by Oliver Rill
“Oli, have you ever thought about doing something good for the airport?”
I pondered for a moment, wondering what Alan meant. Was he asking us to sweep the runway? “Are you fishing for donations or do you want to set up a team flight for your team?” I ventured.
“Let’s go play golf. See you in an hour on Westchester Golf Course!”
“Oh really, Alan? Golf! Do we have to?”
“Come on, move your backside. It’s fun and there’re no walls to hear us.”
I had the Thunderbird with me that day. The sun was shining and very little could have upset me. Matt was in the gym and reckoned that he had finished finding new routes. It was now on me to deliver the planes and fill the routes with life. I wound down the top on the way to the golf course, certain that I was going to be humiliated in the game. Apart from that, I really didn’t like the obligatory clothing and maybe it was a prejudice, but I really thought it was only a game for old men. And I was never going to be one of those!
Alan waited on the parking lot for me and laughed at my car.
“Is that a mark of your taste in women, Oli? A sweet, tiny black one? Very chic and open? It’s less a car for the boss, more likely one for his daughter!”
“You’re just jealous!” I laughed.
We went into the clubhouse, our feet clicking on the thick wooden flooring. You could see the beginning of the course green, so perfect that it looked like artificial grass, through the full length windows. There were checked armchairs in small groupings in the lobby, a big double door to the changing rooms, all overlooked by a thick mahogany counter, where the steward equipped us for our game. We collected the golf cart and drove up a small hill past a small pond. The grounds were nicely laid out in park style and I enjoyed the short trip. Alan stopped at a pavilion bar, right in the middle of the course and we sat in the sun. He broke open a bottle of wine and some nibbles.
“I could get used to this!” I said and we raised our glasses.
“Have you thought about doing a bit of marketing in our airport?” He asked.
“To be honest, not really. People who are in the airport have their tickets for the most part, don’t they?”
“That doesn’t stop other airlines from letting the competition’s customers know that they should choose a different airline next time they fly.”
“Sure, I guess you have a point. I’ll mention it to Rebecca, she’s a wizard in PR management. Do you have some advertising space to sell then?” Alan laughed.
“We have no problem selling our advertising space, don’t you worry about that.”
I smiled uncertainly. “So what’s this about then? What can I do for you, Alan?”
“It’s what you can do for you! You know the columns that light up when you drive up to the airport? They are our unique symbol. They mean LAX.”
“The ones on the drive in where you decide which terminal you’re driving to?”
“They’re the ones! They weren’t designed to do that, but for a special event, and a fee, you could draw quite a lot of attention.”
“Wait a minute. You’re giving me the columns? For which event?”
“It could be that Can Am is getting its own terminal. I’ve got another couple of slots for you and was thinking of terminal four or maybe even terminal one? What do you think?”
“Ok, what’s at terminal four presently and what’s at terminal one?” My heart was racing.
“Terminal five houses Delta. On terminal six and seven you’ve got United. I was thinking of pushing American Airlines from terminal four over to terminal one.”
“Ok and terminal one?”
“At the moment, AA has some there. US airways used to have some slots with some others. Terminal two is foreign airlines, Air France, Alitalia, British Airways and so on.”
“I want to be in terminal four right next door to Delta!” I jumped in.
“Good choice. So: Can Am is getting terminal four, American Airlines moves over to terminal one and do something for the launch of the new set up. You get the columns for $5,000 and we don’t have an end date on the advertising. Perhaps one or two years, maybe longer.”
“Hold on a second.” I rang Rebecca and asked her to create something in Photoshop. She needed to decorate the columns with our logo and send the resulting picture to my cell phone. It looked enormous. The approximately 15 meter high, white columns were decorated with our blood red letters. You had to take notice of them. You couldn’t miss them!
Both Alan and I were a little woozy. He talked about more slots and we laughed and chatted.
“Alan, you are going to be my guest tonight.” I clapped him on the back, called up Gavin and asked him if he could stay later, which met with an affirmative. He would get some steaks and put some white wine on ice, just as I liked it. Alan and I drove in convoy to Hollywood to spend the evening by the pool with some good food and wine, celebrating our friendship until late in the evening.
Gavin had set up the barbeque and whisked together salad and dips. He stayed on to serve us. I couldn’t help but be impressed with his dedication and flexibility. I asked him to come to the office the next day.
At some point during the evening, Matt returned and joined us.
“Oh, I didn’t know you two were … um … Wow.” He said. “I don’t have a problem with it. My brother is gay.” He added quickly. “So have you two been a couple long?”
I looked over at Matt, waiting for his reaction.
“We’re not a couple. It just so happened that I live here.” Bam! I felt as though he had hit me with a six foot scaffolding board. Something died in me at that moment. I was hurt. Disappointed. Betrayed. I had always been so proud of Matt. The way we had moved from being ships in the night to being connected both at work and at play, but also able to separate the two. He had denied our ‘us-ness’. I found what he said and the way he said it, insensitive and crass.
As Alan got up to leave, I led him to the door and without returning to the terrace, I went to bed. I couldn’t fall asleep immediately, but at least closed my eyes and breathed regularly and evenly as Matt came in. After undressing, he sat on the bed next to me and stroked my hair and then my face.
“Oli, wake up.” He called as I didn’t react. I opened my eyes and looked at him. This wonderful man who had just figuratively punched me in the gut. “You haven’t looked at me all evening. What’s up?” He reached for my hand, but I pulled it away.
“We’re not a couple. It just so happened that you live here.” I mimicked sarcastically. “That’s right isn’t it?” I asked, biting back my bile.
He stroked my hair. “You know that I’m not gay.”
“I know that you live here, you sleep with me, and you are sitting next to me almost naked! That I do know. If that isn’t being gay, what is?” I retorted bitterly.
“I don’t like other people to know. Aristo is ok, but no one else.”
I thought about it. Could I accept that? “You humiliated me in front of Alan, Matt! What must he think now?”
“Maybe he thinks that we are friends who share a house? Just maybe he could have taken what I said at face value?”
“He is the CEO of LAX Airport, Matt. He didn’t get to that position because he was naive and stupid. Of course he caught on what was going on here.”
Matt scowled at that. “And you don’t thing you could have given me some sort of warning? I could have gone to the gym or met up with Aristo, or gone to see Dad or something. No! The boss thought it would be a good idea to just dump me into an embarrassing situation and let me get on with it! As though it was the most normal thing in the world. You know I’m not gay! Why do you want to force the situation?”
“Matt! You embarrassed me! In front of my friend and business colleague, Alan. You betrayed me! If I am an embarrassment to you, then maybe you should think about whether this is right for you.”
Matt stood up and pulled his clothes on. “I will do just that! You knew where you stood an
d how I felt from the start.” Matt stalked out and I was fuming, disappointed and afraid of losing him, but worst still was the terrible hurt searing through my gut, that he could betray me like that.
I spent the night reliving the events of the evening, and turning over and over in my mind whether my feelings could be called unreasonable or over the top. There was little sleep to be had. Seven O’clock found me sitting at the dining table, trying to force Matt’s recommended breakfast down. I called Gavin and asked him to meet me at the house instead of the office.
When he arrived I sat him down on the chair in front of me and asked him how come he had been able to just drop everything for me last night. Gavin’s shoulders slumped and he told me he had lost his main job. After my summons to the office that I made last night, he had spent a restless night afraid he was going to lose this one too.
“I am really sorry to hear that, Gavin. If I need to know the reason you were let go, then tell me. If not don’t worry. I am really happy with you and actually, wanted to see you this morning to ask you if you want a full time position here. There is just one catch. You’d have to travel with me now and then. If you’ve got dependents and can’t travel or can’t cope with the spontaneity, then ok. We’ll find another solution.”
“Travel? Where?”
“Well, today I thought I would go to Florida for a week. There are a pile of unresolved issues I have to attend to there.”
“Florida? Today? Beach, sun, and ... Oooh yes! Count me in!”
We discussed the arrangements and Gavin left to pack what he would need. We agreed to meet at the airport. I called Debbie and asked if she believed in mixing business with pleasure. She was reticent, naturally, but allowed herself to be persuaded to follow us to Fort Myers the next day.
I called Sharon and booked the tickets with her. I resisted the urge to call Matt and flew to my enormous villa on the Gulf of Mexico.
Once landed in Fort Myers, there was a short shuttle bus ride to Hertz where we picked up a rental car and as we neared the gates, it struck me for the first time just how large the property actually was. We drove through the gates and parked in front of the house. Gavin’s jaw nearly hit the floor as he gazed around, fumbling with the luggage as he unloaded it from the trunk. I must admit I felt the same in a way, I knew I had bought a big house a couple of weeks ago, but somehow the dimensions of it had evaded my memory. I had forgotten how stately it was and that I still had to ‘make it mine’ with décor and furnishings.
Gavin busied himself checking out the kitchen and store rooms, making a list of things that we would need for the house. I strolled at leisure through the house, examining the rooms and looking for things that I needed to change.
When Gavin was ready, we drove to the Mall. He said that the cleaning and gardening alone would be more than one person could do and that there was much more to running a house than those two things.
I had thought that would be the case. I would have to find someone who would look after the house and could get a gardening firm in for the outside work.
At the superstore, our trolley was piled high with cleaning stuff, towels and linen for the house, but Gavin had taken care of our nutritional needs too with groceries and drinks for the week. It took a while to unload the overladen car, then I took off again to visit the other stores. I needed a wardrobe full of clothes here if I wasn’t going to be lugging suitcases from pillar to post each time I came. I even managed to get the internet and telephone services switched on the same day.
For less than $5000 I now had a working house, a full fridge and a half way reasonable wardrobe.
The Debbie that arrived the next day was so different from the one I had come to know and love. “Oliver, what a beautiful house! You did well to find this. And I can guess why you asked me here”
“Yes I am sure you can. I love the house, love the area, love the grounds, but there are some things that really irritate. They just aren’t my style.”
“I know exactly what you mean. Let me guess. You don’t like the balustrades on the stairwell, the wooden doorframes, the kitchen is too dark and the beams in the main living room is too rustic. You’re going to want to change the doors, rebuild the chimney, change a few of the tiles … am I right?”
I was astonished at her insight. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. I wasn’t sure precisely where the boot rubbed, but you have hit the nail on the head.”
“You go play, Oliver! You’re not the interior decorator, I am. I know exactly what you want, just let me get on with it. It’ll be exactly as you want. It’ll be your house with your imprint! Go on now, go! Let me get on with the work. I don’t want to see you before dinner, ok?”
I sat in a diner with my laptop and worked. I thought about Matt and felt pangs of loneliness. Aristo didn’t help. I called him only to find that he had flown to San Francisco to recruit and would be there for another two days. I only briefly touched on my argument with Matt, but asked him to fly to Fort Myers when he was finished.
I longed to call Matt, but when the occasion rose to ask him to book an appointment in Miami for me, I gave it a miss. His emails to me were just as functional and brusquely business related as mine to him. We were at a complete impasse.
I wandered down to the beach, leaving my laptop in the car, kicked my shoes off. A little along the coast, a couple of guys were playing volleyball. I sat at a discrete distance and watched them, thinking I should really go running or visit the gym.
Rebecca’s call to me lasted over an hour. It was pleasant to be able to report the windfall with the terminal and the lit columns at LAX. She would consider having a press conference and making a definite date for a sort of launch ceremony even if it was just moving from various parking slots to having all slots in one terminal. For me this brought up the spectre of publicity, photos and interviews.
“I am always in two minds on this. On the one hand we do want to show that a real, flesh and blood person stands behind the product that the customers can identify with, on the other, you are not a robot and you make mistakes. Even if you don’t make mistakes, there are so many pitfalls: If you don’t carry a gun, you please the pacifists but offend the gun protagonists; if you eat a steak, you horrify the vegans, vegetarians and the rest of them. It’s a minefield! I’d rather keep you away from all of them.”
“Let’s just do it simple and quick. We’ll prepare a speech for Alan and me beforehand and hold a press conference with pictures and that’s it. We speak, they write and we can give them a 30 minute timeslot for questions.”
“There’s something else. I’ve received an invite for you from a talk show around the theme, ‘tax and politics’. I haven’t turned them down yet, but I’m really not sure if we want to do this. The problem is that you really have to stay on the script and not be led. Even if the show directors promise only to ask certain questions that we have agreed to, there is always the danger that another guest goes off at a tangent.”
“Hmm. How long have we got until we have to give an answer?”
“A couple of weeks, I’d say. I can put them off that long.” Said Rebecca as a ball flew past my face. One of the volleyball guys ran up with a grin to fetch the ball.
“Hey you should be cheering us on, not working! This is a beach, not an office.” He winked cheekily.
“Oh God, where are you?” asked Rebecca with surprise.
“Don’t ask! I’ve escaped for a bit. I’ll be in the office next week and then we’ll sit down and talk it through properly. If you need me urgently, you can always call.”
“Oh I see. Is everything ok with your assistant?”
My heart began to hammer. My mind ran amok. Had he left or given his notice in? “What about Matt?” I asked, almost shaking with trepidation.
“He’s in such a bad mood today I didn’t recognise him. He’s usually so cheery and nice, but today, well, to be honest, I haven’t seen him smile once. Is he in trouble? Is it something with the company?”
>
“No, no nothing like that, Rebecca. Am Cam is solid. Maybe he is just having a bad day, or there’s a problem at home or something.” We hung up and I watched the volleyball players for a while. I felt suddenly tired. I longed to just shut my eyes and let the sun warm me before … Well that was it. Before what exactly?
I must have dozed off. In any case I woke with a start. The volleyball fetching guy from earlier was sitting next to me.
“Did you sleep well?” He grinned.
“Oh sorry, I just wanted to …”
“It must have been a hard night.” He said laconically and offered me a cigarette.
“My sleep patterns – totally upside down.”
“You should have come over and played. Jason. Nice to meet you.” He offered his hand with the introduction.
“Oli. Hi Jason.” I accepted.
“You’re from Germany, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Sorry about the accent. It’s hard to shake off.”
“Oh that is sweet. Do you fancy coming over to mine and chilling a bit?”
Astonishment kept me from answering for a while, then the memory of that agreement made in that other lifetime with Matt. I examined my feelings internally.
“By that you mean sex, don’t you?” I posed the question directly. Giving myself time for my thoughts to catch up.
“I do. And? Do you want to?”
“I’m really flattered, Jason. Honestly. But I’m afraid I can’t.”
“That’s ok. We can just have a beer and chat, if you want.”
“Great. Count me in.”
We walked to Jason’s not particularly attractive apartment at the top of a two story building. It wasn’t far from the beach and the balcony was nice, you could even see the glimmer of the sea on the horizon over the rooves of the houses in front.