“I guess it’s my turn after that performance!” Paul announced as he stripped and waded out to join me.
“Yeeeee-haw!” Misty shouted as she did a naked cannonball, her buoyant breasts bouncing in the air.
Wilbur hadn’t moved. He was still sitting there, dumbfounded by our behavior. We all stared at him, and I gave him a sly splash. Never had I imagined myself jumping naked into anything, and somehow, I had unwittingly become the instigator. Wilbur appeared to be a little embarrassed, but he stripped down and hurried in with his hands covering his family jewels.
After we’d splashed around for a bit, Misty emerged from the water, uninhibitedly. She slinked over to the satchel and extracted the soap. Both Paul and I caught Wilbur giving her elevator eyes—sizing her up from the lobby to the penthouse. Paul looked more amused than annoyed. Misty was totally secure with her body and Paul was totally secure with their relationship—something so glaringly opposite of me and my relationship with Evan. I suddenly felt the need to have someone look at me in that manner, before it was too late. I even thought that someone should be Wilbur.
Shivering from the cold, Misty sprinted back to the edge of the water, soap in hand, and jumped in sending a tidal wave in Paul’s direction. She approached him, and as she pushed his wet hair from his face, she gave him a gentle, loving kiss. Then Misty turned him around, pressed her body against his, and began to lovingly wash his back.
Wilbur and I exchanged an awkward look—both embarrassed by our voyeurism but at the same time, intrigued by the display.
“I have to admit, I’m a little surprised by you,” Wilbur remarked.
“You shouldn’t be surprised. I do it all the time. I’m quite the free spirit, you know,” I jested.
“Your husband doesn’t mind you bathing naked with strange men?”
I looked at him, bewildered. I hadn’t breathed a word about Evan.
Wilbur extended his hand through the water, grabbed mine, and pulled it to the surface.
“I noticed this big rock on your finger.”
“Let me get this straight: I’m standing completely naked in a river, and all you notice is my ring?” I asked, ignoring the fact that all of our naughty parts were tucked safely underwater.
“Well, maybe because it’s the only thing you’re wearing, and I didn’t think it would be appropriate to comment on the rest…but…I definitely noticed the rest.”
“Over the last few days, I think I’ve lost touch with what is ‘appropriate.’ I am married, but my husband and I are having a somewhat substantial difference of opinion right now.”
“About?”
“Life…and death, and all the messy stuff in between.”
“Well…that’s a helluva lot,” Wilbur said, appearing slightly confused.
“Are you married?” I inquired, attempting to divert the topic away from my presumably boring marriage woes.
He flipped his hands back and forth to prove the absence of a ring.
“Nope.”
“Care to elaborate?” I dared. “Ever been married? Close to being married? Gay?”
Wilbur laughed.
“Um…not gay! I travel a lot. I’ve had relationships, but—”
“Commitment-phobe?”
“No, no, not at all. I have no problem with commitment, but I do have a problem with marriage. To me, it implies ownership, and from what I’ve seen, it changes the dynamic of the relationship,” Wilbur explained. “Look at Paul and Misty. They have a completely committed relationship, but they both realize that if they changed things, it might not work as well.”
“What about children?”
“That’s a tough question, which I’ve actually thought a lot about. I would like children if I were in the right situation. I don’t necessarily think that you need to be married to have children, but I do think you need a committed relationship. I think you would need a complete understanding of your partner’s views on just about everything before going down that path. I guess that’s where I fall short.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, when it comes time to discuss one another’s views in a relationship, I find that I’m often misunderstood or considered a bit radical. In society, if you don’t want to marry someone, it means you don’t love her enough, you’re selfish, or…maybe you’re gay,” he said with a grin.
“None of that sounds radical,” I offered.
“Unless you’re the one not getting the ring.”
Suddenly I felt I understood this creature called Wilbur. Somewhere out there was the love of his life who’d left him because he hadn’t forked over the diamonds. She’d failed the test. Maybe he wanted her soul and she just wanted some gold-plated imprisonment, which had confirmed his worst fears about women and love.
It took incredible restraint for me to resist hugging the naked teddy bear in front of me and telling him that everything would be all right—that love would conquer all. But the cynical bitch inside me knew that love was a myth. After all, neither love nor radiation was going conquer my cancerous lesion. But it wasn’t in me to punch Wilbur in the gut with my jaded perspective.
This time, I flipped my own hands over.
“No, I got the ring, and I do feel owned instead of wanted. I really don’t know what our relationship would have been otherwise—we got married so fast. My mother had just passed away and I think I was desperate to replace her. I know how awful that sounds. I wanted to replace her, not so much with him, but with a child. When that didn’t happen, I just complacently accepted that Evan was my fate. I had chosen him as my path and I needed to live with it.”
“Are you unable to have children?” Wilbur asked brazenly.
“We tried for about ten years. My doctor told me that everything appeared to be fine, but without conducting invasive tests on both Evan and me, there was no way to tell what the problem was. Evan refused all of it; he said it made him look weak. At some point I began to question what kind of father he would be anyway.”
“Is that why you left?”
“No, not really. It’s a little more complicated than that,” I replied softly, realizing what a painful subject my infertility continued to be for me.
I was glad Wilbur didn’t reply, and I decided to change the subject before he could delve any deeper.
“I was in a relationship before Evan, and in hindsight, it was really great. It had a lot of the qualities you described. We wanted the same things, and we were great friends, but, my mother never liked him—Michael. I think it was the fact that he’d always wanted to take me away. But when she got sick, it changed me. I felt like I was betraying my mother by staying with him. I married Evan instead and I don’t know what became of Michael. I’ve thought about contacting him over the years, but never knew what to say.”
“Maybe you should do it now.”
I considered Wilbur’s suggestion for a moment before I noticed that Misty and Paul were gone and had left the soap and two towels on the bank next to us. I had been so engrossed in my soul-and-body-baring conversation with Wilbur, I hadn’t realized how much time had gone by.
“I think this is the most I’ve ever shared with a naked man,” I said as I grabbed the soap and started washing.
“You mean besides your husband?”
“No, I mean period,” I admitted.
I jumped out and quickly wrapped the towel around my water-wrinkled skin before Wilbur had an extra chance to gander. When I glanced back at him, however, he was purposely looking the other way.
I dried off as I headed inside my tent where Misty had left me shorts and a T-shirt that read “Leave me alone, I have a lot of nothing to do.” I dressed, grabbed my mindless romance novel, planted myself in one of the collapsible chairs, and did nothing but read; it was great. Wilbur followed suit, although his reading material consisted of some giant, dauntingly metaphysical tome. We sat quietly reading for hours before Paul and Misty arrived back at camp and interrupted the silence. I was jolted back to reality and out of the
mystical land of my romance novel, where I’d cast myself in the title role, and Wilbur as my Fabio.
After a quick lunch, everyone decided it was a good time to meditate. Everyone but me, that is. I had no idea how to properly meditate, so I’d never attempted to do so before. I guess I’d always been too embarrassed to try. Should I sit cross-legged with thumb and forefinger together while chanting, “ommmmm”? I wasn’t sure. And frankly, I didn’t see the point. I was having a perfectly relaxing time with Wilbur and my book before the other two decided to freak me out with their meditation mumbo-jumbo. I found their version of relaxation to be extremely stressful.
Misty pulled one of the folding chairs over and instructed me just to sit.
“I think this will be especially good for you, Stacia. You know, mind over body, and all that.”
Paul and Wilbur exchanged questioning looks, then Paul winked at me.
“Her body looked perfectly fine this morning.”
Misty swatted playfully at Paul.
“Don’t pay any attention to him, Stacia,” Misty said as she kneeled down in front of me. She then took my hands in hers and whispered, “This will help you, honey; you just have to believe.”
At that point, I didn’t know what to think. Was I really supposed to agree that I was going to meditate my cancer away? I was so confused, and by the looks on the men’s faces, so were they. I was glad to prolong the mystery. Then, I considered, what the hell did I have to lose?
“Alright then—bring it on,” I instructed Misty as I squirmed uncomfortably in my chair.
“First things first,” Misty began. “Keep your back as straight as you can, and clear your mind.”
Back straight and mind clear, I thought. How hard could that be? But, the more I tried to clear my mind, the more it raced with random thoughts. Images of death, of Evan hunting me down, ruminations of guilt for having left Evan without any explanation, ideas about where Michael might be, even a fantasy or two about Wilbur’s naked body. The neurons in my brain were firing at an epic pace. I quickly arrived at the conclusion that I sucked at meditating.
“Stacia, you’re grimacing. Concentrate on your breathing. Breathe in and out of your nose,” Misty said.
All right, that made it a little easier. Breathe in; breathe out. Breathe in; breathe out. Breathe in; breathe out. Somewhere in between breaths, I was transcended—filled with a warmth and peacefulness, surrounded by the colors of the rainbow and the calmness of a meadow. The next thing I knew, I was being tickled by what felt like the tentacles of an octopus. I opened my eyes and saw that my three companions were staring at me and giggling.
“It happened again, didn’t it? I fell asleep?”
“Your snoring was making it hard for us to meditate,” Misty said.
“Sorry, I’ve just been really tired lately.”
“It’s all right; this is a vacation for you, so sleep away. Maybe just do it in the tent so you don’t get a nasty kink in your neck.”
I followed Misty’s advice. Once inside my tent, it took all of thirty seconds to conk out again. I slept so deeply that when I finally awakened it was dark outside and I felt as though my bladder was about to explode.
I shot out of the tent like a bull chasing a matador.
“Hey, guys!” I yelped as I did a little dance. “I really have to go to the bathroom, but I don’t want any further encounters with jave-whatevers or bobcats or Gila monsters or any other night crawlers that may be lurking out there hankering for a taste of Native American flesh. Anyone else have to go?”
Wilbur jumped up laughing, “Javelinas, and I think you’re safe from the rest. But I’d be more than happy to escort you to the facilities.”
“Whatever,” I said with a smile. I’m sure I appeared delighted, but my brain was screaming, of course, only the hot guy would be available to be my bathroom buddy!!
I should have just asked Misty, but I saw no reason for modesty at that point. There wasn’t much unexplored territory left on my body.
As I headed off down the hill, Wilbur grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me back.
“Let’s go the other way this time, just in case.”
At that point I didn’t give a rat’s ass which way we went. I was half tempted to just squat down in front of the lot of them. But modesty prevailed and I allowed Wilbur to escort me to a new pee zone.
“Right over here should work,” Wilbur said, pointing to the base of a juniper tree.
I tried to duck around the backside of the tree but there was too much shrubbery in the way. I envisioned myself acquiring a poison oak rash where the sun doesn’t shine. So I pulled my pants down to squat, only to discover that Wilbur’s pants were unzipped well. He was actually doing his business right next to me.
“Now you’re not the only one with your pants down.”
“Great. You’re like the hot big brother I never wanted,” I groaned.
I was in the midst of laughing at my own bad joke when I spotted a pair of glowing orbs glowering down at me from the branches of the tree.
“What the hell is that?!” I exclaimed with more panic in my voice than I’d intended.
“Wow! That would be a Cactus Ferruginous pygmy-owl—very unusual to see out here.”
As Wilbur embarked upon a Discovery Channel diatribe on desert wildlife, I began to feel a bit woozy. Before long, his voice was replaced by a muffled warble. The last thing I remember him saying was, “Did you know that in some cultures, seeing an owl means imminent death?”
That’s when the earth jumped up and whacked me in the face.
“Umm…Stacia?” I heard Wilbur ask from what seemed like miles away.
By the time I awakened, I was dangling in Wilbur’s arms with the blur of trees passing by in the night sky. When we arrived back at the camp, I was finally able to focus my gaze enough to notice the concerned look on Wilbur’s face.
“What happened?” I croaked.
“You fainted,” Wilbur explained as he laid me down by the flashlight “fire.”
Misty and Paul rushed over to help.
I shook my head in disbelief.
“Jesus—I don’t know what happened. We were just looking at that owl…but wait…did I pass out before or after I pulled my pants back up?”
“Uh…before.”
I was mortified. Never before had anyone outside of my lovers and my gynecologist acquired such an intimate knowledge of my private parts.
“You need to eat something, honey,” Misty prodded.
“Yeah, that’s probably it,” I agreed, although I knew better.
I think it was the “symbol of death” anecdote that had gotten to me. I wasn’t normally one to buy into the whole omen thing, but that blasted bird had me seriously spooked. It was possible that I had even less time than I’d imagined. Any one of the occasions that I fell asleep or fainted could spell the end for me. I couldn’t continue to count on the fact that I would always wake up. I could only hope that it would be less painful than it had been for my mother.
While I recovered, the others prepared dinner. I was still feeling a bit queasy and dizzy, so I helped myself to a single piece of bread and some water despite Misty’s insistence that I needed something more substantial.
“Is that all you’re gonna eat?” Misty asked. “You’re not in jail.”
She was right. I wasn’t in jail…anymore. I had escaped the incarceration of my marriage, but I had become a prisoner of my failing body. Still, sadly enough, I preferred the latter.
“Yup, bread and water it is.”
“Okay, suit yourself. We’re gonna head out in the morning,” Misty announced. “I’m gonna check on my car, then hopefully, we’ll be back in Vegas by about two o’clock.”
I wasn’t ready to go back to Vegas. In fact, I hadn’t even considered my next move. A sudden paralyzing fear that Evan would discover my location came crashing down upon me. I imagined him lurking in some dark corner, waiting to pounce on me like one of the horrible javeli
nas, just so he could let me know what a terrible disappointment I’d turned out to be.
That was when I realized that Evan hadn’t called in days. For a moment I was filled with indignation that he’d given up on me so easily. Then it dawned on me that I was no longer in possession of my phone. And while the absence of my irritating ring tone had been nice, I became preoccupied with wondering whether Evan was still out there trying to find me.
“You know, Paul, I think I may have left my cell phone at your house. Do you think that we could stop by and get it?”
“Sure, no problem,” Paul replied easily. “Wilbur’s car is at my house anyway.”
The four of us sat around Paul’s makeshift campfire and talked for the next few hours. We discussed benign topics such as the weather and the scenery. We chatted about my three companions’ past travel adventures, something involving pygmies and blowguns. It was as if we were all old friends. It was nice to have a lighthearted conversation; it made me feel normal. Normal was good.
CHAPTER 7
It was Christmas in my dream, and I had spent days creating the perfect Yuletide home experience for Evan and myself. The tree was decorated to perfection and the ham and accompaniments smelled divine. “Angels We Have Heard on High” was playing over the sound of the roaring fireplace. I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, and was eager to defrost our relationship. I couldn’t wait to give Evan his gift. I had planned so meticulously for the moment, so my disappointment was almost palpable when he opened the small, cheerfully decorated foil envelope I had given him, and his face turned to stone.
“Why the hell would I want to go to Italy?” he demanded in the sternest voice he could muster. “Isn’t that where you were supposed to go with that moron you were dating before me?”
I was completely caught off guard. I’d never imagined there would be anyone in the world who would actually not want to go to Italy. I had managed to marry the lone holdout.
“Yes, I was supposed to go with Michael,…but it’s Italy—one of the most romantic places on Earth.”
“So you thought that because you had all those childish dreams of wasting productive time bumming around Europe with that dope, you could just shoehorn me in as a replacement for him? Is that what you thought?”
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