The Scenic Route

by Devan Sipher

  “That wasn’t the name at the time, but yeah. I’ve loved computers since I was a kid. Stu and I even took a computer programming class together when we were in the fourth grade. Total geeks. Right?”

  “I took a computer programing class. Am I a geek?”

  “Maybe you should team up with Stu,” he said, licking the nook above her clavicle.

  “I failed the course,” she said with a throaty laugh.

  “You don’t seem like the type of person who fails courses.”

  “Okay, I got a C, but in my house that was considered failing.”

  “Hey, in my house, all it took was a B. And a B-plus usually invoked a sad sigh,” he said, starting to gently rock against her.

  “I know that sigh,” she said, joining in the rhythm of his movement. “It’s like you’re letting down generations of ancestors, who are sitting around in heaven playing mah-jongg and waiting to see what you do next to disappoint them.”

  “I can’t see you disappointing anyone,” he said, and she blushed. He couldn’t deny he was trying to score points, but he also meant what he was saying. He couldn’t imagine anyone being disappointed with someone so talented and beautiful. He looked around for where he’d left the condoms.

  “My mom’s kind of the queen of disappointment,” Naomi said, turning her head away. “Mostly with my dad, but there’s plenty to go around. I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. And I’m making my mother sound much worse than she is. She just cares too much. About too much. And says way too much. Now you’re thinking I take after her.”

  “I wasn’t thinking that.” He was thinking how vulnerable she looked and how much he wanted to protect her. “What about your dad?”

  Naomi got quiet. “I don’t know,” she said, examining her thumbnail. “Fathers and daughters are tricky. Don’t you think?”

  “My father pretty much adored my sister,” Austin said, surprising himself by talking about his father, which was something he rarely did. “Mandy could do no wrong.”

  “I’m jealous,” Naomi said, then winced. “No, not jealous. Sorry. What I meant was it’s great she was able to have that kind of relationship with her father.”

  “In some ways,” Austin said, wondering if the opposite were more true. He didn’t want to go there. But it was too late. His brain had shifted gears. Synapses were firing in the wrong region. “There are things you can’t control in life,” he said, rolling off her.

  Naomi nodded as if he had said something meaningful, but it wasn’t meaningful. It wasn’t even coherent. And he wanted to be coherent. He wanted her to understand who he was. Which was expecting a lot, since he wasn’t even sure he understood.

  “My point,” he said, “is that there are also things that you can control. And I think it behooves you, I mean, it behooves me, to take responsibility for the things I can control.” He had never said that out loud before. He had thought it many times, but he hadn’t shared it with anyone. Naomi nodded again, but she didn’t say anything. So he kept talking.

  “Every endeavor in life has an odds ratio associated with it. So while people say you can’t predict the future, it’s not entirely true. You can predict your probability of success. Which means you can choose to do things with a high probability of success. Or you can gamble, and I’m not a gambler. I don’t even play poker.”

  “Huh.” She sat up. He immediately regretted half of what he’d said. But he wasn’t even sure about which half. “I’m trying to figure out if I’ve ever before slept with a guy who didn’t play poker.” She smiled mischievously. “I’m guessing I could whip your ass in a game.”

  Great, he thought. One more thing they didn’t have in common. But there was no point in pretending to be someone he wasn’t. “I’m never going to be a billionaire, but I’m also never going to lose everything. I could never do what Stu’s doing.”

  “You never know.”

  “Not going to happen. In every career, there’s a ladder you have to climb, but Stu not only has to get up the ladder, he also has to build it. The great thing about medicine is that the ladder is already there, and it’s not going anywhere. It may not always be easy rising from step to step, but it’s usually clear what the next step is.”

  “Does that get boring?” she asked.

  Austin stopped and thought about it. “No,” he said. “It’s comforting. I’m a junior partner in an established practice. And I know that when the senior partner retires we’ll buy him out, the same way he bought out the senior partner before him. And the same way someone will buy me out when I’m ready to retire.”

  “Wow. You have it all worked out.”

  What had he just done? He’d just mapped out the next thirty years of his life without leaving room for including someone else’s plans. Someone like her. “But it’s not like everything’s set in stone,” he assured her. “More like sand,” he said, trying to undo the damage. “In fact, we recently lost our other junior partner, and we’re scrambling to find a new one. So things can get pretty wild and wooly.”

  “Wild and wooly?” she teased. Oh God. He sounded like a character from Ice Age 2.

  “My life is just so different,” she said. Meaning their lives were so incompatible. “I could be fired tomorrow. Technically, I’m on a contract, but that doesn’t mean much in the restaurant business, especially when the owner’s making noises about going in a more Latin-fusion direction. And I’m kind of overdue for trying something new. Someplace new.”

  “In Miami?”

  What he really wanted to know was if moving to Michigan was even a remote possibility, but it seemed presumptuous to ask. And he doubted someone who had lived in Miami, Rome, Los Angeles, London, and Vienna would want to settle down in a suburb of Detroit.

  “I’m not married to Miami,” she said. That was the opening he’d been waiting for. He took a deep breath.

  “Oh my God,” she exclaimed, looking at the clock. She jumped out of the bed. “I’ve got a plane to catch.”

  And that was it. He had just wasted their last remaining minutes together talking about retirement plans.

  “Would it be okay if I used your shower?” she asked.

  “Depends,” he said, thinking fast. “Would it be okay if I joined you?”

  She giggled as she scurried into the bathroom, and he took that as a yes.

  They were late getting to the post-wedding brunch. Naomi accused Austin of dawdling as she briskly traversed the Crystal Cove main lobby to the terraced dining room. He had to hustle to keep up with her.

  There was a lavish buffet in the coral-colored room, and a couple dozen people milling about. By this point Austin was inured to the scrutiny his clothing inspired, but this time around people seemed mostly amused by the return engagement of his one and only outfit. Naomi hugged two women who looked vaguely familiar from the night before. But Austin hadn’t paid much attention to anyone besides Naomi. He waited for her to introduce him, but she didn’t.

  She was standing just out of his arm’s reach. He’d been dreading this moment, this inevitable feeling of “separating,” of becoming two individuals again after having felt briefly melded together as one. He wanted to go back. He wanted to cling to the memory of their last embrace in the steaming shower and would have happily skipped the brunch, but Naomi had stymied his effort to stall their arrival.

  As it turned out, they had made it down before Steffi, who was giving a new meaning (or possibly an old one) to wedding crashing. The bride had imbibed more than was wise and was having trouble staying vertical. However, Stu was having no trouble piling up a buffet plate with a lofty mound of waffles, eggs, bacon and corned beef hash.

  “I think they’ll let you come back for seconds,” Austin joked as he and Naomi made their way over.

  “This is seconds,” Stu said. “I didn’t eat anything last night other than the chocolate volcano. I’m
starved.”

  “I don’t think I have time to eat,” Naomi said, looking at her watch, which made Austin gaze at her slender wrist, which made him yearn to be touching it.

  “The car service isn’t picking you up for another half hour,” Stu told Naomi.

  “I thought it was earlier.”

  Austin did a double take. “You didn’t rent a car?” he asked.

  “Steffi picked me up at the airport.”

  “I can give you a ride!” He realized he had spoken much louder than he had intended when several guests looked up from their meals.

  “They already hired the car service,” Naomi said in a hushed voice.

  “We can cancel it,” Stu offered.

  “You can’t cancel this late,” she said.

  “What’s a few more dollars at this point?” Stu said as he moseyed over to the omelette station.

  “I can take you,” Austin told Naomi. “I’d like to take you.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said, lowering her voice again.

  “Do what?” he asked, not sure what they were keeping secret.

  “The whole polite morning-after thing.”

  He was being many things, but polite wasn’t one of them. “I’m going to the airport. You’re going to the airport. I’m not being polite. I’m being practical.” Practical? Could he be less romantic? “And environmentally friendly,” he added, which had a distinctly more flirtatious intonation in his head than when it came out of his mouth.

  “I just don’t want to make things uncomfortable,” she said.

  Did she mean uncomfortable for him or for her? Because the only thing making him uncomfortable was having to say good-bye. Well, the only thing other than her seeming to be okay with it. Or was she just being self-protective? He needed to let her know how much he wanted to see her again. But he needed to find a low-key way to do it.

  “So, has Austin asked you out for New Year’s yet?” Stu’s voice boomed across the buffet table.

  “New Year’s?” Naomi was confused.

  “Stu!” Austin squawked.

  “Austin used to have this obsession with finding a New Year’s date.”

  “It wasn’t an obsession,” Austin objected. If Stu thought he was being funny, he wasn’t.

  “In college, he used to count the days remaining until New Year’s. Do you still do that?”

  “No!” Austin avowed, a little too strongly.

  “He used to start counting from a year out.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Was it someone else I lived with junior year who announced on January second, ‘Only three hundred and sixty-four days to find a New Year’s Date’?”

  “I did that one time,” Austin said, “and it was meant as a joke.”

  Naomi was laughing as she headed toward the fruit sculpture at the far end of the buffet. It was unclear if she was laughing with him or at him. He grabbed a plate and started digging into the corned beef hash.

  “You son of a gun,” Stu said, socking Austin in the arm.

  “What are you trying to do to me?” Austin asked.

  “What are you talking about? I totally have your back.”

  “Why the hell did you bring up New Year’s?”

  “Women eat that stuff up,” Stu said. “Makes you look sensitive. I’m betting you’re going to be the next one going down the aisle.”

  Typical Stu. Whatever he was doing, he wanted Austin to do. That was how Austin had ended up taking the computer programming class. It was also how he had ended up joining a fraternity. “Well, lay off,” Austin said. “She hasn’t even agreed to let me drive her to the airport.”

  “That’s cause you move too slow.”

  “I don’t move too slow.”

  “Like, turtle speed.”

  “I don’t think that’s exactly accurate,” Austin said, his voice doing its characteristic rise in pitch.

  “What’s not accurate?” Naomi asked, returning with a plate of blackberries. Austin didn’t know what to say.

  “Austin’s opinion of Silicon Valley,” Stu replied, confirming he had Austin’s back. “Did he tell you I asked him to be my partner on EZstreets?”

  “He did,” she said while procuring a buckwheat-pecan waffle.

  Stu looked surprised. “Did he tell you I continue to ask him every week?”

  “He didn’t,” Naomi said.

  “It hasn’t been every week,” Austin assured her, inching closer to her.

  “Just about,” Stu insisted.

  “Stu, I have a career. I have a job.”

  “You have a job in Michigan. Most people couldn’t find Michigan on a map.” Was this supposed to be helping? “It’s like you’re living off the grid. Come and join the real world.”

  “Since when is Silicon Valley the real world?” Naomi asked with a smile, seeming to also take a step closer.

  “He’s missing out on a gold rush.”

  “Gold rush or gold fever?” Austin said, his hand lightly grazing Naomi’s waist.

  “If this is an illness,” Stu said, gesturing toward the expansive hillside view just beyond the elaborate buffet, “may I never heal.”

  Austin had a sick feeling in his stomach. At first he thought it was the hash. But he’d had the feeling for almost fifteen minutes, which was roughly how long it had been since he’d last seen a familiar road sign. He wondered if Naomi already suspected what he was slowly coming to realize:

  They were lost.

  Well, not lost, because there weren’t many roads in the mountains, and there was only so far they could go before hitting a freeway or the ocean. But for the moment, Austin had no idea where they were.

  “I think I made a wrong turn,” he said. He had been paying too much attention to Naomi and not enough to the road, and they had very little time to spare.

  “You know I don’t believe in wrong turns,” she said, smiling.

  “You’re really serious about that?” It was one thing to make a philosophical point. It was another thing to be running late to the airport.

  “Turn there,” she said, pointing to a small road branching off on the right.

  “Do you have any clue where it goes?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  He looked at her like she was crazy. A good crazy. “But what if we miss our planes?”

  She put her hand on his. “Then we miss our planes.”

  He turned. And when that road came to an end, he turned again. And then again. He didn’t know what direction they were going in anymore. No, that wasn’t true. With her hand in his, he knew exactly in what direction they were going. He just didn’t know which way the road was headed. But it didn’t matter. They skated along serrated hilltops of green and yellow brush and basalt outcroppings, with the vastness of the Pacific to their right, which was not the side it belonged on, and yet he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

  They talked nearly nonstop, shouting to be heard over the sound of the wind from the open windows as they compared their favorite episodes of The Wonder Years and shared their mutual fondness for Duran Duran. Austin cranked an eighties station on the radio, and, under duress, Naomi confessed to having once attended a Milli Vanilli concert. But it was Austin who had seen Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour. He insisted he went only as a chaperone for Mandy, feigning indignation as Naomi laughed and watching her caramel-colored hair dance in the breeze. He was disappointed when they inadvertently came upon Route 73 slashing across the pristine landscape.

  As he was about to turn onto the concrete thoroughfare, there was a moment when he thought about taking off in the opposite direction. It was an irrational thought, but a compelling one. All it would take was one turn of the wheel and a press on the gas pedal to set off into the unknown. He glanced at Naomi and tried to read he
r face. She was looking out the windshield with a pensive expression. Was she having the same thoughts? Was she hoping he would do something extraordinary? Or was she just admiring the late-season wildflowers?

  “He’d never know.”

  He made the turn onto Route 73. He traded the two-lane byway they’d been traveling for the eight-lane highway and closed the windows as he did so. He followed the signs to the 405 freeway and then to the airport. Well, to the Thrifty rental car return, where they boarded a shuttle bus to the airport.

  They were no longer alone, and it felt odd. Like they should have had a significant interaction before boarding the bus. But it had all happened too quickly, pulling the car into the Thrifty lot, removing their luggage, well, her luggage and his carry-on computer bag, and then running to catch the shuttle before it left. And here they were, in the company of a newlywed German couple, three backpackers, and an elderly couple from Nebraska with three oversized vintage suitcases.

  The shuttle bus came to a stop at the Delta terminal. Austin helped Naomi with her bright red compact suitcase and the Nebraskans with their battered, bulky ones before going inside and inquiring about his own, which he was happy to hear had finally arrived. He was less happy to hear it was in transit to the Crystal Cove Resort.

  The security line was mercifully short. Or short by LAX standards. Austin would have relished extra time with Naomi. But Homeland Security protocol didn’t provide for a particularly romantic atmosphere. Soon enough, he was putting his shoes back on and accompanying Naomi to her gate.

  If he was going to say something, it was now or never. But he didn’t know what he should say. And it felt forced and uncomfortable to say something intimate under the glare of fluorescent lights and the gaze of harried strangers. He wanted to convey what he was feeling without sounding false or foolish.

  “It was great meeting you,” he said, which accomplished neither. “I mean, re-meeting you.” He corrected his words but not their tone. He wanted to hold her, but not standing in public at an airport gate. He wanted a private moment. A special moment. But their lips were already meeting before he had come up with a strategy, and the moment passed stillborn.