"A Day Date In The City: Part Two"

This isn’t the girl I thought she was’ I thought as I followed Peyton around the gallery. I was too nervous to take any notice of anything but Andy Warhol’s pieces. We left ‘The Biscuit Factory’ around thirty minutes after we arrived. I was easily bored by it.

“Um, so, what do you fancy doing now?” She asked me.

“I'm not sure, how about we go to the Baltic?” I answered.

“Yeah, I haven’t been there in while. Do you want to go the long or the short way?”

“The short way,” I said with a smile on my face, “obviously. I'm pretty lazy you know.”

After a long walk, which was supposedly the short way, and fifteen minutes of me complaining about the muscles in my legs hurting, we arrived at the ‘Millennium Bridge’, which you need to cross before you arrive at the ‘Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art’. The ‘Baltic’ was once a flourmill, with the side of the building still branded with “BALTIC FLOURMILL”. We walked slowly over the bridge.

“Look how dirty the water is.” She said.

“Yeah. Do you think they pump sewage into it?” I asked her.

“Probably.” She replied.

We stayed silent until we got over the bridge and were getting closer to the entrance of the next gallery.

“Wow, look at that.” I said pointing to the temporary ice rink opposite of the ‘Baltic’. “We should go ice-skating.” I said.

“I don’t go ice-skating, I’ve never been before.” She answered.

“I used to go all the time when I was younger, I couldn’t skate so I would cling onto my Dad.” It was true, I was tempted to go on and lie about how I eventually learned to skate, but if she changed her mind, I would look a fool, so I didn’t.

“Ah, that’s sweet.” She replied, half replying to my story and half indicating to the elderly man and women sitting on one of the bridge’s four benches; eating sandwiches and drinking coffee.

Scary thought: Would this be Peyton and I in fifty years?

We spent a couple of minutes observing the little children holding their parent’s hands, and the young teens in love holding hands, skating around the outside of the rink.

“Ok, so do you want to go into the art shop first, or should we look around?” asked Peyton.

“Hmmm, well, I want to look around first.” I would have said this if I wasn’t being a gentleman, but I was so I said: “Well, I'm fine with whatever you want to do.”

“Well, we’ll look around first and on our way out we’ll look in the shop.”

In the ‘Baltic’, each exhibition is given it’s own floor, with there being four floors, five including the observation box. We looked at the first exhibition floor, which I commented on as being “different” and Peyton commented on as being “just ok.”

I walked in front as I headed towards the elevators to take us up to the next floor.

“Oh Noah, these elevators make me feel nauseous. Is it ok if we take the stairs?” She asked, almost embarrassed by this.

“Yeah, that’s fine. I need some exercise anyway.” I replied, almost sounding sarcastic. Hadn’t I had enough exercise anyway from walking to ‘The Biscuit Factory’ and then the ‘Baltic’?

Was I being this kind because, self-consciously, I knew she could be the one? It was an interesting thought.

We reached the second floor, eventually, and we walked into the exhibition.

“Wow!” I said to myself. Peyton overheard.

“Yeah, I know, it’s great right?” She said.

“It sure is, this is probably my favourite one so far, ever.” I was over-exaggerating, but she would never know.

Peyton and I left the ‘Baltic’ around forty minutes after arriving. We walked to the Starbucks where I told her to get us a table and I’d be over there once I had my ‘tall mocha’.

I sat down and she looked bored.

“Aren’t you going to get anything?” I asked her.

“No. I told you about the bad Starbucks experience I had didn’t I?” She replied.

She had already told me about but she went on to tell me again, mentioning her boyfriend and an ‘iced caramel machiatto’.

We sat in silence. I sipped my mocha and Peyton looked at the guy sitting across from me. Well, actually, she was looking more at his notebook. Later, I figured that she was trying to decipher what he was writing since she was obviously bored of watching me drink coffee.

I watched her for a minute. She was still watching the same guy, who looked Spanish, scribble in his notebook.

“I'm in love with New York.” I said, hoping to start a conversation of what we want to achieve in life.

“Yeah.” She sat in silence after that. Ten minutes later I had finished my mocha. I thought to myself: What’s wrong with her? What have I done? She was ok at school, so why now was she being silent?

“I need to go now, I said I’d be back for 4pm.” I said to her.

“Yeah ok, we’ll go now.” She replied.

It seemed as if she wasn’t at all bothered about conversing with me, or interacting with me in someway. One of the strangest things I remember Peyton saying to me was:

“That church over there, apparently over 100 witches were buried there, but no one knows exactly where because they didn’t leave markings.”

“Oh. Ok. You learn something new everyday I guess.” I replied, not knowing what to say.

“Yeah. Sorry I just know these facts, I'm big on stuff like this.”

It was at that point, after visiting a witchcraft shop selling hand-made wooden wands, made from the wood of trees from the Northumberland forests, that I knew she wasn’t right for me.

On the train home, we sat in silence, and we did on the bus as well. When I think about now, most of the day was spent in silence. But, it was that awkward moment when we both left each other at the corner of Essex Drive and Heworth Road that I’d most like to forget. We weren’t sure whether we should, kiss each other on the check, on the lips, or hug, or whatever. So after about thirty seconds in silence just looking embarrassed and awkward, I said:“Ok. I better be off. I said I’d be back soon anyway.”

“Sure, yeah. I’ll probably just see you around. You have my mobile number right?” She answered.

“Yeah I do. We’ll speak soon anyway. Bye.”

I walked away from her when she said bye. The wind was blowing so strong my hair was in my eyes and my Manhattan Skyline artwork I had bought was bending. I'm sure it wasn’t that bad for a first date.