THE REST OF MY VACATION was uneventful after that. Well, how can you compare anything to the company I’d shared that night on the beach? In fact, I didn’t even remember driving home that night. I guess my brain just went on automatic pilot, and come to think of it, I’d been in a sort of trance ever since. I mean, if this guy really was who he said he was, he obviously had no interest in passing judgment on me. And I don’t have to tell you what a relief that was. In fact, he had acknowledged that it takes courage to ask questions. He had even called me a “truth seeker,” and suddenly I had a sense of myself that no amount of bodybuilding had ever given me.
In a way, I kind of felt sorry for him. I thought he got a bum rap here on earth. I mean, it seems people have always depicted God as some very narrow-minded, judgmental being who delights in dishing out his version of justice. But if everyone could spend just one moonlit hour on the beach with him like I did, they would see that nothing could be farther from the truth. The man apparently had been totally misunderstood, and I could certainly relate to that.
On the day of my departure, my only regret was that I hadn’t run into him again before my vacation ended. I’d gone out of my way to hang out in the places where I first met him, but it was as though he had disappeared off the face of the earth. I kept hanging on to the fact that he had alluded to future conversations with me, but I had a two PM flight that day for LA, so I didn’t hold out much hope.
I have always preferred physical labor to mental calisthenics. I’d rather move a mountain than solve a problem any day. My idea of hell is having to think at all, and it’s not because I’m dumb or anything like that; it’s just that I suppose my parents and my grade-school teachers may have been right. I’m “mentally lazy.” Yet, surprisingly, Joe had made the whole thinking process not only painless but enjoyable, and I was fascinated. I only wished we had talked more about my future and about my goal of being a Vegas lounge singer. I wondered what advice he would have given me.
None of that mattered now. My vacation was over and I had to get back to LA. I supposed I might never see him again, and I decided to be grateful for having spent even that one hour with him. How many people could claim that? Not that I had any intention of telling anyone. I told you I’m not dumb.
I turned in my rented Camaro at Newark Airport and headed for my direct flight to LA. I didn’t look forward to going back to work at the club later that night, but it would be nice to get back to the familiar refuge of my condo. If Nick, the Pink Pussycat’s owner, and Anthony, his weasel of a son, thought I had attitude before this vacation, they had better watch out now. I had something that went beyond “buff.” God or “Joe” or whoever he was had said he cherished me, and what could be more empowering than that?
I checked my bags and thought I recognized the skycap as the same one who had taken them for me at the baggage claim when I arrived. It was hard to tell at first because he kept his head down. “Are you sure this is all, ma’am?” he mumbled as he loaded my luggage onto a cart.
I was busy digging through my wallet for some singles and distractedly said, “Yeah, why?”
“I remember this luggage,” he said. “You don’t see too many flamingo pink ones. Seems to me you had more when you got here, though. You sure you didn’t leave a bag somewhere?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I said, a little annoyed that this skycap suddenly thought he was my mother. No doubt he was just looking for a bigger tip.
He had his back to me when he spoke, but his voice was achingly familiar. “You see how you are?” he teased. “Always the rebel.”
“Joe,” I breathed, wide-eyed, and waited for him to turn around.
“Fact is, you did leave some baggage behind.” He grinned, turning to face me and swallowing me in those enormous, brown velvet eyes. “It may not have been flamingo pink, but I’d venture to say you’re feeling a lot less burdened without it.”
I was aghast. “What are you doing here? … How did you … ? Was that really you when I first got here?”
He stood there grinning at me, thoroughly enjoying my embarrassment. “You didn’t think I’d lot you go without saying good-bye, did you?”
“Come with me!” I suddenly urged. I was just beginning to realize that this man was capable of creating any situation he wanted to.
“I have every intention of coming with you,” he said seriously. “Just try losing me. It’s impossible.”
“Well, we better hurry if we’re going to get you a ticket,” I foolishly suggested. “My flight departs in a few minutes.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” he said, placing both hands gently on my shoulders. “One of the privileges of being who I am is not having to sit in those tiny, cramped seats for over five hours,” he said, grinning. He brought his right forefinger to his lips, planted a kiss on the tip, then placed it softly over my lips. “I’ll see you when you get out there, California Dreamer.” He smiled. “Have a good trip.”
With that, he turned and faded into the fast-forwarded crowd of the chaotic airport. I stood for a long time pressing my fingers to that place on my lips, mesmerized as much by his touch as by the cloud of serenity he seemed to leave in his wake. When I finally took my fingers from my lips, there was a piece of silver glitter on one of them.
It wasn’t until a woman pushing a baby stroller ran over my toes as she barreled toward her gate that I remembered I had a plane to catch. Clutching my carry-on bag, I got to the gate just as my plane was boarding.
Settled comfortably in a window seat, I had time to sit back and reflect quietly on all that had happened on my vacation. Not surprisingly, there had been all the usual tensions and nitpicking that have gone on in my family for as long as I can remember. They all think I make my living as a makeup artist to the stars, and I do nothing to discourage that image. Naturally, we argued, criticized, and accused each other of all kinds of misdeeds and shortcomings while I was home, just like old times. Old, miserable times. But I’ve learned a few survival tactics over the years, and now I don an invisible coat of armor that doesn’t allow the craziness to get to me. When the end of my visit mercifully arrives, we sweep our differences under the rug, kiss good-bye, and try to act like normal people till the next time I visit and the cycle begins again. It doesn’t even faze me anymore.
What did faze me, however, was the fact that I had met God, himself, on this vacation. If I had doubted it at first, I was absolutely certain of it now, and that struck me as very funny. If I were God, I think the last person on earth I would hang out with would be me.
I stopped believing in God when I was in the second grade at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic grammar school. I remember how the nuns used to drag us into church every day during Lent and how we used to have to sit there quietly, praying and atoning for our sins.
Inevitably, I would run out of sins to atone for, even though Sister Mary Margaret said that was impossible. I would just sit there staring at the murals painted on the walls and the ceiling, scaring myself to death, which I suppose was better than boring myself to death by atoning. Those pictures were absolutely horrifying to a six-year-old.
There was this one painting of all these people who were burning in hell for their sins. Apparently they were naked, but all you could see were their bare arms reaching up from the white-hot inferno and their agonized faces begging for mercy as flames licked their charred bodies. Sometimes if I listened really carefully, I could swear I actually heard them screaming. Those pictures spooked me for years, and to this day, they sometimes haunt my dreams. That’s why, at the age of six, it was easier to believe that there really wasn’t a God, just a bunch of weird people who paint pictures on church walls to terrify little kids into behaving themselves. Apparently, it doesn’t always work.
Now, here was God, hanging out on the beach with me, patiently teaching me some of the things Sister Mary Margaret had tried to beat into me. Not only did I find myself suddenly believing in God after all these years, but I was falling a little bit in love with him to boot. That ought to cost me some major penance. I just hoped I wouldn’t end up depicted in a mural on some church wall.
It was late afternoon when I landed in Los Angeles, thanks to the three-hour time difference. I made my way to the baggage claim at the chaotic LAX, absently reading limo drivers’ signs with peoples names written with black felt-tip pens. I always figured if I had a kid someday, this would be a good way to pick out a name, since there’s such a variety.
I stood at the number three carousel, watching the array of luggage circle the travel-weary crowd. I noticed one particularly beat-up-looking bag go by at least three times without anyone claiming it, and I found myself almost overcome with sympathy for it. That’s exactly how I had felt so many times in my life, like a leftover suitcase that just keeps going around and around, hoping someone will save it from its endless, circular journey.
Shrugging off that depressing thought, I spotted my two pink bags and hoisted them onto the rental cart beside me. Heading toward the long-term parking lot, my luggage in tow, I noticed one of those handwritten placards with my name on it. I blinked and looked again, and sure enough, “Heather Hurley,” it read.
I recognized the long graceful hands holding the sign, even before I noticed the familiar jeans and T-shirt and high-top sneakers. I no longer needed to see Joe’s face to recognize him because every inch of him was undeniably “Joe.” There he stood, in the middle of the LAX, smiling from ear to ear as he watched my astonished reaction.
“I hope you don’t plan to strap my luggage to your Harley,” I quipped, trying to contain the utter joy that was fluttering around in my heart.
“I don’t like to draw that much attention to myself,” he answered seriously. “I figured we’d take your car,” he said, tossing the placard with my name on it into the nearby garbage bin. “That was just so I wouldn’t miss you.”
In an unlikely fit of affection, I blurted out, “Well, I did miss you in a way.”
He just smiled and wrapped a strong arm around me while he pushed my cart with the other. “I know you have to work tonight,” he went on, without even a trace of the disapproval I was half expecting. “But I thought I’d keep you company on the way home, if you don’t mind.”
If I don’t mind?! If I don’t mind?! Didn’t he know how thrilled I was to see him again? I smiled up at him and realized by the smug grin on his face, that of course he knew.
When we reached the car, Joe took the keys from me and deftly loaded my luggage into the trunk, then opened the passenger door for me. “Okay with you if I drive?” he asked.
It was more than okay as far as I was concerned. Ordinarily I would never let a man slip so casually into my car or into my life, but with Joe it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Somehow I never felt like he was intruding on me or invading my privacy. I had never felt this comfortable with a man before, and I liked the feeling.
We talked and laughed the whole way home, and by the time we pulled into the garage beneath my condo, I desperately did not want to work tonight. “All good things must come to an end, I suppose,” I muttered softly as I let myself out of the car and noticed Joe’s Harley parked in the guest parking space.
“That’s not necessarily true,” Joe replied nonchalantly, lifting my bags from the trunk. “All the good things are here, right this very minute, just waiting to begin. Waiting for you to discover them.”
I stared blankly at him for a moment until the ring of the elevator startled me into speech. “Yeah, well, the good things will have to wait till I get off work tonight,” I said sadly. “I don’t suppose there are too many wondrous moments waiting for me there.”
“You have a choice you know, Heather,” he said quietly.
“Oh, don’t start that,” I retorted defensively. “If I don’t work, I don’t survive. It’s as simple as that, and I don’t really feel like talking about it right now,” I added, taking my bags from him and dropping them inside the waiting elevator.
He smiled gently and placed his long, graceful hand on the elevator door, preventing it from closing. “When would you like to talk about it?” he asked sincerely.
“Never,” I grunted.
“How about tomorrow?” he asked pleasantly. “We could go to the beach on my Harley. The beach is always a great place for important talks, don’t you think?”
“What I think,” I answered Impatiently, “is that I’m going to be late for work if I don’t get upstairs and unpack some of this stuff right this minute.”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “You’ll be late for something that you hate, and you wouldn’t want to do that.”
I studied him for a hint of criticism or impatience in his tone but found none. He was only speaking the truth. The truth that I wasn’t willing to hear just yet.
“Look, I don’t have time to argue,” I insisted. “I’ll see you around, okay?”
His smile widened then, and he looked at me knowingly. “I’ll pick you up at noon,” he said with a wink, “and bring your bathing suit.” He sauntered toward his bike, and I heard the laughter in his voice as he called over his shoulder, “Surf’s up, dude.”