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And so it goes.
He gets off the flight. She lets him do it. Her hands fold themselves over in her lap a hundred different ways as she sits there in the aftermath, but somehow, these hands she’s had all her life don’t seem to fit into each other quite as snugly and warmly as they did into one of his larger, calloused ones. She reprimands herself for the thought immediately, for what sensible, strong woman would ever allow herself to think herself better for a man’s touch? Her fingers find the hem of her crisp skirt and toy with it relentlessly until it creases. She really shouldn’t – it’s Armani – but it belongs to her, and it will do.
When the stewardess comes around, she orders a double.
You know….
Yes. I think we both know.
The flight is long. Her heart aches dully in her chest. She wonders if he’s back at the bar already, settled comfortably back into his uncomfortable life. His friends will toast his close call, cracking a few jokes at her expense. She’d called to let them know, of course, afraid for Sam, wanting him to be loved on his return, and they’d brushed her off as they always had. She hadn’t allowed herself to think much over the years about what kinds of things might’ve been said about her in her protracted absence. This brief return of hers had proved that, if any, they’d likely been far from kind. Even Woody — dear, sweet Woody — had barely managed more than a polite grin in her direction.
The car she ordered is waiting for her when she touches down at LAX. Some kind of California “welcome home” — the sun has set, it’s been raining, and the air that envelopes her as she exits the terminal is bracing. Her heels click wetly on the pavement. When she slides into the car’s sleek, black interior, she finds it smells faintly of some other woman’s perfume. The driver nods once to her, then rolls the divider up to afford her some privacy. She is quietly grateful, and very much alone.
I think we both know.
Still, she hadn’t been able to help herself from imagining what it might’ve been like. The pair of them in California, him sun-kissed and gorgeous even as he approached fifty, the glint of his smile catching her breath in her throat still, even after all these years. Maybe no kids, not at this point – not like they’d both haphazardly planned one evening eons ago, lazing in a bed in her old Boston apartment, both spent from lovemaking and heady with joy at maybe, just maybe, finally getting it right with one another; not even bothering to fight over their vastly disparate ideas for potential names — but they’d have the dogs, and each other. They’d have each other on the way to one of many awards galas, her new screenplay having developed into another crisp and decided success. They’d make like teenagers in the back of a car much like the one she sits in now, his fingers tearing at the hem of her dress, running up her thighs to where they meet and applying knowing, expert pressure. And when he’d take her hand in his and pull her from the car moments later into a sea of flashing camera lights, he would whisper some charmingly lewd promise for later into her neck, and she’d be in love with him.
She’d know how to be in love with him, and he with her.
The car she’s in now glides on through the neon-lit streets of LA, carrying her further away from him.
Her keys clatter noisily on the counter when she arrives home, all the lights still off, just the way she left it. The dogs yap to greet her, but soon grow bored and settle back into their beds at the end of the hall. On stockinged feet she fumbles for the light in the kitchen, making straight for the liquor cabinet. She’ll regret it in the morning — she’s never been much of a drinker and she hasn’t eaten — but the scotch she pours three fingers deep into a glass slides so nicely down her throat moments later, and it stops the tears that have been threatening to spill since she’d let that man, her Sam, lope away off the plane and into the night.
The downstairs phone tempts her from where it sits in its cradle. She knows the number by heart — she’d never forgotten it. She’d traced her fingers over the familiar sequence on so many phones over the years, always toying with the idea, never having been able to follow through until recently. It’s preposterous that she’s even considering it now. She should go to bed, take to her typewriter first thing tomorrow, let this fuel her art, and leave it at that.
One more glass of scotch carries her straight to bed, stumbling ever so slightly on the carpeted staircase up to her bedroom. Without removing her makeup, she slips into the pajamas she wore a few nights ago, before Boston, and sidles up next to the phone at her bedside. Her fingers trace the numbers again, again, again.
You know….
What if they both didn’t know? Her heart clenches so painfully at the thought that she actually dials those seven numbers etched in her memory and lets it ring, one, two, three times before slamming phone back onto the receiver.
The scotch has her head swimming, pulse throbbing painfully in her temples. After she fishes the last aspirin from the bottle on her bedside table and swallows it dry, she pulls back the covers on her bed, ready for dreamless sleep.
I think we both know.
In the harsh light of reality, perhaps she does – but as she settles in for the evening, dull desire gripping her heart, she imagines that one day, maybe, they’ll meet again. In a new city, not Boston, not LA. Maybe New York or Seattle or Chicago, on rain-slicked streets full of anonymous passerby. Her umbrella will be broken, so she’ll duck into a nearby coffee shop for a little respite. She’ll walk up to the counter, order a cappuccino and the day’s paper, and when she turns to survey the café for an empty seat, there he will be, looking a little out of place with his hands wrapped around a mug of plain black coffee. He’ll flash a crooked grin her way the minute he recognizes her, and this time there will be no posturing, no pretending. They’re both a little old for that now. They’ll settle in for quiet catch-up in a little corner of the café, and his hand will slip into hers to hold it comfortably, and maybe…
Maybe this time they’ll both know something different.