Sighing Like a Furnace

Photo by HSH Management Services Ltd


My second date with Russell was a more traditional dinner at a restaurant. Maybe that sounds like a letdown after the first date, but he had a rehearsal the next day and was pretty focused on his work. I never wanted anything grand and elaborate anyway. If you try to make each date bigger than the last, you will only fail. Starting at Disneyland would not make it easier.

The good thing about not being able to taste anything is that I am now the easiest person in the world to take out for a meal. In the past, I was pretty open to most nationalities of cuisine, but I was always in the mood for one over the others. Now, my roommate loves going out to eat with me because we can always go for whatever she is in the mood.

Russell took me to Felix, a vaguely European restaurant at the top of the Peninsula Hotel. It was Sunday night, not the most crowded time to go to overpriced restaurants, but we still had to wait for a table. That gave him time to talk about his craft and gave me time to look around at what should have been an elegant atmosphere.

The dining room was large and open with sufficiently dark lighting to make it a romantic spot. The most obvious feature were the huge windows with postcard views of Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong Island. For some insane reason, there were blinds on the windows. I understand the Chinese attitude toward sunlight, but putting blinds on these windows is like wearing earplugs to the opera.

While waiting for our food, I realized that 90% of our conversations were about acting. While working at Disneyland together, we mostly talked about acting and where we would rather be performing. After he left, we mostly talked about acting, the theater and movies. Even during our date at Disneyland, surrounded my enchantment, magic and Mickey, we mostly talked about acting.

Russell was doing rehearsals for a play I had never heard of by a playwright I did not recognize. He said that the play was not up to his usual standards, but he took the part so he could work on an Italian accent. That sounded like a strange reason to accept a part to me, but Russell said that the accent was his idea. Nowhere in the play is his character described as Italian, but he felt it was necessary to play him as one. He also wanted some of the other actors to do accents, but they refused. When Russell told me that they refused because they could not do a convincing accent, I doubted how true that was. It might be just as likely that no one else thought it was a good idea.

When I asked for a preview of Russell's Italian accent, he started performing what I assumed was dialogue from the play. The dialogue was not exactly Shakespeare, but that was not Russell's fault. More painful than the dialogue was his accent. There is not an inch of Italian in my ancestry, but I have been to Italy. I like to tell myself I can spot the difference between someone who genuinely speaks English with an Italian flavor and someone embracing every cartoon stereotype. “Look-a, is-a a spicy-a meat-a ball-a” is not Italian.

Russell had nothing good to say about his fellow performers. No one was as prepared as he was, none of them did their homework, they did not understand the play, the director was doing it all wrong. I have never seen any of them, so I can't agree or disagree, but I am not interested in what is essentially office gossip. He came across as someone who considered himself too good for that production.

I have seen Russell perform. He is not John Gielgud. But no one is. The goal is to work more and more and get better all the time. Russell is young enough to improve. I just found it disappointing that he was so dismissive of his colleagues when he is only starting out himself.

In an effort to change the subject, I asked him about music. I almost asked him about books, but that could easily segue into acting, and movies were obviously dangerous ground. Music seemed safe. Everyone likes something.

“I'm only listening to soundtracks right now,” he told me. “The Godfather II soundtrack really invokes the nuances of each performance. You can hear De Niro's anguish in the Immigrant Theme.”

I asked him about his family. When you are an expat, family comes up a lot. Most of us live nowhere near the people we grew up with. Russell's family was all in Australia.

“They're completely supportive,” he told me. “They know I need to work on my craft and this is where I need to be right now. I was always going to leave Australia. I'll mostly live in London or Los Angeles as I dig deeper into what I can give back to the world.”

I thought he was joking at first, but he was deadly serious. His acting was his gift to humanity.

When the food arrived, there was not much to talk about. I could comment on how it looked, but I had no idea how it tasted. For Russell, eating at an overpriced restaurant would help him play a wealthy character some day. I was surprised that he did not pick an Italian restaurant to immerse himself in the culture.

The food was expensive, and I told Russell I would pay for myself, but he said that was out of the question. He had a plan for the night and he laid it all out on the table. Dinner at a romantic/expensive restaurant followed by a night at his place where he already set out an array of scented candles and covered his bed in rose petals. He said that I could spend the night, but warned me that he had to leave early in the morning.

I asked him if he thought that maybe he was being just a tad on the remarkably presumptuous side.

“It's our third date,” he replied. “You know what that means.”

It was actually our second date.

“Disneyland counts as two,” he decided.

Either way, I did not know what that meant. Is there some international rule no one ever told me about that everyone is required to have sex on the third date, or second if the first is at Disneyland?

“Everyone knows it,” he told me. “If you're mousy or something, I'll settle for a blowjob.”

It was April 1st, but he was not playing a prank on me.

The thing is, Russell was a decent person. When you work at Disneyland, you can participate in their Voluntears program. Disney cast members go out into the community with people who know what they are doing and take children on nature walks, visit hospitals, take poor children to the theater, go swimming with disabled children, that sort of thing. I saw Russell at some of those events. They were never a job requirement. It was all voluntary. Creepy, self-involved, prima donnas don't do that. Unless their PR managers and cameras are nearby. Russell does not have a PR team. Yet. And no reporters anywhere care what he is doing.

I knew that somewhere, maybe deep down, Russell had a good heart. But he was also a desperately horny dog. He needed to get some as quickly as possible.

I ruined his plans. Not only did I pay for my meal, but he had those rose petals all to himself. I don't think I was mean, but I let him know that there would be no third/fourth date. I pointed out that prostitution is legal in Hong Kong and bars are everywhere. If he really needed sex right away, there were plenty of options. He claimed that he wanted a relationship, but that was not the impression I got. He never asked me anything about me that did not involve acting. He knew that I was in a serious car accident and had brain surgery, but he only saw it as something I could use if I ever play an injured character someday. Everything turned back to acting, somehow. Even his scented candle plan showed that he was not thinking about me per se. Any warm body would do.

I understand dedication. When you want to do something artistic for a living, you really have to work at it. Artists don't have patrons anymore. You have to climb that mountain by yourself. But if you want other people in your life, you have to have a life. Hopefully, Russell will meet a wanton actress who likes reciting dialogue during sex.

“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. Take the cannoli!”