Our trusty, rusty open-air shuttle meandered for a few minutes through what seemed more like an auto parts junkyard than an airport before arriving in front of one of the larger concrete block buildings. We were seated in two facing rows on either side of the paneled flatbed. Valerie sat next to me on my right. However, had we not been wearing similar attire you would not have recognized that we actually knew each other. She had replicated her onboard pose from the plane: staring quietly out into the distance. Finally, after we had jumped down from the back of the truck and were headed towards an opening in the concrete wall, I gently (and carefully) touched her shoulder. She turned in response, and even though I could not see eyes concealed behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses, I knew from the straight (unmoving) line of her mouth that she might be a bit concerned. OK, pissed.
“The good news is that our resort host driver will probably be out front, holding a sign with our name on it. He’ll take our bags and put them into the small, cozy van and we’ll be taken to the property.” I presented this message with a reassuring smile and tender squeeze on her shoulder, to which I added with a lift in my voice, “Hey, we can handle this. It’s the island way.”
At this point in our marriage I had known Valerie for eleven years, during which time we had dated, frolicked, consummated, laughed, cried and dealt with the typical kinds of things that couples deal with in a relationship. And we always found a way to make the most of every situation, and then move on. Of course, these eleven years had been spent in the United States of America; the home of the brave, land of the free and where the closest we had ever been to experiencing a third world country was a hotel without room service and an ice machine in the hallway. In those rare instances when I had unwittingly delivered what might be best termed another Brian Moment, Valerie had come to develop “the look.”
The Look:
- The aforementioned straight lined, unmoving lips;
- Head tilted upwards at a slight right angle;
- Translucent sky-blue eyes morphed into scorching cobalt flames;
- Body language inappropriate for minors;
- Steely, cold silence.
It’s a good thing this trip happened many years before the airing of Desperate Housewives. I felt (guardedly) confident that if we got through baggage claim and customs we would be fine.
We passed through the large opening and entered the ”baggage claim” area. The space was reminiscent of the interior of an dilapidated barn, dotted with wooden crates, dented folding chairs and a single ceiling fan that looked ominously ready to break loose; it was hung with a series of frayed wires and wobbled as it turned ever soooooooo slowly. I doubt that even the small ribbon of flies circling the blades’ perimeter felt any ripple of a breeze. Outside a rope that separated the arriving passengers from official entry into this province of Her Majesty the Queen, were about twenty or so “large, sinewy and rock-solid with luminous dark skin” men of Tortola. Most of them appeared exhausted and were propped up against the wall, a few of them walking slowly and scanning the people in the baggage area. I thought to myself that they must be looking for friends, family members or their returning livestock.
The sharp, rasping sound of metal rubbing against metal split the silence as the exterior door was lifted up to reveal the back end of another pickup truck. Piled high in the bed was a mound of luggage that, after a brief flurry of movement, was tossed into an open metal bin just inside the opening. We wormed our way forward with the crowd and, to our surprise and amazement, our luggage was all there.
The brief rush of gratitude and optimism was so potent, that it must have burst through my outer tantric aura and pierced into Valerie’s; standing to her left I noticed that she had softly grinned and let out a long sigh in unison with my own. She must have felt the same energy shift in the room, because she turned towards me and lifted her face to meet my gaze. The spark igniting in my belly was instantaneous. It was the same feeling I had the first time that I saw Valerie walk into the trendy shoe store I managed in Norman, Oklahoma a decade earlier.
“Baby…” Valerie was apparently lightening up a bit, given the fact that she had leaned closer and was now sans sunglasses and making direct eye contact with me. Her expression was the most tranquil it had looked since the first hour of the flight from San Francisco to Puerto Rico. “…this is good sign. I was convinced they had lost the bags and I’d be wearing these same clothes for the next week.”
Noticing that I was releasing a few pounds of the stress that I had added to my posture, she continued, “We can do this, you know. It’s the island way.”
My pulse quickened and I was feeling renewed energy. I knew we had made it through the gauntlet. We had not surrendered our exotic, luxurious dreams to a few minor inconveniences along the way.
It was our time.
I sighed a final punctuation to the moment, “The island way is the only way. Let’s get out of here, baby.”
All we had to do now was go outside and wait at the shuttle area for our driver host to whisk us away to the splendid arms of Long Bay Beach Resort.
For emphasis – (b)
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