I went to college, for a time, in the East Central part of the great state of Misery. My grandparents put a roof over my head while I worked in the city and took classes at night. It was a 45 mile ride, east down Interstate 44, from where I lived to where I worked. How that all came about is a long story, I won’t bore you. But those twice daily trips were the source of a lot of adventure. Someone once told me that it was probably because the Interstate had replaced the old Route 66. I didn’t understand the reference until they started singing, ‘Get your kicks, on Route 66’. Whatever the reason, at least once or three times, I met guys that caught my eye during the commute.
At that time in my life, I thought I was ten feet tall and bullet proof. I wasn’t scared of anything because I still thought that none of the bad things that happened in the world would ever happen to me. Or at least if they did happen, they couldn’t be worse than things that had already happened to me. As a result, stopping in a diner or truck stop to have coffee with a total stranger wasn’t something that would give me pause for even a second. I did stop one time and talk to a guy my age that I would see now and then on my way home. But he was getting ready to move to Seattle and I only saw him one more time after we talked.
In late March of the second year that I made that grueling daily trip, a crew began remodeling the fascia of a grocery I passed every day. For several weeks, every morning, one of the construction workers would whistle at me and yell good morning. He looked good up on that scaffolding. His biceps bulged and he was tanned even though it was barely Spring. He had sandy blonde hair, cut short. And if I happened to see him bent over in his tight Levis I had to turn the A/C on high. I always laughed at the cat calls as I waved. There didn’t seem to be any harm in a little flirting. It wasn’t like I would ever see those workers in person.
Later, I began to see the good morning guy driving his truck now and then, as I headed home. The truck was white with a ladder rack. The name of his business was on both side doors. One afternoon we were next to each other in stop and go traffic. He rolled down his window and asked me if I wanted to stop somewhere to have coffee. Not being well schooled in innuendo, I thought he really meant that he wanted to sit and talk and drink coffee, or in my case soda, because I didn’t drink coffee. I thought, what the heck, he definitely curled my toes. We took the Allenton Road exit at Six-Flags and I parked next to him at a restaurant that was conveniently close to a Holiday Inn Express, but I didn’t make the connection.
I got in his truck and we talked. It probably didn’t take him long to figure out that I was completely oblivious to his real intent when he asked me to stop. He seemed really interested in ME so it didn’t occur to me that the encounter was anything more than a guy who wanted to get to know a girl he had been flirting with for several weeks.
I had always had a preference for guys who were a little older. Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet learned to pick up on visual cues or tells. I would have known what the guy was really after had I not missed all of signals during that conversation. Looking back, I realize that at some point the guy decided the situation could easily be more than a one-time hook up. But it was going to take some work.
He said he was 26, had his own business, lived not far from where we stopped, but he wasn’t specific. We talked about my work, school, where I grew up and how I came to be in that part of the country. He asked if I was married or had a boyfriend and I answered no to both. They didn’t seem like unreasonable questions, but I didn’t take the opportunity to ask him if he was in a relationship.
He asked me what I liked to do for fun. I told him that I liked four-wheeling, bowling, camping, boating. He told me he liked all of those things as well and owned a couple of four-wheelers. After we talked for half an hour or so we made plans to go four-wheeling on some property his buddy owned. He asked if I had a girl-friend that would be interested in going with us. But I told him all my close friends were back in Oklahoma. Had any of those girl friends been around they would have hit me upside the head and said, ‘Hello clueless, common sense calling.’
I gave him my number so he could call to tell me when and where we would meet. As the conversation wound down, he took my left hand in his right, intertwined our fingers then pulled me closer. I leaned toward him fairly sure that he was going to kiss me. He looked at me with his bedroom eyes, leaned forward, but then he sat back and sighed. Holding up the piece of paper in his left hand where my phone number was written, he said, ‘I have to tell you something and you may want this back.’
I tried to pull my hand away, but he held on to it. That was my first inkling that this wasn’t some innocent get to know ya. I experienced a brief moment of terror until he relaxed his grip but didn’t let go of my hand. While he hesitated I could hear my heart thundering in my ears. My chest felt tight. I probably would have hyperventilated but he finally said, ‘I’m married. Does that make a difference?’
I’m sure the shock on my face was a testament to how very naïve I was despite all of the things that had happened to me in my 20 short years. I jerked my hand again and this time he let it go. Not even bothering to think it over I said, ‘You’re right, give it back. It makes a huge difference.’
We both leaned back against the seat and stared out the windshield of his truck for a few silent moments. Finally, I opened the truck door and said, ‘You know what, Paul? I gotta go’. He looked at me and said, ‘Are you sure?’ I let out my breath on a frustrated sigh and said, ‘Yeah, I am, but let me ask you something.’ He gripped the steering wheel, eyes suspicious, and said, ‘Okay, what?’ I replied, ‘If you had known I would have a problem with this situation, would you have told me anyway?’ His shoulders slumped in relief as he answered, ‘Yeah, I would have, it’s only fair.’
That’s when I knew this wasn’t his first rodeo.
As I stepped out of the truck he said, ‘Hey wait.’ He handed me a business card and said, ‘If you change your mind, call this number and say you want to remodel your bathroom.’ Finally mastering the fine art of innuendo I said, ‘Do you remodel a lot of bathrooms?’ He said, ‘No, this is my first.’ I knew he was lying. After shutting the truck door, I walked back to my car, disappointed.
I looked at the card laying on my console next to the stick-shift as I accelerated up the west bound on-ramp. With a disgusted sigh I rolled down the glass and flicked the business card out the window.
You’d think that was the end of the story, but it’s not. A week or so later, in stop and go traffic, I looked over and he was in the next lane. He hit the power button to roll down his window. I did the same. He said, ‘This is a sign we were meant to get together.’ ‘Are you still married?’ I asked. He nodded affirmative. I could see the regret on his face when I said, ‘Then no. It isn’t.’ He started to say something else but traffic started moving in my lane. That was the last time I saw him.
