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The vendors look at her withhappens at least twice a week Then a big bearded guy wearing suspenders over his butte of a belly co lavender "She can have these too"
"Here, Wren" I throw the fragrant purple bloouy Then I explain to hi fields of tulips being out of season so we had to settle for this
He looks at Wren, who’s atte to extract the petals and leaves from her sweater He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a card "Tulips in August is not so easy But if you and your friend don’t et you a s, Wren and I set our alaro downstairs to the deserted street to find Wolfgang waiting with hisI’ve ever had froers co isn’t a stranger We all three squeeze into the front seat as we trundle toward a greenhouse in Aals with excite, and she hasn’t even had any coffee yet, though Wolfgang has thoughtfully brought a thers and bread
We spend the drive listening to cheesy europop and Wolfgang’s tales of spending thirty years in the hborhood in Amsterdam "I’m German by birth, but I’ll be an Arin
By five o’clock, we pull up to Bioflor, which hardly looks like the pictures of Keukenhof Gardens, with its carpets of color, but instead looks like so pulls in and stops alongside a football-field-sized greenhouse with a row of solar panels on top A rosy-faced guy nareets us And then he unlocks the door, and Wren and I gasp
There are rows and rows of flowers in every color Acres of them We walk down the tiny paths in between the beds, the air thick with hu points out a section of tulips in fuchsia, sunburst, and one explosive citrusy co Wren to her flowers
She just stands there for a while Then I hear her call out: "This is incredible Can you see this?" Wolfgang looks at me but I don’t answer because I don’t think it’s us she’s talking to
Wren runs around this greenhouse, and another one full of fragrant freesia, and I snap a bunch of pictures And then Wolfgang has to get back We belt Abba songs all the way, Wolfgang saying Abba is Esperanto for happiness, and the United Nations should play their songs at general asseet to a warehouse outside A’s truck is still empty "Didn’t you buy flowers for your stall?"
He shakes his head "Oh, I don’t buy flowers directly from the farms I buy at auction via wholesalers who deliver here" He points to where people are loading up their trucks with flowers
"So you just went all the way out there for us?" I ask
He gives , like, of course, why else? And at this point, I really have no right to be surprised by people’s capacity for kindness and generosity, but still, I am I’m floored every tiht?" I ask
He shakes his head "Not tonight I’ to see a play in Vondelpark" He looks at us "You should colish"
"Why would a play in Holland be in English?" Wren asks
"That’s the difference between the Ger replies "The Gerlish"
"Shakespeare?" I ask, feeling every hair onfinishes tellingBecause it’s si that one needle in a needle factory Less possible than finding a lone star in the universe It’s less possible than finding that one person in all the billions who youin Vondelpark, is As You Like It And I knoith a certainty I cannot explain but that I would stake ht
And so, after a year, I find him as I first found hi the words of Williaht, after this year, everything is different This is no Guerrilla Will This is a real production, with a stage, with seats, with lights, with a crowd A large crowd Such that by the tie of the ser in a supporting role This year, he is a star He is Orlando, as I kneould be He is the first actor to take the stage, and fro Not just to me To everyone A hush falls over the crowd as soon as he delivers the first soliloquy and continues for the rest of the performance The sky darkens, and the hts, and Amsterdaical place where that which was lost can be found
As I watch hih it is only us two Just Wille else disappears: The sound of bicycle bells and tra around the fountain in the pond disappear The group of rowdy guys sitting next to us disappears The other actors disappear The last year disappears All ht path fills every part ofhas led me to this
His Orlando is different from the e played it in class or from the way the actor in Boston played it His is sexy and vulnerable, the yearning for Rosalind so palpable it becoh the swirl of floodlights, where it lands onand, yes, e, where I i fed to him, like lines
He can’t know I’m here But as crazy as it sounds, I feel like he does I sense he feels me somewhere in the words he speaks, the same way I felt him when I first spoke them in Professor Glenny’s class
I remember so many of Rosalind’s lines, of Orlando’s too, that I canwith the actors It feels like a private call-and-response chorus between th that I have, I would it ith you
Fare you well: pray heaven I be deceived in you!
Then love me, Rosalind