, I feel like a sweat ball and every smell within a mile makes me want to hurl.
As if my job wasn’t hard enough already.
I need to now navigate the Derch royal weirdos for six more months (and survive), go on tour in New York and try to save my reputation, oh and eventually figure out this pregnancy which I’ll schedule during New York.
The Derch have incredible spidey sense and always know something is up, its probably in their DNA to sniff people out. Prince Johan keeps staring at me and my multiple bathroom trips since I have to walk by his glass office each time, I might have to start going to the bathroom on another floor, which if I wasn’t so nauseous would be easier.
The Prince, nearly gleeful to see me not at full capacity, can’t help himself.
He intercepts me on one of my many bathroom trips…
Prince Johan: Everything okay Ella? You seem yourself quite sick?
Me: Just recovering from some food poisoning from the other night. You know how Thai food can go…
Prince Johan: hrm. Are you sure? You’re looking a bit rosy like you have a glow….
Me: nope, no glow here. I have heard though I’m pretty when I’m sick
The Prince laughs. As much as I annoy him he appreciates the banter. However, he’s not buying it and it’s almost like he can read my mind. I see the positive pregnancy test hovering over his forehead. I try to think of something to stop his mindreading because little does he know even if I am sick or if I’m wounded I always win. Today my head might be in a toilet twelve times this will only force me to think even smarter. I look at the Prince back with a calm and collected face before I feel another throw up session bubbling up
“De duivel heeft vragen uit gevonden” I say to the Prince
He smiles back in a nod of mutual respect. I cover my mouth to run to the toilet again.
Indeed, the devil invented questioning.
#international
#politics
#ventureCapital
#zurich
#switzerland