CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Returning from her three o'clock Friday class ("Charcoal and the Female Libido"), Sharon was surprised to see the Corvette still in the driveway. Stranger yet, it was devoid of tarp. She hurriedly parked the van on the curb and hastened into the house.
Al was in the living room, setting a garment bag on top of the large suitcase. He looked up as she entered and grinned. "Hey, beautiful," he said.
"What's this?" Sharon asked.
"I'm packing," Al said. "I picked out a few things for you, but I figured you'd probably want to choose your own lingerie. You know: surprise me."
"But… where are we going?" she queried, coming further into the room.
"You said you wanted a bath," Al said. "I figured this would be more fun than trying to overhaul that closet we call a bathroom."
Sharon laughed. She hadn't even seen him on her birthday, but he had remembered after all! He was taking her to a motel! "I'll be ready in twenty minutes!" she said blithely, hurrying towards the bedroom.
"Sure. I'm just going to take Chester over to Celestina's," Al said.
Sharon paused and turned. "How's he doing?" she asked softly. She didn't feel she needed to specify whom.
"Better," Al said, but there was pain in his eyes.
"Is it working?" Sharon pressed.
"I don't know." Al turned away from her and whistled for the dog. "Chester! C'mere, boy! Chester!" he called brightly
Sharon watched anxiously as Al gathered up the dog and his supplies, and left the house. She would have to try to cheer him up tonight, she decided. God knew he needed it.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM
Twenty-three minutes later they were in the car and heading out of the trailer park. Sharon cuddled close to Al, massaging his stomach fondly. "Where are we going?" she asked.
"That's my surprise," he said with an evasive grin. "Somewhere with a bathtub, I promise."
"Come on!" she wheedled. "You can trust me!"
"Oh, can I?" Al snorted.
"Yes," Sharon told him, affecting indignation. "C'mon, where are we going?"
"Sorry, Mrs. Calavicci, but you don't have clearance to access that information," Al told her.
"Huh?"
"It's top secret," he said smugly.
They were heading out onto the turnpike. Sharon groaned expansively. "You're taking me to the Project?" she asked. "That's your idea of romantic?"
"Starlight, Starbright," Al chanted. "First star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. In your case, a hot bath."
Sharon leaned morosely against her door. "I know what'll happen!" she said, raising her voice to be heard above the wind as the vehicle accelerated. "We'll get there, and some problem will crop up that just has to be taken care of, and I won't see you again all night!"
"Would you relax?" Al upbraided her. "I've got more class than that."
"Sure, that's what you say now, but as soon as someone comes to you with some little issue—"
"No, I mean I've got more class than to take you to work as a birthday treat!" Al exclaimed. "I need a weekend off too, you know!"
"So we're not going to Starbright?" Sharon confirmed.
"No!"
"Oh." She settled back against him. "Okay, then."
A full three minutes' silence elapsed.
"So, where are we going?" Sharon asked at last.
Al only laughed.
MWMWMWMWMWMWWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWWMWM
It didn't take long to deduce that they were headed to Phoenix. Sharon knew this road better than she knew her own kitchen. What she didn't understand was why Al wanted to leave town just to spend the night in a motel. He wasn't giving in to her interrogation, however, and answered each question with good-natured but snarky evasion. After a while, she gave up and sat back to enjoy the ride, the desert wind possessing her hair and the mountains blue and beautiful around her. Al had a tape playing, and she listened with mingled fondness and amusement as he sang along with Dean Martin, his husky voice strong, emphatic, and off-key.
Inevitably, they arrived in Phoenix, and Sharon started trying to scope out the streets and divine where he was taking her. As she grew less and less certain that she had some measure of control over the situation she began to feel rather like a kidnap victim, albeit with a more or less harmless kidnapper.
"You taking me to your home planet, space cadet?" she asked.
Al huffed. "I'll have you know I was a space commander," he said indignantly.
"Oh, sorry," she scoffed. "My mistake."
"Yeah, it was."
Sharon giggled and tried to pinch him under his ribs where he carried his minor payload of extra flesh. Her fingers glanced off his skin, coming away only with the cotton of his shirt. She frowned and tried again, but he had lost too much weight and there was no extra flesh to grab.
"Will you cut that out?" Al said. "It tickles."
She laughed. "Oh, you're ticklish, are you?" she said impishly. "That's good to know."
The vehicle stopped and Al switched off the ignition. "And here we are," he said.
Sharon looked up at the impressive façade beside her. "The Hyatt?" she squealed.
Al nodded conceitedly. "Two nights." He leaned over and kissed her. "Happy birthday."
She frowned. "Can we afford it?"
"Babe, you can afford anything if you put your mind to it," he said, climbing out of the car and unlocking the trunk for the bellhop. He sauntered around the vehicle, tossed the keys to the valet and opened the door for Sharon, offering her his hand.
She hesitated. "But with—"
Al shook his head resolutely. "We're not going to worry about it," he said. "We're going to have a nice, romantic weekend, Mrs. Calavicci, and that's an order!"
Sharon smiled and let him escort her onto the pavement. He kissed her quickly, passed a bill to the valet, and escorted his wife inside. Check-in went smoothly, and they rode an empty elevator up to their room on the eighth floor. Al opened the door to admit the pimply kid carrying their baggage, then tipped him a five. Sharon gawked.
"Isn't that a little much?" she asked.
"You ever done menial work?" Al challenged, closing the door. "That kid's trying to pay for school or something. Maybe he's got a kid to feed. Besides," he added with a boyish grin, "it makes me feel rich."
Sharon smiled thinly. The thought of a kid that age having a baby to feed made her feel even older, and not a little bit like a failure. Here she was, forty-four and nulliparous, while that bellhop might have a child at home? It was depressing. She rounded the corner into the bathroom and let out an exclamation of anticipatory pleasure.
It was a beautiful sight. Sharon had always considered the bathtub to be a necessity almost equal to the sink and the toilet. She had never rented an apartment without one, and the last months living in that trailer with it's nine square foot shower had definitely been missing one vital element.
"You like it?" Al asked from the other room.
"Oh, yes!" Sharon exclaimed. She started fumbling with her clothes.
"Now, how did I know you were going to do that?" Al asked, coming around the corner.
Sharon whirled around and smiled. "You're welcome to join me," she said. "There's plenty of room for two."
Al shook his head. "You can have this one all to yourself. We'll play fun-in-the-tub later." He held out a little bottle of purple fluid. "Picked this up for you. I didn't know what scent you liked, so I went for color."
It was a vial of lavender bubble bath liquid. Laughing like a little girl, Sharon kissed Al's cheek. "You're going to spoil me," she warned.
"Aw, have your bath already!" Al said, patting her buttocks fondly. He retreated, pulling the door closed behind him.
Sharon ran the tub and put in a generous dollop of the soap, then stripped down and slipped into the heavenly concoction. She exhaled happily as the hot water caressed her, opening every pore and soothing her very soul. Paradise. This was paradise.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM
When at last she emerged, warm, wrinkled and delirious with happiness, she found Al asleep on top of the bedclothes. He looked like he had just passed out: he hadn't even bothered to take off his shoes.
"Hey, sailor," Sharon said loudly. He didn't move. "Hey!"
Still no response. She reached out and shook him. He grunted a little, then resumed his quiet snoring. Exasperated, Sharon removed his shoes and began to wrestle him out of his clothes. He didn't resist, and it didn't wake him. She stripped him to his shorts, and he didn't even stir. Folding him under the blankets was a more difficult procedure, and she was certain that her regrettably clumsy treatment would rouse him, but it didn't. He was dead to the world.
Once she had Al settled in bed and it became obvious that he wasn't interested in waking up any time soon, Sharon settled down next to him and turned on the television.
As it turned out, Al slept through the evening, not even waking when Sharon dropped the cover of the room service tray with a cacophonous clang. She ate alone, then got back into bed next to the unconscious body and, after a few more futile attempts at bringing her husband back to the land of the living, resigned herself to an uneventful night. Some romantic evening, she thought wryly as she drifted off to sleep.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM
Al managed to smile at the kind-eyed nurse behind the window. She knew him by sight: he was a regular visitor. Every morning he was here, and though he could only stay for an hour, he came back each afternoon. All the nurses knew him, but he didn't know them. There were too many of them, and the only person who mattered in the whole hospital was the one he came to visit.
The corridors were quiet tonight. Al made his way down the long hallway to the stairs that he would take up to the fifth floor. His legs were weary from the long day, and his empty stomach growled, but he was determined, and what he was here to do was more important than any physical discomfort. Clutching the rail for support, he began his ascent.
He had to stop and rest on the first landing, sitting down on the first step of the second flight. He hugged his abdomen, trying to ignore the cramps of hunger. His shoes hurt his feet. You weren't supposed to go barefoot in the hospital, but he'd never manage three more flights of stairs like this. Carefully he loosened the laces and slipped off the constrictive leather sheaths. He rammed one sock into each shoe, then tied the four strings together to make one bundle. He got to his feet, his tired knees shaking. The rail was his lifeline, and he clung to it so that his knuckles grew white.
On the second landing he could hear the sounds of the maternity ward: the laughter of little children visiting new siblings, the lusty cries of healthy babies. Noises of happiness. Noises of families. More tired now than he had been a minute ago, Al tackled the third flight of stairs.
The stairs always seemed steepest here, with his goal not yet in sight and the floor full of joy and new life behind him. Each step required more of his flagging energy, and his head began to feel light. The grip he had to maintain on the railing was becoming painful. He stumbled on the last step and sat again on the third landing, resting his head on his knees. Just a little farther. Just a little farther.
The fourth staircase was easier, for although he was tired and his feet were heavy, his goal was in sight, and that imbued him with a fresh strength. His legs shook and his arms ached, but at last he reached the fifth floor landing and stepped out into the corridor.
It was the second ward that he wanted. The nurse there, too, let him pass without question. She was a good nurse: she took care of the patients and made sure they were as comfortable as they could be. Al had no smile for her. There were never any smiles on the fifth floor.
Skeletal patients occupied sterile white beds. Some were sleeping, some moaning in pain. At one bed a young woman bathed her man's head with a cool cloth. The nurses and the sisters moved among the beds, trying to ease the passing from one world into the next.
Al stopped by the bed he came to every day. Eyelids were lowered over the glassy brown eyes made enormous by the thinness of the invalid's face. Al put out his hand, carefully, wary of waking the sleeper. His fingers closed around the cold hand. The hands were always cold now. Frightened and suddenly very much alone despite the nurses and the other patients, Al drew close to the emaciated form. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to run, but he wouldn't. He couldn't.
He reached out a hand to stroke the poor, shorn head, and suddenly he couldn't remember anymore which one of them was the child, and which the adult. A voice was hissing in his ear, telling him that he had to pray. Al felt a fist of terror closing upon his heart.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM
Sharon awoke to a tormented scream. Beside her, Al was thrashing against the mattress, moaning piteously. Heart in her throat, Sharon sat up to see what would happen.
He mumbled something incoherent and rolled away from her. Then there was a sharp snort, and his panicked gasps eased off into shallow panting. Sharon stayed still, petrified with shock, as he sat up, swinging his feet down onto the floor. He scrubbed at his eyes, his bent form silhouetted against the moonlight filtering through the diaphanous draperies. Then he got up and stumbled to the corner where their bags were. There was a groan of a zipper, and then she saw Al grope for one of the water glasses on the desk. With shaking hands he poured a generous helping of liquor from the bottle he had take from the suitcase. He threw back his head as he drained it, then shook his head and made his way, groping, towards the bathroom. The door closed before he turned on the light, and after a minute Sharon could hear the shower running.
She fully intended to stay awake to console him when he was finished. After all, they hadn't even made love once yet on their "romantic weekend"! But the water just kept running, and somehow she found herself growing gradually more and more relaxed. Without meaning to, she fell asleep.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM
Al tipped the room-service waiter and closed the door. Sharon was still asleep, but it was ten-thirty in the morning, and if she didn't wake up the food would be cold. Al set the tray carefully on the bedside table and climbed back between the sheets. He curled an arm around her baby-doll-encircled waist and started to kiss her, rapidly, up and down her neck.
With a soft sigh of pleasure she rolled towards him and her arms found their way around his neck. "Mmm," she sighed. "What time is it?"
"Breakfast time!" Al said. Sharon opened her eyes and sat up, looking exactly like a delighted princess. This had been a good idea, Al realized as he brought the tray onto the bed.
They ate then made a little mad, passionate love. Then Sharon insisted they go for a bath together, which wound up being an exercise in more mad, passionate love. Then Al went out for some ice and chilled the bottle of Chianti he had brought along with his whiskey, and they enjoyed some of that before making even more mad, passionate love. It was a great afternoon.
Al wanted it to continue seamlessly into a great evening, but Sharon felt that they should go out for dinner. Eventually Al consented, his one stipulation being that "out" mean "out of the room". Laughing and calling him all sorts of names like "recluse" and "hermit crab", Sharon agreed that they could eat at the hotel restaurant.
It was a beautiful establishment, set atop the hotel. It had enormous windows, and rotated slowly, so that the view was a gradual panorama of Phoenix, stained red by the desert sunset. They lingered, laughing, over their cocktails until the appetizer arrived. They were both ravenous, and the stuffed mushrooms disappeared swiftly
Steak and shrimp was the house specialty, and the entrée of choice for both Calaviccis. It arrived beautifully arranged on delicate dishes, garnished with care and groomed to be in every way as appetizing as possible.
Al realized as soon as he smelled the shrimp that it had been a mistake to order them. He was in a flashback state of mind. Nevertheless, he took up one of the little crustaceans and bit into it. The taste like that of raw fish was almost unbearable. Casually, he reached for his wine and washed the unpleasant flavor away. Working surreptitiously with his fork, Al covered the creature's little friends with his mashed potatoes, hiding them from sight and smothering the smell. A couple forkfuls of mixed vegetables dispersed the lingering aftertaste.
He was still hungry, though, and turned his attention on the steak. It, unlike the shrimp, smelled absolutely heavenly. It was tender and moist-looking, done medium-rare, just as he liked it. Biting his lip briefly in anticipation, Al held his fork in his left hand and started to saw at his meat with his right. As he applied a little more pressure with the fork, his shoulder spasmed and he let both utensils fall with a gasp of pain.
Sharon looked up from her wine with concern. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing," Al said, trying to beat back the flush of embarrassment that assailed him. "Nothing at all." He reached for his own glass, took a sip, and then tried again. This time he couldn't even lift the fork far enough to place it in the meat.
"That's not true," Sharon said, her eyes glinting with fierce intelligence. "Your shoulder's bothering you again, isn't it? That's why you haven't touched your steak: you can't cut it!"
Her voice was too loud. Al was certain the other diners could hear, and his sense of shame heightened. It didn't help that the words were true. He couldn't cut it, and he was absolutely famished. He wasn't about to ask for help, though, as if he was a little kid or an invalid incapable of feeding himself. "Don't be silly," he growled, reaching for the utensils again.
This time the pain was sufficient to raise a gasp of discomfort, and the cutlery clattered against the plate.
"I told you!" Sharon cried. "I told you you should see a doctor about that arm! Do you need to go to the hospital?"
"No!" Al hissed through clenched teeth. He couldn't believe this was happening. The muscles were probably seizing up after the afternoon's exercise. The pain was intense now, and getting worse by the second. He had to relax. Tensing up like this only made it worse. He extended his shaking right hand and lifted his glass to his lips. The wine cooled his throat and did something to calm the rising panic.
Sharon was on her feet now, rounding the table to take hold of his arm. "Where does it hurt?" she asked.
"Stop it!" Al muttered under his breath. "Stop it and sit down!"
"Damn you, Calavicci, I'm trying to help!" she cried.
"Well, you're not helping!" Al snapped. "Just sit down so I can finish my meal. I'm starving!"
"I'll bet you are!" she bit back. "It's the first decent food you've had in weeks! I warned you that you had to start taking better care of yourself, and now—"
"Stop it!" Al cried. "Knock it off! I don't need you treating me like a kid. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, you know!"
He tried not to care that they were garnering the attention of the other patrons of the restaurant. He wouldn't really have cared, had they been talking about anything other than his health. He had spent the last nine years trying to quash the notion that he was a delicate invalid needing special care and consideration, and he didn't want any more people to know about his problems. Far, far too many were aware of them as it was.
"Take care of yourself?" Sharon exclaimed. "You can't even cut your own steak!"
She sat in indignation and snatched up his plate. Pushing her own out of the way she attacked his meat with her own utensils, making short work of demolishing it into tiny cubes. "There!" she cried. "Now eat it before I start force-feeding you!"
Al stared at the mound of brown debris, tiny pieces such as one would provide a toddler—or repatriated MIA—who was ill-equipped to chew, swallow and digest larger ones properly. His cheeks burning with humiliation, he forced himself to choke them down while Sharon watched with proprietary and vaguely maternal approval.