Collywobbles
(noun) informal or humorous
butterflies in the stomach
Charlie’s knee ceased bouncing as she startled and looked up, putting on her best irritated face. “The what?”
“Collywobbles?” He paused. “No? Mind if I sit?”
Charlie gave the stranger a good look-over. He was probably her age, with dark eyes and hair to match. It was pushed away from his face, but there were curls peeking out from behind his neck, which led her to notice the neatly kept stubble on his chin. He looked entirely too put together to be flying, that’s for sure. Tall, young, smiling, and that’s all she was able to take in before she realized she was staring.
“Oh—uh, yeah. That’s fine.” She pushed her brown hair over her shoulder so that she wouldn’t tug at the ends anymore.
The mystery man wheeled his suitcase closer as he sat in the seat across from her. His coffee cup sounded hollow as he put it down on the airport cafe table. “I’m Callum.”
“Charlie.”
“Short for Charlotte?”
She shook her head, leaning back in her chair. As he spoke more, she realized he had a strong accent. “Nope.”
“Mum wanted a boy?”
She snickered. “No. There’s no story, just my name.” She glanced down at her backpack, then back up to him. He was…still watching her. “So, uh, cobbly-wiggles?”
He laughed, and his whole face lit up with it. “Collywobbles. It’s the word for when you have butterflies in your stomach.”
Charlie felt her eyes go a little wide as she nodded. She wanted him to say butterflies again, or maybe a million times. With a silent prayer that he wasn't a creep, she allowed herself to be drawn into conversation. “That’s, um, not exactly a pick-up line.”
“Are you suggesting I sat down with the intention of flirting?”
“Well, yes.” Her eyebrows furrowed down. “Why else would you come over?”
His lower lip popped out ever so slightly, as if he was giving her that puppy dog face without even thinking about it. “I enjoy making friends, and my flight has been delayed.”
Her head tipped to the side as she tried not to smile. “Alright, go on with your cobwebs then.”
“Ah, now you’re just making fun of me. I saw that you looked rather nervous, and I know that first time flyers often get a bad case of the co-lly-wob-bles.” He put emphasis on each syllable of the word.
“So you were watching me?
There was a pause. He squinted his eyes for a moment, then they popped wide open and he leaned into the table. He spread his hands, palms up, as he spoke. “I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t mean it like that, I just saw you from across the way...” He sighed and dropped his hands. “I swear I’m not a stalker.”
She laughed it off. “It's okay, I believe you. Except one thing.”
“Yes?”
She leaned forward and bit on her lip before speaking, like it caused her great pain to give him the news. “Your deductions are off, Sherlock. I’m not really a first time flyer, and I wouldn’t really call this collywhatevers.”
His eyebrows rose a notch. “Oh?”
“It’s more of a sinking, all consuming dread in the pit of my stomach.”
“Well your deductions aren’t quite on the nose either, miss Charlie. I’m not British, I’m Australian.” He topped the statement off with a cheeky grin.
She grimaced. “At least I was close?”
His nose and eyes crinkled as he scrunched his face up. “Mmm, not really.”
They both sat back in their chairs once more, falling into silence. Charlie took a drink of her coffee. Callum removed the lid from his, and mourned its emptiness. Travelers bustled past the little airport cafe, constantly coming and going to the acoustic soundtrack playing over the speakers of the little cafe.
Charlie drummed her fingers on the table. “So what’s an Australian doing in San Francisco?”
“Would you believe I came to see the Golden Gate Bridge?”
She laughed, surprised. “I wouldn’t believe it at all!” She grasped the edge of the table as she leaned forward. “You came all the way from Australia for that?”
“No. Though, to be fair, I would have. It was the grand finale to my tour of the sights in America. I’m a bit of an architecture enthusiast.
Enthusiast? What kind of enthusiast pays thousands of dollars in travel expenses just to see buildings and bridges? Charlie almost voiced these questions out loud, but who was she to judge when her dream vacation was to eat her own weight in exotic food?
Callum carried on in her silence. “I’m homeward bound, now. But what about you—do you live here?”
Charlie shook her head. “Oh, no, I’m visiting my brother. I live in South Carolina.” She pushed her hair behind her ears and checked the time on the cellphone in her lap.
There were still forty minutes until she needed to be at her gate. Now she was feeling an entirely different breed of collywobbles with this random Australian sitting across from her. She didn’t know his last name, but she had just told him the state she lived in. Charlie wasn’t really a social person. Of course, she could make conversation when the situation demanded, but she didn’t seek it out. She didn’t know how to fill silences.
“Can I buy you another coffee?”
She snapped her head up and waited for the question to compute. “Uh, what?”
“Another coffee?"
“I—uh, I thought we weren’t flirting.” Charlie twirled a piece of hair in her fingers.
“Oh.” He paused, and his cheeks flushed. “Assuming you don’t have any reservations…”
Her heart melted. She reached across the table and splayed a hand on it as she laughed. It came out much breathier than she expected. “No, I’m more single than Kraft cheese.”
His lips parted in confusion.
Charlie’s forehead hit the table. “That wasn’t funny at all. And you have probably never heard of Kraft Singles.”
Callum’s hand touched hers, and she startled again. His fingers were a little clammy, and Charlie began to wonder if he was feeling his own collywobbles. His touch was gentle, though, and she felt bad when he pulled away.
“Uh, sorry. I can’t say I know what Kraft Singles are, but I understand your point.” He ducked his head to meet her eyes, and smiled. “Is that a yes to coffee, then?”
She sighed and rested her face in her hands. “Yes.”
Charlie pulled out her phone out the second Callum had his back turned. She had a text from her brother, letting her know she’d forgotten her toothbrush at his place. Oh well. She opened up the app and furiously typed, knowing she didn’t have a whole lot of time.
‘Waiting for gate to open-- hot Australian is talking to me for no reason???’
Her brother only took ten seconds to type out and send a reply. ‘GIRL.’
‘What do I do??’
‘Do he got the booty?’
She rolled her eyes as an image of Andrew cackling at his own joke crossed her mind. But… A quick check couldn’t hurt, right? As discreetly as she could, she took a peek. Callum had his hands resting in the front pockets of his jeans. They were wide, almost baggy jeans, probably comfortable pants for traveling. Underneath the denim, though, she saw potential for a “booty”.
Callum turned and gave her a smile, and she ducked her head. Her cheeks were definitely turning red. She’d realized a split second too late that she’d absently grabbed her bottom lip between her teeth.
She grit her teeth and replied, ‘he do.’
‘Then get digits.’
That’s all? That was his sage older-brother advice? Great. Cool.
“Alright, two coffees.” Callum sat and carefully placed each of them on the table.
Charlie picked up her coffee and removed the lid, blowing steam away from the surface of it. Their eyes met over the rim of the paper cup as she took a sip. His were, open, honest, and nervous. She knew hers were only a shade of brown lighter, and probably just as nervous as his as they darted back down to her cup.
He cleared his throat, and she felt it again: a flutter in her stomach that grew into her chest, only to get caught on the lump in her throat. What came next? Andrew’s advice flashed through her mind. Did she really want to pursue a connection with this man that had greeted her with the word collywobbles?
“So,” she coughed out nervously, “what do you do?”
He leaned forward, looking excited to answer and happy that she’d asked. “I’m a structural engineer. Well, sort of. I got my degree for it last year, and I’ve been doing apprentice work mostly. My job is to make sure weight will be evenly distributed. I make sure the right materials are used for the right jobs, sometimes I work on the actual design of the building with the architects.”
“So your job is to make it safe.”
“Yes, exactly. Here, I’ll show you this hospital we just finished.” He pulled a phone from his pocket and swiped through a few pictures before finding the right one. “I got to help a little on the design of this one.”
She smiled as she leaned closer to look at the picture on the small screen. It had been taken at the height of the day, with the full afternoon sun falling on the building. It looked more or less like a normal hospital, but she was pressed to look closer by the hopeful face behind the phone.
“I see some detail above the door there, that looks nice.” She leaned in a touch closer. “Oh.” The way the three buildings sat, all at different heights, looked very nice. That juxtaposition of big, bigger, biggest was one of the first things she learned as a young photographer. “The three buildings look nice together. Very balanced.”
He smiled brightly as he put the phone away. “Thank you. It was my idea to scale them like that.”
“Yeah, because if they were all uniform, or even two of them, they would look more boring. Having a tall one in the center and the two surrounding buildings be different heights help them all to stand out on their own.”
“Exactly. And it was practical, too.” He paused, taking a look at the picture himself. After a moment, he put down the phone and tapped his temple with the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry. I get excited and I’ll just talk all day to whomever will listen.”
“No, it’s okay. I enjoy listening.” She really did. Being the observer rather than the observed, if only for a moment, put her at ease. She found herself making him want to smile again like he had before.
“What do you do for a living, then?”
“Oh!” Charlie’s hands fluttered uselessly in the air for a moment, then she bent and reached for her backpack. “I’m a photographer,” she said as she plopped the bag in her lap. “I do things like weddings, or private family photography sometimes.”
She drew a camera bag out of the largest pocket of the blue backpack. She’d had the bag since her first year of highschool, so it was faded and beaten up in places, but it was familiar and reliable.
“I couldn’t trust this guy in my suitcase. You know they say that the people who load the luggage onto the plane don’t treat anything at all as fragile.”
He patted his hard sided suitcase that stood beside him. “Trust me, I’ve learned that the hard way.”
After getting the camera out of the bag, she turned it on and opened the picture album. She put the camera in his hands, but she kept a hold of the strap. “You can flip through them.”
They were all photographs she had taken during her week in San Francisco. She’d visited the flower market, the zoo, and other local sights. One series of photos were nothing but her brother trying to eat his three-scoop cone of chocolate ice cream before it melted in the heat. She liked those ones especially.
“I presume this man is the brother you spoke of?”
“Yeah, that’s Andrew. He’s a dork, but he’s my dork.”
Callum smiled as he scrolled through them. “These are all impressive, Charlie. I like this set from the zoo. It almost makes me wish I had followed your tour of the city, rather than my mine.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. She bit down on her lip and waited for him to get tired of going through the photographs. Most of the people she met didn’t make it past the first ten photos before they got bored; she tended to take multiples in case one came out blurry, or in the wrong light. She liked to have options.
As Callum continued to scroll, she continued to hold the strap of the camera in her fist. She didn’t think he would steal it really, but she didn’t know him, and she wasn’t risking it. That camera was her baby.
“I suppose this makes my cellphone camera work look rather shoddy,” he said with a laugh, handing the camera back. “Some of those are incredible.”
“Thank you.” She paused to turn the camera off. “But really, I thought you made a good use of light and shadows in that one picture,” she said, half joking. “Maybe you should take a class.”
He laughed. “Oh no, I’ll leave the photography to you.”
“Photography is really easy, I swear. You just need the right equipment and something to aim the lens at.”
Turning the camera back on, she screwed a lens onto the end of it and held it up to her eye, focusing Callum’s face right in the center. He was smiling again. She leaned back, favoring his left side, and rapidly snapped a few shots. She took a look at each of them, and showed him her pick of the best.
He ran a hand over his head as he looked at the photo. He must have noticed his curls slowly taking over his head, rebelling having been pushed back.
“May I?”
She hesitated, camera and strap tight in her hands. This camera cost her what she made filming and photographing not one all-day wedding, but two. If it was broken or stolen, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself.
“Promise you’ll be careful with it?"
“Cross my heart.”
So she wrapped the strap around her hand, and gently passed it off with the other. He closed one eye and looked through the lens of the camera, even though most people would have used the screen display. He mimicked her exactly, down to the way she positioned herself, as he focused the picture.
She laughed at his face, scrunched up and partially hidden by the camera. He snapped the shutter at that moment, then held the camera away to see the picture on the screen.
She took it and looked at the photo. She wasn’t as much of a mess as she thought she must have looked like, and he’d caught her mid-laugh. “Not bad.”
“I think the subject matter has more to do with it than my skill”
A grin spread across her face. “Flattery gets you nowhere.” She flipped back to look at the picture of him. The clock behind him caught her attention, its white face having stood out on the brown background. She looked up, panicked, and found the clock telling her that she was only fifteen minutes from time to board the plane.
“Oh my gosh, is that really the time?” She confirmed it on her phone, then scrambled to put her camera back in the bag. “I’m so sorry Callum, I have to run. Literally, run. My gate is on the other side of the airport.”
He stood and loosely held the handle of his suitcase as he waited for her to do the same. “I’m afraid I’ll be leaving soon, too.”
Charlie stood and tossed her backpack over her shoulder. They awkwardly stood face to face in silence. Her anxiety returned.
“I’m sorry to rush off. It was really nice to meet you.”
“And you as well, Charlie.” He smiled brightly. He shuffled a step forward, halted, and hesitated. Finally, he held his hand out.
For the second time, Charlie took his hand. It was warmer than before, from holding his coffee, but just as gentle. She saw her Andrew’s text dance before her eyes again. Get digits.
“Callum,” she said slowly, still holding his hand. Her mouth remained open, eyes on their hands, but she couldn’t find words. She started to sweat, and her head spun. She’d given her number away a handful of times, but she’d never asked for one, certainly not from a stranger. She could always give him her number rather than asking...but what if he didn't want it? Would be laugh at her?
“Yes?”
She looked up, closed her mouth, and tried to smile. “I-It was really nice to meet you,” she stammered.
Callum withdrew his hand and laughed lightly, a little wistfully. “You said that already.”
“I…I did. Yeah.”
He glanced behind him toward the clock. “You should definitely get going, I don’t want you to miss your flight.”
“Oh, yeah.”
They exited the little coffee shop together, back into the stream of people in the main hall.
“Do you know where to go?”
“Ah, yes.” She pulled her flight information out of her pocket and flashed it at him. “Gate two-twelve. Thank you.”
He nodded, and she walked away.
She told herself not to look back. She was already regretting not having the guts to get his number, she didn’t need to have the image of him standing there sadly stuck in her head forever. Besides, she told herself, it wasn’t that big of a deal. People from different countries don’t just meet in the airport and live happily ever after. She obviously needed to get out more.
But she did it anyway. She looked back, and he wasn’t there. Great. Now she’d have that sad image stuck in her head forever. He hadn’t even waited to watch her go, so he wouldn’t have given her his number anyway. Right? Right.
She made it to the gate with eight minutes to spare, after jogging and weaving through the crowd. That, at least, was a convenient aspect of being so small.
After finding a plug-in for her phone, she sat herself down on the floor beside the wall.
‘No digits’, she sadly reported to Andrew.
‘Wuss’
Oh man. She knew he was teasing, but that kinda hurt. She had always been anxious around people and airplanes and crowds. The three of those things had just been put together on a time limit, and she had totally shut down. It might be a little dramatic to say that she would regret that for the rest of her life, but she would definitely wonder ‘what if?’ for the next few weeks.
The stewardess beside the gate announced that boarding for first class passengers was open, and instructed the coach travelers to line up on the other side of the gate. Charlie was one of the last to get around to lining up, wanting to let her phone get as much charge as it could before the flight.
Turning to scan the airport one last time, vainly hoping Callum’s gate was nearby, she sighed and took her place in line. She turned her attention toward managing her anxiety as the time to take off grew ever closer.
The line started moving as stewardesses checked tickets and ushered passengers through, and Charlie took a deep breath.
“Charlie!”
She turned and looked around her, having sworn she heard her name called. “There’s probably a lot of other Charlies here,” she mumbled to herself.
“Charlie!”
Okay, that time, she definitely heard it. She pivoted on her heel and leaned out of the line to look for the source.
Callum was running across the airport, waving something in his hand as he did. His small suitcase was tucked under his arm, and he looked as though he was going to drop it at any moment.
Charlie tried to wrestle her way out of the line, finally lifting the belt and ducking under it. Callum skidded to a stop, meeting her right on the edge of the carpeted gate area.
He paused for a moment, hands resting on his knees as he caught his breath.
“Hey, are you okay?”
He shook his head breathlessly as he straightened up. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. I just didn’t want you to leave before I could… give you this. If you’ll take it.”
He opened his fist and put a white paper napkin in her hand, one from the coffee shop. Scribbled across the napkin in bold, hurried writing were ten numbers. It took Charlie a moment to recognize it as a phone number.
“Text me when you land,” he said. The way he said it, it was almost a question.
She gave him a stunned look. His hair had completely come loose as he ran, and now the curls hung on his forehead and around his ears. His cheeks were pink, too, though she wasn’t sure if it was because of the running, or something else altogether.
“I wasn’t sure if you would want to, and I didn’t want to seem forward, but I couldn’t let you leave without having a chance to reach you again.”
She laughed a little, carefully folding the napkin and pocketing it. “I was going to ask you as well, but I was too scared.”
He grinned. “You’ll text me then, won’t you?”
“Yes. I definitely will. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He glanced behind her at the rapidly moving line. “You’d better get going.”
She nodded. “Yes, I should. I will…uh, I’ll talk to you later.”
He winked as he began to turn and walk away, and nearly ran right into a baggage cart.
Charlie put a hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh, and waited for him to give her a thumbs up before she turned to the line again. This time, she watched him walk away, and there was no more ‘what if’.
Her grin faded into a nervous smile as she stepped onto the passenger boarding bridge, tightly gripping the straps of her backpack. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “Collywobbles,” she said to herself.
