Friday night, I go to pick up Travis at JFK airport. I wait for him at the arrivals, holding one of those silly cardboard signs, Mr. Mayor written in black marker on a white background. At least until I check the arrivals board, and a red-dotted message informs me his plane has been delayed by one hour.
I alert my driver of the delay—my company has a discount rate with a luxury airport shuttle service employees can use. Cardboard sign under one arm, I go sit on a row of plastic chairs, wondering if this is how I’ll spend all my weekends from now on: in and out of airports in a never-ending struggle to see Travis whenever I can.
The minutes trickle down incredibly slow, but when his flight status finally switches to ‘Landed,’ all the energy and excitement flow back into my body. I stand up, sign in hand, and go wait for him at the gate.
Travis is a standout in the mismatched crowd of casual-dressed tourists: tall, overwhelmingly handsome in a black T-shirt and jeans—and mine!
When he spots me, his smile is dazzling. He meanders through the other passengers to get to me faster, and then I’m in his arms and we’re kissing.
“How was your flight?” I ask when we finally let go of each other.
“Late. But I’m glad I’m here now.”
Travis talks with the same resentful tone I was using in my head earlier as if the airline purposely stole sixty of our precious minutes together.
At least the limo is waiting for us outside when we finally make it out of the crowded airport.
“This for us?” Travis asks, surprised.
“Yep, you’re getting the VIP treatment, Mr. Mayor.”
“You shouldn’t call me that in public.”
I lean in to whisper in his ear. “The car has dark, tinted windows, and the passenger compartment is soundproof.”
***
Our tryst in the limo takes enough off the edge that when we get to my apartment, we’re sufficiently out of lust to order a late dinner.
“We just ate Thai at midnight,” Travis says, arranging the white take-out cartons on the coffee table by the couch.
“It’s easy to forget how it is to live in this city, huh?”
“I’m just so used to everything in Emerald Creek being closed by nine-thirty except for the White Hart.”
“Yeah, I miss the pub. Amber had gotten really good at making martinis.”
“Please, don’t remind me of your cocktails at the White Hart,” Travis says, unbuttoning my shirt.
“What, why not?”
“Because…” Travis trails off, his hands still on my shirt. “I still remember you in that dress, trying to take away my sanity.”
“What dress?” I play dumb. “The green one with the white heart polka dots?”
“No,” Travis says, unfastening another button. “The other dress.”
“Oooooh, the naked dress, then.”
“You call it the naked dress?” Travis chuckles. “Admit you wore it just to torture me.”
“If I remember correctly, you were the one playing hard to get at the time.”
Travis’s face turns serious. “I was a fool to waste even a single night with you.”
“Agreed.” I lean in and kiss him. “But you’ve made up for it since.”
“I try very hard,” Travis says, the corners of his mouth quirking up as he finally succeeds in taking off my shirt.
“Yes, you do an excellent job, Mr. Mayor.”
***
The next morning I’m torn between spending all day in bed, part sleeping and part doing obvious other things, and getting the most out of the day with Travis in New York.
“What do you want to do today?” I ask as we both stir awake.
His wolfish stare tells me he’d be more of the stay-in-bed-all-day school of thought, so I clarify, “I meant in the city, with clothes on.”
Travis groans in mock protest. “What do you do on Saturdays?”
I check the time from the alarm clock on my nightstand. “Well, I’m about three and a half hours late for my Pilates class, for starters. But we’re in time for brunch.”
“Oh, there’s this French bistro I used to go to.”
“I was thinking of taking you to a French place, what was the name of yours?” I ask, then putting my hands forward, I add, “No, wait, we say it together on three. Ready?”
He nods.
“One, two…”
“Lafayette,” we say in chorus.
I swat him. “Oh my gosh, you’re such a New Yorker.”
Travis brushes imaginary dirt off his shoulders, hip-hop dancer style. “Just gotta take some of the rust off.”
And the day goes exactly like that. Like we’ve lived together in New York City forever and this is just another Saturday for us. It’s amazing how perfectly we fit in Manhattan or in Emerald Creek. Country, metropolis, it doesn’t matter. We’re good together.
***
The high of the weekend quickly evaporates on Monday morning as I have to put Travis in a cab headed for the airport. The goodbye is just as gut-wrenching as it was when I left Emerald Creek only a few days ago. How many of these can I survive? How long before one of us gets tired?
As the weeks progress, I learn the hard way why so many long-distance relationships fail. I can see my disappointment mirrored in Travis’s eyes as we video chat one night and discover the weekend he has to work at his mother’s ranch for some unpostponable farming job, I have a work event in New York I can’t skip. Or feel his frustration when our flights get delayed more often than not. I’m equally frustrated.
Another weekend Travis’s flight gets canceled altogether and then postponed to the next day, cutting our little time together even shorter. We try to put a brave face on it. Joke about it even. But underneath the surface, I can tell the distance and traveling are taking their toll.
The next weekend is my turn to go to Emerald Creek. I book a connecting flight since there were no direct flights compatible with my schedule. But then I spend all of Friday dreading one or the other flight being delayed and me having to spend the night by myself in Washington, DC or some other random city.
Thankfully, I don’t. And my stay in Emerald Creek almost goes smoothly. At least until my Outlook calendar updates around lunchtime on Sunday, informing me Winthrop has scheduled a meeting for us on Monday morning at eight.
What a dick move. Who schedules a meeting that early on a Monday? I do it only when I want to put someone off their game, show them who’s boss. Oh my gosh, is that what Winthrop wants to do to me? Why?
I don’t have time to wonder as I literally have to drop everything in the middle of lunch to reschedule my flights. I had planned to take an early one on Monday morning that would get me to the office at ten-ish—a totally acceptable hour for an executive. Now I have to catch a red-eye, and Travis has to drive me all the way to Indianapolis because there are no late-night flights out of Louisville.
Not exactly a happy ending to our weekend.
The ride in the truck is silent. Tense. We’re both angry, not at each other, but at the circumstances that seem to keep wanting to pull us apart.
By the time Travis pulls up to the curb at the airport, I’m so rigid I’d break if I tried even the easiest of stretches. We try to keep our goodbyes loving, but it’s clear how unsatisfied we both are. And I have a bad feeling about tomorrow’s meeting. I’m afraid things are about to get a lot worse.