A Fling with Gravity

by DC Stanfa

The jolt awakens me, snapping my head up then down. Bobblehead I think, amused. Eyes open, I renew my bearings and think something else, a little turbulence or mechanical problem with the left engine? Neither. I'm convinced the plane is caught in God's throat and that was a hiccup, a symptom of His laughter from watching me the past two days.

I notice the gray-haired man, with suit and skin to match, isn't shaken either. Another bump, whether in the air, or along life's road, it's just a reminder that gravity will get us eventually, one way or another. A brief interruption of the crossword puzzle is all it was for Mr. Gray. For me two days in Minneapolis and some crosswords have me puzzled and battling gravity roller-coaster style. There was the silent ride to the airport—tension building like an over-stretched bungee cord ready to snap back. I'm surprised I could have dozed off at all after I snapped.

"Don't e-mail me or call me," I had said, staring at the wrinkled black leather duffel Rory had set on the curb.

Don't give him anything but indifference, I thought, but anger stepped out in front first, guarding then slamming all emotional doors.

Now nothing more can escape, nothing else can get in. Left with one solitary thought alone again, naturally. A Mental karaoke performance of the Vonda Shepard re-do of the Gilbert O'Sullivan classic song helps hermetically seal out the pain. I could almost laugh. A good humor seal. What a cheesy song, what a cheesy moment. Get over it, get over yourself.

After about 50 failed relationships in 42 years (make that 24 years, I didn't have my first "relationship" until I was 18) I can no longer suffer from a broken heart. I just add a new layer to the shell around it. When my heart turns entirely to stone, I'll skip it across the water for further amusement. What happened this time? It's not like I thought Rory and I would get married or anything like that, but I didn't expect the weekend to go from chased to chaste either.

Liquid lobotomy. That's what my friend Karen calls it when you drink so much you forget things. The mind, like a lone ice cube melting into a different state of being, not gone, just becoming something else, morphed into its surroundings. My problem is sometimes I remember too much, replaying scenes over and over. So routine is this brain exercise that over the years I've developed brains of steel; cold and numb. I probably wouldn't feel a frontal lobotomy. The attempt at the liquid lobotomy didn't work either.

As a matter of fact the only thing fuzzy about last night is how Rory ended up on the couch—and I in the bed—when I started out on the couch, assuming he was in bed. The solitary thought of being solitary again bungees back: Why do I always end up sleeping alone? Well, maybe not always, but a lot and for most of my life. As far as I can see there's nothing I've done to deserve that fate, except the time Linda Marks and I put a dead rat in a box and wrapped it up like a gift for Mona Phillips in the ninth grade. I couldn't still be paying for that sin thirty years later, could I? Was it bad judgment agreeing to come to Minneapolis in the first place? No, that wasn't it. Saturday was good. Hell, Saturday was fantastic. There's nothing wrong with me. He's the one who's whacked. My post-mortem relationship mantra.

My tongue searches my mouth for moisture. The bottle of water in my Elvis carry-on bag is too far of a reach, and the task of extracting it from under the seat, poking and prodding through its contents, is way too tedious to consider in my wretched state. I sit and thirst in martyrdom for all the women of the world who've been backhandedly and undeservedly slapped by male rejection. Especially when we are such Good Sports. Saturday, when Rory opted to go to the Twins game instead of a nice dinner, I was agreeable. I didn't even complain about the nacho cheese the guy to my right dripped on my sleeve. And I'd actually acted enthused about going to the Adam Sandler movie on Sunday.

.

"You know I've been thinking, that's what life is all about, about love and having THAT kind of relationship." Rory had said.

He was in a deep philosophical, ethical and religious funk over the moving movie experience. I was thinking that Adam Sandler relied heavily on the expletive "Oh shit" before or after physical comedy and that it detracted from the lack of depth of the story-line. I was also wondering if Wynona would get convicted on those shoplifting charges. But, we all process "the arts" differently.

On the drive back to his house Rory explained how God had spoken to him through the movie, showing him that the lovemaking (okay hot and steamy sex) we'd enjoyed Saturday night was wrong. I think that's when Rory decided we should sleep apart. Sunday guilt I understand, being a recovering Catholic, but this was too much. It was beautiful yesterday and ugly today?

"The least you could have done is to reach this moral epiphany tomorrow after I'm on the plane," I'd said, turning away from him, not knowing what else to say.

We both looked out the car windows for cue cards. His read, "This doesn't have anything to do with you, it's me."

This cue card has gotten around, I've heard it read a lot before. I've even read it myself. This time I was hoping for a Happier Gilmore ending.

.

I first met Rory three years ago, almost to the day, on vacation at a lake resort in Minnesota. I was with my friend Karen and Rory was on a golf weekend with some buddies. Our last night there we were in the resort bar. Rory's group had been playing golf and drinking all day, not necessarily in that order. He was the cutest, and at first I thought also the quietest. His golf cap was on backwards and he had dimples to-die-for, of Game-Show-Host proportions (one of my many men weaknesses). When one of the guys dared him to dance, he did. Just got out on the dance floor all by himself and moved. The boy could move. I made my own move when he sat down at the bar. An hour and twenty minutes later I hated to leave, but we had to drive several hours in the morning to catch a flight. Sure, they'd invited us back to "party" at their condo, but there were 12 of them and 2 of us. It didn't take a mathematician or a prude to realize 2 divided by 12 is a negative number. Karen kissed her "date" goodbye and Rory further impressed me with a game of tongue twister.

I never expected to hear from him. Why would I? He lived several states away, and we both shared custody of our kids with exes and had so many other things going on. But he called and e-mailed and I called and e-mailed back. There were lulls, when one of us was dating someone else, and then we'd both be dateless for awhile and swear to figure out a way to get together. Problem was we had our kids on opposite weekends; singles today know custodial incompatibility trumps geographic undesirability for the most part. One weekend (around the first anniversary of our meeting) I was supposed to meet him in Chicago when my ex had our daughter on vacation. It's not like I just blew it off. Rory was going with a group of guys to a Cubs game anyway. It wasn't like he'd be alone, I'd told myself. Another opportunity arose the second year of our correspondence. His ex was taking their daughter Thanksgiving weekend. I was finally flying there (he was paying). The day before I was to leave my grandfather died.

When Rory's ex got remarried she asked to change weekends to match her husband's visitation schedule (stepfamilies get complicated). We no longer had an excuse not to get together. Some of my friends couldn't believe I was going. Karen wasn't one of them. She thought my impetuousness was cool (but she wasn't around when I stole my parents' car in junior high and hit a few parked cars either).

"Do you remember what he looks like?" she'd asked.

"Not really, but I know he was cute and he says he looks about the same," I told her.

"He had a hat on when we met him. Do you think he has hair?" asked Karen.

"I don't know, but as long as it's not a comb-over or a toupée, I don't care."

So when exactly did God start laughing? It had to be when I got to baggage claim Saturday morning and Rory wasn't there waiting, as I imagined, with a bouquet of flowers. No flowers. No Rory. In the half-hour I waited for him to arrive, as other passengers were met, retrieved their bags and exited, I imagined a lot of things. I imagined several men to possibly be Rory, as I couldn't be exactly sure what he looked like. One was not very attractive, overweight with a big nose (which he picked at like a scratch-off lottery ticket). But, he had dimples. I wondered how much I had to drink the night I met him. Oh my God I hope that's not him. Yeah, that's probably when God laughed, when I first invoked his name. And then I thanked Him when the nose-picker wasn't Rory.

After waiting over 25 minutes I imagined that he chickened out for some reason and wasn't going to show up at all. What would I do? The possibility turned into a romantic comedy/drama as I wrote the movie script. Sleepless in Seattle was one of Rory's favorites. This would be Dateless in Minneapolis. I would contact a local TV station and get the ear of a sympathetic reporter, telling her all the details of the three years of correspondence, the sheer romance of it all. How I'd been left at the baggage claim. The camera would be angled to my good side, and when I teared up a little the men of the Twin Cities would come to my rescue. There'd be phone calls to the TV station, offers from gorgeous leading men-types to take me out, or take me in.

Just as I was picturing the final scene in my daydream, where Leading Man moves to Cincinnati, Rory sheepishly appeared from around a corner.

He laughed, and looked sideways at me as he drove, when I told him about the screenplay in my head.

"I showed up after all and ruined your ending. So, now how are you going to write the story?" he asked.

"Well, we'll have to wait and see what happens. That's what I told a couple of my friends who thought I was crazy to come here," I said.

His smile wrapped around my doubts and hid them like a magician's cloak. I wondered what fun tricks he had up his sleeve for the weekend.

Conclusion—»