Luke had already made his trip to the bathroom and so had I. Our bodies, having had all of their biological needs and desires met between last night and now, were relaxed and still. Beneath my cheek I could feel the faint up and down motion of Luke’s chest as he breathed, his dark hair like the soft bristles of a brush against my skin. Perhaps this was my favorite part of the day, when we were quiet like this, our thoughts unspoken but communicated anyway, in the touches between us. It was twenty years ago and as if nothing had happened; and it was now as if what had happened was all over, requiring no consideration. The we we were was as fresh as anything, and yet time-tested and proven true.
When I thought about heaven I wondered if this was what it was like, a transcending of the physical self, of our bodies, so there were no imperfections and limitations, just the pure essence of who each of us were, in our flawless forms as God had created us. This was how it must be so that we could in fact sing God’s praises for ten thousand years and longer, an amazing grace.
Luke had already put the coffee on to brew too, and its aroma wafted through the house. It was nearly seven-thirty. It was time to get up. Lifting my head I begin to kiss Luke’s chest tenderly, with no other intent but to adore him. Slowly, deliberately, I made my way up to his mouth, but pulled away from him before our passions could ignite.
Easing out of bed, I slipped on Luke’s robe and went to the closet to get the church outfit, a brown skirt and a beige sweater, that I had hung there last night. I smiled back at him, but he still didn’t say anything and neither did I. Grabbing my small carry-on bag that I usually brought with me when I was spending the night, I went into the bathroom and closed the door.
By the time I came out again, reasonably dressed, my hair pulled back, wearing tinted lip gloss, and smelling of Juniper Breeze, Luke was out of bed and I assumed in the kitchen. I slipped my feet into the comfortable pair of brown flats that I had also brought, and then packed up everything else that was mine, except for my toothbrush.
Luke would be making the bed later, but I took a moment to straighten out the linens, knowing that once I went into the kitchen, this latest episode, with its marvelous plot twists, in English and in Spanish, would be over until next time. Maybe tonight even. Maybe tomorrow night. But soon again. Luke liked having me around, and it really did feel like I had won the grand prize.
I wondered at myself, how I had been able to survive all those years hopelessly separated from him, playing a worn-out cassette tape over and over again, terrified that the tape would break, leaving me nothing at all to hold onto. At least Doris would have her reassuring, beautiful memories of glorious years with her Edgar to sustain her. I had had hardly anything, most of which had been piercingly painful. Even now I could still see Luke walking out of the church with Christina on his arm, and all the people congratulating them, probably Doris too, wishing them every happiness while the pink satin dress squeezed the breath out of me.
Yet despite all the evidence and my very worst fears, he hadn’t been walking away forever. For whatever reason, Luke had come back. Not walking, no, but as wonderful as I had never been able to forget, and even more so. According to the old saying, youth was wasted on the young. Well maybe love was too. The way it felt now, with a little gray in the hair, a little softness in the middle, it seemed more sacred, and all the sweeter for it.
I carried my bag into the family room and set it down next to the sofa. Mommy didn’t like to be late for Sunday School, but at least there was time for a cup of coffee with Luke before I had to go. He was at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper, my very own lovely combination of Cliff Huxtable and Mark Darcy, with his reading glasses perched on his nose. He looked up at me and smiled.
“Last night’s dress was definitely hotter,” he observed returning to his paper. “But that’ll do.”
“Thank you, I think,” I replied. “And speaking of last night,” I added going to pour myself a cup of coffee. “I thought I was going to have to pull that velvet lady off—”
I stopped midsentence when I noticed a dark blue envelope leaning against the box of Splenda. My name was written on it.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Surely it wasn’t a Christmas card. Luke wasn’t into that. And it wasn’t my birthday. Maybe it was a Christmas present, some kind of gift card. There was some weight to it.
“Luke?” I said looking at him, holding the envelope.
He peered at me over the top of his reading glasses.
“You can’t give me my gift today,” I protested. “We said Christmas night. We agreed. After family time—”
“Who said it’s a gift?” he asked, going back to his paper, turning the page.
“Well then what—”
“Open it, Rachel, and see.”
My hands were shaking a little as I carefully worked my finger under the flap. The glue hadn’t dried. He must have just sealed it this morning. Luke wasn’t the greeting card-type at all. I had no love letters from him to tie up with ribbons and save until they yellowed with age. I pulled out the card. It was decorated with blue bonnets, like the ones we used to see in the fields along Interstate 35 between Dallas and Austin. My stomach was full of butterflies again as I opened the card to read the message inside. Because it was one of those cards that came blank inside, all of the words were his:
For the “pop-overs”…something to facilitate your coming and going. Luke
Attached to the card with a piece of Scotch tape was a house key. My eyes welling, I traced the form of the key gingerly as if I needed to be sure it was real and then be careful not to break it. Eventually I looked up at him again.
“I was thinking it might be nice to come home and find you here,” said Luke. “Maybe a little dinner waiting for me sometimes.”
I was beaming at him.
“Dinner, huh?” was all I dared to say for fear that I would start babbling about loving him forever and ever, or some other over-the-top, I-can’t-live-without-you, I-don’t-deserve-you thing.
“Yes,” he replied, taking a drink from his coffee mug. “That is if you don’t find the thought of cooking your man a meal too anti-feminist.”
He grinned.
“No,” I managed to speak around the happy lump of tears in my throat. “You’ve cooked for me lots of times. That would make it very egalitarian.”
“Just what I was going for,” replied Luke.
Still carrying the card with the key taped inside, I brought the coffee pot over and refilled his cup.
“Thanks,” he said.
Setting the coffee pot on the table, I took the newspaper out of his hands and planted myself in his lap.
“You’re going to be late,” he reminded me putting his arms around me.
“It’s okay,” I replied resting my head on his shoulder.
“Your mother already thinks I’m standing in the way of your blessings, so to speak. I can’t afford another mark in her con column.”
“This,” I said, paraphrasing Luke’s own words back to him as I touched my index finger to the center of his chest before doing the same to mine. “Is ours. You’re my man, not hers.”
He held me tightly against him.
“The alarm code should be pretty easy to remember,” he told me. “It’s your birthday.”
THIRTY-ONE
According to just about everybody, and especially Corrine, I was anal about airports. I had never been the OJ Simpson-type even when he was still a national if somewhat faded icon. Long before 9-11 changed everything I was the type of person who arrived at my gate more than an hour before boarding time. I took all the ribbing about it in stride and made sure I was the mistress of my own fate when it came to catching a flight. Maybe that made me a bit of a control freak too. In any case, I didn’t mind the waiting. I’d buy myself a nice skinny vanilla latte and enjoy the people-watching, or perhaps just stare blankly out one of the big plate-glass windows.
Before all the heightened security, it had bee
n fun to watch the passengers arriving into the waiting arms of their families and friends. I would watch them and imagine their stories, making up in my head what they would be doing once they made it through baggage claim and out of airport parking. Most of the time everybody looked so glad to be home, or together, or just here. In those moments right after an arrival, the air would seem sweet with happiness, not to mention the delicious delectable things the vendors were selling. Cinnabons, hot fudge, brewing coffee. The only time I ate a hotdog was at the airport. It was the space that made me crave them, the space and being a spectator, I guessed.
Married to Robert I had often been one of those persons waiting for my traveler to return to me. There had never been a time when he had arrived that I had not been there to meet him, always smiling, always welcoming. You’d never know that I had actually liked it when he had been away, or later on that he hadn’t always been happy to come home. We’d kiss on the lips and he’d give me one of his quick tight hugs, his brief case slapping me on the rump, then we’d head off down the concourse to baggage claim, holding hands and chit-chatting about the flight and the trip, and how tired he was. Even after things had begun to chill between us, without fail I had been there to meet him, still thankful that I had had someone to meet, and that he was successful enough to be flying back to me in a business suit, his tie rolled up and crammed into his briefcase. We had been living the American dream, or pretending to anyway.
But that was all a very long time ago now. I had a new novio, who sent me sweetie texts during his staff meeting, complaining that he was having a hard time staying awake because he hadn’t been able to sleep last night without me next to him. I really liked the Spanish word for boyfriend because it sounded sexy and sophisticated. I had a house key to boot, and permission to use it whenever I wanted. Oh yes, this was definitely better than meeting a husband that you didn’t love at the airport.
I had stayed at my condo last night. There had been too much to do in preparation for being gone all week. I had had to make sure that my house was immaculate, and that T-T and Agatha were all set. I had a regular pet sitter for the kitties for when I traveled, but still I required myself to leave their litter box fresh, their water cool, and their kibble bowls full.
“Sorry I can’t look after them for you,” Luke had said last night.
“Gotta tell you, Luke, I just don’t see you scooping up cat poop,” I had teased him in an effort to deflect the tinge of regret I had detected in his voice. “You’re just a little too cool.”
“Really now,” he had replied with that crooked grin I simply adored.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with it,” I had laughed.
I thought a lot about the condo situation, about those seventeen steps, and what to do about them. The only option was for me to move. Maybe I should contact a realtor. I had been living there for a while and doubling-up on my mortgage payments lots of months. I ought to have some decent equity by now. I should be able to trade-up to a building with an elevator, or at least a first floor unit somewhere. It wouldn’t hurt to check into it. It would be really nice to have Luke on my turf sometime. And Mommy steps weren’t so high. I was strong enough to help Luke mount them.
Luke had wanted to drive me to the airport this morning but I had declined his offer, knowing that he had his staff meetings on Monday mornings, and he had recently been put in charge of another big new project. I didn’t want to disrupt his schedule.
“So I won’t see you from Sunday to Friday?” he had practically pouted inspiring my happiness.
“Friday night, I’m afraid,” I had clarified. “We have an afternoon flight, so it’ll be late when we get back. But I promise, we’ll be joined at the hip the whole weekend. Maybe I can play hooky from church on Sunday. You’ll be sick to death of me, I’ll make sure.”
“Yet to happen,” Luke had said, earning him yet another long luxuriating kiss.
Gazing out the window now, I watched the American Airlines ground crew, dressed in their bulky winter coats and gloves against the mid-January cold, as they did their thing with the plane we would soon be boarding.
“Hey Rachel!” exclaimed Becky who had finally arrived at the gate.
“Hey, good morning,” I greeted her.
“You’re the first one as usual,” she observed, chuckling at me.
“Not really,” I grinned. “Hilda flew out last night, I think.”
“Yeah, right,” Becky said, rolling her eyes. “Watch my stuff while I go to the bathroom and get a coffee.”
“Sure.”
Our entire unit of six caseworkers, plus Hilda, our supervisor, was headed to Los Angeles, California for staff-development training. The training was to run Tuesday through Thursday. How Hilda had finagled such a training trip for the whole team was a mystery to us, but she must have written an amazing justification. Everyone was pretty excited, except for me probably. It was a great way to beat the midwinter doldrums; that was if you had the doldrums. I didn’t. I wanted to be home—well, Luke’s home.
To cut down on lodging costs, everyone but Hilda was sharing a hotel room. My roommate would be Corrine of course, who would undoubtedly show up at the final boarding call, self-righteously needing to check her luggage at the gate. “That way I can see them put it on the plane,” she had confessed to me on a previous trip. “There’s not enough time to lose it.” Corrine did have her own way of doing things, but she would swear to you that she was not a prima donna.
I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if Corrine genuinely had special needs like Luke did. He said the worst part of traveling for him was when he had to give up his wheelchair. “Maybe it doesn’t get put on my plane,” he had said. “Maybe they damage it. I’d be stuck like Chuck. That is to say fucked.” And yet Luke traveled alone when he needed to, going on business trips, going back to Virginia to see the kids. But it was so easy to take everything for granted when everything worked properly, when lost luggage was primarily a terrible inconvenience and not an unmitigated disaster.
Nevertheless I was beginning to look forward to traveling with Luke. Our trips between Dallas and Austin, with Rachel’s Favorites for our soundtrack, were still some of the best times of my life. Perhaps I could persuade him to take the Canadian train trip with me. It would be wonderful with him. I had done some homework and knew that they could accommodate his needs. Maybe he’d bring his camera and finally add to his wall collection by including me. And if anything bad happened, then we’d be able to handle it together. I liked the thought of that.
The training turned out to be great. The instructors focused on the treatment of substance abuse for couples and individuals in the family context. Each of the three days went from eight-thirty a.m. to five-thirty p.m. The sessions were jam-packed with pharmacology and neuroscience, motivational interviewing, couples therapy, and parent-child interventions. There were also homework assignments that had to be completed every night. It was exhilarating and exhausting, and I wasn’t left with much time to call home to Mommy or to Luke. He was magnanimous about it, and Mommy, well at least she was tolerant.
With Corrine usually in earshot, my telephone chats with Luke were more newsy than romantic. Corrine took great pleasure in making fun of my love-struck state, and I didn’t want to provide her with too much ammunition, even though I was pretty much enjoying it. Being happily in love might make you goofy but it was a glorious feeling. How long could I live in such a state of excitement? Liquefying at the sound of Luke’s voice? Turning on like a floodlight just because he had sent me a text? Get a grip, I’d scold myself only to keep right on being silly.
All I could think about, when I wasn’t concentrating on the course work, was getting back to him. When the course ended, and my team was gathered in the hotel lobby to plan how we were going to take the LA club scene by storm, I announced that I had changed my flight reservation and booked myself on an evening flight back to Dallas. There was a collective groan followed by assorted whys asked
in varying tones and intensities.
“I thought we were all going together,” Hilda said.
“Yeah,” Sophia chimed in. “A girls’ night out.”
“Gotta get back to ol’ lover-boy,” declared Melinda.
“I’m sorry,” I offered anyway. “But I’ve got the kitties. I should to get home to them.”
“That does make sense,” agreed Sandy.
“Whatever,” said Corrine.
Once we were back in our hotel room, Corrine let me know how she really felt.
“You know, you did have a life before you met him,” she said frankly as I began to pack.
As well as one in between, I thought, but in all the best parts Luke was there.
“What’s your point, Corrine?” I asked.
“I’m just saying,” she replied, flopping down on one of the beds. “It’s not good for a grown woman to give up everything for a man. You’re not twenty, you know. This is real life.”
“All the more reason for me to enjoy every minute of it.”
“Keep some balance, Rae. Don’t forget about your friends. Just in case you wind up having to come down from Magic Mountain.”
Kicking off her shoes, Corrine turned on CNN.
“I just wanna go home, Corrine,” I said, going into the bathroom for my toiletries. “Why must you give me a hard time about it?”
“There’s more to life than sex, Rae. Even truly amazing sex.”
“What’s truly amazing,” I said returning to my suitcase. “Is that coming from you. But whatever, it’s not just sex.”
On the television some reporter was enthusing about December retail sales. Apparently everybody from Abercrombie & Fitch to Zappos was in the black.
“Yeah, I know,” replied Corrine. “He’s Mr. Perfect. Cute, caring, good conversationalist. The mind- blowing cunnilingus is just frosting.”
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