We have a driver named Fabio

And he loves '80s love ballads!

Dear Reader,

We have a driver named Fabio in Portugal.

In fact, we’ve had two.

We nicknamed them Fabio1 and Fabio2.

One day in February, Fabio1 picked us up in front of a castle and drove us home after a chocolate festival.

We didn’t tell him that in America, we were indulging in a romantic literary cliché.

In fact, I could probably write a bestselling novel based on that sentence alone!

You may be imagining Fabio as a bodice-ripping hero, and you would be wrong.

He’s nothing like his Harlequin romance counterpart.

He’s a nice looking young Portuguese man who drives an electric car and chain smokes through his anxiety.

He likes the ‘80s radio station that plays Air Supply’s, “All Out of Love,” and Michael Bolton’s, “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You.”

He has one sister in London, and one sister in Lisbon. He’s learning English so that he can visit his sister in London.

We’re learning Portuguese so that we can communicate to our drivers, “Stop here please, this is our house.”

He once gave us chocolates as a gift that melted in our hands during the car ride, and we dashed to the bathroom afterwards to wash, but we were touched by the thought.

Also, our Fabio likes to apologize.

We once were halfway through the ride home, sitting in silence, listening to Christopher Cross’s classic, “Sail Away” when he burst out with an impassioned, “I am sorry.”

Startled, Doug who was sitting in the front seat said, “For what?”

“I was one minute late to pick you up at the grocery store.”

We tried to assure him that we didn’t consider that to be the hanging offense he felt it was, but we weren’t successful.

He is always very serious.

I don’t think he enjoys it that I laugh so much in the backseat.

It makes him nervous.

In my defense though, listening to “Take My Breath Away,” from Top Gun while a man named Fabio is driving you through the streets of an ancient city is too amusing to bear in silence.

Unfortunately, Fabio’s torrid love affair with his girlfriend got him in a little trouble with us.

A few months ago, he was supposed to take us to the bus station to go to Lisbon to see a concert, and about 15 minutes before he was scheduled to arrive he texted me to ask if his girlfriend could come along.

I said, “Yes,” of course (I mean, I have to meet Fabio’s girlfriend, right?)

But then, he kept texting me that he was behind schedule, and finally, when we realized he was going to be so late that we would miss our bus, our petsitter’s boyfriend (love was in the air!) saved the day and Felix drove us to the bus station instead of Fabio.

We were so grateful.

Fabio kept calling me after, trying to apologize to me in Portuguese.

I texted him, “Não faz mal” which means, “It’s okay,” and is my favorite Portuguese phrase.

But really, it wasn’t.

We lost a little bit of trust with Fabio on that day.

A little bit of the romance faded.

A few weeks later he texted me a cut and paste English translation apology and asked for a second chance.

I’ve included it below.

I mean … you had me at, “I hope you find each other.”

But when you throw in, “I consider you to be extraordinary people,” well, apology must be accepted!

The next time he arrived at our house to pick us up he stuck his hand straight out to me to shake and said, with great formality, “Hello, Meester John Elly,” and then turned to Doug, did the same, and said, “Hello, Meester Doug-lass.”

We got in the car.

I couldn’t look at Doug.

In town, he bought us each a coffee and we sat in tense silence with tiny espresso cups in front of us while he rolled a cigarette up because none of us could communicate in each other’s language what we wanted to say, exactly.

It was just like one those moments in a romance novel when the star-crossed lovers can’t seem to get out that they really love each other.

Everyone can see that they’re meant to be with each other, and yet they can ‘t admit it.

I wanted to reach across the table and take his hand and quote the band U2 and say, “We can’t live, with or without you,” and have him say, “Hey, hey, you. Get out of my dreams. Get into my car!” just like Billy Ocean sang.

Alas, he kept brooding in silence, just like all of the good heroes named Fabio, and drove us to our next destination, the Spanish grocery store.

But perhaps my mood rubbed off on him because the next time we needed a driver, he sent me this:

It was the perfect love note from our Fabio1.

He’ll wait as long as it takes.

But will we?

That’s yet to be seen.

Love,

Janelle

P.S. The course on “How to Move to Portugal” is almost finished! I did an audio version first, and I’m getting there with the videos. Thank you to Rob for subscribing this week and for all of you for just being so freakin’ great. Love you.