When I was young and 20 my mother bankrolled my trip to Europe, but there was to be no hitchhiking or backpacking for her darling daughter. She marched me into Mackie Travel in Winnipeg and told me to choose a tour.
"There's safety in numbers," my mother whispered to the travel agent behind the desk. "What Frenchman or Italian would approach a group of thirty young women?"
Poor deluded mother. I dutifully selected a tour and found I had to obtain special permission to go because I was under 21. That first hurdle crossed, I next had to subject myself to a medical examination and get a form signed assuring Arista tours that I was fit to sail, bus and fly first across the Atlantic and then the European continent for 21 days.
"I know what you really came here for," smirked the silver-haired Dr. McEwan.
"What's that, sir?"
"Birth control pills."
Birth control was the farthest thing from my mind. I had shoes and purses to buy, outfits to pack and I needed a larger suitcase.
"No," I replied, mustering what dignity I could. "I'm here to have you sign this form."
"My dear, you have no idea what charmers European men can be. Why I have one patient, a single teacher, who travels to Italy every summer just to have an affair."
"Well, I intend to visit museums and soak up the art and architecture."
"You'll be sorry," he warned and signed the medical form.
I admit it didn't take long before his words came back to haunt me. On the Empress of Canada, a young officer, all spit and polish, asked me to dance and later lured me back to his cabin; my regret accompanied me to London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Venice, Madrid and Lisbon. City after city, I encountered masculine charm. Men kissed my hand, they bowed slightly before and after each dance, muttered sweet things in my ears, even if their English vocabulary was limited to a sentence from the current hit by the Rolling Stones, "Let's spend the night together."
I returned to Canada a new woman, broke off my engagement to the engineering student who smoked a pipe to look manly, and resolved to start afresh with new criteria. I wanted to find a man who was sophisticated, debonair, suave, seductive and romantic. I didn't take long. My first husband wooed me by reciting the poems of Tennyson over glasses of chilled wine; my second by presenting me with gold heart-shaped earrings imbedded in a black-eyed Susan still wet with raindrops. But gradually, over the forty years since my tour of the European capitals, I stopped expecting charm until I met Eduardo.
I first saw him this past January at a reception at the Guadalajara Golf and Country Club, where husband Paul was enrolled in a seniors' tennis tournament. He was a tall gentleman in his late 60s, wearing a crisp white-linen, short-sleeved shirt and trousers, and a baby-blue straw motoring cap that made him look as though he was about to hop in his roadster and challenge someone to The Great Race. From the neck down, he resembled that film's white-clad daredevil hero played by Tony Curtis; from the neck up its stage melodrama villain, Jack Lemmon, twirling his handle- bar moustache and arching his brow. "You look lovely," he purred. I lowered my gaze, eyelids aflutter, like Pearl Pureheart when she first meets Oil Can Harry. Back at my table, I pointed him out to my companions.
"Who do you suppose he is," I asked, "the owner of Telmex or Corona Breweries?" No one knew.
The next morning I found out when my husband and his partner Geoff faced Eduardo and Gustavo in a tennis match. Eduardo had replaced his pale-blue straw cap with a more sedate white cotton chapeau and his linens with a cotton shirt and trousers, but his moustache continued to frame a perfect set of teeth as bright as his clothing. Before every serve, he held his tennis ball aloft in a gesture from a bygone era, when tennis was a more courtly game. The stately Eduardo and his partner easily won the match without breaking a sweat. His suit didn't even wrinkle.
Over the course of the tournament, I saw Eduardo everywhere, defeating his opponents on the clay courts and charming the ladies in the bleachers. When we were formally introduced, he kissed my hand and bowed. He turned out to be a dentist from Tijuana, not a tycoon from Guadalajara, but even his occupation failed to dispel his charm. At the awards dinner, everyone cheered as Eduardo accepted his trophy and then went from table to table, showing all his new friends, opponents and wives, what he had won.
"You men could learn a thing or two from him," I said.
"He's been playing tennis since he was six; it's too late for me to catch up," replied Paul.
"I'm not talking about tennis. I'm referring to his off-the-court behavior. Just look at him. He loves tennis, the ladies and life itself, and he's not afraid to show it."
Afterwards I felt a little sorry that I'd rubbed salt in their open wounds. After all, Eduardo was a better tennis player and now I was scolding my husband and his friends for their lack of Latino charm.
"You women can't have it both ways," one disgruntled loser argued. "You can't be liberated and have doors opened for you, too."
"Why not?"
Even my female friends responded strangely when I described the debonair Eduardo. "Oh sure...just ask his poor wife what it's like to live with him. He's probably got a mistress or two. They all do."
"Even boors can cheat on their wives," I said.
I think we've all been cheated, men and women alike. We Canadians and Americans have been socialized to think that courtly manners are outdated, effete, phoney or that they mask dark intentions.
So gentlemen, start your engines. In the Great Race of life, try some charm. Wax and twirl those moustaches: kiss a lady's hand when introduced for the first time; bow ever so slightly as she enters the room; stare into her eyes when she's speaking to you; pull out a chair at the dinner table and help her be seated; compliment her with words and deeds. And ladies, be gracious in return. Reward your boyfriend, lover, husband or buddy for his efforts. Smile at him warmly, extend your hand or cheek, thank the man who gives up his seat or holds open the door for you. Let's all take a tip from the dentist from Tijuana. I wonder what he charges for a root canal?
