“Oh, there are caverns within caverns here, Heather. It’s one big car ark.”
I closed my eyes. The bus came to a wider road and accelerated, and when I looked out the window, I saw planes coming down out of the sky. Jack held my hand. I thought of Mr. Periwinkle. I thought of my mom and dad and what they would say, and what they wouldn’t say, how Jack would fill up our house. I held my breath and went under the pool water and all above, all the bars of light and liquid, became soft and quiet and tender. Then the bus pulled onto a ramp and the tempo changed and we were here, we were leaving, and Jack stood up to get our bags, then did a quick air guitar lick, his tongue out, his grin the Jack-est ever.
*
Airports suck. But Charles de Gaulle sucked a little less with Jack beside me. With a second pair of hands and eyes to manage the baggage, things went easier. We had arrived early enough to go through security without feeling like a convertible going through a car wash. We showed passports, bumped our phones on the desk clerk’s computer to record the boarding pass, slipped our shoes back on, restrung our belts through our jeans, bought gum, bought magazines, drank a quick beer in a quasi-French sports bar named Alas, then sat for a time in a pair of rockers the management had placed near the windows overlooking the tarmac. It was nice sitting in the rockers. I felt quiet and dizzy and exhausted. But I felt satisfied. I had done Europe. I had seen it. I had strayed off the path and seen different aspects of a place so many people visit, and it felt good. I held hands with Jack. Sweetly, he stood and moved his rocker closer so that we could have greater contact.
“I really didn’t expect to meet anyone like you,” Jack said in his softest voice when he had settled back into his chair. “I really didn’t.”
“Ditto. You’re a surprise.”
“Do you want me to tell you why I love you? Would that be a good thing to do right now?”
“Sure, of course.”
I kissed the back of his hand. I always wanted to kiss him.
“First, I want you to know that I love you despite your disability. Your joke deafness. It started out as a problem, but I’ve learned to overlook it.”
“Thank you.”
“And because you read Hemingway. I love you because of that.”
I nodded.
“And because you complete me.”
“Oh, good grief. Quit quoting movie lines.”
He leaned over and kissed my neck. I moved my lips to his. We kissed for a while. The world went away whenever I kissed Jack.
“The real reason I love you is because we share an eye,” he said when we parted. “Have you ever heard that?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’ve heard of the Gorgons? They were three dreadful sisters with snakes for hair. They were all blind, but they had a single eye, and they had to pass it back and forth to see the world. We share an eye like that, Heather. We look through the same lens.”
I started to make a joke about him calling me a Gorgon, but then I realized he was being serious. Although I couldn’t quite believe it, I heard his voice crack. I sat forward and looked at him.
“Jack?”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Are you okay?”
“I love you, Heather. I want you to know that.”
“I love you, Jack. You okay? What’s going on?”
“I’m fine. A little tired.”
“You shouldn’t stay up all night dancing.”
He smiled and kissed the back of my hand now. He let his lips stay on my skin.
“What do you think the Esche is seeing right now?”
“Two lovers. They have a small dog that sits by their feet. The dog is very old and comes to the park every day with them. The dog can barely see, so it has mistaken a squirrel for a lady dog, and it dreams of running through the park with the squirrel, except the dog is too old and has bad hips.”
“Does the squirrel have a name?”
“No, I don’t think so. The dog’s name is Robin Hood.”
“That’s not a dog’s name.”
“Yes, it is. It’s a beagle. It has brown dots right above its eyebrows.”
“That’s a good thing for the Esche to watch. I’m happy the Esche has something like that to see on a good morning.”
“The Esche will always be watching.”
A few minutes later, he said he had to use the restroom. He got to his feet and grabbed his backpack. I asked him to snag a piece of fruit if he saw one. He nodded.
“It was pretty to think so, wasn’t it?” he said more than asked me.
He had said it to me once before. Maybe twice before.
“Are you quoting Hemingway at me?”
“It’s a nice line. I always wanted to use it.”
“I don’t get the fruit connection. I mention fruit and you quote Hemingway.”
“I guess there wasn’t one,” he said. “I guess it seemed like a cool thing to say. You looked beautiful sitting here, Heather. If I had six lives, I would want to spend them with you. Every last one.”
He smiled and hoisted his backpack higher on his shoulders.
What was going on? He seemed too emotional for the everyday atmosphere of the airport. A glancing thought passed through my mind to ask why he needed his backpack to go to the men’s room, but I let it go. Maybe he wanted to change. Maybe he needed something out of it. Our eyes met. I watched him walk away, and in an instant, the foot traffic had swallowed him.
I dug out my phone and checked messages. I shot a text to Amy. Told her I was heading her way. I texted Constance and asked if she had seen a kangaroo. I texted my mom—knowing that was the same as texting my dad, too—and said I was at the airport, all good, tired, ready to come home, couldn’t wait to see them. I checked a dozen e-mails, mostly from work, and then looked at a picture a friend named Sally had posted on Facebook of a cat wearing a pirate hat. It was a good picture, and it made me laugh. I liked it and wrote Aaarrrgggghhhh, matey under it. I stopped short of adding an emoticon. The cat looked adorable.
I felt, for a while, that I had entered the phone-world. It was just me and a virtual world that didn’t actually exist, but did exist, and when I looked up, I was surprised to see time had passed. The light had changed slightly out by the airplane. The flashlights the ground personnel used to guide the planes, to flag them forward or left and right, suddenly seemed brighter when contrasted against the dull sunlight. My neck began to prickle, and I put my phone away slowly into the breast pocket of my shirt.
I looked down the passenger way where Jack had gone. Then I pulled my phone out again and checked the time. He had been gone … I didn’t really know how long. What was the sense, I asked myself, of checking the time if I didn’t know when he had left? If I didn’t know that basic piece of information, whatever time it was now was pointless.