6. JUST PASSING THROUGH
In the back of the car, Edythe and I were leaning up against each other in silence. Exhausted it seemed - at least on my part - but at the same time, just so incredibly happy and content with each other's presence. Crazy felt like a good idea to me now; the best idea we ever had.
"We did it. We're actually married." I laughed, winded. She didn't say anything, only smiling wider at me and bringing her beautiful face up to my own. Putting a gentle hand on my chest, she covered my lips with hers.
It was almost midnight by the time we arrived at the airport, which gave us just about twenty minutes to check in and hurry to the gate of our flight. After checking our luggage in at the baggage terminal, we never let go of each other's hands as we flew through the airport as one, passing by all the little souvenir shops and restaurants which lined either side of the long hall. I haven't flown in a while, and I almost forgot how big airports were. We pivoted around another corner which entered in on another terminal, passing by what seemed like a hundred different gates with their little rows of black chairs in the designated waiting areas with the hustle and bustle of people who were going home, getting away, or just passing through. I was breaking a sweat just trying to keep up with Edythe, who still looked as if she just stepped out of a refreshing spa with her bright, shining eyes and unbreakable smile.
Finally, we made it to gate #43.
"Houston?" I said aloud, reading the virtual sign with the lit-up orange letters.
"We're just passing through." She squeezed my hand even tighter in hers. I returned the gesture and felt my own stomach lurch with excitement when I saw her bronze curls bounce up and down beside me as she hurried to where a middle-aged man with tan skin in a blue uniform sat, his dark brown eyes narrowed in a way that somehow made them appear either sleepy or sharp as a tack depending on the angle you looked at him. He took the tickets from Edythe's outstretched hand and eyed us from head to foot. "Enjoy your trip." he sighed, handing her back the paper stubs.
"Thank you. We will!" Edythe answered and pulled me down the gray accordion pathway. When we got to the door of the plane, we were led to our seats, but we didn't have that far to walk – first class, right near the front of the plane. Of course. The taupe suede seat cushions were so enormous I felt like I'd get swallowed up whole by them. But oh my gosh, they were so freaking comfy. Of course, I chose to lean on Edythe's shoulder though anyways. She combed through my hair with her fingers, brushing it away from my face and I closed my eyes. This is the life. The jet engines roared as we took off, leaving little old Washington behind along with everyone and everything else in it, and it was just us against the world. I fell asleep almost instantly.
I was still asleep by the time we reached Houston. When Edythe's gentle hands shook me awake, we rose from our seats and hustled through the ginormous George Bush Intercontinental Airport to gate #116 and boarded our next plane. I struggled to keep my eyes open the whole time, but Edythe led me by the hand. We found our seats. First class again. I was asleep most of the ride, that's all I remember. I was so tired I didn't even read where we were going next and only remembered it halfway through the flight where I whined to Edythe, still half-asleep and in the middle of a dream, that I still didn't know where we were going. She laughed in my face and kissed my cheek, then I was conked out again.
I awoke to a bright light shining in my eyes. Blinking, I turned to my right and as my vision tried to adjust, I just managed to make out the outline of Edythe's petite frame. She was peeping out the teeniest crack in the sliding window blind, but the light shone so brightly around her it looked as if I'd awakened in Heaven and an angel was right there beside me. I blushed immediately and turned away.
"UV rays aren't good for you." I muttered, trying to hide my face.
"Hmm, maybe if I were a human." she said right back.
"Okay, it's not good for me then." I retorted and stuck my tongue out at her.
"You're impossible." She threw a seat cushion at me but shut the blind anyways. It bounced off my face and hit her, and we just burst out laughing like nutjobs. Some guy in a suit from across the aisle gave us a look, but it only made us crack up even more. When we were done laughing at each other, Edythe leaned back in her chair, resting a hand beneath the point of her chin like in an old Victorian painting of a fancy lady - a timeless, unchanging portrait of perfection. That's what Edythe was. It's what I'll be too, soon, just definitely not as good-looking.
"It's so beautiful up here, I couldn't help it." Her golden eyes had a dreamy, wistful gleam to them, kind of like a fairy's in those old stories.
"It really is." I said, but I was only looking at her. She reached for my hand and squeezed it.
"Hey," I remembered to ask, "where exactly are we going?"
"Rio De Janeiro. Brazil." she answered with a radiant smile.
"No way. Oh my god, seriously? That's freaking awesome." I gushed, shaking my head in disbelief. I've wanted to go there for the longest time, ever since I saw it in a travel magazine Mom brought home from a stint at a hair salon she'd done some years back. I was amazed Edythe knew, I don't think I've ever brought it up to her before. I took my passport out of my carry-on bag and flipped through the very few stamps in it - Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom - which I'd gathered with Mom and smiled when I realized I got to put Brazil in there too, but with my wife beside me now instead. The world is big, and I was ready to make some more memories.
"That's not even the best part." Edythe added.
"Are you kidding?" I asked, quite certain it couldn't possibly get any better than this.
"Mm. You'll see." She shrugged and bit her lip, her voice mysterious. My stomach bubbled with excitement.
…
We finally landed - in Rio, of all places, and we're about to start our honeymoon. Life was good.
The blue of the sky shining in from the giant skylight above us at the airport was just beginning to fade, signaling the onset of evening. After retrieving our suitcases from baggage claim, Edythe had us hand them over to a group of young men in pale blue button-ups and khaki shorts, a little older than me I think, and said something in Portuguese to them with that winsome smile of hers. I couldn't tell if they were really listening to her or just drooling over her - probably both. The guy closest to her was the bravest. He took her hand and kissed it like he was some kind of cheesy fairytale prince while the rest of the guys' eyes continued to bug out of their heads. It was the dimples. Totally the dimples. And everything else about her, of course. I flashed my wedding band at them – you know, just for fun. When they saw that, one of the guys gave me the stink-eye and pointed me out to his buddy – you know, the one kissing my wife's hand – and without another word and the flushing of faces three shades (which was very satisfying for me to watch, by the way), they wheeled our things away on one of those gold-tinted luggage carts you'd usually find at a 5-star hotel instead of an airport and Edythe came back to me, grabbing my hand. I continued to stare after the guys. Did she really not know what effect she had on people?
"They work for me – well, they work for my mother and father, that is. It's all taken care of." she said, I guess noticing my looking at them.
"Ah." I nodded, once again reminded about how Edythe's family was totally loaded. "So, what are we going to do first?" I asked, my eyebrows raising in excitement like a little kid going to Disneyland for the first time.
Come on." She smiled up at me and pulled me along behind her. We stood below the clear glass awning outside as she hailed a cab for us and climbing into the first one that came by, she and I made ourselves comfortable in the backseat. She gave our driver the directions and even conversed with him a little bit - I'm no expert, but I did happen to take Spanish for a couple of years and some words in Portuguese were so similar to Spanish, it really seems like a dialect of it instead sometimes and vice versa. I think Edythe was asking him something about his family – a wife and daughter, from what I gathered of his responses to her. How he's doing this for them. I smiled. The way Edythe can connect with someone so easily just like that - that is, when she wanted to, of course - always made a warm feeling rise up in my chest. It wasn't quite pride, not exactly, but something like it. Something deeper.
When a dazzling marina came into view, Edythe told him to pull over.
"Obrigada." She handed him a giant wad of bills. I'm assuming she told him to keep the change, because our driver's face brightened and he blew her a kiss. He said something else in Portuguese too, but I wasn't really sure what it was. "He's wishing us a wonderful honeymoon." Edythe whispered as we waved him off. That's really nice of him; I was warming up to this place already. We strolled on hand-in-hand. The city lights glittered all around us and looked like stars on the shimmering indigo coastline, the ocean calm and reaching out to the shore with easy rolls. There was a lively seven-piece percussion band singing a song and beating on the heads of their drums loudly; joyfully, and people – all locals it seemed - were dancing around in the streets, twirling and spinning and pounding their feet on the ground lost in fits of laughter and merriment. The air was humid; thick and opaque but a warm breeze cooled us all down as it swept through the tall palm trees which swayed easily above our heads in the tropical wind. Vapid trails of evanescent smoke rose up from the charcoal grills of street vendors under colorful umbrellas hawking food items like crunchy cassava chips, roasted corn on the cob and savory, juicy cuts of fresh-grilled picanha steak, their voices rough and scratchy yet well-invigored from all the yelling and the smoke and the noise as they went about making their living; making people smile. Creating others' happiness as well as their own, sharing bits and pieces of themselves with the world. Still caught up in all the sights to see, I felt Edythe gently tug on my hand.
"Dance with me?" she began shyly, biting her lip. I laughed. She didn't have to ask me.
And so, we spun round and round, laughing between every clumsy misstep of mine and at how I stomped on her toes three times and almost fell flat on my face if Edythe hadn't been there to catch me before I fell. Our bodies were pressed up tight against each other and I swear, you could see all the stars in her eyes as she looked up at me and I was struck through again and again, as if in a dream and feeling like I should pinch myself; that this beautiful, amazing being was truly mine.
Just then, Edythe motioned discreetly to the people around us - couples - all in full-on lip lock.
"I like the way you think." I whispered in her ear and brought her face nearer to mine, tipping her chin upwards with the point of my finger. Her velvet tongue found my bottom lip and she pressed her lips to mine. Her lip gloss was fruit flavored – strawberry, I think – and tasted so sweet. I pulled her in by the small of her waist and she gripped at my button-up shirt, pulling me closer to her in turn with a need; a longing too urgent to deny and so, my hands moved to her head on instinct and I tangled my fingers in her hair as we lost ourselves in another kiss. After a few blissfully eternal moments, she pulled away from my hungry lips which were just about to cover hers again, my breaths growing heavier as if I were gasping for air – it was how much I wanted her; it was how much I needed her.
"Patience, Beau. We're almost there." she whispered, grabbing my hand and pulling me along behind her to the water's edge. You can bet I went without protest - us dancing, our kisses earlier, and just thinking about tonight zapped all trace of my jetlag away. We climbed over the large, jagged rocks which separated the concrete of the pier from the white sand and by some sort of miracle, I didn't die. Awesome. In the dark, Edythe lifted me off the last biggest rock and then we were safely situated on the warm white sand which sunk my sandals and covered my toes. There, you could see a whole row of little boats – some for fishing, others for recreational use. Edythe took me to the very end of that stretch of beach where a singular, sleek black boat awaited us. There was no one there. She stepped into it and held her hands out for me to take so I wouldn't trip and, like, crack my skull open on the giant black boulder right beside us.
I hesitated. "You sure this is the right one? It looks pretty fancy, and there's nobody here to drive us."
"What do you mean?" She gave me a confused look. "There's me, and there's you." she added, smiling again.
"Well, I've never operated one before."
"Yes, and…?" She waited for me to answer.
"Wait, you know how to drive this thing?" It was only after I asked the question did I realize how stupid it sounded.
"Exactly. I'm the one driving." she said very simply, like I just answered some riddle correctly on a gameshow and could move on freely to the next round. Of course she would know.
"But shouldn't I be-" I began, but was quickly cut off.
"Let's not get caught up in antiquated gender roles." she added slyly, echoing a conversation we had what feels like forever ago and held both her hands out to me. I chuckled. "Fair enough." The boat rocked below me as I eased myself into it with her help, those two small hands supporting the entire weight of my very human body. She took a seat at the wheel and patted the empty one beside her, indicating for me to sit down. I heard the roar of the engine revving up and before I knew it, we were thrust straight into the middle of the vast sea. I gripped tightly to the edge of the boat as the wind screamed in my face, afraid I'd fly out any second.
"Hang on tight, Beau. I like it fast." Yeah, like I didn't already know that about her. The engine roared again and it felt like I was riding on the upside-down loop-de-loop rollercoaster at Silverwood in Idaho that one summer and then I had that sudden feeling of Deja-vu, my mind flashing back to our very first car ride together. Don't look at the speedometer, don't look at the speedometer, don't look at the speedometer... I chanted in my head. Edythe, seeing my suddenly very pale face, laughed out loud, only accelerating more.
"Um, where are we going, Edythe? We're not staying in Rio?" I cried out over the motor.
"We were just passing through." she said again, and went even faster. "You see those lights over there?" She pointed out across the horizon. I nodded. "That's where we'll be staying." I squinted my eyes, unsure about what she meant. Then I saw it – a little beach house with two brightly-shining windows parallel to a large glass door where the light was at its brightest, centering it.
"I see it now!" I shouted over the engine.
"Yep. Welcome to Earnest Island." She beamed, the whites of her teeth showing. My jaw fell on the floor.
"Earnest Island?" I repeated stupidly.
"Carine bought it for Earnest a few years back. It was a wedding anniversary gift." she answered with a smile.
"Your mom bought your dad his own island. That's – that's crazy. And pretty epic." I whistled. Now that's one love story for the ages!
Finally, we reached Earnest Island's shore. I grabbed her hand and stepped onto the sand. Of course, me being me and all my foot got caught on the lip of the boat though anyways and I tripped, but Edythe caught me again before I could fall. "Look." She turned her eyes on the little beach house with its sheets of slanted roofing which crowned the floor-to-ceiling glass doors. I took in the two green potted plants on either side of the entrance and before I could even say anything, Edythe lifted me into her arms freaking bridal-style as if I were the bride and not the groom and, laughing loudly, crossed over the threshold with me high in the air. She put me back down on the floor and gave me a bright, enthused look.
"Hey, I was the one who was supposed to do that!" Without warning I grabbed her legs from beneath and threw her over my shoulder caveman-style just to get back at her. She was shrieking and smacking my back with the palms of her hands and we burst out laughing. I ran with her into the huge white bedroom a few strides away and threw the both of us down on the giant bed, screaming with laughter as we tumbled over each other, getting tangled up in the white sheets of the once freshly-made bed. When we rolled to a stop she was on top of me, her lovely, shapely thighs peeking out from below her white dress on either side of my hips and I stroked down the icy satin of her skin, the intensity of longing fueling my caresses. She pulled me up by the collar of my shirt and planted a kiss firmly on my lips, and I responded easily in kind. Deeper now, with quicker succession, I let my lips be taken over by hers.
But I started feeling really hot just then and, regretfully, I pulled away.
Wait." I whispered, stroking her arm.
"What is it?" she breathed, still holding my face in her hands. "Have you changed your mind?" she asked in a way that sounded both disappointed and hopeful at the exact same time. I guess deciding to be more hopeful, her face brightened up. I pulled on a satiny curl coming loose from behind her ear and kissed it.
"No, of course not. I just need a little bit of time, that's all. I don't really know what I'm doing." I chuckled and sat up, my face flushing beet-red. Geez, why do I keep doing that? We were sitting side-by-side now, and her kind eyes held not one hint of judgment in them. When she looked at me like that, I didn't understand my fear.
"We'll take as long as you need. Don't worry, Beau." She kissed me again, this time on my cheek.
And then my phone pinged, vibrating in my shorts pocket. Pulling it out, I noticed it was a message from Arch and I faceplanted into my palm. "Seriously?" I whispered. Of course, Edythe heard me. "What is it?" she asked, concerned.
"Your brother just had a brilliant suggestion for our honeymoon." I let out a sigh, sucking in my cheeks and hiding my eyes behind my hands.
"And what's that?" She smiled, removing my hands from my face.
"Swimming." I answered.
"I think that's a perfectly chaste idea." She laughed then looked at me even harder now. "But you look so pale, though."
"Yeah, um, the terminology he actually used was…" I said extra quietly but my words fell off into nothing anyways.
"Perfect." she said, eyes shiny as if she knew exactly what he said and was actually happy about it. She turned and hurried to the bathroom.