by Tom Hanks
Anna was waiting for me at my house, having made us a dinner of leafy plants with seeds and rice the color of dirt. Afterward, she rubbed my legs so hard I winced. Later, she said she had not made love five nights in a row since college, but was going to give it a whirl.
DAY 6
She had set the alarm on her phone for 5:45 a.m. because she had to get a lot done. She made me get up, too, allowed me a single cup of coffee, then made me put on my running clothes.
“My calves still hurt,” I told her.
“Only because you are telling yourself they hurt,” she said.
“I don’t want to run this morning,” I complained.
“Tough titties, baby.” She threw my sweatpants at me.
The morning was cold and misty. “Perfect for roadwork,” she said. She forced me to imitate her twelve-minute stretching routine right there in my driveway, setting a timer on her phone with a tone that bing-ed every thirty seconds. There were twenty-four body positions I had to hold, each one stretching some sinew or muscle inside me, each one making me wince, cuss out loud, and get light-headed.
“Atta baby,” she said. Then she explained the route we would take around my neighborhood, twice for her, once for me. Mr. Moore was getting his morning paper from his front lawn just as I was running by.
“Was that your woman? Who ran by a minute ago?” he called to me. I was panting so hard I could only nod. “What the fuck she see in you?”
A few minutes later, Anna lapped me, spanking my buttocks as she passed. “Atta baby!”
I was home and in the shower when she joined me. We kissed a lot and touched each other in our wonderful places. She instructed me on how to scrub her back and told me to come to her office at lunch so we could study our scuba workbook. I had yet to read the first few pages, but she had already completed half of it. When she had the time is beyond me.
I spent the afternoon hanging around her office, answering multiple-choice questions about scuba equipment and its uses, scrolling through some real estate listings (I still dabble), and trying to amuse the women who were bent over their graphic work. No dice. All this while Anna took a long conference call with a client in Fort Worth, Texas, designed new title pages for a series of textbooks, proofread three projects, helped her at-risk intern with her geometry homework, reorganized a supply closet, and completed the second half of the scuba assignments. We had yet to take our first classroom session.
Not that it mattered. We were the only students. We watched videos about the glorious underwater world, then got into the pool. We stood in the shallow end while Vin, our instructor, explained to us every piece of the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. That took a long time, mostly because Anna had at least five questions for every bit of gear. Finally, Vin had us put the regulators in our mouths, drop to our knees so our heads were submerged, suck in the metallic-tasting pressurized air, and blow out bubbles. The class ended with us taking a water fitness test by swimming ten laps. Anna went to the task like an Olympian and was out of the pool and drying off in a few minutes. I swam a languid breaststroke, finishing a distant second in a race of two.
Afterward, we drove to the East Village Market Mall to meet Steve Wong and MDash at Ye Olde Sweet Shoppe for milkshakes. Anna had a small cup of sugar-free nondairy yogurt with a dusting of real cinnamon. Sitting there, enjoying our treats, Anna tucked her hand in mine, a gesture of affection that did not go unnoticed.
In her bed that night, Anna was going through her pre-sleep iPad scroll when I got a text from Steve Wong.
SWong: U boffing A???
I pinched out my reply.
Moonwalker7: Your bizniz?
SWong: Yes/no?
Moonwalker7:
SWong: U Nsane??????
Moonwalker7:
Then MDash joined the chain—
FACEOFAMERICA:
Moonwalker7: I was seduced
FACEOFAMERICA: “when cooks fuck the stew burns”
Moonwalker7: who says that? The village shaman?
FACEOFAMERICA: “when coaches fuck the team loses” Vince Lombardi
And so it went. Steve Wong and MDash saw no good coming out of the pairing of Anna and me. Too bad! That very night Anna and I went at it like stew cooks in Green Bay, Wisconsin, hell-bent on pleasure.
DAY 7
“Should we have a chat about our relationship?”
That was me asking. I was standing in Anna’s kitchenette, wrapped in only a towel after a shower, plunging her Swiss press coffee apparatus for my morning elixir. She had been up for an hour and a half and was already in her running togs. Luckily, my cross-trainers were back at my place, so no marathon training for me.
“Do you want to have a chat about our relationship?” she asked, cleaning up the few outstanding coffee grounds that had fallen onto her surgically spotless countertop.
“Are we an item?” I asked.
“What do you think?” she asked back.
“Do you think of me as your boyfriend?”
“Do you think of me as your girlfriend?”
“Is either one of us going to make a declarative statement?”
“How should I know?”
I sat down and took a sip of coffee that was too strong. “Can I have some milk for this?” I asked.
“Do you think that gunk is good for you?” She handed me a small bottle of nonpreservative almond milk, the kind that has to be used up in only a few days, the kind that is sold as “milk” but is actually liquefied nuts.
“Could you buy real milk so I can have it in my coffee?”
“Why are you so demanding?”
“Is asking for milk a demand?”
She smiled and took my face in her hands. “Do you think you’re the man for me?”
She kissed me. I was about to make a declarative statement, but she sat on my lap and undid the towel I was wearing. She didn’t get in her morning run.
DAYS 8–14
Being Anna’s boyfriend was like training to be a Navy SEAL while working full-time in an Amazon fulfillment center in the Oklahoma Panhandle in tornado season. Something was going on every moment of every day. My 2:30 naps were a thing of the past.
I was exercising regularly, not just the morning jogs but also swimming in scuba class, doing yoga stretches for what grew into a half hour, and joining Anna in a hot-room spinning class that was so taxing I upchucked. The number of errands we went on was maddening, and they never came from a to-do list or shopping helper app, but were all spur of the moment, ad hoc. Incessant. If unoccupied with work, working out, or working me over in the sack, Anna was making something, looking for something, asking to see what the store had in the back, driving to an estate sale across town, or going to Home Depot to ask Steve Wong about a belt sander for me, as the top of the redwood picnic table in my backyard needed smoothing. Every day—all day—I spent following her orders, which included precise driving instructions.
“Make the next left. Don’t get off here. Take Webster Avenue. Why are you turning right now? Don’t go past the school! It’s almost three o’clock! The kids are just getting out!”
She organized a rock-climbing demonstration for Steve Wong, MDash, and me at a newly opened adventure superstore that had a climbing wall as well as an indoor rushing river to demonstrate white-water canoeing and a skydiving chamber—a huge fan that blew straight up a silo with so much force it simulated free fall for helmeted customers. Need I say that in one evening the four of us did all of them? We were there until closing. Steve Wong and MDash felt like he-men after a full day’s work wearing those unisex aprons at Home Depot. I was exhausted, having been on Anna’s overloaded schedule too long. I needed a nap.
We had time for protein snacks at the Energy Stand at the front of the store when Anna left for the restroom.
“What’s it like?” MDash asked.
“What’s what like?” I said.
“You and Anna. Sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
“
You holding up?” Steve Wong asked. “You look exhausted.”
“Well, I did just go faux skydiving.”
MDash threw his uneaten half of a protein bar in the trash. “I used to look at you and think, That guy has figured it all out. He has his sweet little house with a nice backyard, he doesn’t work for anyone but his own self. He could throw away his watch because he never has to be anywhere. To me, you were the America I hope to live in. Now, you kowtow to a boss lady. Alas.”
“Really?” I said. “Alas?”
“Tell him that proverb you told me,” Steve said.
“Something else the village shaman taught you?” I wondered.
“Actually, the village English teacher,” MDash said. “To circle the globe, a ship needs only a sail, a wheel, a compass, and a clock.”
“Wise words in a landlocked nation,” I said. MDash grew up in the sub-Sahara.
“Anna is the compass,” MDash explained. “You are the clock, but you keeping time with her means you’ve become unwound. Your hands are right only twice a day. We’ll never know our longitude.”
“Are you sure Anna isn’t the sail?” I said. “Why can’t I be the wheel and Steve be the compass? I don’t follow this analogy.”
“Let me put this into a language you can understand,” Steve said. “We are like a TV show with diversity casting. African guy, him. Asian guy, me. Mongrel Caucasoid, you. Strong, determined woman, Anna, who would never let a man define her. You and her pairing off is like a story line from season eleven when the network is trying to keep us on the air.”
I looked at MDash. “Are you getting this pop culture metaphor?”
“The gist of it. I have cable.”
“The four of us,” Steve explained, “are a perfect square. You taking to the sheets with Anna is going to misalign our geometry.”
“How?”
“She makes things happen in our lives. Look at us. It’s nearly midnight and we’ve been dangling and rowing and parachuting indoors. Stuff I’d never do on a school night. She’s our catalyst.”
“You’ve used sailboats, TV shows, geometry, and chemistry to point out why I shouldn’t see Anna. And I still don’t buy it.”
“I predict tears,” MDash said. “For you, for Anna, for all of us. Tears shooting out of our eyes.”
“Look,” I said, pushing away a protein brownie that actually tasted like a brownie. “One of these things is going to happen between me and my girlfriend. Yes, girlfriend.” I stole a look at Anna. She was far away chatting with an employee at a counter with a sign over it saying, INVEST IN ADVENTURE! “One. We get married, have kids, and you are their godfathers. Two. We break up in a public display of hurt feelings and recriminations. Both of you will have to choose sides: remain pals with me or go against the established rules of gender and stay friends with the woman. Three. She meets some other guy and dumps me. I become a melancholy loser, and do not say that’s already what I am. Four. She and I part ways, amicably deciding to be friends, as seen on TV. What memories remain are those of pseudo–rock climbing et al. and the finest sex I’ve had in a lifetime. We can handle any of those fates because we are all big boy grown-ups. And admit it—if Anna wanted to make out with you like she does with me you’d be all for it.”
“And you’d be the one predicting tears,” Steve Wong said.
Just then Anna returned, waving a thick and glossy color brochure, a smile on her face. “Hey, guys!” she said. “We are to go to Antarctica!”
DAY 15
“We’ll need the correct gear.” Anna was dipping a fresh Rainbow Tea Company tea bag into a mug of hot water. She was in her running clothes as I was putting on my cross-trainers. “Long johns. Parkas and shells. Fleece pullovers. Waterproof boots. Walking sticks.”
“Gloves,” I added. “Hats.” The trip to Antarctica was three months, many time zones, and thousands of miles away and Anna was already in Full Planning Mode. “Won’t it be summer at the South Pole?” I asked.
“We won’t make it to the pole. To the Antarctic Circle maybe, but only if the weather and sea cooperate. Still gonna be a lot of ice and wind.”
We went outside to do forty-five minutes of stretches on my front lawn, getting our downward dogs and cobras wet from the morning dew. Bing. The timer went off and I bent over, trying to touch my forehead to my kneecaps. Fat chance.
Anna was able to fold herself up like a card table. “You do realize,” she said, “the Apollo astronauts went to Antarctica, to study the volcanoes.” Anna knew of my jones for all things spaceman related. But she didn’t know just how well I knew that stuff.
“They trained in Iceland, young lady. If any astronauts went to the South Pole, it was long after they retired from altering the course of human destiny by cheating death in NASA rocket ships.” Bing. I tried to reach out and grab my ankles, setting my poor calves afire.
“Going to see penguins and whales and science stations,” Anna said. “And B15K.”
“What is B15K?”
“An iceberg the size of Manhattan, so large it’s tracked via satellite. Broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2003 and is independently moving counterclockwise around Antarctica. If the weather holds, we can book a chopper and land on it!”
Bing. That was the final exercise. She took off running. I tried to keep up with her but no way that was going to happen, not with her all pumped up about B15K.
As I trotted by Mr. Moore’s house, he was just getting into his car, a travel mug of coffee in his hand. “That girlfriend of yours ran by a second ago. She was hauling ass.”
After showers and a breakfast of avocado on toasted spelt bread, Anna took that belt sander she bought from Steve Wong and started grinding down my picnic table. I joined her with some sandpaper of my own.
“After you take it down to the grain, you’ll need to repaint this. Do you have paint?” I did. “You should have this done by tonight. Then come to my place. We’ll have dinner and sex.” Fine by me, is how I felt. “I have to go to work now.” Before leaving she pointed out other wooden objects that needed sanding and paint as well—a bench, the back door to my kitchen, and the old shed where I keep my lawn toys and sports equipment. I spent the rest of the day on the work detail.
I was sweaty, dusty, and splattered with paint when Anna texted me.
AnnaGraphicControl: dinner in 15
I got over to her place in half an hour, but needed a shower before dinner. We ate in the living room—huge bowls of Vietnamese pho—watching two episodes of Our Frozen Earth on Blu-ray. For over three hours we learned all about the chinstrap penguins and crabeater seals that live only in guess which part of our planet.
I fell asleep before we got around to any sex.
DAY 16
Anna had scheduled an early morning scuba class without telling me.
Vin had us in full wet suits—the tanks, the weight belts, everything—sitting on our knees at the bottom of the deep end of the pool. We had to remove every piece of the scuba apparatus, including our masks, hold our breath, then put it all back on again. Afterward, Vin said I was behind in my workbook and had better get cracking.
“Why haven’t you finished the workbook?” Anna wanted to know.
“A date with a belt sander took up my time.”
Driving home, I felt a chalky tickle in the back of my throat, like I was getting a cold.
“Don’t say you are getting a cold,” Anna said. “If you tell yourself you are sick, you allow yourself to be sick.”
Her phone went off and she took the call hands-free; it was one of her clients in Fort Worth. A fellow named Ricardo told jokes about color templates, making Anna laugh as she pulled into my driveway. She stayed in the car to finish that call. I went inside.
“We have to go to Fort Worth,” she announced when she finally came into my kitchen. I was making chicken noodle soup from a packet.
“Why?” I asked.
“I have to hand-hold Ricardo through a presentation. That is not soup, by the
way, that’s a sack full of sodium.”
“I’m allowing myself to be sick. Soup will help.”
“That shit will kill you.”
“I have to go to Fort Worth with you?”
“Why not? You aren’t doing anything. We’ll stay overnight and see the sights.”
“Of Fort Worth?”
“It will be an adventure.”
“My nose is running and I feel like a hive of bees are swarming in my head.”
“You can make it stop if you stop saying such things,” she said.
In response I sneezed, coughed, and blew my nose into a tissue. Anna just shook her head.
DAY 17
Here are the sights I saw in Fort Worth:
The huge airport. Jammed with so many travelers it seemed like the Texan economy had collapsed and the population was fleeing.
Baggage Claim. Under renovation and therefore a place of chaos and borderline fistfights. Anna had checked three suitcases, which were among the last to come shooting down the chute.
A bus. Painted all around in huge letters that said PONYCAR PONYCAR PONYCAR. PonyCar was a new travel option in competition with Uber and the rental companies. Anna had a voucher for a free weekend—why, I don’t know. The bus took us to a lot filled with tiny cars also painted with the PonyCar logo. I have no idea where PonyCars are manufactured, but they are clearly designed for small people. The two of us and our luggage had to be squeezed into a vehicle sized to fit the two of us and one-third of our luggage.
The DFW Sun Garden Hotel. Not so much a hotel as a collection of efficiency suites and vending machines meant for business travelers with limited expense accounts. Once we were in our little room, I lay down. Anna changed into professional clothes while she was on her cell phone with Ricardo. She waved goodbye to me and was out the door, trailing her professional rolling bag behind her.
In a fog due to my lousy health, I could not get the TV to work. The cable system had a menu unfamiliar to me. All I could get on screen was the Sun Garden Hotel Channel, which showed the glories and wonders of all the Sun Garden Hotels in the world. New branches were opening soon in Evansville, Indiana; Urbana, Illinois; and Frankfurt, Germany. I could make no sense of the phone system, either. I kept getting the same main voice menu. I was hungry, so I dragged myself down to the “lobby” to shop in the vending machines.