Love with a chance of dr.., p.1
Love with a Chance of Drowning, page 1
Praise for Love with a Chance of Drowning
“In Love with a Chance of Drowning, Torre DeRoche has given reluctant adventurers, romantics, and lovers of beautifully told tales a compulsively good read. I was positively swept away by this largehearted, hilarious story about how deeply and unexpectedly a person can be transformed by love.”
—Suzanne Morrison, author of Yoga Bitch
“A gripping romantic adventure—with laughs (and whales).”
—Maggie Alderson, bestselling author and the former editor of British ELLE
“The book is by turns gripping, laugh-out-loud funny, moving and uplifting.”
—Australian Bookseller+Publisher Magazine
“If I could give it ten stars out of five, I would. I loved every single page—Torre’s writing is hilarious, beautiful, poignant, and engaging—which is to say nothing about the fact that this is her TRUE story! Love with a Chance of Drowning is an endearing memoir that is part love story and part epic adventure—and most definitely a must-read.”
—Jenny Blake, author of Life After College
“All the perfect ingredients for a sweet love story, above and beyond the adventure of it all.”
—Tania Aebi, author of Maiden Voyage and the first American woman and youngest person to sail around the world alone
“With so many travel memoirs focusing on a coming-of-age during the loss of a relationship, it is refreshing to read Torre’s engaging, honest story of how she took strength in the man she loved to face her fears. While her actions were certainly brave, her ability to acknowledge what scared her and do it anyhow makes her story that much more inspiring. I thoroughly enjoyed every page, especially the lively dialogue and endearing personalities and descriptions during their time in the South Pacific.”
—Jodi Ettenberg, blogger at legalnomads.com and author of The Food Traveler’s Handbook.
“Torre DeRoche’s warm, funny memoir shows how exciting life can be when fears are faced and chances taken. Here’s a book for those who have been swept away by love and adventure—and for those who one day hope to be.”
—Rachel Friedman, author of The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting Lost
“Torre’s book is more than just a love story. It’s a story about conquering the fears that keep you from living your dreams. Torre’s story shows us that wonderful and amazing things can happen once let go of your fears.”
—Matthew Kepnes, nomadicmatt.com
“The best travel memoir I have ever read, hands down.”
—Denise Pulis, author of The Art of Slow Travel
“I found myself laughing out loud as often as I was turning the page to find out what happens next.”
—Nick O’Kelly, author of Get Her on Board
“A hang-on-to-your-seat, laugh-out-loud, emotional roller-coaster across the Pacific Ocean.”
—Danny Bent, author You’ve Gone Too Far This Time, Sir!
Dedicated to
those who dare dream,
and those who dare fall
for dreamers
Now it is the story between Joshua and me,
between me and the sky; a story just for us, a great love story
that does not concern the others any more.
—BERNARD MOITESSIER,
The Long Way
Author’s Note
This is a true story. All of the events, and embarrassing mishaps recounted in this book are authentic. In some cases, names were changed to protect the identities of certain oddballs encountered en route, and in order to spare the reader from unnecessary backstory, one minor character has been composed from two people. In an effort to pull the reader into the experience, much of the story is told through dialogue and, while it’s not verbatim, conversations have been reconstructed to remain true to either actual discussions, or to articulate the actions and motivations of each person represented. Some sequences of events were shifted for pacing, and a few voyage destinations were omitted in order to capture a three-year experience into a concise read.
Contents
Title Page
Praise for Love with a Chance of Drowning
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Note
Part I: Fire
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part II: Water
Map
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part III: Air
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part IV: Earth
Chapter 22
Two Years Later
Chapter 23
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter 1
A beam of morning sun pierces my closed eyelids and draws me from the dark depths of a hangover. Memories race in from last night. “I’ll have a dirty martini.” What was I thinking? I scorn myself as the bass amp is turned up in my head, reverberating through the soft tissue of my brain. But I have worse things to worry about right now than a hangover. Like the fact that I’ve just woken up in a stranger’s bed. Naked.
I hear a shower going in the bathroom. Good—there’s time to work out how I got here. Memories flash: stormy green eyes, dusty blond hair, an overall appearance too stylish and clean to be straight. I thought he was gay. This is San Francisco, after all.
“So are you going to tell me your name?” he asked.
“I’m Torre.”
“Nice to meet you, my name is—”
I snap upright in bed. Oh my god, I don’t remember his name! Important information has been drowned in gin and vermouth. I’m not the kind of girl who forgets the name of the guy she’s just gone home with… in fact, I’m not the kind of girl who goes home with a man she’s just met.
The name “Ivan” rings from a neglected corner in my brain, scattered with dust bunnies and useless trivia. I frantically scan the bedroom for clues—an electricity bill, a degree hanging on the wall, a dusty old sports trophy—anything to save me from certain awkwardness.
Bingo. A wallet on the bedside table. Would that be wrong?
I hear the shower stop. John Doe will need to towel off and dress, which leaves at least sixty seconds to find out who, exactly, I just slept with. I nudge the wallet with the tip of my index finger, hoping to “accidentally” flip it open and spy his name through the license window, but, poking with sharp jabs, I’m only inching it farther away. My opportunity is ticking by, so in one clean swoop, I snatch up the wallet and locate his license.
I remembered right, he is Ivan. Ivan Alexis Nepomnaschy. It seems he was named by a cat walking across a keyboard. When I try to pronounce “Nepomnaschy” out loud, my mouth sounds like it’s full of peanut butter. Six feet tall, blond, green eyes, thirty-one—seven years older than me. His headshot is handsome, just as I remember thinking before I guzzled that damn martini like a cold beer on a hot day.
A cupboard door slams in the bathroom, and I flinch, guilty and nervous. I work fast to slip the license back in the wallet, fumbling as I imagine what I’d say if caught. “Yes, good morning, Ivan… What’s that? Oh, you mean this wallet? Ha ha, no, I wasn’t stealing anything, I just couldn’t remember your name, so I… Oh, no, please don’t call the cops!”
I don’t even know myself right now.
The license slides back in, and I toss the evidence away. But he doesn’t come out of the bathroom, so I collect my clothes from beside the bed and throw them on—a pencil skirt, a turquoise silk blouse, a black sateen blazer—feeling odd to be wearing yesterday’s work attire at 8:30 a.m. on this Sunday morning.
Head pounding, I collapse back into bed and try to work out when my memory became fragmented.
It all began with a phone call. I was leaving a job interview when I heard an annoying ring tone following close behind me. Just before I spun around to see who was there, I noticed the ringing was coming from my handbag. The annoying ring tone was mine.
It was my housemate calling—the only friend I had made since moving to San Francisco on my own from Australia a month before. A few weeks earlier, while staying in a hotel, I’d come across an ad for a shared house in the Western Addition. A seedy neighborhood, as it turned out, but after meeting the three down-to-earth housemates (plus a fourth four-legged roomie named Disco Dog), I decided to take it. Anna, a psychology student my age, won me over immediately with her odd ability to combine crass candidness with compassion.
I flipped my phone open, silencing the annoying ring tone.
“Torre!” Anna hollered down the line. “What are you doing right now?”
“I just had a job interview,” I told her.
“On a Saturday? I thought you had a job already.”
“I do, but this was for a position with The Onion. I couldn’t resist applying.”
“Oh, dude, I totally want to make babies with that newspaper. So you nailed it, right? I bet they swooned over your Aussie accent. Americans dig that shit.”
“Yeah, it went well, but it occurred to me mid-interview that I can’t spend my days designin
g black-and-white graphics. I’ll go stir-crazy without color.”
“Well, lady, you’re in the right city, then. Now listen up! I want to introduce you to San Francisco. Come to Oysterfest and meet some of my friends. They’ll adopt you immediately if you just shake their hands and say, ‘Throw uh-nu-tha shrimp on tha bah-bee.’ Got it?”
She gave me directions and I hung up the call, smiling.
At Oysterfest, the sun was shining, and apart from the gritty, oversized D-grade shellfish, my day was going superbly. The fun continued when Anna proposed a guided tour of the city’s bars and restaurants, so we sipped our way across town, sampling everything from hot coffee mixed with vodka to sangria floating with fruit.
After the last six months of stressing over whether or not I’d be able to land a job, find a home, make connections, and survive in a foreign city with only two suitcases and my entire life savings of $3,000, my anxieties were being silenced with clanking glasses and the laughter of new friends. Life was clicking into place.
We had dinner in a Haight-Ashbury restaurant and, when the time came to go home, I congratulated myself for remaining clearheaded despite a day full of drinking. But that was about to change.
As we were trying to hail taxis home on Haight Street, we passed a Persian-style cocktail bar, spilling light onto the footpath, where hippies sprawled playing guitars, burning sage sticks, and hawking crafts for dope money. I was tired from a long day, yet a spontaneous impulse urged me into the bar.
“One last drink?” I asked Anna.
She checked her watch and returned an uninspired frown.
“Just one,” I said, darting inside before Anna or her boyfriend could say no.
Inside, candlelit lanterns cast patterns across the walls. Persian-style archways led to nooks for mingling in the dimmed light. It was cheesy and charming at the same time.
“What are you having, Torre?” Anna asked, putting her order in with the bartender.
“I’ll have a dirty martini,” I said, quoting Sex and the City. Freshly arrived from my almost exclusively beer-drinking homeland of Australia, the only cocktails I was familiar with were the ones I’d seen Carrie Bradshaw drinking.
I sipped from my stemmed glass, feeling elegant in my sleek outfit with a martini in hand, until the olive toothpick stabbed my lip. While rubbing my injury, I noticed a guy on his own across the bar, leaning over his cocktail as though he were wearing an invisible backpack loaded with the weight of all the world’s sorrows. Why is he so sad?
I reminded myself to steer clear. I hadn’t traveled to San Francisco to hook up. In my US arrival documentation, I could’ve written “Finding myself” as the reason for my visit, but not only would I have baffled the Department of Homeland Security, I would have overwhelmed myself with sheer pressure. So, taking a less existentialist approach, I kept my plan simple: leave my comfort zone, work in a foreign city, enjoy some uninhibited fun, and return home in one year. My mum, dad, and five sisters sent me off with two requests: (1) Please do not fall in love with an American man and never come home, and (2) Please come home in one year.
Having five sisters is like having five best friends who also moonlight as your surrogate mothers, and when they—along with my parents—spoke up with what must have been the only request ever made of me over the course of my liberal upbringing, I listened.
“One year, no American men,” I’d promised them. And it was a promise that I had no desire to break. But how could I forgive myself if I stood by and watched a handsome young man wallow miserably on his own? Plus, in his neat leather jacket and tidy shirt, I’d have sworn he was gay.
Feeling tipsy and daring, I separated from Anna and her circle, and made a beeline toward the sad stranger, sat down on the empty bar stool to his left, and leaned over to him. “Why are you sad?” I asked, skipping the small talk, or even a polite greeting. I sipped my martini, carefully navigating around the sharp toothpick.
He looked up, and I took in his appearance: light complexion, defined nose, full lips, chiseled jaw, the exaggerated chin of a superhero, undeniably handsome. His serious, stormy green eyes softened as they met mine. “I look sad?” he said.
“Well, maybe not now but you did a second ago. You were staring into your drink, all somber and serious.”
“That’s strange. I don’t feel sad.”
“You’re sad,” I said with an insistent nod.
“Okay, well… Um, let me see. I suppose maybe it’s because I just broke up with someone. I’ve moved to San Francisco and I don’t really, like, know anyone yet.”
I noticed he spoke with an Antonio Banderas accent, peppered with iconic Californian Valleyspeak.
“You’re not American!” I declared. I’m sure he already knew this, but his accent took me by surprise, and I felt the need to broadcast this news aloud.
“Right. I’m Argentinean.”
Excellent, I thought to myself, he’s not an American man. Technically, I’m not breaking any promises, then.
“Why are you in California?” I said.
“I immigrated here with my family when I was seventeen. You’re not American either. Hmm… let me guess. Dark hair and light green eyes, exotic, but too fair-skinned to be Latin. You remind me of Monica Bellucci, so—”
“Who?”
“Italian model-turned-actress.”
“Ha! I think you may have lost a contact lens in your cocktail.”
“I’m going to guess you’re British.”
“Australian, actually. I’m only staying one year, though,” I said, reciting my family-imposed terms and conditions upfront. “I’m going home in December.”
“Are you working or traveling?” he asked.
“Both. I’ve been traveling around the US since late December, but I’ve been living in San Francisco for four weeks now, since the start of March. I have a design job with a start-up and I’m settled here until the end of the year.”
“So then you’re an artist?”
“Kind of. Graphic design and illustration, which generally involves selling my soul to the corporate devil.”
“You and me both,” he said. “You traveled to San Francisco alone?”
I nodded.
“Awesome. So you’re an artist on a solo adventure in a new city. I’m very impressed.” He raised the rim of his cocktail to clink with mine. “Salud.”
He shifted on his bar stool to face me, and we began chatting away, waltzing from families to music tastes to ex-relationships. I mentioned that I’d just ended a long-term relationship in Melbourne, and we began to connect on the topic of our failed relationships. With the help of some liquid courage, our conversation quickly turned intimate and reflective.
“My ex lacked motivation,” Ivan confessed. “She showed an interest in studying film, and I thought: Great! Ambition! She couldn’t afford school, so I paid for her college tuition with the money I was earning from my first IT job. Turns out she wasn’t into it, and when I started doing her homework just so she’d pass, I realized: you can’t force traits on to someone else. Things had basically fallen apart between us and I needed to get away.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “My ex wanted to be a Disney animator and he had the talent to be a shoo-in. But instead of following the dream, he perfected the art of avoiding it—courses, menial jobs, phantom ailments. Walt Disney himself said, ‘If you can dream it, you can do it,’ but that means nothing if you don’t have courage. He was afraid to try new things and he’d let that dictate his life. I once chased him around the house with a spoonful of homemade pumpkin soup because he wouldn’t taste it—not even once—and for some reason that infuriated me. It was really delicious! And I guess I knew that if he wouldn’t try something as minor as soup, then our life together was going to be extremely limited. Rather than acknowledge that red flag, I chased him with the spoon, yelling and cursing like some sort of demonic incarnation of Nigella Lawson. ‘TASTE IT!’ That was not one of my most shining moments.”
Ivan laughed. Even though I knew I was oversharing with this man from the bar, verbalizing my relationship breakdown for the first time felt good, and since this almost-anonymous stranger was listening and nodding and replying with comments like “That would bother me too,” I kept going.
