SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 17TH, 2000

7:00 A.M.

“AND I’M gonna drape my leopard print scarf over my head, like this…” I say, motioning with my hands within the confines of the cramped cubicle. “And, of course, I’ve got my Jackie O sunglasses!”

“Of course,” Mark says, crossing one long leg over the other.

“I will be so damn cool in that convertible!”

“That you will, my friend.”

Mark is a police officer and close friend of my husband, Sam. They graduated from the same police recruit class four years ago. I’m a report processor in the Records department with the same police service. Mark and I are just finishing up an incident report. On a Saturday night/Sunday morning shift such as this, the reports are mainly alcohol-related occurrences like impaired driving, assault with a weapon, sexual assault and robbery, or early morning crimes of opportunity, also usually alcohol-related, such as property damage, theft and break and enters. All the good stuff.

Sam’s job is to catch the bad guys; mine is to write about them.

“Got what you needed, Adri?”

“Yup.”

“Say hi to Sam for me,” Mark says, gathering up his papers. “And tell him we’ll have to do lunch again soon.”

“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?” He, Sam and another two of their buddies from recruit class often meet for lunch or beers downtown.

Mark nods. “Too long.”

“I’ll tell him.”

He stands up. “And I hope you guys have an awesome vacation.”

“We will!”

His is the last report of my shift so I sign off the phone, place my logbook, headset and photo of Sam into my locker and drive home.

“WOOHOO…” I whisper in Sam’s ear as I crawl into bed. “We’re on holidays my furry friend!”

Rolling over to face me, he grins and mumbles, “Spoon.”

I flip over, so my back is touching his chest, and he wraps an arm around me. Our dog, a Shepherd-cross, jumps up on the end of the bed and all three of us fall asleep.

When I wake up, Sam has both our bags packed and has taken the dog and her little blue suitcase filled with cookies, chew toys and a blanket to the kennel.

My mom drives us to the airport and the three of us have dinner together before catching our flight to Los Angeles. Sam seems OK with this arrangement, which surprises me because his relationship with my mother has been pretty much derailed since our wedding four years ago. Sam is Greek Orthodox; I’m not. Sam is strong-willed and stubborn; so is my mother. We ended up getting married in an Anglican Church ceremony, which Sam had agreed to for me. I had insisted upon this partly to appease my mother and partly because I strongly disagreed with a condition the Greek Orthodox Church would have placed upon us. Had we been married there, we would’ve had to promise to baptize and raise any future children Greek Orthodox. I refused to make a promise I did not agree with and therefore could not keep. My mother hadn’t acknowledged Sam’s religious sacrifice—for not being married in his church means not being buried by it—and relations between Sam and my mother had never improved.

Anyway, the airport restaurant uses a big piece of brown paper as a tablecloth and guests are given a bunch of crayons to draw with.

“Hi,” our waitress says, writing her name upside down on the tablecloth so we can read it.

When she leaves, Sam and I try writing our names upside down—but he gets the first letter backward and we laugh.

After dinner, we ditch my mom at security and head to our departure gate, where we’re waiting for our flight to LAX when I tell Sam that the last report of my shift had been with Mark. He asks me how Mark is doing.

“He seemed fine. I mean, he looked OK.”

“Looked?” Sam shifts in his chair to face me. “Wasn’t he on the phone?”

“No. He came right into Records to give his report.”

“But don’t most of us phone the reports in?”

“Usually, yeah. Anyway, he said to say hi and to…”

I’m interrupted by the announcement of our names over the loudspeaker. Sam and I look at each other then walk over to the departure counter.

“Are we at the right gate?” I ask the woman, handing her my ticket.

She looks at it. “No. This flight is going to Toronto.”

Sam and I sprint through the airport to the correct gate, just in time to catch our flight to LA.

“That was odd,” I say, once we’re on the plane. “I could’ve sworn we were at the right gate.”

“Me too.”

We arrive into LAX around 10:00 p.m., pick up our red rental convertible, put the top down and head east toward Vegas.

Once we’re past the city limits, Sam leans back in his chair and looks to the sky. “Check out those stars, eh?”

We drive in silence for awhile. Then I thank him for having dinner with my mom.

“She’s a control freak,” he says, “but I do admire her strength.”

I turn to him. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“Seriously, Adri. She did a great job raising you and your brothers on her own. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

He smiles. “But now she has to let you go.”

“It’s hard for mothers to do that—no matter what age their kids are.”

“I’m sure it is. But if they’ve done their job well, what’s the problem?”

“She’s alone, Sam. That’s the problem.”

He looks at me. “Not yours, it isn’t.”

Tonight, we make it as far as Barstow.

AFTER A mammoth American breakfast in the morning, we continue toward Vegas. But as cool as I look in my leopard scarf and Jackie O sunglasses, somewhere around Baker I start feeling uncomfortably warm.

“Uh Sam, it’s getting pretty hot. I think you’re gonna have to put the top up.”

“No problem.” He pulls over and puts the top up.

Twenty minutes later, I ask him to put it down again. He pulls over and does so. Ten minutes after that, I tell him I’m too hot again.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he snaps, “this is ridiculous!”

“I can’t help it! I’m melting over here.”

“We’re almost there.”

“Fine.” I yank off my scarf, as the wind’s whipping it into my eyes, and replace it with a ballcap.

“You’re such a baby sometimes, Adri.”

“I am not. You just happen to enjoy an inhuman level of heat.”

“You were the one who insisted on renting a convertible.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining.”

“Well it’s costing us a bloody fortune.”

“It’s a little fucking late to tell me that now.”

“Nice language,” he says. “You sound like a sailor.”

We drive in silence until the Vegas hotels come into view.

“Wow!” I say.

Sam nods. “Very cool.”

But when we’re checking into our swanky hotel, our credit card gets declined. Mortified, Sam phones the bank to sort it out and is told the rental car agency has put a hold on funds. The bank agrees to temporarily raise our credit limit. Again.

After taking our suitcases up to the room, we test the bed just to make sure it’s working properly, and then head out onto the Strip in search of the ultimate buffet. We make it a block when Sam spies a store advertising helicopter rides.

“That’d be awesome,” he says.

“Let’s see what it would cost.”

“It’ll be too expensive.”

I shrug. “It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

We go in and Sam asks the girl at the counter what a ride would cost.

“It depends on where you want to go, sir.”

I smile at the “sir.” Though only thirty-two, Sam’s black hair is already two thirds gray, making him appear significantly older.

“How about the Grand Canyon?” he says.

“That would be about $500 for the two of you.”

Food is more affordable. After a dinner of all the shrimp, crab legs, prime rib and bread pudding we can stuff in, we waddle over to the “must see” buccaneer show. The pirates fighting over our heads is nothing spectacular, but the way Sam stands behind me, with his arms tightly wrapped around my torso, is. Public shows of affection are rare.

Back in our hotel room, we make love again. Sam’s on top so the pendants on his chain—his baptismal cross and St. Jude medal—keep hitting me in the mouth.

I shift them around so that they’re resting on his back. “That’s better,” I say.

He smiles. “Protecting those perfect teeth of yours, are ya?”