by Dianne Drake
“They were journalists. Both of them. Television journalists, like you. Except they were actually reporters, always being sent on assignments somewhere in the world. Wars, uprisings, riots, you name it and one—or both—of my parents were there.”
She knew they’d been reporters, but not what kind.
“When I was young, I suppose I considered our life normal. But it wasn’t. Neither of them were ever there. Oh, they came around, spent a few holidays, popped in for an occasional weekend. But for the most part I was left in the charge of a cousin or a grandparent or a kindly aunt. Anybody they could find to take care of me. And it wasn’t easy, Lorna, because nobody wanted me, including my parents. In fact, they never failed to let me know that I was the result of a faulty diaphragm. Had my mother’s birth control not failed, they would have lived a life free of the encumbrance I was to them. When you’re a little boy who just wants to see his parents occasionally, knowing that hurts.”
When you were an adult, it still hurt. She could see the pain on Gideon’s face. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“What was there to say? That you were marrying someone whose parents didn’t even want him?” He shook his head. “When they were killed in a plane crash on their way to do a story on a tribe, oddly enough here in Brazil, I didn’t even go to the funeral, because had it been different, had I been the one killed, they wouldn’t have taken the time to come to mine. A relationship like that really doesn’t merit much discussion.”
“Which is why you hated my going into television journalism,” she stated. “Because you’d lived a miserable life already because that’s what your parents had done.”
“Consciously, I don’t think I equated the two…”
“But subconsciously you couldn’t separate them.” She reached across the table for his hand and, for an instant, she felt a spark. It was only her imagination, of course. But it felt like the same spark she’d felt the first time he’d touched her. “I wish I’d known.”
“Would you not have gone through with it?”
Good question. And she really didn’t know the answer. “I may have anyway, but I would have done it differently, instead of just springing it on you like I did after I’d already signed the contract. I’m sorry I did it that way, Gideon. We should have talked about it first.”
He grimaced. “Well, I should have said something, too. But I never thought you’d end up on television…You’d never indicated an interest, then out of the blue…”
“You wouldn’t have married me if I shown an interest before, would you?”
“I loved you, Lorna. That’s one thing I’ll never deny. I did love you. But would I have married you…?”
This was interesting. Not hurtful, like it could have been. It had been such an emotionally tough day for Gideon all the way around and, instead of taking offense, she admired him for admitting something that was so deeply painful. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered.
“But it does. Because you were right. I shouldn’t have made demands when you took that job. Intellectual over emotional, I should have been able to work it out better. And now, intellectual over emotional, I shouldn’t be taking it out on you because, believe it or not, I’m proud of what you do.”
“Are you really?” she said, tears suddenly springing to her eyes.
“Have been for years. And I’m sorry I’m so moody tonight.” He let out a strained laugh. “I have to keep it together for everyone on the team during the bad times, and sometimes it’s just not easy. But they expect it of me…”
“And need it from you, Gideon,” she said sympathetically. “So, bad moods allowed between friends.”
“Well, friend. Like I said, I do approve of what you’ve done with your life. You’re good at it.”
“And I’m flattered you’ve noticed,” she said, glad that his mood was changing.
“I’ve noticed everything you’ve done.” He shook his head almost sadly. “Since the divorce, I’ve noticed so many things about you, Lorna.”
Dinner was quiet, contemplative, introspective for both of them. Gideon ate his share of the manioc without saying much more to her than he already had, and he was working his way through her leftovers when his cellphone range.
He answered his call, mostly listened, then clicked off and stared across the table at her. “This probably isn’t what you wanted to hear, but we’re not going back tonight.”
He was right. She didn’t want to hear this. Even the little diversion of dinner caused her to feel guilty being away for so long. She wanted to check in on Ana Flavia and Andreza, and she’d promised to sit down and look at the photos of Priscilla and Jason’s children. “Why not?”
“Helicopter’s tied up on an emergency flight. By the time it becomes free, it’ll be too late. The pilot will have had too many hours in the air. So we wait until morning.”
“And there’s no other way?”
“We could take a taxi, but most of them won’t go out of the city. Especially with the rain coming in later tonight. And as far as I know, there’s no other option.”
Unbelievable! Stuck here with Gideon. “They can afford to have you away from the rescue that long?”
“Jason’s got everything under control. Besides, the operation never hinges on one person. We won’t allow that.”
“Except that Dani’s out, and Tom’s…” Even the mention of Tom’s name brought anguish to Gideon’s face, so she stopped.
Gideon pushed back from the table, hailed the waiter, and ordered himself a second capirnha. “And there’s not a damned thing I can do about it,” he said, once the waiter had taken the order and scooted away. “Trust me, I’d much rather be back there—”
“Because anything would be better than being here with me,” Lorna interrupted. “I’ve lived the life, Gideon. Remember? You don’t have to make excuses. I’ve already heard them all.”
“Didn’t we have this argument before? A hundred times before?”
He was right. They had. “At least. But I guess there was one more in us, wasn’t there?”
“Two wounded people, I suppose. I think we fought because it was easier than trying to figure out what was going wrong. We were good at it,” she whispered. “Fighting was probably the thing we did best.”
“Funny, I seem to recall that we did many other things better.”
She looked over at him, a slight smile touching her lips. “Sex? Have a fight, go to bed. Those were some terrific moments, weren’t they?” She cocked a wicked eyebrow. “Really terrific!”
He chuckled. “When it’s good, it’s good. Won’t deny it. But I remember some other terrific moments, like all those evenings when you had to study and I had to catch up on reading my medical journals. You’d settle in at one end of the sofa while I’d settle into the other, and it didn’t take more than a few minutes until we were snuggled into the middle, you still studying, me still reading. Together.”
“That was a fond memory for you?” That surprised her, because it had always been a fond memory for her, too.
“You always tried to spread out over more than your half of the sofa. It was subtle, but you’d wiggle your way in an inch at a time.”
“Did not,” she lied, even though that’s exactly what she’d done. Not because she’d wanted all that space for herself, but because the more she’d wiggled in, the closer she had been to Gideon. She’d always liked being close to him, even when they hadn’t been in bed.
“Then tell me why you’d always manage to persuade a foot rub out of me. You’d relinquish the space and I’d rub your feet in return.”
“Because you have…had…magical hands.”
“Magical hands that usually did much more than a foot rub,” he said, leaning to the side a bit as the waiter put the capirnha on the table in front of him. The waiter tipped an uncomfortable smile in Lorna’s direction, then backed away from the table.
“Apparently, he speaks English,” she said, laughing.
G
ideon reached across the table and this time he took hold of her hand. “There really were nice times between us, weren’t there? I think we lost them in all that mess at the end, and I wish that we hadn’t.”
Nice times, nice foot rubs. They were so long ago, and so far away. It was time to remember them, she thought. Time to remember that she’d loved Gideon desperately once upon a time. And maybe it was also time to admit that she’d still loved him at the end of their marriage.
“One room, two beds is the best I could do close to the hospital, and across the street from where we’re to be picked up in the morning,” he said. Then Gideon quickly added, almost under his breath, “In my price range.” It was a nice night. A little humid. A lot of energy exuded from the people milling around in the street. And while he should be feeling guilty over this little impromptu stay-over, he wasn’t…wasn’t even feeling guilty that he wasn’t feeling guilty.
Strains of music were ringing from the shoulder-to-shoulder nightclubs packing the street—sambas and bossa novas and serenatas—and Lorna was actually dancing and mingling with the people, who were also dancing and mingling in the street. But all this was strange to him. Strange, and yet fascinating, because he could barely remember a time in his life when he’d enjoyed night-life. Had he ever enjoyed it with Lorna? Probably not. From what he recalled of the year before they’d been married, they’d been too busy with their individual medical pursuits to do anything more than grab a pizza and a couple of beers at a local pub, and push it all down as quickly as possible. Then back to the usual grind in their separate directions. And in the two years they’d been married…well, pretty much the same thing. Everything had happened on the fly, with Lorna going one way and him going another.
Not much of a way to have a marriage. Thinking back on it, he was surprised they’d even stayed married that long. “And if you want a room to yourself, we’ll have to stay in different hotels.” He added that option, assuming she’d protest the original arrangement. Surprisingly, she didn’t, and he was glad for that, even though he’d never admit it out loud, and would barely admit it to himself.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, her attention more caught up in a beaded purse being offered to her by a street vendor. “Since we’ve already slept together.”
Did that mean in the past, as in during their marriage, or in their brief encounters at base camp? He would have asked, but she was dancing around a vendor’s cart now, laughing, bargaining in English with a man who didn’t understand her language and waving to a clump of American tourists who recognized her from the morning news.
Amazing woman, he thought as he watched the way she literally drank life in. Amazing, adaptable, in love with life almost as much as life was in love with her. And he’d missed all that.
“Gideon,” she shouted. “Do you need sunglasses? I think I’ve got us a brilliant bargain. Or a bandana? He has lovely bandanas, too.”
“No,” he shouted back over the noise of the people, who, like Lorna, were enjoying the night. “I’m fine. Don’t need anything.”
This little area was astonishingly lively tonight. People working up to the upcoming holidays—Christmas and New Year. Fireworks, boat parades, dancing, singing…they knew how to throw a first-rate festival here, and being here with Lorna during the heart of it might have been fun, because so far, even in this non-festival atmosphere, it had been fun watching her exuberance as she bought something from every vendor who stopped her, and a couple who hadn’t. Beads, scarves, sandals, a stuffed doll, a straw hat she would never, ever wear…Her arms were loaded with bags, and he had almost as many as he could carry. Apparently, she wasn’t done, because she was now taking two pairs of sunglasses and two bandanas from the vendor’s cart and pointing to a string of plastic beads, ready to go into deep negotiation over them.
It was a magnificent night, and he was actually delighted to be part of it, if only in a vicarious sense. The colors, the sounds, the people…it really had been such a long time since he’d taken any time off, come to think of it. Normally, his days now were filled in much the same way as they had been when they’d been together…a quick pizza and a beer on the way to something else. Even though, technically, this shouldn’t have been a night off, he was glad for the little diversion, glad to see a side of Lorna he’d never seen before. No wonder she’d become such a success on television. She was genuine. The smile she wore wasn’t forced. When she waved to strangers, her greeting was sincere.
And when she worked as a doctor in his encampment, it was because she cared.
So in his opinions of her, maybe he’d been affected by their past. Or, more appropriately, blinded. Because pretty much every opinion, except the one in which she was fabulous, was wrong.
“Sorry about the room,” Gideon shouted from the bathroom once he’d turned off the shower.
“I’ve stayed in worse,” she shouted back, a slow smile coming to her face. “Remember Barstow?” An impromptu trip, the only one they’d ever taken. And what a disaster! Funny how, after a day that had turned out to be pleasant, the disaster was what had turned into an endearing memory.
“Hey, I take no responsibility for that mess! You were the one who wanted to stop.”
Yes, she’d wanted to stop because she simply hadn’t wanted to go back home so soon, hadn’t wanted for their day together to be over. What she hadn’t counted on had been that what had appeared to be a quaint little inn she’d chosen had been infested. Suffice it to say their stay-over had lasted all of three hours, and by the time they’d escaped to the car, they had both been a mass of itchy red welts. Of course, on the bright side, there had been some memorable moments after that as they’d applied salve to each other’s wounds. Some very memorable moments. “It was a cute little inn,” she defended.
“You have an odd sense of cute,” he called back.
“You weren’t exactly protesting when I asked to stop, as I recall.” Thinking about the next two days they’d both had off from work as a result of their delicate condition was the best part of the memory, actually. Two whole days together. No place to go, no one to interrupt them.
Lorna shut off the light on the stand next to her bed, hoping that would also shut off those memories trying now to creep back in. Then she forced herself to think about her upcoming documentary and some of the editing notes she’d made earlier. And she was successful, putting together mental images of how she’d like the film to run, what kind of commentary she wanted to do as a voice-over. Successful, that was, until Gideon stepped out of the bathroom with nothing on but a towel wrapped around his middle. Then some mighty powerful memories came rushing back.
In the single light coming from the lamp next to his bed he looked so good, and she simply stared, unable to look away. As he wandered around to the slight gap between her bed and his without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, she struggled to avert her eyes when he turned his back to her. Even in the near-dark, though, she caught herself searching for the tattoo on his right shoulder—a modest one. A caduceus. Then there was the scar over his ribs on the lower left side. From a motorcycle accident…thirty-nine stitches. She remembered counting them after they’d been put in, and kissing each and every one of the tiny pinprick scars left behind after they’d come out.
As Gideon loosened his towel and it slid over his hips, Lorna still struggled to look away, tried to will herself to shut her eyes, to stare at the ceiling, to pull the sheet up over her face. Anything not to watch! But she was transfixed on the towel’s painfully slow journey to the floor, and what was revealed to her in the dark shadows of the room when it was finally tumbled around his feet.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen and admired all this before, but now…
With a disgusted huff Lorna turned over on her side, her back to Gideon, and tried to dredge up her editorial notes once again. But for the life of her she couldn’t remember a speck of what she’d planned for the documentary. Couldn’t even remember the name of it, she was so dist
racted.
“No hot water,” he said. “If you’re going to take a shower, it’s going to be cold.”
Cold shower. Perfect! Just what she needed right now! Without a word to Gideon she jumped up and ran for the bathroom, planning for a good, long stay in the chilly spray, no matter how cold. But when he’d warned her that there was no hot water, he’d greatly understated that state. The water was positively glacial, almost a cascade of ice crystals on her hot skin. One minute into it and she was all goosebumps. So she hopped out, toweled off and put her clothes back on. None of that Gideon Merrill nonsense, sleeping in the nude like he was. Although there had been a time when she’d been glad that was his habit.
“That was fast,” he commented, as she hurried over to her bed.
“I need a good night’s sleep.” She fought hard to keep her voice level, and hoped he wasn’t hearing the high edge to it.
“Don’t we all,” he murmured.
After she crawled in and pulled the sheets up to her chin, she turned her back toward Gideon’s side of the room and squeezed her eyes shut. Of course, the image there was Gideon. Pure Gideon. Naked. He was more muscular now. Leaner, and harder. She liked the years he’d put on. He looked a little older than his years, but it suited him. So did the slight creases around his eyes and the little flecks of gray she’d noticed in his hair. Subtle changes, yet good ones. Gideon was one of the lucky people who was growing better with age. She didn’t want to think about him, but his presence was too close for her to think about anything else. Just listening to him breathe, hearing the rustle of his sheets, hearing the squeak of the bed as he shifted positions…
“You didn’t get such a good bargain on the sunglasses, you know.”
“What?”
“The sunglasses. You could have bought them cheaper from another vendor down the street.”
So he’d been paying that much attention? That was a surprise, since she’d figured he’d probably been mildly put out by the whole shopping affair. “But he threw in the bandanas for free.”
