“Meet me in Wuhan.”
Those were the words that lifted me out of my slumber that early Friday morning. I didn’t need to ask – those dulcet tones could only have come from the mouth of a certain European seductress:
the petite, ever sprightly Fran Blauchamp. I pressed the phone to myear and tried my best to respond to her primordial mating call.
“How you doin’?”
“Come to me.”
“I looked for you. For years. I thought you’d run away to Paris.”
“Oh no, I found a place much more romantic. For starters, it doesn’t smell like the piss of Japanese tourists here.”
Her rapier wit had not diminished with age.
“China,” I said. “Just like we always talked about. Where are you, exactly?”
“I’ll text you the address of my hotel. You’d love it here. It’s hot. The food’s great. Plus, you can do your banking on a Sunday! There’s a flight leaving tonight at seven. There’re two layovers, through Dallas and Pyongyang. Tickets start at $3500.”
Dallas? No, thank you, I thought to myself.
I sat up in bed and closed my eyes. Fran Blauchamp. I felt the imagery pulsing through my temples – the smooth, olive skin, that tropical, private island – the one visible from our Holiday Inn SuperSavers suite – that vagina, white sand beaches, shade from palm trees, two bell boys knife fighting along the docks, the ruffled bedsheets, a three-legged dog, Diet Sprite, more vagina, a bottle of
lube leaking onto a copy of Gideon’s Bible.
“You know I’d love to, Fran. But… it’s complicated.”
“Wuhan – do I really need to say any more to convince you?”
She was right. Memories started pouring in. Thirteen years ago we spent four unforgettable days together in Aruba. Two lonely stars crossing paths in the cosmos. I still thought of her fondly every time I stayed at, walked past, or saw commercials for, hotels.
“Just imagine,” she continued. “You and me. Wuhan, China. The Hong Kong of the East. The Pearl of the Clam. Sin City. The Big Hot and Steamy. Fuck Town. Gateway to the Ass.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“Sounds like one hell of a tourism board.”
I took a sip of water to calm my nerves. “That covers the nights. But that still leaves our days free, though.”
“Well, we can do what everyone else here does.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh, mostly wander around watching people fight with traffic cops.”
“That does sound tempting. But…”
I hesitated. I looked over at the picture on my nightstand. Guilt began to creep up my spine. Then I turned over the pamphlet to feed starving children I knew I was going to ignore. But the guilt
remained as my eyes reached back to the photo of my current girlfriend propped farther along the nightstand.
“But I just can’t. I’m seeing someone now.”
“You mean the 9/11 widow?”
I wasn’t sure how she could’ve known. The guilty tingling worsened. I drank some more water.
“She doesn’t have to know. Make something up. People come to Wuhan on business all the time.”
She was really reaching with that one – I could sense the desperation in her voice. Nobody would ever buy that. I tried to think of excuses. To buy time, I started hacking up phlegm into the
small trash can near my bed. I then decided to go on the offensive. “Is there something wrong, Fran?”
“Of course not. It’s just that, me staying in a hotel and all, I naturally thought of you.”
The tension throughout my body worsened. I started chugging any water I could find to calm myself down. “It’s just… I haven’t seen you in thirteen years, right?”
“Almost fourteen.”
“A lot can happen in fourteen years. People might switch jobs or move to a different house, crazy as that sounds.”
“I know.”
“I looked for you for a long time.”
“I know,” she repeated.
A great silence bore down upon us. I thought I’d hack up some more phlegm to break the icy chill, but my throat was all cleared out. Instead of just tiptoeing around it, I decided to take the ball straight
down the lane, see if I could draw a charge.
“Did I mention I’m dating a 9/11 widow?”
“I actually mentioned that.”
“Well, you know, it’s not like I can just…”
“Of course you can.”
The silence returned. I thought I’d let her bring the ball up the court this time. We played this game of cat-and-mouse for five minutes. She finally relented.
“Do you remember when we met?”
I did. We had met coming off some of the biggest disasters of our lives. Her parents had recently passed in a climbing accident in the Apennines; I had just missed two free throws that cost our team an eighth seed. I suppose when our eyes met across the room of that party we could sense it. Through the lines of tears streaming down her face, I could sense a great sadness.
Of course, I never put much credence in the idea that eyes are the window to the soul. For starters, most scientists will tell you souls can’t even be measured.
(Plus, all the time I’ve spent with hardened criminals, I’ve learned the eyes can be used just as easily to deceive. Like when you got a gun on a guy, and then he looks at something behind you and
yells, but when you turn around, there’s nothing really there and he was just pretending, and now he’s running away.)
Fran had a friend at Holiday Inn corporate who had gotten us a great package deal in Aruba. I ran off with her for four days. We made love. We talked. We shared long walks along the seaside. We got first aid certifications. We became proficient in Mandarin. We finished a game of Risk.
“Duh,” I said finally.
She laughed. A lot. But then her tone changed.
“The pain we shared, that will always be a part of us. The anguish that brought us to embrace, it will never leave us. The despair that you shot inside me, and sometimes in and around my mouth, will forever remain.”
“But we can move on. We can rebuild. It’s what makes us human.”
She paused, and then continued.
“For you, maybe. But I’ve been running a long time. I thought the pieces would be there for me to pick up, once I found the right place. But I don’t think I ever will.”
For some reason, it didn’t seem like she was flirting anymore.
“Forget I called.”
“I want to help you.”
“Don’t worry. This didn’t turn into that kind of call. I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.”
She hung up. It was now approaching midday. I put on my clothes and headed for work.