“What was her name?”
“I have no idea. A few weeks later Dan told me she quit her job and left for L.A. with some boy she fell in love with. Oh by the way, did I tell you Dan is leaving for L.A. in September?”
“No.” Lynn laughed. “Did he sell his screenplay?”
“Not yet, but he was out visiting friends and met a girl.” She laughed. “One of Ray’s favorite movie lines, ‘I have to see about a girl.’ Dan moved to L.A. to see about a girl. Anyway, one night after a wine emergency, I was watching Blue Valentine and started having all these dreams.”
“Right, you told me about them. Gosh, I wish I was having those dreams.”
“They are good.” She laughed. “The girl who was swimming looked so much like a fairy or a nymph. She used to have long hair but she chopped it all off. She was like a mermaid floating on the water, like in the fairy tale, Undine.”
“I don’t know that one.”
“Undine was a water nymph who had to marry an imperfect human to gain a soul. Anyway, I started to write this fairy tale about the girl who ran off to L.A. with her boyfriend. I made an entire life for her and the wonderful boy she fell in love with. The story began to take shape while I was driving on my long commute to work, unfolding like a movie in my mind, which is why it started as a screenplay.
"I remembered a time in Europe when Kathy and I were backpacking. We were on a train with a couple from Ireland, a young boy and his girlfriend. The boy was quite a storyteller. Traveling through Spain, in the Pyrenees, we passed in and out of tunnels carved through the mountains. We sat in total darkness, the boy's cigarette the only light. He used his hands a lot when he was talking. All we could see was the light at the tip of his cigarette, moving and swirling as he continued to tell his stories in the dark. They were tales of his everyday life but they were fascinating. I realized anyone’s life could be interesting if they told the story right, even the boring parts.
"When I started having those dreams, I would wake in the middle of the night and lie in bed listening to the three a.m. train rumble by. I love the sound of a train. It reminds me of backpacking through Europe. For me, it is the sound of adventure and romance. Sometimes the whistle blows, as the train gets closer to my house. That’s the sound of sadness and regret.
"Every day I drive to work, I cross the railroad tracks before the parking lot. Some days I have to stop at the railroad crossing and wait for the train to pass. I park next to the train station. I dream of getting on a train and taking off somewhere on an adventure, instead of going to work in my cubicle. So as I wrote the story of the girl who looked like a water nymph, her fairy tale began on a train. But something annoying happened while I was writing. Bits and pieces of Ray and I kept creeping into the story. The boy lived in an apartment above a garage like Ray when he first moved to New Hampshire. The boy also worked in the building trades, and he had lots of friends and skied and surfed. The girl had very strong political views and hated working in a cubicle. She wanted to be a writer.”
“Ray surfs?”
“No.” She laughed. “It’s not entirely the Ray and Sophie story, but it’s similar. It's better. They do have lots of things in common. I realized I was sort of rewriting my life. It became clear to me that I still carry the young girl I used to be inside of me. She’s with me always, inside this fifty-year-old body, and some days she’s just screaming to get out. In my mind, it was just yesterday that I was twenty-five. When I see myself, I am wearing a bikini.”
“The girl who went swimming reminded you of yourself.”
“I guess. I think what I was trying to do was fall in love with my imperfect husband all over again by writing a story about a perfect boy. Very weird, but the strange thing is now I am in love with that boy and I’m starting to get along with Ray again. The dreams and the story I was writing started to weave their way into my life. One night I found myself dancing with Ray in the office." She sighed. "But then he keeps messing things up. All the hurt and hardships and fights keep getting in the way. The years have created a distance I am not sure we can breach.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. After years of marriage you pick up some bad habits and it’s hard to break those patterns.”
“Yes, bad habits. You’re right, Lynn.” Sophie laughed. “It’s easy to know when you’ve fallen in love, but it’s not always so obvious when you fall out of love, is it? Is there a specific moment when it happens, or is it a slow erosion over time, made up of so many little hurts? You know what Ray said when I finally told him the next morning about the picnic? He asked what they were serving that day and I told him lobster, grilled chicken or a veggie burger. He said, "Can you imagine if you saw the van coming and understood that in an instant you would be gone and you’d ordered the veggie burger and your last thought was, I should have ordered the lobster. ”
“Oh my God, he said that?”
“Well, I know exactly what he meant. It was his usual live for the day mentality. The same mentality I have. The reason I fell in love with him was his sense of humor and his eternal optimism. I don't want to die thinking I should have bought that inn in the islands. I should have traveled more. I shouldn’t have spent so many days in a cubicle doing work I really didn’t like. I don’t want to die at my desk like Ida Blankenship. I always want to order the lobster.”
“Yeah, I guess I see what he meant.”
“When I saw that girl run into the water, I really wanted to be her. Then when I heard she quit her job shortly after the picnic, I wanted it even more. I wanted to be young again, to start over and go back to the beginning so I could do things differently. I took the dreams I was having and turned them into a story about her, and in writing the story, I have forgiven myself for the imperfect life I’ve lived. I am trying to learn to live with my regrets. Witnessing that accident made me realize that while I am still alive there should be no regrets, just opportunities to do better and be happier. All I want is one more beginning when everything is new and exciting and possible. I need to take chances before I get too old. Age shouldn’t hold me back, it should make me bolder, and I’d like to do this with Ray, but I don’t know. I feel if we can get out of this house and start somewhere new, we could get the romance back, that feeling we had when we first fell in love.”
“How does this story end?”
“I don’t know. I’m still working my way to the end. I want a happy ending. That’s what I realized I am doing. I want a better ending to that movie I watched the night the dreams began. I am writing myself out of the life I am living by starting at the beginning and trying to get to a better, happier ending.”
“Do you know Doug never proposed to me?”
“Ray never proposed to me either. No wonder you and I are such good friends. Ray and I were living together and just decided to elope.”
“Us too. I always wanted a romantic proposal. You know, the guy gets down on one knee and asks, will you marry me?”
“Me too. You know what, I’ll write one for us. After all, if I can write myself a better ending, it’s going to need a romantic proposal.”
LET’S GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING
At a tall round table by a window in a cafe in Sedona, Arizona, she read a book while sipping on Sangria and nibbling at the free chips and salsa the waitress brought. They had been on the road for four weeks, headed to L.A., every day better than the one before. They spent a weekend in Denver with Ava and she joined them for a week of hiking in Vail and Aspen. It was obvious Ava and her brother were close and she thought she might feel like a third wheel. But just like her aunt and uncle back in Newburyport, Ava was happy to see her brother so obviously in love she fell in love with her too. While driving back to Denver, they began to make plans to meet in Tahoe for a winter ski trip.
From Denver, they stopped in Colorado Springs to visit the Garden of the Gods on their way to Taos and Santa Fe, and from there it was on to the Grand Canyon where they met Mark in the cafeteria. It took two days to hike t
o the bottom of the Canyon. The first night they camped on the Kaibab Plateau and the second night by the banks of the Colorado River.
Breaking camp while it was still dark, she would never forget the morning they hiked out of the canyon. The sun started to rise as they passed along a trail lined with cactus, some blooming with little white flowers set against the backdrop of the red canyon and a breathtaking pink and pale blue sky. It was quiet, except for the sound of their boots scuffling on the dry red dirt and their steady breathing as the ascent grew steeper.
She was out in front when suddenly a deer jumped across the trail, almost knocking her over. In the early morning light, they stopped and stood still, as the deer hopped to the side of the trail, turned, and looked back at them for several minutes. No one moved for a camera for fear the deer would startle. They all agreed it was a photograph they would hold in their memory.
They dropped Mark off in Flagstaff to visit an old girlfriend who was attending college at the university. She invited them to stay for the night and it was nice to sleep in a bed. Other than the weekend in Denver at Ava’s, they had been camping the entire trip. Their plan was to spend one more night in Sedona before going back to Flagstaff to get Mark. He was rejoining them for the trip to Vegas, where he would stay a few days, before returning home to Boston. It was still uncertain if his old girlfriend would join them for that leg of the trip. They hadn’t heard how that was going.
Everyone was looking forward to staying at the Bellagio. She planned to spend all her time in the pool or the hot tub. Then it was on to L.A. where he had an interview with a studio’s electrical unit. He didn’t want her to look for a job right away. He insisted she devote her time to writing and really give it a shot. He had things covered financially.
* * *
That morning they split up. He was getting the oil changed in the car and she was running errands in town, getting necessities at the drug store and doing laundry. They planned to meet at the cafe at two thirty but it was now three o’clock. Hopefully nothing was wrong with the Taurus, it had logged a lot of miles.
Looking up from her book, she noticed a really handsome young man walk in the door. His brown hair was cropped short on the sides and in the back, the top a little longer, with no real part, all tousled and mussed up with a short cowlick sticking up in the back. Looking like a movie star, his blue eyes twinkled like the first star in the night sky, the star she always wished on. Looking over at her, he smiled the biggest, most charming smile ever directed at her. “Do I know you?” he asked flirtatiously.
“I don’t think so. You don’t look familiar,” she teased.
“Hmm. You look like someone I met almost a year ago on a train headed into Boston one night. But maybe not, she had much longer hair, but she looked an awful lot like you. Can I sit down? Maybe we could get to know each other?”
“I don’t know about that. I’m waiting for someone who I happen to be hopelessly in love with.”
“Hopeless? That doesn’t sound good.” He paused, thinking what to say next. “Hey, you know I just met a guy at the barber shop down the street. He told me he was supposed to meet a girl in this very cafe who he is madly in love with. I have reason to believe from the description he gave me and what you have just told me, that you are that girl.”
“Really? Hopeless and mad, they sound like quite a pair. Did he have long, curly hair?” Only a few wavy curls remained on the top of his head and she was feeling very bad about this, but she didn’t want him to know because he was still very handsome.
Trying to keep a straight face, he swallowed a laugh. “He did when he came in, but I don’t think he does anymore. After all, he was walking into a barbershop and he mentioned something about an important interview he had in L.A. Anyway, get this, when he heard I was headed over here, he said he was running late and he had to go on ahead without her. So he asked me to deliver her a message and a small package.”
He was wearing a light blue T-shirt that matched his eyes and khaki knee length cargo shorts with lots of pockets. The pockets on the side had buttons and the pockets in the front had zippers. He put his left leg up on the rung of her chair.
“He has been carrying a very valuable package with him for four weeks now. The package has something in it that belonged to his mother and he would like this girl to have it now. He asked me to put it in my pocket with the zipper for safekeeping. He gave me strict instructions to give it to this girl as soon as I got to the cafe.” She looked at him with a puzzled, apprehensive face.
“Go ahead. Look in the pocket.”
“Are you sure you have the right girl?”
“I am absolutely certain you are the right girl.”
“Okay. What was the message that goes with the package?” Her hand was shaking a little as she tried to pull the zipper. He put his hand over hers and helped her slide it open.
“After you receive the package, you are to go to the Bellagio in Las Vegas on Saturday and meet him on the sidewalk in front of the fountains. He said you might want to purchase a white dress for this rendezvous, but he also said you didn’t have to if you didn’t want to. He said you had some strong opinions on this subject. I’m not sure what he was talking about, but he wanted to make sure he was getting everything right regarding the arrangements for this rendezvous, again because you have some very strong opinions regarding this subject.”
She started to shake with laughter but managed to control it. He winked at her.
“A car is going to meet you and take you out to the desert, to a small open air chapel carved from red rocks. You’ll arrive just before sunset, as the stars begin to twinkle. The desert sky should be an amazing backdrop for this auspicious occasion, all sunset, stars and moon glow.” He looked down at her hand still resting on his thigh. “Reach inside the pocket.”
As she slipped her hand into the pocket, she could feel a small velvet box. She pulled it out, placing it on the table in front of her.
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to open it. I’m only twenty-five and I don’t know if I believe in happily ever after. I’m very happy the way things are right now and I don’t know if I want things to change. If I get married at twenty five, that’s a lot of ever after ahead of us. Real life begins awfully early.”
“Things change every day. There are no guarantees anything will stay the same.” He ran his hand through her hair. She decided to keep it short, because he told her he liked it that way and didn’t seem to be saying it just to make her feel better, something he was apt to do.
“Every day is real life, the only one you get. Trust your heart. Be brave,” he said.
“Is that you talking or did he tell you to say that? Because he might have anticipated I would be hesitating over this.”
“That was me talking, but I am sure he would say the same thing. He did mention you could sometimes be difficult, but he also said nothing would change regarding your immediate plans. You will still move into the big house in Venice and you are to start writing full time when you get to L.A. He wants you to treat your writing like a full time job. Oh, and the haircut’s just for the interview. He said to remind you, hair grows back. He thought you might be upset about this, yes?” She shook her head no. He laughed nervously. “Okay. So where was I? He loves you very, very much and he wants a commitment from you.”
She laughed, looking down at the box. “Oh, is that what he wants?” She spun the box around a few times. He put his hand over hers to stop her. “Honey, look at me.” She looked up at him. “What are you afraid of?”
“That this feeling we have now of hopeless, mad love will not last. That twenty five years from now, maybe after several rough patches along the road, our love will die and the passion will fade. I’m afraid the idea of happily ever after is really a hopeless romantic fairy tale and only people who are mad believe in it.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee what will happen, but I promise to do my best, every day.
And maybe I am mad, but I know I will love you twenty five years from now.”
“Am I meeting him at the Bellagio this Saturday? Two days from now?”
“Yes, exactly two days from now, Saturday at three p.m. It’s all been arranged, he’s taken care of everything. Katie and Mark will be in the limo when it picks us up at the Bellagio fountains.”
“Katie is coming?” He nodded his head and she smiled. He picked up the box, opened it and taking out a beautiful diamond ring, bent down on one knee and taking her left hand in his, asked, “Will you marry me?”
“Yes. I will marry you. Of course I will marry you. Was there ever any doubt?” He slid the ring on her finger.
“I thought for a minute you might say maybe, but I was counting on the possibility of yes.”
“Of course it’s yes. You’re the best boy I’ve ever met.” She smiled at him playfully, with a mischievous look in her eyes, pretending she was confused. “How am I getting to the Bellagio if he’s already gone on ahead?”
He chuckled quietly, and winked. “For the rest of your journey, wherever we go, you will be traveling with me. I promise to take good care of you. I will always love you.” He stood up, wrapped his arms around her and they kissed, a very long, passionate kiss.
* * *
Two days later, very late that night, as he carried her in her white dress across the threshold of their honeymoon suite at the Bellagio, he stopped for a minute to ask her something. “Did you see that first star over the desert when we arrived?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t forget to make a wish, did you?”
“Of course not, but I can’t tell you what it was or it won’t come true. Did you make a wish?”
“Of course, you know I did.” He kicked the door shut behind him and carried her to their king size bed.
HAPPILY EVER AFTER?
The weekend after she and Lynn went to the beach, Ray worked both days finishing the tile floor in the bathroom. He told Sophie he scheduled the plumber to come on Tuesday to finish the final hookup and they would be able to use the bathroom.
The Reverse Commute Page 28