Love, Carry My Bags

by Everett, C. R.

  Sorry I’m dumping on you. I don’t have anyone around here to talk to. Most of the time we have a good time, working out, keeping each other company, exploring the city, so when the not-so-good times hit, I tell myself that any relationship will have some difficulties and we can get through them.

  Oh, on top of all that drama, I got a Christmas card in the mail from Reese! Can you believe it? He said that he really wanted to talk to me and I should call him. I missed him for a moment, but then decided that if he really wanted to talk to me, HE should call ME. Why should I be the one to initiate it?

  I’d better go. Write soon. Let me know what is going on with you.

  Love, Camryn

  * * *

  I couldn’t afford summer school that year and had to return home and to my old job. Hallmark delivered the very best forty-hour work week, to my relief.

  “I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you,” I said to Glenn. We had seen each other nearly every day for the whole semester. When I packed up and left him behind, I cried sad tears, but not sad tears of devastation. I wondered why not.

  Glenn called the next week. “It’s not the same without you here. It’s so quiet. Are you having a good time?”

  “Work is keeping me busy. I miss you though.”

  “I miss you too. When are you coming back?” Glenn knew I was coming back right before the fall semester. Why did he ask?

  “The end of August.”

  “Not before?” he asked with a mock sniffle.

  I smiled.

  “Well, maybe I could come 4th of July weekend if you split the airfare with me.” I wished he would have offered to buy me a ticket, to think of it on his own, surprise me and show some overt caring.

  “I could maybe do that,” he said. “Let me know how much it is.”

  “Okay.” Excitement filled my soul.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” It felt good to say the words, uninhibited.

  * * *

  I wrote Glenn letters, pouring out my heart. He never wrote back, no thought-filled envelopes graced the mailbox. He called about once a week. While I enjoyed the calls, I missed the tangible letter-exchange dynamic. I told myself that writing letters wasn’t everyone’s modus operandi.

  “Why are you telling me all these things in your letters? Can’t you just talk to me?” he asked, concerned.

  “I don’t think of everything I want to say when I’m on the phone.” I lay on my bed looking out the window upside down, watching the cumulus drift by.

  “You’re going to have to work on that, because if we can’t talk, then we can’t go any further. I don’t want that.” He meant for it to strengthen our relationship, but it sounded like a threat. I panicked.

  “I’ll do better.” I looked at the partially written letter lying next to me. The one which recounted the fight my mother and I had the night before, and how I missed my dog, and how I wished he had offered to buy me a plane ticket to see him of his own accord. No time more appropriate than immediately to prove I could do better. “I checked into tickets for coming to see you 4th of July weekend. They cost $70, so can you split that with me?” I was looking forward to seeing him, to immediately mend this bridge I felt I had broken.

  “I don’t think so.” He fell quiet. “I’m sorry. Things are tight this month.” I wanted to ask why things were so tight this month, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t my business, it wasn’t like we were married.

  “Oh.” I looked down at the carpet. My eyes wandered, settling on the box which housed all of my old love letters from Reese. It was stuffed under the bedside table in my old room. The contents didn’t register, I just stared at the box, burning-in my new disappointment. “So you don’t want me to write you anymore?”

  “I didn’t say that. I prefer phone calls.” I felt like if I didn’t play by Glenn’s rules, I might not be able to play at all. I wanted to play.

  * * *

  October brought the highlight of the fall semester that year, the homecoming dinner dance, held in a hangar, a spectacle uniquely Parks where students present rub elbows with students past, WWII veterans spinning yarns and spouting truths of the era gone by. An era bygone only in time, ever present in their minds. I watched airmen reunite while dipping my ice-chilled shrimp in cocktail sauce. Their more than forty-year separation evaporated, after one restorative hug. Their timeworn skin, invisible between them with the next bite of brie, and war days re-lived with Rob Roy listening in.

  “What’s a Rob Roy?” Glenn whispered in my ear. “Some old lady asked me to be a dear and get her one. I think her walker’s about ready to give out.” I elbowed him.

  “A bunch of the veterans ordered one at the bar. It’s a drink.”

  “I wonder what’s in it,” Glenn pondered. I wondered why he’d even care after yesterday when his whole fraternity drank themselves stupid after the homecoming football scrimmage, spewing all over the field. Glenn took action shots with his camera, his stills of mid-air spew, scandalously award-winning material. One-hour photo finishing nearly finished the lot of them, but Glenn weaseled out of retribution because he did not actually lose his cookies, merely photographed brothers losing theirs.

  “Just be nice and get the lady her drink.” I pushed him toward the bar.

  Mrs. Betsy Avondale bent my ear when he left. Her husband joined a flock of old coots admiring a P-1 in need of restoration, one of less than fifty trainers Parks produced. Its fabric skin gave away its age of over 60 years. The men considered themselves fortunate not to have had its 90 horsepower OX-5 engine sputtering over Germany.

  “You know that pretty green airplane that flew in this morning? That one with the lady painted on the nose? That lady was me,” Betsy said, smoothing her white hair. “Me about fifty years ago.” She smiled. “George fledged here at Parks, and he’s proud of it. We come back every year.” While she spoke, she choked up with emotion as she watched her husband huddle with his comrades. This was more than a homecoming celebration, but a celebration of being alive. Some never came home.

  I listened intently as we sat between blue-and-white Tampico trainers and twin-engine Seminoles on display, wings within reach. Matching streamers decorated the linen-covered tables. Dim hangar lights, high overhead, created an evening atmosphere, just right. Mrs. Avondale’s reminiscence was preferable to listening to skinny, well-endowed, miniskirt-clad sorority sisters discuss where the next party would be. I wanted to hear something real.

  “George used to see me every time he could get away. It nearly broke my heart when they sent him overseas . . .”

  I felt sorry for her even though I knew it all worked out in the end. While she rummaged through her purse, Glenn returned with two plates of hors d’oeuvres and his own Rob Roy.

  “Thank you,” I said. Glenn set one plate in front of me. He was good that way. I never went hungry at socials. He was always my date and one I could count on—formals, dances, weddings, parties. I looked at his drink, looked at him.

  “I had to try it.” He shrugged. “Want a sip?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I didn’t know anyone had joined us,” Glenn said in apology. “Here, take this.” Glenn set his hors d’oeuvres in front of Mrs. Avondale. “I didn’t touch it.” Before she could refuse, he was off to fill a new plate for himself.

  “He’s a nice boy,” she said. She reminded me of Barbara Bush, but less masculine. “I wanted to show this to you.” Betsy unfolded a yellowed letter. “This is how George proposed. He couldn’t wait until the next time we met.” I looked at the faded heart he drew, creatively finishing off the question mark after ‘me.’

  “That’s so sweet,” I said, impressed.

  “I thought so too. That’s why I said yes.”

  Glenn’s saucer was half-empty when he came back.

  “I was hungry.” He shrugged again. “Wanna dance?”

  “Glenn, there’s no one dancing.”

  “So.”

  “I don
’t want to be the only ones.”

  “Why not? Someone’s got to start.” He pulled me out of my chair and led me to the dance floor. The disc jockey mixed up war-era hits with modern jams. To my relief, others soon joined in. The old timers dropped out after one round of limbo, but Tiffany, drunk in her tight full-length evening gown slit to her thigh, hiked it up, prompting a brother to remove his suit coat, shielding her crotch from view as she, the winner, slithered under the stick.

  * * *

  We settled into our own rhythm that fall. I typed his papers; he gave me belonging. I kept him in school; he kept me in the world. Social outlets and places to go abounded, complete with routine coursework abandonment—replaced by our usual diversions. He even professed his love routinely, at least once a month. A heady rush coursed through my being every time I heard it. Reassurance. Good times.

  Until 1991—the worst year of my life. Ever.

  Right after Jason and Lori got married, two days before they arrived for a weekend visit, Glenn asked, “Where are those hockey tickets for the game this weekend?”

  “I don’t know. On the table.”

  “Where?” Glenn sounded annoyed and desperate.

  “I put the envelope they were in on a stack of papers, on top of the microwave.”

  “I thought that stack of papers was trash.”

  “You threw it out?”

  “No!”

  “Then where did you put it?” I asked.

  “I didn’t do anything with it.”

  “You cleaned the table.”

  “Why would you put the tickets on top of a pile of trash?” He started to yell.

  I started to frighten.

  “It wasn’t trash,” I said more emphatically, diverting the blame. “The tickets were in that pile of papers, stuff from school you needed to look through.”

  “You should have told me they were there.” Glenn became furious as he realized he’d thrown out two hundred dollars’ worth of Blues tickets, including Jason and Lori’s.

  “I did.”

  “You did not,” he said with a deliberate snotty tone.

  “I did too! You even answered! I said, ‘I’m setting these tickets on the microwave’ and you said okay.”

  “I don’t remember that,” he said, implying I just made it up.

  “You threw them away.” I blurted a truth he didn’t want to hear.

  “Give me their phone number,” Glenn ordered.

  “Whose phone number?”

  “The ticket office. We never got the tickets.”

  “Yes we did,” I said, wondering what on earth he was talking about. “They came in the mail two days ago. You opened them.”

  “Well, they aren’t here now. We never got the tickets. Now, give me the number.” Anger charged every word.

  I pulled out the yellow pages, not sure of his intent, upset that he was upset with me. He dialed the phone and reamed the clerk for not receiving our tickets in a timely manner. “I want to speak with your supervisor,” he demanded. “I don’t care when you mailed them, the point is that I paid for them and I don’t have them!” he yelled into the phone. He got a look on his face like he wanted to blow someone away. I felt sick to my stomach. He was put on hold, waited, then listened.

  “That will be fine,” he said, hanging up.

  “What’d they say?” I asked.

  “We have will-call tickets. If anyone else shows up with our real tickets, we have to leave. You have to know how to handle people like this,” Glenn said.

  “People like what?”

  “People who don’t give good service.”

  “It wasn’t their fault you threw the tickets out,” I said, not understanding why he couldn’t have just called and explained that the tickets were accidentally thrown away.

  “They’re supposed to make sure we got the tickets and we didn’t have the tickets,” Glenn said, annoyed.

  It all made sense in his mind. In mine, it was fuzzy. Couples who really loved each other were supposed to stick together in good times and in bad. This was a bad time I endured, and stuck out.

  * * *

  After the hockey game, back at Glenn’s place, Lori made an announcement. “We’re pregnant!”

  “Congratulations! Way to go,” Glenn said, giving Jason a testosterone-infused thumbs-up. “Been busy, eh?”

  Lori slapped him.

  “Already?” I said. I meant to extend congratulations too, forgot. “Wow. I’m so happy for you.” I knew it sounded fake.

  I wasn’t sure being tied down with a screaming kid was anything to be happy about.

  “We’re happy.” Lori beamed.

  Glenn gave her a warm hug, then sat back down beside me. I wondered if we’d ever be like that or if I’d ever be like that.

  * * *

  A Hustler lay under Glenn’s bed, current issue. I found it when I brought back Glenn’s laundry from the Laundromat, doing him a favor, being nice. I bent over to see what else was under the bed. A crunchy sock and more porn. The tamest of the lot, Playboy, had the ticket stubs from the hockey game we went to with Jason and Lori stuck in it like a bookmark. In my mind, it marked the last time Glenn said he loved me, the night before we fought over the hockey tickets, before Jason and Lori gushed over her belly bump. That had been February, this was late April. Glenn walked into his bedroom and saw me zoned-out in front of the magazines.

  “What’s this?” I asked, looking up at him, Cheri in hand.

  “A magazine.” He answered as if I was holding a Cat Fancy. I stared at him, hurt written all over my face, but he didn’t seem to notice. “The guys gave them to me.” Like that was supposed to make me feel better. “Let’s look at them. Here.” Glenn flopped on the bed and patted the mattress next to him for me to pull up some space. He opened up to Miss May. “Like her tits?” I withheld comment, feeling awkward being asked. “Well?”

  “They’re okay.” What did he expect me to say? Yeah, I’d like a pair like that?

  He flipped through more pages, some more hard core, some with men.

  “If you want a pair like that, I wouldn’t argue.” He pointed to some size C’s like we were leafing through the Sears catalog. “Don’t get me wrong, yours are just fine, but if you wanted bigger ones to feel better about yourself, I wouldn’t say no.”

  I’d never mentioned being bothered about my chest. I had no idea what he was saying. “That looks like Tina from my Aeroelasticity class. Don’t you think?” he asked. “You should wear stuff like this. You’d look pretty in it.”

  I felt uncomfortable looking at the smut mag with Glenn, yet turned on at the same time and that made me uncomfortable too. Glenn made the most of the circumstance and the moment, unsnapping my jeans.

  I couldn’t just leave.

  By that time in our relationship I had acquiesced to just about every imaginable carnal deed Glenn conjured up except participate in a ménage à trois or whore myself in a girlie magazine. I was a circus animal performing tricks for my trainer. Any resistance on my part, Glenn subdued with a gentle or not so gentle switch of persuasion. I became eager to please, only having a vague sense that I was not free. I became used goods. Used goods that no one else would want. Tainted. My mother always said sex before marriage was a sin and you shouldn’t do it. Save yourself for marriage, she’d say. This was never a sit-down heart-to-heart discussion, but more of a lecturous judgment whenever the subject came up regarding other people. She never went into any explanatory details about how sex before marriage could turn you into a circus animal, resulting in—To thine own self not be true. More tangibly, she never even explained the basics—the woes of unintentional pregnancy or risks of contracting nasty diseases. No, it was a sin and that was that.

  Father never broached the subject at all.

  * * *

  We went to unhappy hour the next day.

  “Why don’t you look like that?” Glenn asked between the mouthful of nachos and gullet of raw oyster. He pointed to my roommate,
Casey. She resembled an ironing board more closely than I did, including a more slight caboose, her hair, long chestnut.

  I sipped my whiskey sour, wishing I had only gotten a diet Pepsi, before I attempted to reply. The boob comment from the day before didn’t fit, nothing did.

  “I thought you liked blondes with short hair.”

  “I like a tight pooter too,” he said, slapping me on the ass.

  It was genetically impossible for me to have such a minimus maximus, but that didn’t stop me from feeling inadequate. I pushed my last cheese and crackers onto Glenn’s plate.

  “Not hungry?” he asked, not realizing that he’d just told me I was an overweight, fat porker.