Roadmap Part 6

CHAPTER 19 - NIGHT FLIGHT

"You've been talking for fifteen minutes straight," Tony says.  "Stop." I stop.  Was it really that long?  He's standing near the sink eating freshly made putesca out of a bowl and I'm pacing the Smallest Kitchen in the World. "I'm just trying to get you real.  So you won't fuck up this date."

I feel smacked.  Unmasked.  Needing to change the subject, "Did you see Eva's note?"

On the bathroom mirror, it says:

VACUUMING SHOULD BE THREE TIMES A WEEK. SHOULD WE SET A SCHEDULE?

"I'm the only one who vacuums around here," he says, taking his bowl outside to the deck table.  Miffed, I follow and sit with him, "Well, I'm the only one who helps Edward water the yard."

"So?  You got suckered."

"I hate to vacuum."

"I hate to vacuum.  I hate it as much as ironing."

"I'd rather iron than vacuum."  What am I saying?

"Really?  Okay, look, if you iron my stuff, I'll vacuum twice a week.  Deal?"

Anything to prove my point, "Deal."

He chews thoughtfully, "Naw, forget it.  That won't work."

Our first house cleaning argument.  Hard feelings hang in the air between us like second hand smoke. Feeling stupid, I go back in the house and wash the dishes. Nothing feels worse than being out of sync with someone you are usually in sync with.

Dishes done, I go back. He looks at me with miserable eyes. I sit, lean my face in my hands and say what my Tai Chi teacher always says to jump start a conversation, "Tell me something I don't know."

He stares at the small hole in the center of the table, "Just off the top of my head...the ultimate in life is happiness and anything that gets in the way of that happiness is wrong."

Somewhere dogs are barking, probably chasing something.

I nod agreement,  "I'm sorry."

"S'okay."

It's nine-thirty.  I replay Shane's message:

"Carrie, this is Shane calling you at 11 o'clock Saturday morning.  Sorry I didn't call earlier, but that's just the way it goes, I guess and I'm calling you now.  I'm going to dinner at some friends' house out your way and I was thinking maybe we could get together afterwards.  Maybe we can head over to the theater, pick up Edward and Suki after Edward's show, go back to that 'French dive'."      

I'd called and left a message on his machine explaining that Edward's show isn't playing tonight.  Whether he got it, I have no idea.  But I'm as certain that we'll get together, as if I'd seen it in a dream.

I go to the closet where Eva keeps the vacuum, but the padlock won't come off.  Hearing my curses, Tony comes to my aid:

"You have to jiggle it," he says, wiggling it up and down.

"No wonder!  It's been so long since I've jiggled anything!"

He cracks up at this.  But it's true.  I'm a nervous wreck.  If I could call Shane and tell him not to come, I just might.  I've never wanted and not wanted something so much in my life. 

Shane calls at ten.  Well, he wonders, what should we do if not Edward's show?  I ask if he likes music.  He replies an unenthused yeah.  Okay, not music. There's a Jackie Chan film playing at midnight at the Monica.

"I'm not a huge fan," he sounds annoyed.

Deep breath and then I invite him over, till we can figure out what to do next.  Then I hang up, realizing Tony’s right.  It's all about borders with me, isn't it?  I'm so damned eager to get to Point Z that I throw all sense of propriety out the window.  Then again, I don't want him to think...what?  That I'm a slut?  That I'm "easy"?  That I'm horny?  I don't even know what to think of myself!    

I need help.

xx

I find Tony channel surfing in his room--waiting for Venetia.  She said "maybe ten-thirty" and hasn't called.  Last time she did this, she never showed.  He lands on George Lucas’ American Graffiti.  I sit cross-legged on his floor, hyperventilating and explaining my plight.  What should I do with Shane when he gets here?

"There's a full moon.  Maybe I can take him to the bridge.   Can I borrow your lantern?" 

The one we used last month when Tony took me on a "night hike."  He'd led me to a bridge over a dry creek bed.  We'd sat under it on some rocks which felt like they'd been there since the beginning of time.  Then he turned the light out and told me that this was a "dry run" for when Belinda comes over.  Which never, of course, happened.

He heaves a serious sigh.  "Not that I don't want you to use it, but I was plannin' on taking Venetia tonight.  Anyway, it's way too intimate for a first date.  I didn't take Belinda till our third date."

"So where can I take him?  It's so late, I'm not sure what...I don't want him to think..."

Tony waves a thirty-two year old experienced hand in the direction of Malibu, "Take him to the Charthouse for a drink.  It's public, you can talk...walk on the beach later...get to know each other."

The Dating Game.

All summer long, every weekend, I've watched Tony plan "The Date" ("I wanna take her someplace special....What do you think of horseback riding?").  I've never dated in my life.  All I've ever done is meet men I'm attracted to, talk intimately, go to bed.  And in Boris' case, get married three weeks later.

What kind of date starts after ten-thirty?  The kind where you have a polite drink in public?  Or the kind that a man makes after being jilted by the woman he wanted to live with?  I really like Shane, but through my euphoria, I sense danger.  It's like being inserted into a well known GAME where everybody knows the rules except me.

"What should I wear?"

Tony rolls his eyes, "Guys don't care as much about makeup and clothes as women think they do."

On which planet, I want to ask.  He sits up, the light dawning and looks at me as if for the first time

"Carrie, is this your first date?  Since...since..."

"Yes!  It is!"

"Oh, boy," he laughs nervously.  "Oh, shit."

I go back to my room and take armloads of clothes out of the closet and try them all on.  I want to look sexy but not obvious, casual but not sloppy, ready to sip wine in a public place or sit on a rock in the woods.

Finally, in desperation, I call Kaiulani Goya.  Screenwriter, ex-model and style genius.

I hadn't seen Kaiulani since we graduated USC four years ago.  Then out of the blue last week, we ran into each other at a sushi bar in Pasadena.  She was so sympathetic about my recent divorce and funny about her own man problems that we’ve started phoning each other (like Edward phones his sponsor) to get perspective when our sex-panic is on the rise.

When she answers, I wail:  "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO WEAR!"

"Something low-cut, But not too low cut.  Let his eye go down, down…but stop just before he sees anything.  A hint of décolletage.  And on the next date, perhaps a bit more."

Hanging up, I trudge back to the closet. There it is.  My peach-colored gauze dress that skims the body with the buttons down the front that open into a wide "V" at the top.  Down...down...then nothing...nothing but a promising vortex of skin.

The dress I was married in.

The one Boris always said he hated.

I'm trembling like I'm about to take my college boards.  By the time Shane gets here, I'll be a wreck.  Okay, when all else fails:  Meditation.  I light a candle, burn some incense and, as I did the night before I married Boris, I meditate on his name:

"Shane...Shane...Shane..."

Waves of sexual heat pulsate through me, from the base of my spine, through the top of my head.  My pelvis is throbbing.  And over this, like a smooth skin, is the strong feeling of peace and serenity...the sublime assurance of the inevitable.  I come back to center.

I lean in Tony's doorway. Venetia still hasn't called and he looks resigned, one hand propping up his head as he lies there gloomily pointing the remote.  It's ten thirty-five..

"This dating business sucks," I announce.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of being single."

Too restless to watch TV, I throw a black wool jacket over my "décolletage" and go sit on the deck couch, hating that I look so goddamn ready.  In my hand is a book someone loaned me recently:  The Making of the Wizard of Oz.

I hear and see his car before I see him.  Barefoot, I skip down the stone steps, still holding the book.  The moment he steps out of the car, I know it's going to be all right.  Greeting him is like greeting an old friend.  His eyes are warm as they meet mine. Turning on one heel to survey the area, he says: "Wow."

As we begin our climb up to the house, he says in that easy, familiar voice, "This is incredible.  I love it." 

Midway, he stops at the sight of Edward's cabin, crying out, "I want this!", putting his hands on the trunk of the oak that grows straight out of the hole in Edward's deck.  "I want a tree growing out of my house."

I want a man who wants a tree growing out of his house.

He says yes to tea.  While I put the water on, the cat noisily says hello to him.  Looking down, he says, "Mee-OW" as if he's used to talking to cats.  He looks so handsome in his forties bomber jacket, I can't wait to show him to Tony.

We find my roommate sitting on the edge of his bed with a quilt over his lap watching TV. Venetia has bailed once again.  Politely, awkwardly, he struggles to his feet, clutching the quilt to his crotch, with an outstretched hand and a sheepish grin, hobbling towards Shane, "How ya doin'?" 

Shane responds:  "Please don't get up."

Steaming cups in hand, we sit on the deck couch, exchanging information.  He's fourth in a line of five children.

"My parents are nisei," he explains. "They were interned in concentration camps. My mother’s brother volunteered for service. I'm sensei the next generation."

"I'm second generation Russian American," I tell him. “Your family’s been here longer than mine.  But if we were at war with Russia, I'll bet they wouldn't round up Russian Americans.  So it must boil down to physical characteristics, how easy it is to spot somebody."

"Right," he agrees.  "I was on a fishing trip in Arizona with a buddy and we were eating huevos rancheros in this café.  The waitress came up to me and said, 'I'll bet you can't get food like this where you come from.'"

"And you said, 'You mean in L.A.?'"

Again, I see that grateful look.  Is this stuff really that hard for people to get?

Our talk travels fast but laid back.  He stands and takes out a cigarette, offers it to me.  Leaning closer, I see it's a joint.  Neat, tightly rolled. I haven't been stoned since my wedding night. We light up and pass it hand to hand, mouth to mouth.  I ask for more info on his recent breakup.

"We were together every day for a month.  She was so much fun to be with, so happy and bright.  We got along great, even slept perfectly on a very small bed.  Then one night, I said, 'Why don't we live together?' and she said, 'Do you want children?' and I said, 'With the right person' and she got incredibly pissed off.  Couple days later, she calls and says it’ll never work because I'm too old for her.  Still, we tried to get together but she was different.  Finally I called and broke it off.  How long were you married?"

"Ten years.  We separated in April."

"Six months," his eyes narrow as he studies me.  "You've still got the bandages on."

"But towards the end it got bad.  He could be very abusive, not physically, but I couldn't take it anymore."

Then we see them. Moving towards us like zombies.

A bedraggled Carmelita and Eva climb up the stairs towards us.  I call out to introduce him, but they wave dismissive hands in our direction as they drag themselves toward the house.  Eva mumbles something about a "horrible day."

Alone again, our talk leapfrogs until we land on agreement of what a great TV show Thirtysomething was.  When it was cancelled, I wrote to Fox saying I hoped they'd rot in hell.  "My favorite scene was in the last show, when he takes the jacket out of the closet and -"

"They do the wipe."  He remembers! And I remember watching that last show alone with Boris in another room, unable to comprehend American Baby Boomer stories.

A car--no, a truck--is pulling into the driveway below.  Edward.  My heart grinds with a tremor of fear or is it pride?  I sense that Shane, too, anticipates.

We stand at the top of the stairs to greet him.  Edward squints up from the bottom step at our dark silhouettes, looking more like Ichabod Crane than ever.  "Who's with you?"

"Edward, I'd like you to meet Shane." I joke proudly.

He climbs the steps carefully, almost laboriously, a cautious half-smile on his thin lips, "Whatcha doin'?"  He stands next to us now, face blank.  "Just hangin' out?"

Yeah, yeah, answers Shane, "Talkin' about politics and Thirtysomething and stuff."

There's a silence you could drive Edward's pickup truck through as he looks across the yard, "Cat's out."

I sigh, "Eva says it doesn't matter anymore if the coyotes eat her because she's already gotten rid of the mice."

"Yeah, well, it matters to me," he grumbles, heading into the house, "'cause I happen to like her."

Shane and I stand looking at each other.  Everything about him is so tangible, so real.  I hear myself say, "Want to go for a walk in the State Park behind the house?"

At the back entrance, a few feet from the houses, we hike up the steep dirt incline--the one Tony and I climbed dozens of times on our hikes.  When we hit the top, we gasp at the sky, catching our breath in the clearing under the full moon.

"I've never seen anything like it," Shane says, staring up at the platinum clouds above our heads.  Columns of clouds have formed a perfect square--like a window with a single cloud flanking both sides.

Like an omen.  But neither of us mentions that. We stay there for a few moments to let our heartbeats slow, taking in the nighttime wilderness.  Everything around us glistens in the moonlight.

"I'd like to show you this bridge I found one night."  I tell him, carefully omitting my roommate.

He says great.  We walk and talk without stopping along the sandy, glowing paths, losing track of time and space until it feels like we're on another planet. Only thing is, I can't find the path to the bridge! Maybe it's this way...no, maybe this one? Truth is I'm so high from the grass we smoked and his glowing presence that I don't care if we ever find it. Shane ambles along next to me, making it clear that he's simply enjoying the September night, and if we find the bridge, well, that's a bonus.

In that "French dive," Shane had mentioned that a woman ("just a friend") was going to take him to a Japanese puppet show.  That would have been last night.

"How was the puppet show?" I ask.

"Carrie," he says, "you would have loved it..." He goes on to describe the life-size puppets on stage with the puppet masters themselves and I know he's right. But how does he know?  You would have loved it.

"Here it is!" I cry as we come upon an arrowed sign that says, "TRAIL." We move along a curved, narrow path between tall, twisted trees. On our left, below us like a ditch, is the creek. Abruptly, the path ends. Shit. No bridge. Where is it? Embarrassed, I want to go back, but he lingers alongside the curve under those Black Forest trees, lighting up a cigarette. 

I try to fill the moment of rare silence, "We're experiencing this place the way the Native Americans probably did...sit around at night with the full moon...tell stories..."

"Smoke 'um weed," he smiles at his own joke, inhaling the tobacco.  I stay further up the path.  You could park Edward's truck in the space between us.

Finally, Shane rocks back on his heels and smiles at me, "I must say it was awfully 'brazen' of you to give me your phone number."

I smile, hands in the pockets of my wool jacket, looking at the ground, "Yeah, it was.  Yeah, yeah."

"And I must say that I really admire that brazenness."

"Do you?  Really?  Yeah.  I can be pretty brazen sometimes."  But if he thinks I'm gonna do it again...

Somehow we start up again, like a pokey milk train, and try a new path.  When we hear a large animal trounce through the bushes, he comments that it makes him nervous being out here "with Manson and everything."  A metal gate blocks our path.  It doesn't seem to be guarding anything of value or interest.  We lean against it.  There's little left to do.

"I have to tell you that I haven't dated anyone since I split with my husband six months ago," I venture.

"You're kidding."

"No.  You're the first 'date.' The first guy..."

He laughs nervously, backs off a few steps, "See ya later…" and heads down the path.  Then he turns around and comes back, "Aw, what the hell..."

Still. He keeps his distance. And I keep mine.

Coming out of the woods into civilization, on the way back, he goes crazy over the bizarre rustic architecture all around us. "Look at that one...and that one..."

We're almost back at the house. 

Will he drive off?

"Let me show you this great gazebo!" I lead him to the end of the road and once there, realize how foolish this is.  In the daytime, the gazebo rises up like an apparition in a brush painting--its delicate structure nearly hidden by tall grasses. Tonight it's nearly obliterated by shadows, full moon notwithstanding. The gazebo has gone the way of the bridge and I feel like an idiot for making such a big deal out of it. If I could only take him closer, then he'd experience it.  And inside the gazebo, maybe we could...

But I'm afraid to venture onto this property where a great white house stands at some distance. Someone might catch us.

"It's great," he murmurs. Is he joking? Well, maybe its magic transcends the factors of visibility.

Nothing left to do but go back to The Relationship House.

As we near our cars in the driveway, the sensor light switches on, flooding brightness over us.

"What's that?"

"That's my dad with a flashlight."

"What the hell's that Chinese guy doin' out there?" he yells like an irate father; then stops to contemplate Edward's cabin.  "I must say Edward seemed quite surprised to see me.  Looked like that Abraham Lincoln robot at Disneyland."

He stiffens and straightens as if somebody just rammed a pole down his butt; making slow, jerky robot movements. Twisting left. "Carrie?" Now right. "Shane?" Then left again. "Cat's out."

I laugh, entertained.  Pleased that he’s bringing theater back into my life again.

But what am I bringing him?

We pass out of the sensor's light, past his car, stopping a little ways from Edward's cabin. The lights are out in both houses. Now, behind us, the sensor shuts off.  The crickets are making an awful racket. It's very, very late and I don't want him to go.  We're still looking at things. I point out the shadowy hills beyond the neighboring houses. We stand together scanning the distance. At last, I look at him. He looks at me.  You couldn't park anything between us now. His face goes tender as he reaches for me and I move into his arms.

Later Georgia will warn, "If you really care for this man, Carrie, go slow. I made out with my date for an hour and then he went home. That's how you build a relationship."

Right now Shane's tongue is in my mouth like it's always belonged there, he's pulling me tighter so my head is cradled against his chest and I'm dizzy and on fire where he's probing me under my dress and there's no way in hell I'm just making out with this guy for one hour! I hold his head in my hands and kiss him all over his face.

"You can hear everything in that house," I breathe.  "Everything."  Hm, he says, then where? 

"How about my car?" I suggest, knowing there has to be a reason I own a station wagon (still brazen after all these years).  Hesitating before the door of my car, I tell him he's the first new man I've been with in ten years.

"I'm honored," he quips with a playful bow and a nervous pleased laugh.

Side by side we slide into the back seat of my Mercury Tracer.  In the darkness next to me, his eyes are like brown velvet crescents, as they take me in.

We seem to melt into each other and the fucking turns out to be—as they say in screenwriting—seamless. Without starts and stops, beginnings and ends. One long, smooth, juicy, passionate FLOW...

One minute, we're sitting side by side and I'm forcing myself to ask, "It's the nineties, right?" And he's looking naive, "Yeah.  The nineties."  And I'm saying, "So?  Condoms?" His pants are off. He looks miserably at his car next to mine, "In my car."  And the next minute, I'm sitting on him, taking him inside, so urgent, so blissful that caution takes a hike on the proverbial wind.

To my amazement, he stays hard and hard and hard, taking short breaks to rest from time to time, but never pulling out.  And to his amazement, I come and come...and come. Later he will marvel, "You must have come two hundred times.  Are you always like that?"

"Under the right conditions."

And the conditions were never more right.

I start on my knees adoring his large, beautiful cock.  It's the nicest one I've ever had the pleasure to put my lips around.  "You love sex," he whispers, pleased at his discovery, sighing while I tightly vacuum his dick.  "Mmmm...You like that, don't you?"  His deep, resonant voice was made for pillow talk...and right now he talks and talks.  "God, what are you doing to me?"

When he glides me onto my back, I feel each thrust like a sword of light piercing up through my body and out through my fingertips, "It...feels...like you're...splitting me...in half."

"Well, your legs are wide apart."

I look.  He's right.  He's pressing my legs wide apart while he gores me with that insistent cock.

Now from behind.  Ahhh...It all feels so good and wild, am I screaming? Whatever it is, it's loud. Then his bursting cries and spasms and everything released in one long undulating moment.  He collapses, chest against my back and I lie pressed against the window, not wanting to ever move again.

Only one thing comes through loud and clear: I've found whatever it is I lost over the last ten years. And one more thing:

This has no more to do with emotional connection than an aerobic workout. I don't feel anything I'd recognize as love.

Not moving, while my contractions are subsiding, I try to speak, "You know, the first time I saw you, when you came out on stage, I got so horny. I felt this rush of sexual heat."

He doesn't reply, but sits up, rests against the seat, lets me nuzzle his chest. My voice is hoarse, as if I just woke up. "This was worth waiting for."

Gradually ur mood shifts and we throw our bare legs over the front seat, lean back and talk.  "Geeze, what you put me through to get here, I'm exhausted," he mutters.  "First she takes me into her house and I'm thinking, where's Fleetwood Mac?  Burnin' that incense and playin' those Fleetwood Mac records.  Then she makes me hike twenty miles, then she makes me look at this thing she claims is a gazebo."

"You couldn't really see it, could you?"

"Coulda been a trash can."

I let myself absorb him the way I've absorbed the all-out sex tonight.  In profile, his coarse, straight hair curves off his forehead, like the wing of a seashell.

"How do you make money?" he asks.

"Sometimes I freelance as a legal secretary.  What about you?"

"I work in the Wire Room of The Tribune. Started 15 years ago, working in different departments. Ended up there."

"What a great job!"

"Yeah.  I can go on auditions, shoots, and still work there.?"

"What's your last name?"

"Fukunaga."

"What's it mean in Japanese?"

He shrugs.

"Mine's Walker. Changed from Wohansky after my father’s family immigrated to Canada from Russia."

I ask if he wants to spend the night.

"I don't think Edward could take it if he met me in the kitchen tomorrow morning."

We put on our clothes.  He tries the door handle. "I can't get out."

"You're kidding!"

"Try it."

I do and I can't.  Panic sets in.  Stupid "power locks."  If we have to wait here all night, with our luck Edward will be first on the scene tomorrow!

"Try the front door," I suggest, keeping my panic down.

He does. To our enormous relief, the door opens and we slide out.  Stepping out into the Canyon's chilled night air, I feel energized and lightheaded, as if all my old blood has been exchanged for new. I've just fucked someone who was not my husband and it felt fabulous!  And I did it with someone I really wanted.  And who wanted me.

Shane kisses me good-bye, pelvis grinding into mine.  I feel my legs start to vaporize and I moan, "It's starting again."  We pull apart with effort.  I stay on the hill watching him back his car out and drive away. 

A few hours later I'm stretched out on the deck couch in my plaid flannel nightgown telling Carmelita about Shane. "Is this the guy?" she says, eyes wide.  "Do you really like him?"

"I really do," I feel like the afterglow hasn't worn off.  It's radiating from my skin, my eyes, my smile. 

Tony comes out in his black robe, wearing a cap that says "Fuct." "Wanna see why I'm wearing this?" He lifts it straight off his head.  His hair is sticking straight up. Plopping down next to me, he sits cross-legged on the sofa like a little kid and says, "So?  How was it?"

"Perfect."

"I passed by your room about three a.m. and you weren't there," he says, as if knowing.

"He left at four-thirty and the time went like that," I snap my fingers.

"That's great.  I was kinda surprised at how he looked. He's like the Marlboro Man." Carmelita's looking bored but she doesn't budge.  I don't think she can follow our fast English. 

"We screwed our brains out," I tell Tony.

"You didn't!"

"We did."

\"Where'd you do it?"

I laugh, unable to say it out loud.

"Was it anywhere near my room?  Because..."

"No!  No!  I can't tell you.  It's too -"

"In the woods?  Was it in the woods?"

"I told you I'm not telling you!  Oh, all right I'll tell you...we did it in my car."

He throws his head back to laugh, slaps me a high five, "That's great!  Oh, my God, that's fucking great."

It feels okay to sit in my short nightie with my legs outstretched next to Tony, more relaxed and more overt in my sexuality than I've ever been with him.  He looks me over and says:

"This sounds kinda crass, but a friend of mine used to say sometimes, 'What she needs is a B.M.I.—Big Meat Injection.'"

Yeah, that's crass, but in my case it's true. My bones feel like butter. "He didn't want to go."

"That's good."

"He was afraid that Edward'd have a heart attack if he saw him this morning."

"He's real considerate.  I noticed that about him.  You come in and I'm sitting there in my underwear and I'm like, 'Should I stand and shake his hand?'  So I decide to hold the quilt over me and he says..."

I say it with him, "Don't get up."

A man with class and social grace.  I finally found one.  The Anti-Boris.

In the kitchen, Edward Third-Degrees me while I pour coffee through my French coffee filter.  "What was Shane doing here?"

"Hanging out."

"As what?"

"What do you mean 'as what'?"

"Friend?  Roman? Countryman?"

"All three...I hope."

He looks grave, "You should be careful.  I mean you could get really..."

"Hurt.  Yeah, I know.  We're real clear about that.  We talked about how I'm just getting divorced and he's just coming off this thing with Grace."

"As long as you both realize that..."

"Oh, we do!"

But he doesn't look convinced.  "Be careful."

Like you were careful with Suki? Careful like that? I want to say, but don't.