Three Questions

by Meagan Adele Lopez

  I’m leaving you to go back to the play on Monday, July 28th. You have to suffer through an entire two weeks with me. Already asking when I’m leaving, unbelievable. (I don’t want to go either.)

  The rest of my Aspen trip was fairly uneventful - I left the day after I wrote to you. This week, I’m house sitting for my boss, Tess, at her mansion in the hills. She insisted I have people over - I think mostly because she doesn’t want me to be scared staying in this huge place on my own, so I’m having a couple of girlfriends come over in the next hour. Going to go for a dip in her pool, and have a few glasses of wine. Tough life.

  Chelsea got arrested for drinking and driving. I’m hoping at the very least this will shake some sense into her (not that I can judge her as I drove in Vegas). She has a court date in the next couple of months to see what her verdict will be. The hardest time in her life, and she keeps repeating: “God is punishing me. God is punishing me. God is punishing me.” She is so scared. I just wish I could fly out to Baltimore and be with her.

  Chelsea left Victor. Oh my God, have I told you that yet?! She left Victor two weeks after she got home. They went to therapy for a month or so while she lived with her mother, but she realized too much in Vegas about him, about herself, about what she wanted out of life, and she just couldn’t make it work.

  Victor has gone slightly crazy as well - one second sending her text messages telling her how much he loves her, and the next second telling her what a horrible person she is. None of this can be easy, but one thing is for sure - I’m so glad she left him. He doesn’t deserve her.

  Oh, poor Chelsea.

  Her psychiatrist recommends she start taking antidepressants. I am so against those drugs - they only numb the emotions, it’s not going to help her in the long run. She doesn’t know what else to do though. How did it all go so wrong? I know it will get worse before it gets better though.

  I have to be a bit happy that she got arrested before anyone got hurt. It had become such a common thing for her to drink and drive and night after night she was putting herself and others at risk. Driving on at least eight glasses of rum and diet coke.

  On a happier note, I can’t believe you will be on the same continent tomorrow.

  I’m going to do some more work before the girls get here, but maybe we can chat on the phone in the next few days to concrete our plans?

  Your questions answered:

  1. Morbid question. I would rather not lose my arms or my legs, thank you very much. But if I had to choose, I would probably opt to lose my legs. As much as I would miss them and the ability to walk, without my arms, I could no longer hug anymore, feed myself, hold hands, type letters to you, or wash my face. What good is that?

  2. To be completely honest, I don’t know why I trust you enough to come to be with you for two weeks. It’s just one of those things. There are the facts that you have always called when you said you would (except that one time), emailed when you could find internet and even sent me cards, and a bracelet which I wear everyday. My gut feeling when I met you was that you are one of those rare, genuine, trustworthy men. This may come back to bite me in the ass, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. After all, if I can’t take a chance now, when will I ever be able to? So yes, the facts point to why I trust you, but more importantly, my feelings point there as well.

  3. Of course I’m nervous. Who knows if we will still feel the same way that we felt during those eight hours, four months ago. All I know is that when I look at your picture, I feel safe. And, that when I get your letters, nothing feels forced or superficial. Our correspondence seems to be on the same wavelength. I also am nervous that you won’t like me once you see me again…but nothing to fret over. I’m pretty spectacular.

  Looking forward to your answers. Really good questions. Weren’t as difficult to answer as I originally thought they would be. Much easier just being honest about things.

  Missing you,

  Del

  LIFT OFF

  WEDNESDAY, JULY 16TH, 2008

  Mid-thigh length, navy-blue, baby doll dress; dark brown leggings; beige shoes with wooden heels bought at Two Lips Boutique in Santa Monica; a short blonde bob. $400 spent on new underwear and bras, bikini waxing, hair straightening, bathing suits, and summer dresses. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but to a struggling actress slash personal assistant in Hollywood, it is a lot.

  He’s worth it.

  My mind is almost being drowned out by my carb-empty stomach. Almost. It has paid off, however, and that little flab that was there in Las Vegas is no longer. I am ready to strut in my bathing suit.

  I opt out of the ruby lips for today.

  Muhammad encourages me to continue to workout during these next two weeks. On Monday at my last training session, he said, “I had a relationship that ended for one reason or another, as they do, but one thing that I will never forget about her is that every morning at five a.m., no matter what else was going on in her life, she would meditate and pray. I found it so sexy that she kept something for herself that I wasn’t involved with, and you know, I still think about that? She had those few moments of the day that were hers and hers alone.

  “Don’t stop working on yourself just because you might like this guy. Wake up in the mornings, and go for a run or do a brief workout in the other room. You’ve worked too hard to give up now, and he’ll respect you that much more for it.”

  I never thought about it like that. He was so right though. If I stopped working on myself while I was with Guy, then what chance does our future have? I’m finally to a point where I feel so strong inside and out that giving that up would be detrimental to whatever relationship I might have with him or anyone else for that matter. “Oh, and if you don’t, I will make it hurt that much more when you get back,” Muhammad smirked. Good enough reason. I knew there had to be more.

  Charlie and Olive drop me off at the airport. They are so gracious to do so. “Call us as soon as you get a spare minute away from Guy,” Charlie demands.

  “We’re probably just as eager as you are,” Olive says.

  “I don’t think that could be possible. But I will. I don’t get into Chicago until late, so it’ll probably be tomorrow at some point,” I say.

  “Alright. Be safe,” Charlie says like a good father of the west coast would. He helps me with my fifty-pound suitcase and hugs me tightly. “Whatever happens on this trip, you know you always have a home to come back to.”

  “I know. Thanks Charlie.”

  “Carpe Diem,” Olive says from inside the car.

  “Thanks Olive, I will! OK, I’m off. Thanks again guys, see you in a couple of weeks.” I shut the door and wave them off. They are all smiles. A couple of weeks. The time frame just sunk in. Two weeks is a long time to be with someone I might not even like upon our second meeting.

  I need a back up plan. For the first time in my life, I need a plan B. I hurry inside the airport and check in.

  I phone Chelsea. “Just so you know, I’m coming to Baltimore if this doesn’t work out.”

  “Of course it’s going to work out,” Chelsea assures me. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m just saying. You better be available in case it doesn’t.”

  “OK, whatever.” There. Decided.

  We don’t really have much else to say to the other because we have gone over everything a million times already, but she stays on the phone with me like a good friend.

  “So, what are you doing now?” Chelsea asks after a moment of silence.

  “Walking towards the magazine rack. Do you think he’ll have flowers for me?”

  “Maybe, but I wouldn’t have any expectations. Easier that way. Have you made sure to hydrate before going on the plane? You don’t want to turn up all bloated with your skin all splotchy.”

  “I have drunk so much water that I feel really bad for the person who sits next to me. I’ll be getting up every other minute. Thanks mom,” I say.

  “Do you have gum?”

  �
��I do have gum. Can’t you hear me chomping on it?”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I think I should be in the toilet.”

  “Is the plane on time?”

  “Let me check.” I head to the board. “Oh no! The plane is an hour late. An hour late?! Shit.”

  “Let him wait. Not the end of the world.”

  “I should probably get off the phone and let Guy know that I’ll be late.” Chelsea agrees and says she’ll be on stand by if I need to talk again.

  I don’t want him to be stuck at the airport waiting around. The butterflies haven’t stopped since I woke up this morning. My palms are moist. I wipe one hand on my dress.

  He has to be real.

  The phone call goes straight to voicemail. Maybe he was on the other line, so I try again. Again, straight to voicemail. I leave a message on the third try, “Hi Guy. Just wanted to let you know that my plane is going to be about an hour late coming into O’Hare. Oh, this is Adele, by the way. Just in case you didn’t know. Alright, just give me a call back or a text to let me know you got this. See you soon! Bye.”

  Hmmm.

  I am not going to jump to any conclusions just yet, after all, he could be in a movie, underground on the subway (does Chicago have an underground subway?), or perhaps talking to someone else on the other line. There are a myriad of reasons for his phone going straight to voicemail.

  I’ll just sit at the bar and have a cocktail. I hoist myself into the high bar stool, but nearly fall over the first attempt. I steady my shaky hands on the countertop, and sit as far away from the rest of the single travelers as I can. I don’t want this flight turning into the movie Red Eye.

  The old woman is taking forever behind the bar. Finally, I order a double vodka soda with two limes. I can’t wait to eat and drink things that actually have taste to them and although I will still be avoiding the carbs, I will indulge a few times here and there.

  I place my Blackberry on the countertop face up. Then, I put it back down. Back up. I pull out the script for the play that I’m in, and begin to re-read it for the 23rd time. It’s a complicated text, and I am on stage the entire play. 116 pages of text, and I’m shitting myself. My character goes through quite a lot in those 116 pages – including witnessing her boyfriend commit suicide, slowly going insane herself, and confronting her boyfriend’s mother who drove him to his death. Yeah it’s quite a happy play all right… and all this rehearsing is exhausting while working full time with Tess.

  It’s hard for me to focus on it and my mind drifts to our last conversations, searching for any clues as to what may be happening.

  Guy got into Chicago almost a week ago, and we’ve spoken on the phone a few times, but only for a couple of minutes here and there. I have been so chaotic at work and with rehearsals that we haven’t really had much of an opportunity to catch up. He bought a pay-as-you-go phone with a USA phone number so that I could call him whenever I wanted.

  Apparently, his phone bill from Africa was $500, so using his UK phone was not going to happen. I offered to pay for some of it, but of course, he refused. He said that I was paying for the flight out to Chicago, and using up all that vacation time to come out and see him, so the least he could do was to pay the phone bill. “You are worth every penny,” he said. I purse my lips thinking about that. It felt so good to hear.

  He didn’t respond to the last of the questions since there was no computer where he was staying with Sid, so during one of our short conversations, he gave me his answers over the phone. I wasn’t going to let him get away with not answering those juicy questions.

  “What were the questions again?” he asked me.

  “Unbelievable. Absolutely disastrous,” I said. “You don’t remember your own questions? I’m hanging up.”

  He laughed.

  “Fine. I suppose since you are such a plum,” I said, “I will tell you. The first one is: would you rather lose your arms or your legs?”

  “I asked that one, didn’t I? Wow, didn’t realize how – what’s the word? – gruesome, I was.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Um, I would have said arms before so I could still play football, but now, I would lose my legs for sure. For some of the same reasons as you, I want to be able to cuddle you when I see you and hold your hand – if you’ll have me.” My legs liquefied and I melted into my comforter, even though it was the middle of the summer in LA. “You there?” he asked, breaking me from my daydreaming.

  “Yes. Here. Just, um, just taking in what you said. Right. Next question. Let me find it.” I quickly scrolled through my email on my laptop.

  “You don’t even remember them,” he said.

  “I just want to make sure I get them right so you don’t get away scot free.”

  “Ah, makes sense. OK, go on.”

  “Why do you trust me enough to spend two weeks in Chicago with me?”

  “To be honest, I’m not taking as big of a chance as you are.” I grimaced at his words. He was right. “After all, you’re flying half way across the country to come to me, and all I have to do is show up at the airport. Which is why I always said that I understood if you preferred it the other way around, I would have no problems coming to Los Angeles instead,” Guy said.

  “I know and I do appreciate that. If I wasn’t so sick of LA, I probably would have you come here, but Chicago sounds – well, kind of more romantic.” I blushed and I was glad he couldn’t see me.

  “Anyway, there was a comfort here that I haven’t gotten with anyone else before. I can talk to you so easily, there’s never any awkward moments.” Speak for yourself, I thought.

  “Besides the horrible delays when I would call you from Africa. And, most importantly, I really enjoyed being with you, even for that short amount of time and that’s enough for me. That doesn’t happen everyday.” This was all too much. My memories of our conversation are starting to make me more anxious.

  I glance down at my Blackberry again. Nothing.

  But the last question was the most important because it would tell me how much I truly meant to him. “Are you nervous at all to come meet me next week?” I asked.

  He didn’t hesitate at all. “Of course I am. But…” he said. There was always a ‘but.’ “I don’t want to put too much pressure on us. There is no doubt in my mind that we will have a fantastic time, regardless of what happens on any other level. I can’t wait to see you.” It wasn’t exactly the answer I wanted, but at least he was nervous as well. Nowhere nearly as nervous as I was, but at the same time, there was a calmness to the nervousness. These nerves had nothing to do with dread, just pure adrenaline.

  I am brought back to reality when a man with big, long dreads sits next to me at the bar. There are a few other seats at the bar available, but he would be sitting next to someone else either way. He orders a beer. I lower my head deeper into the script to show clearly that I don’t want to speak.

  It doesn’t deter him. He looks at me just as I move my head to take another sip of my drink. He is in his mid-twenties and has that grimy, backpacker smell to him.

  “Your flight delayed too?” He asks me in a foreign accent, placing his big man hands on the bar. I can’t place the accent, although it’s definitely not British of any kind.

  “Yes. An hour. The horror,” I say. I grab my Blackberry for comfort and fiddle with the circular ball.

  “I’m stuck in this airport for a good five hours. Been flying for twenty hours already. Where are you headed?”

  “Where were you that you were flying for that long?” I dodge his question using another question, and slurp through my straw.

  “Australia. Melbourne. This is the first time I’ve ever left the country. Where are you from?”

  “I’m American. Live here in Los Angeles,” I say. I’m warming to him already. He seems so innocent and fresh – a newborn traveler. His first baby steps into another world. How I would love to experience life through his eyes at this moment. All the colors
of life vivid and startling, the mind churning the information overtime, extinguishing any spare reserves of energy for attempting to communicate correctly and processing cultural references, agendas or relations. The smallest misinterpretation could lead to disaster and this moment is key in a baby traveler’s learning curve. I am pleased to be experiencing this with him.

  “Wow, really? You don’t seem American. I mean, no offense. It’s just that I heard Americans were so loud and obnoxious, and you seem, well quiet and reserved. So what’s it like here?”

  “In America or Los Angeles or both?” I say. I welcome this distraction.

  “Whatever you have the time for, really.” I do my best to explain what the entire country is like in the short amount of time that we have. I leave out the truly horrible parts, because most travelers won’t stay long enough to experience that anyway, but I don’t keep it one sided. I’m sure he’s watched enough television to know that America isn’t perfect, nor should he experience it that way.

  “So, what makes you so unlike most Americans I’ve heard of, ay? I know my judgment is limited, but all the stereotypes can’t be that far fetched, can they? I don’t expect you to wear a Stetson or weigh 500 pounds, but you don’t even really have a very American accent.” He gathers his long dreads and ties them in a knot behind his head. As he does so, I get a waft of his day-old dirt and BO. I keep my face very still, careful not to wince.

  “I don’t? Maybe because I studied acting for so long, it’s been flattened out a bit. I don’t know.”

  “So where are you traveling to, if you don’t mind me asking?” I am reminded and he can tell. “Unless you don’t want to tell me. Sorry if it’s bad news.” I figure there’s nothing to lose. I tell him that I have not yet heard from a man I am going out to meet in Chicago. He assures me that no guy would stand me up if he had his wits about him.

  “Thank you. That’s sweet. If I didn’t care so much, I would probably try to believe you. What about you? Where you headed on your escapades?” I ask. His plans are to fly to Washington, DC, and then catch bus after bus until he has explored all of America. He has a few people he knows along the way, but for the most part he will be staying in youth hostels and introducing himself to new friends.