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As Russell squeezed himself down the aisle of the Douglas MD-11, every step seemed heavier than the one before. He was looking forward to retreating back into the familiar ecosphere of hearth and home. By contrast, the notion of reporting in to the office painted a less rosy picture. First, he would be called upon to address the staff in summary of his convention experience. That he’d avoided participation in 90% of the programmed agenda would make delivering such an account equivalent to writing a comprehensive book report based entirely on a hastily scanned CliffsNotes distillation of a tome he’d never opened. He was dreading another inevitability as well: suggestive winks, heavy-handed back slaps, and relentless cajoling from Ed and Mike. He pictured the Neanderthal duo conspiring a tag-team assault to badger “Rusty Boy” into revealing any and all juicy scuttlebutt from the Austin shebang.
After stowing his carry-on in the overhead compartment, Russell settled into his assigned window seat and proceeded to inflate his travel neck pillow. He was attempting to get the air pressure just right when a plus-sized woman wedged herself into the middle seat. It was uncomfortable enough to have her sweaty left arm and shoulder pushing against his right arm and shoulder. When she kicked off her shoes, Russell found himself struggling to breathe and beginning to feel queasy.
“Ma’am, do you mind if we trade seats?” The rotund woman with the stinky feet looked up to see Mary Ann hovering above. “I have an aisle seat over there,” Mary Ann informed her. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit next to my friend.” As his erstwhile seatmate gathered her things, Russell felt somewhat conflicted. Not being forced to sit beside this over-sized, exceedingly aromatic person for the duration of the flight was a definite positive. However, he wasn’t so sure that sitting next to Mary Ann would be worth the tradeoff. He’d been planning to catch some shuteye on the flight. Too, hearing Mary Ann referring to him as her friend triggered immediate suspicion.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Mary Ann said, clicking her seatbelt.
“Are you kidding?” Russell whispered. “I definitely owe you for that.”
“No, I mean, about the ‘friend’ thing,” she clarified.
“Well...” Russell was wondering where this conversation was going. “That was kinda strange, I guess.”
“How so?”
“Look...” Russell spoke haltingly. “How do I put this? You’re... kind of a tough nut to crack.”
Mary Ann wasn’t one to take offense or pussy foot. She got right down to brass tacks: “Right. But would you like to be friends? Or, at least, be more friendly?”
What is a person supposed to say in such a circumstance? While Russell wasn’t certain that Mary Ann was trustworthy, he couldn’t help but feel flattered. After years of being intimidated by this woman, she seemed to be suggesting a closer, less guarded relationship. He’d always found her fascinating; but only from a safe distance. Too, he hadn’t decided whether he actually liked her, let alone that he wanted her as a friend. Then again, Russell didn’t have many close friends. And, someone caring about him — other than his wife and his sons — couldn’t possibly be a bad thing. Or, could it? “That’s an interesting proposition.” Russell intended this answer to be diplomatic, not flirtatious.
“Well,” she retorted, “I hope you don’t think I’m propositioning you.”
“No, no, no, no...” Russell stammered, his cheeks and forehead flushing red. “I was just... maybe I...”
“I’m kidding,” she said, with an assured, apologetic chuckle. She placed her perfectly manicured fingers on his forearm. “You can relax.”
“Okay.” What he really wanted to do more than anything was kick back and rest. Still, this repartee was compelling. “But what are you kidding about?” he asked. “Being friends? Or... you know, the other thing?”
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, half seriously. “You are hopeless!” Mary Ann picked up the Sports Illustrated Magazine from her lap and began rifling through the pages so quickly Evelyn Wood would have been incapable of gleaning any comprehensible meaning from the printed material.
“The answer is yes.” Russell articulated this statement the way one does to prevent a conversation from ending, by saying what one thinks the other person wants to hear.
“Mmmmm, hmmmm,” she mumbled, her eyes now fixed on a vivid, full-page photo of Scottie Pippen dunking a basketball. “Yes, what?”
“To the friends’ thing,” he clarified. “That actually might be cool.”
“Okay,” she teased. “We’ll see.”
This, Russell decided, might be a good time to change the subject to something less personal. “I didn’t know you were into basketball.”
“Well,” she quipped, “keep your eyes open, Buddy Boy, you may find out all sorts of things.”
“D’you think Jordan is gonna come back?” One of the most talked about sports stories of the day surrounded Michael Jordan’s early retirement from the Chicago Bulls in pursuit of what turned out to be a short-lived, less-than-stellar minor-league baseball career.
“Sorry,” she replied, sardonically, “I left my crystal ball at home.”
“Are you a Bulls fan?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.”
“I’m more into college hoops,” she revealed.
“Cool.” Russell was pleased that Mary Ann had brought up a subject of common interest. “I’ve got season tickets for the Vandy games.”
“Whoa, Dude!” she said, with sincere interest. “That’s way cool.”
“They’re in the nosebleed seats. But Memorial Gym is such a blast.”
“I know,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I used to play there.”
“Come on!” Russell felt certain she was toying with him. “You can’t be serious! You played there?”
“Yep,” she affirmed. “I played back-up guard for the Lady Commodores from eighty-two through eighty-five.”
“No way!” Mouth agape, Russell was both blown away and incredulous.
“Way,” Mary Ann contended, a la Mike Meyers in Wayne’s World.
“I don’t remember anyone named Mary Ann on those teams,” he said. Then the bulb in his cranium ignited. “Mare Morgan! You’re Mare Morgan?” Confirmation came in a slight nod of Mary Ann’s head. Then, she provided conclusive proof by gathering her hair in a fist and pulling it back into a regulation white-girl, collegiate-athlete ponytail. “You were freakin’ instant offense,” Russell effused, “like an automatic three-point machine!”
“Glad somebody remembers,” she said, appreciatively.
“You didn’t play much ‘D’ though, did you.”
“Hey, I’m only five-five,” she protested. “Cheryl Littlejohn was six-three. Dawn Marsh and Sherry Bostic could run rings around me. For a short, slow, white girl, I think I did okay.”
“Mare Morgan,” Russell uttered his inner thought aloud. “Wow! I... can’t believe it.”
“So, enough about me,” Mary Ann said, suggestively. “Let’s talk about you.”
Wow! A woman of accomplishment wanted to be his friend and was expressing sincere interest in his personal history. “Well,” Russell began, “I was born in Topeka, Kansas. My parents...”
Mary Ann stopped Russell’s aural biography in its second sentence with a “Blah, blah, blah...”
Russell presumed she was toying with him again. “Yeah,” he confessed, “it’s a pretty boring story. Nice guy gets good grades, wants to play baseball but stops growing in ninth grade, gets beaned by a fastball, becomes scared of the ball, can’t hit the curve, goes to college, graduates, becomes an insurance salesman, falls in love with a nice girl. They get married and pop out a couple-a kids...”
“That’s all very interesting. But, what I really want to hear about is...” She paused for dramatic effect. “How was your convention?”
This question didn’t compute. Why in the world would Mary Ann have any interest in Russell’s convention experience? “Is that really what you want to talk about?”
“It is, yes.” Having no idea where to begin, Russell sat, blinking his eyes and clenching his jaw. “Did you meet any interesting people?” she probed.
Russell’s neck stiffened. Why would she be offering this prompt? “Did I meet any interesting people?” he responded. “At an insurance convention? That’s kind of a contradiction in terms, sort of a, whatchamacallit, oxymoron, doncha think?”
“Whoa... somebody sounds just a little bit defensive.” Her observation was spot on. If he’d been more in command of his faculties, Russell might have countered by asking her a similar question: Who was that way-too-handsome dude in the expensive suit with the purple ID tag? But, his weary brain was too sluggish to go that route.
“Look,” Russell managed. “I’m, I’m... I’m sorry. I’m like... really tired.”
“Well, then...” she snapped, with evident condescension. “We’ll just let the little boy take his little nappy.”
“Thanks,” Russell said, pushing his seat back, positioning his neck pillow and closing his eyes. “That’s very nice of you.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
“Mare Morgan,” Russell mumbled, as he drifted off, “I can’t freakin’ believe it.”
Mary Ann chuckled to herself. Determined to unravel the mystery of why Russell had emerged nearly naked from another man’s room Saturday morning, she was already brainstorming her next scheme to get him talking.
≈ ≈ ≈
Although the flight had been brief and relatively free of bumps, Russell was suffering a bit of jetlag on top of the fuzzy-brained malaise one often experiences after waking up from an afternoon snooze. He descended the escalator, surrounded by airport clatter and rush. At the bottom, he plodded heavily past the baggage carousels, intent on catching a shuttle ride home.
“Hey, Deacon!” He stopped to follow the sound of Mary Ann’s voice and located her dragging a Louis Vuitton Pullman suitcase from the luggage carousel onto the polished concrete floor. “What took you so long, Slowpoke?”
Russell recalled being awakened, still belted into his seat. “Sir.” The flight attendant’s baritone voice was soft and gentle. “Wakey, wakey. Time to rise and shine.” A toothy smile made a vivid first impression. Not only was the plane stationary and devoid of engine noise, he seemed to be the only remaining passenger in the coach section. A clean-up crew was busy, tidying up the aircraft for its next scheduled trip.
“Oh, jeez!” Russell mumbled, wiping a blob of drool from his chin.
“You were sacked out,” the flight attendant informed him. “Welcome to Nashville.”
For a moment, Russell felt like a princess in a fairy tale, having been brought out of a spell by the kiss of a handsome prince. Except, unlike storybooks he’d known as a child, there was no kiss, and this dream interrupter had ebony skin, thick, wet lips, and deep brown eyes. “Thank you,” — Russell took notice of the name tag pinned to the jolly fellow’s ample, uniformed chest — “Jamal.”
It was suddenly evident to Russell that something inside him had changed. He was looking into the eyes of another man with new eyes of his own, eyes that automatically x-rayed through skin-deep features in search of soul-deep substance. At close examination, Jamal wasn’t exceptionally attractive. There was a gap between his front teeth, his cherubic cheeks were pock-marked and his chin was on the weak side. But, Russell found something entrancing in his smile. He felt a sudden impulse to lay a lip lock on this mysterious stranger. But, he restrained himself. For an eternal five seconds, the two men gazed at one another. The flight attendant was the one to break the silence. “We have to...” he began.
“Absolutely!” Russell extended his right hand. “Russell, by the way.” Jamal’s palm was as cushy and comforting as his voice.
“Nice meeting you, Russell.” Jamal straightened up and took a single stride toward the galley before stopping and turning around. “Maybe we’ll cross paths again.”
“I hope so.” Russell wasn’t absolutely certain he’d said this out loud. The flight attendant smiled and strutted off to finish up whatever final tasks remained.
Russell hadn’t anticipated “again” happening so soon. As Jamal appeared on the down escalator, Russell’s heartbeat accelerated. Instinctively, like a ragamuffin child about to meet the mayor, he licked the heel of his hand and attempted to push a shock of disheveled slept-on hair back from over his ear. From across the expanse, Jamal pranced toward Russell like a black stallion after winning the Kentucky Derby. Self-consciously, Russell avoided staring, directing his sight line toward anything but the approaching flight attendant. As Jamal swept by, pulling his carry-on bag, Russell couldn’t resist giving him a quick glance, long enough to catch a wink in his direction so subtle that it would have been indiscernible to anyone but him.
Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Russell wondered. In the past, he’d shared meaningful eye contact with many men. But, those unspoken messages were simple and puerile: I’m interested in getting it on... now, no strings attached. Are you in? But, in Austin, Russell spent an entire night with another man, during which the shared currency had been much more than touch and saliva. Names and deep intimacy were exchanged as well. From this juncture forward, eye-language would be taking on new dimensions of potential import. Russell would no longer be playing a simple game of pong. He was now engaged in a far more complex game of three-dimensional chess, with each move leading to a nearly infinite number of possible outcomes.
“He’s no Denzel Washington,” joshed Mary Ann, “but I could pretend if the room was dark enough.” Mary Ann had sidled up next to Russell, who was standing, stone-still and lost in pensive contemplation, observing the flight attendant glide gracefully through the revolving exit door.
“Shit!” Russell responded, clutching his palpitating heart. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” In spite of having been so abruptly shaken from his trance, Russell couldn’t stop gawking at Jamal who was, by now, crossing the street. As the subject of his fascination disappeared into the parking structure, the wistful sigh he emitted only added fuel to the notion Mary Ann had been formulating for the last day and a half.
“Just kidding, of course,” she said, yanking her luggage toward the exit. “That one would much rather fuck you than me.” Although Russell hoped she was right, he was not about to reaffirm such an insensitive quip. Oddly, although he had always felt umbrage upon hearing derisive statements like this one — more often uttered by ignorant, insecure persons of the masculine persuasion — this was the first time he’d ever taken such a remark personally. He had felt a connection with the subject of Mary Ann’s mockery. Too, a recent overnight with the Chicago bear had put him in closer touch with his own queer identity.
Out on the sidewalk, Russell started toward the shuttle stop. Mary Ann, however, would have none of her “friend” having to pay for what she characterized as “a lonesome, bumpy ride home in a short bus.”
“I really wouldn’t want to take you out of your way,” Russell responded, before gratefully accepting her offer. Although she hid it well, Mary Ann was elated, having successfully commandeered an extra 25 minutes for additional poking and prying.
≈ ≈ ≈
“I feel bad...” Mary Ann confessed, as she merged her Beamer into Interstate traffic, “... about what I said about the flight attendant. I hope you weren’t offended.”
“Why would you think I’d be offended?” Although Russell had taken offense, even personal offense, this evasion was primarily about dissuading any insinuation Mary Ann might be making regarding his sexuality.
“Well, I’m glad you weren’t.” This assumption was a way of assuaging her own guilt. “I usually try to be more sensitive about these things. Live and let live... that’s what I always say.”
“Hmmm...” he teased. “I can’t recall ever hearing you say anything of the kind.”
“Well, you know what I mean.” There was a slight tone of defensiveness in her voice. “I’m not... you know... one of those people.”
“You’re not a homophobe,” he stated.
“Exactly. Thank you.” This exchange was not going how Mary Ann had imagined it would. Theoretically, she’d surmised, opening the floor to a gay theme might make Russell more comfortable about revealing the spicy details she so desired to extract. Her prompt, however, had completely backfired, placing her square in its crosshairs — a stressful posture for someone whose comfort depended upon maintaining maximum control in every situation. Hoping to regain the upper hand, she tried a different approach. “So, how was life on the fifth floor?”
Russell pondered this for a few seconds, unsure where she was going with what, on its face, seemed a completely innocuous line of questioning. “Fine, I guess.” Mary Ann deliberately left a chasm in the dialogue, which Russell couldn’t resist filling. “Probably not much different than any other story in the hotel. Nice view of the golf course and a bunch of fat cats with putters, waddling around in pastel pants. What floor was your room on again?”
“Six,” she said, “... six-thirty-four.” The realization that Mary Ann had been only a few doors down while he and Guy Gallo were indulging in naked intimacy sent a jolt of paranoia through Russell’s entire body. There was no possible way she’d seen or heard something. Or, was there? “I really wish you’d joined us for karaoke on Friday night,” Mary Ann said.
“Yeah, I took a nap,” he responded, relieved by the spontaneous change of subject. “By the time I woke up, it was too late.”
“There was this guy. An agent. Big dude. From Chicago, I think.” With every detail, Russell’s level of discomfort ratcheted up another 10 notches. “Anyway, he did Johnny Cash. The whole place went berserk. In fact, I think you may have met the guy.”
“Guy Gallo.” Russell didn’t see much upside to pretending he didn’t know who Mary Ann was talking about. After all, she’d seen the two of them standing side-by-side in the hotel corridor, outside the men’s room, that very Friday afternoon. Russell’s nether regions awakened at the muscle memory of the Chicago bear’s warm, furry torso. “Funny man,” he remarked. “Really likeable.” The next pause was pregnant with twins. “Not that I know him all that well or anything.”
“Well, he’s not just funny. The dude can sing, too. You really missed an amazing karaoke performance.” Russell hadn’t missed Guy’s performance. In fact, he remembered it vividly, just as he recalled witnessing Mary Ann, in her knee-high, fuck-me boots, leading a column of gal pals in a hurried exit from Ego’s — this all before he’d had a chance to let her know he’d arrived; then, shivering in the frigid, October wind, feeling lonesome and forlorn, and Guy Gallo, in his plaid Pendleton shirt, coming to his emotional rescue.
As the BMW exited the Interstate, Russell chuckled to himself. If Mary Ann had been that impressed by Guy Gallo’s Johnny Cash impression, he could only imagine how awed she might have been by the big man’s midnight sausage-swallowing demonstration. The triple-XL-sized agent from Illinois was a man of many talents, several of which, if Russell had his way, Mary Ann would never find out about.
“What?” Mary Ann pried.
“Oh, nothing,” he answered, “just a private thought.”
“Nothing you can share with a friend?”
Russell saw this reprisal of the friend theme as his opening. “I tell you what,” he proposed. “You fill me in about that too-good-lookin’ young exec in the sharp suit first. And, maybe...”
“Noah Shapiro?” she interrupted. “What do you want to know? V.P. of corporate communications. Lives in Des Moines. Married. Wife’s name is Alice. Three kids.”
“You two seemed pretty cozy. Just sayin’.”
“Okaaaay.” Rather than ending the word, she let the vowel sound fade away. “So, what are you getting at?”
Although Russell couldn’t tell if she was attempting to make light of this surprise left turn in the conversation, if she might be losing her patience or, perish the thought, was growing angry. Regardless, curiosity trumped discretion. “Could Mare Morgan” he inquired, “be a homewrecker?”
Something happened, something Russell could never have anticipated, let alone imagined witnessing. Mary Ann’s steely countenance, her feminine power mask simply vanished. The hurt in her eyes was evident. Her mouth drooped into a forlorn frown. Tears collected in the corners of her eyes. Russell had discovered a heretofore unseen button, the one that lifted the curtain. The Unbreakable Mare Morgan was a real, flesh-and-blood, human woman who, if Russell was reading the tea leaves correctly, was hopelessly in love with a married man.
The vehicle sat idling in the driveway of the Deacon residence. “I’m sorry,” Russell said. “I was completely out of line.”
Mary Ann blew her nose, wiped her cheeks with a tissue, and forced a smile. “Well, at least I don’t have to come home to a spouse and pretend something didn’t happen.”
“Right.” In this context, precisely what Russell had just affirmed was strangely elusive, even to the man giving his agreement breath. If Mary Ann’s declaration had been intended literally, without irony or subtext, Russell’s concurrence was equally direct and unambiguous in its connotation. But, if she was actually suggesting that, unlike her, Russell was returning from the convention weekend harboring a secret he would have to hide from his wife, the word “Right,” although entirely appropriate and sincere, was also an admission that he was about to reenter a world of deception.
“Thanks so much for the lift,” Russell said, as he yanked his suitcase out of the back seat. Mary Ann’s reply was a bloodshot glance in the rearview mirror. He shut the door. As soon as Russell had cleared the path of the vehicle, Mary Ann lost no time, backed out, and drove away.