Aloha
December, 1998
“Hell yeah, you’re going!”
“I can’t.”
“Tell me one good reason why you can’t go.”
“I’m in love with Leo.”
I regretted saying the words the minute they left my mouth.
“Hunny…sweetie…he moved on. Has he called you in the last three months?”
“No. But maybe--”
“For f*ck sake, would you listen to yourself? You’re holding out for something that’s never gonna happen. Maui though, that can happen!”
“Gimme a break, what kind of guy takes a girl he barely knows to Maui?”
“Duh, a rich guy who thinks you’re hot! Didn’t he email you and ask you for the correct spelling of your name?”
“Yeah…so?”
“So he probably needed it to buy an airline ticket!”
“The whole thing is nuts.”
“Ummmm, did he also ask for the name of a friend you might want to bring?”
“Uh-huh.”
I want to slap her six ways from silly to get her to stop bouncing up and down on the chair.
“Did you give him my name?!”
“What do you think?”
“Omigod, this is gonna be so awesome!”
“Keep your yoga pants on, that was like two days ago, and I bet L.A. boy forgot all about it by now.”
Just then, my assistant knocks on my door and attempts to hand me a FedEx envelope, but Slutty Co-worker snaps it from her before I can even get my hand in the air. She’s waving it around like a possessed woman fanning herself at a hot Baptist Church in the deep South.
“Looky here, it’s from a Mr. Mark Wisley! Open it! Open it!”
“Oh for the love of God, give it to me.” I rip open the envelope and out floats two first class tickets to Maui and a note.
Chrissy, I want to get to know you better. Meet me in Maui.
Aloha, Mark
“Holy shit, this is insane! Does he think I’m some kind of Los Angeles Playboy hoochy koochy who will put out for a free trip to Maui kinda girl? Seriously, what would it say about me if I went?”
“Ummmmm, it would say you’re fun and spontaneous! Jesus, you don’t have to marry the guy. Oh wait, can’t do that anyway, you’re already married. Okay, you don’t have to sleep with him, although I would. I mean, look at all the expense he’s going through just to have dinner with you. Yep, you should definitely sleep with him.”
“I’M NOT SLEEPING WITH HIM! He’s covered in tattoos from his dimples to his dick!”
“Fine, I’ll sleep with him if you take me with you.”
“I have no doubt. Look, give me some time to think about this, and I’ll call you tonight to let you know if you should pack.”
“Yay!”
“Now get outta my office!”
Holding the tickets in one hand and tapping the fingers of the other on my desk, my gaze turns to the phone. It’s been about a week since I listened to Leo’s messages, and no doubt I’ve been better off without the torment it so often causes me, but like always, my curiosity gets the best of me. I dial his number and enter the secret code.
“You have one new message, sent today at two twelve p.m… Hey, it’s Ho-Bag. I’ll be at The Round Up around nine. Later.”
Fingers still tapping, I have a thought. I press Slutty Co-worker’s extension.
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Duh. Packing, remember?”
“I’ll tell you what. You come with me to The Round Up and if we don’t see Leo, we’ll go to Maui.”
“Oh, cripes, what if we do see him?”
“I’m not sure, but I’ll tell you one thing, I won’t be in any mood to go to Maui.”
“What is it with you and that boy?”
“I don’t know, ask my grandpa.” And then I hang up on her.
I get home from work and have two messages from Kurt. I have to stay at the house next weekend to watch the dog and I have to cut him a check for half the bills. I feel terrible that I left him with an entire household to take care of, but even so, I hate getting pulled back into the responsibility. I’M SO SICK OF RESPONSIBILITY. That being said, maybe I should be spontaneous and go to Maui. I’ll let Leo be the answer to that. A shower and a glass of wine later, a very annoyed Slutty Co-worker arrives to pick me up. Ten minutes later, we park at The Round Up right next to Leo’s jeep. Slutty Co-worker is not a happy girl.
“Great. So I guess this means no Maui.”
“Would you like to go to Korea instead?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Ho-Bag’s in there with him.”
“Very funny. So what’s your big plan?”
“I don’t have one. You wanted me to be spontaneous, right? Come on, let’s go.”
Okay, The Round Up is quite possibly the grossest bar I’ve ever been in. Once inside the saloon doors, we’re stared down by a couple of fat girls with pierced belly-divulging tee shirts. They’re trying to sing Baby Got Back on karaoke and the vision is quite scary. I’m gonna take a moment away from my quest to find Leo to ponder the horrific style choices of today’s youth. Who the hell is giving these kids the idea that it’s okay to be fat and expose their flesh? In the fashion industry, we don’t glamorize chicks like these by calling them “curvy” or “real women.” We call ‘em what they are. FAT! Anyway…
So right next to the FAT girls is a shuffle board and pool table and they’re beat up as all hell. And in the back of the room, is an antiquated juke-box that’s fiercely trying to compete with the FAT girls by blaring Sweet Child O-Mine. I grab Slutty Co-workers hand to pull her to the bar, and when we turn toward it we’re instantly eye-f*cked by a dozen or so manual laborers. Every single one of ‘em is filthy dirty and looking at Slutty Co-worker and me like they wanna jackhammer us. We’re clearly fish out of water at this dive and as bad as I want to be here, I want to leave even more.
“You know what? This is stupid. Let’s get outta here.”
“Thank God. Something tells me they don’t have chardonnay here. Good bye Round Up, hellooooo Maui!”
I turn to make a run for it but as fate, or my grandpa, would have it, I notice Leo sitting at a table drinking beers with his buddies. He can’t see me, so I know I can leave without him noticing but…OH MY GOD there are girls at the table! There’s NO WAY I’m going home with that vision.
“Shit! Grab a seat at the end of the bar and pretend like we don’t know he’s here.”
“Fine.”
“I want my back to him so you take the seat facing his direction.”
“Fine.”
“And can you please act like you’re having fun?”
“No.”
“Hi, ladies, what can I get you to drink?”
Before I have a chance to answer the bartender, Slutty Co-worker sits up and barks, “We’ll have a couple of Jack and Cokes and it’s on the guys sitting at the table over there.”
“What? Noooooooooooooooo!”
But it was too late. Before I could articulate my mortification and recall the order, bartender’s half-way to Leo’s table to confirm everything.
“WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?”
“Cause I’m pissed about Maui. Plus, I showed that little Korean guy a good time last January. Least he could do is buy me a drink.”
“Holy shit, are they looking?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s Leo doing? For f*cksake stop waving!”
“He’s staring at your back…Okay, now it looks like he’s trying to make sense of this…ahhh, yep…he gets it. He’s walking over here. Damn girl, he looks gooooooooood.”
“I’m so gonna kill you.”
“Hiya, Leo, long time no see. Is that my little Ho-Bag over there? I think I’ll go say hi. I miss that little f*cker.”
Without taking his eyes off of mine, Leo slides onto Slutty’s vacant barstool. He’s wearing a black baseball hat backwards, and it’s just about the sexist damn thing I’ve ever seen. Really, when worn correctly, a backwards baseball hat can win over just about any girl. It can’t be one of those white trash sideways crooked looks, and it can’t be combined with a do-rag like the ghetto boys kid themselves into thinking looks good. It’s gotta look just like he has it.
“What are you doing here?”
“I live here now.”
“You live here?”
“Well no, not here at The Round Up. I moved into a cottage up the street.”
“By yourself ?”
“By myself.”
I can see his mind racing.
“I’m so sorry about what happened in August. I came by your apartment to ex…”
“I know, I saw the note.”
“You didn’t call me.”
“I was done getting hurt.”
It was almost a year ago that I met this guy and realized that nothing in the world feels better than the tell-it-like-it-is vulnerable love he showed me. Maybe I’ve been using the whole ‘he deserves better than a chick who lied to him’ thing as an excuse. Maybe I’m the one who’s too scared to take a chance on a guy who’s so much younger than I am. Maybe Dr. Maria’s right and I care too much about what other people think. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll be laughed at. I mean seriously, divorce and a twenty-three-year old… at the same time?! I’d be taking bullets left and right. But maybe it’s not any of that. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll hurt me like I’ve hurt him. Good Lord, for someone who says she wants vulnerable love, I sure do a good job of talking myself out of it. But you heard him, he said he’s done! I’d be stupid to be vulnerable now. Must keep this casual.
“You look good, Leo. You doing good?”
“Yeah.”
That’s it?
“Yep, good here too. Just letting off a little steam after a crazy day at work.” Was that too blasé? I certainly don’t want to scare him away.
“I’ll let you get back to your drink, then. Hope you like it. I think it’s on me.”
Crap, I scared him away! With each inhale and exhale I go from a bulging B cup to what’s gotta look like a double D cup. That’s how fast my heart is beating. That’s how badly I want him.
“Good seeing you, Leo.”
I’m changing my life to make room for you, Leo. I want to have a million babies with you, Leo. I’ll love you forever, Leo. Sigh. Good-bye, Leo.
He’s about five steps away and then he turns and says, “Hey, remember at The Red Devil Lounge when I told you I didn’t like the thought of you in a place like that?”
“Yeah?”
“Well I don’t like the thought of you in a place like this either.”
If he only knew it was him that I was following into places like this…
“Look at these people, you don’t belong here. Jesus, hold on. Hey Bruno! Quit f*cking staring at her like that!”
Not quite the romantic exchange I was hoping for, but it’ll do. Sure sounded kind of vulnerable. Maybe I should reciprocate. Just be careful, Chrissy, take it slow.
“Let’s go back to my place then.”
Who am I, the Mario Andretti of hooking up?
He stares at me for like ten seconds, and I can tell that he too is contemplating the vulnerability factor. I finally get the sensation of time standing still and it’s horrible. So horrible that I wish I could rescind the offer. If he says “No thank you,” it’s over…done. He will, without a doubt, have put me behind. And it looks like that’s the response I’m gonna get when he takes a few serious steps toward me. But he says nothing. He just grabs my hand and leads me to the door.
I glance over my right shoulder and hear The Ho-Bag say to Slutty Co-worker, “Looks like it’s just you and me again, baby”.
Leo’s quiet on the short drive to my apartment, and I’m scared he’s gonna have second thoughts about coming with me, or worse, he’s waiting to be alone to tell me what a shitty person I am. I’ve been doing so well with my quest for true happiness with the yoga and the walking and with the renting of the cottage and the going on dates with rich tattooed guys. I’m making smart choices for once. Is bringing Leo to my cottage like throwing my life in reverse? Will more shittyness come as a result of bringing him here?
Ten minutes later, as I unlock the door to my cottage, he’s still by my side…and quiet. I can smell his skin and I can feel the drug enter my body. Nothing shitty about that.
“I’ll get the lights.”
“Leave them off.”
Whenever we were together before, I felt like I was the one in control. But not right now, right now I’m totally at his mercy.
“Wine?”
“Sure.”
Assisted by only the street-lights shining outside, I’m making my way to the drawer that contains the bottle opener when he walks up behind me and starts to kiss my neck. Too weak to hold up my head, it falls back in little semi-circles. After a minute, or maybe an hour, he turns me around to face him. We’re inches apart, searching for answers in each other’s eyes.
“Don’t you want to talk about what happened in August?”
“I thought I did. Actually I wanted to yell at you for what happened in August. But in five minutes you could be gone again. I’m not sure that would be spending my time wisely.”
“I don’t wanna be gone, Leo.”
“Could’a fooled me.”
Like a shamed child, I tilt my chin to the floor, and in barely a whisper, I say “I have something to tell you.”
It’s time.
“No. Let me decide how to spend the five minutes.”
Maybe it’s not the time.
“Unbutton your shirt.”
Definitely not the time.
“Now take off your jeans.”
Without leaving his eyes, I do what I’m told.
“Now put your shoes back on.”
The guy could ask me to kill someone and I would. As I slip my heels back on, he steps closer to me and whispers, “I miss you so much,” and then slides my blouse off of my shoulders. He leans into me like he’s gonna kiss me, but instead he tells me to turn back around. I do. He gently moves my legs apart with his feet and places both of my hands on the wall. I can barely hold my legs up as he caresses my body from underneath my breasts down to my inner thighs and then back up again. Thank God for all of that yoga. He kisses my neck as his index fingers toy with the waistband on my panties. He glides his hands over to my stomach, back down to my inner thighs and then back up my belly to my breasts, where they settle as he leans his body against mine and holds me. His breath is powerful, mine is nowhere to be found. He finally unhooks my bra, and I drop my hands down to let it fall to the floor. He places them back where he wants them. I want to kiss him so badly but when I try to turn around he says, “No, not yet.” He backs away and I can hear the sound of his clothes coming off. A moment later, I feel his body warm against mine. With my head resting against the wall I bend slightly over and he takes my move for what it is, an invitation. After a few minutes of euphoria, he spins me around, picks me up and places me on the kitchen counter-top. I grab his hair with my hands, wrap my legs around him and admit to myself that the balance of power between us has shifted. And then there’s a knock at the door.