Page 51 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
“We need to buy those tickets and then pack and try get some sleep,” she says. That’s my girl, practical to the core.
“I agree. With everything except the sleep.” Feeling no shame at all about wanting to make love at a time of worry about my father, I give her a look that should send her up in flames.
A slow smile and unexpected blush make their way to her face, guaranteeing a hard-on. Then she swats at my chest and says, “First things first.”
Pulling herself from my arms, she bends and picks up her phone. I reach out and caress her tempting behind. Scooting away, she laughs and says, “How about if you deal with getting the bed ready. We have exactly,” she pauses and looks at her phone for the time, “One and a half hours to get ready.Shit.”
That knowledge moves both of us into action.
“When’s our return flight?” she asks. I want to tell her never, but I can’t. I say, “I don’t know. Give us two weeks and we can always change it.”
She looks at me, her face pinched for a moment, then back to business and tapping in her phone. She says, “I’ll call a limo and arrange a ride.”
She’s like a relentless storm aimed at the unsuspecting village with total consumption of her goal driving her.
“I’ll take care of getting the ride. I have a friend. He drives for Uber.”
A slight frown creases her forehead. Watching her focused eyes and perfect glistening skin, I almost reach out and touch her. She nods, no laugh acknowledging the irony, not even a smile. She moves on with her task past the minor disturbance. I shake my head, but she doesn’t even notice.
Looking at the bed still folded against the wall fills me with a wash of longing, sucking at my chest, vaporizing all other emotions in its wake. We should be making love right now, we should be planning our affair, mapping out dinners at our favorite restaurants, movies, talking quietly under the covers, getting to know all those details about what we like and don’t like, the interests we share and the interests that we’ll leave each other to pursue on our own. I suddenly need to know whether she’ll visit the Regina Rex Gallery with me, or whether she’ll laugh and tell me I’m on my own.
But we don’t have time for our romance to unfold with leisurely escalation at a natural pace, unhurried and unfettered by secrets or families. We don’t have time now to make love. Picking up my phone, I dial Tony Wingo’s number. He’s one of the few friends I’ve developed outside of NYU or the art enclave here in Brooklyn.
The phone rings four times before it’s answered and I remember it’s somewhere around three thirty a.m. Shit. I’ll owe him big for this.
“What the hell, Lucas? I’m just falling asleep. What’s up?”
“I need a ride.”
He laughs. “You and half of New York City. This was one of the longest nights of my life. What happened? That fancy-ass car of yours break down?”
“No.” I think of telling him the truth, the whole story about my father and his heart attack, but this isn’t the time, so I say. “I need a ride to JFK. Flight’s at six a.m. Pick us up at four.” There’s dead air on the line for a few beats and I’m sweating, not because I don’t think he’ll give us a ride. Hell, I’ll call a taxi at this point if I need to, and I hate taxis. I’m sweating because I’m also stuffing clothing into my one and only piece of luggage.
The swift relentless movement toward the inevitable desertion of my apartment seems too much like abandonment. Like I’m abandoning my dreams. I think of the ice sculpture I’m supposed to do on Saturday for some poor couple’s wedding and that I’ll need to cancel on them with only three days’ notice. Thinking through my mind’s Rolodex of possible replacements, I find a name they can call to replace me. He’s not as good and they’ll need to settle for a simpler design, but it’s better than a square block of ice.
Finally, Tony talks. “Sure, bro. Seriously, what’s the deal?” Sighing, I shut my eyes against the emotions, the explanation trapped inside my head, my soul, too complicated, too congested to find a way out.
“I’m going home. Emergency.” He knows my family is in Italy, without knowing who exactly we are, and puts it together.
“Sorry man. Hope things go okay.” He won’t ask details. He’s not that kind of guy. He respects the need for privacy, for secrets. I’m sure he knows I’ve been harboring a backstory and has never pressed to hear it.
“Thanks,” I say. “You better leave now if we’re going to make it for the flight.”
A sense of super urgency seizes me as I turn to see Melissa, already dressed, packing her small bag precisely. “You’ll need your passport,” I say.
She turns to me and smiles, an automatic gesture that flips my heart because it’s beautiful and because it’s automatic.
“I have it. I’ve been keeping it in my bag since I . . . became homeless.” She gives a jerky shrug of one shoulder. “I don’t have a lot else to bring with me.” Waving at her lone small bag, her smile falters. She shakes her head and I can hear her internal pep talk. She moves to me, wrapping her arms around my half-bare torso. I want to hold her there, whisper to her how lucky I feel to have her with me now, how grateful I am that she’s coming home with me. Most of all, I want to tumble into bed with her in such a fierce way that I mutter a curse that I didn’t mean for her to hear.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. Her voice is uncharacteristically tender and my heart stutters, knowing she’s feeling for me, holding back on all the rest of whatever she feels about my family, who I am, my hiding it from her. She’s keeping it bottled, either purposefully or reflexively, I’m not sure which. It doesn’t matter, the swell of affection I feel makes me squeeze her.
She says, “It’ll be fine. You’ll see your father and he’ll recover.” She gives a squeeze back, then turns the switch on her emotions, putting away the tenderness in some special drawer of her soul, and returns her focus to the solid grounded matters of life and says, “Did you know that seventy percent of people recover fully from heart attacks?” She unwraps her arms and steps away. “Now get dressed already. We only have a few minutes.” She doesn’t bother gentling her words with a smile. She means business.
Half my mouth smiles, the other half stays in a grim tight line. That’s how I feel. Half grim about my father, half enchanted by her. I zip my bag closed and pull on a sweater. Once my shoes are on, I grab our coats from the couch and toss Melissa’s to her.
“Let’s wait outside for our ride.”
* * *
