The seat called out to me, from atop its polished chrome pole. The leather, or vinyl, or leatherette - I couldn’t be sure which was used in high traffic areas - was not as worn as I had expected. It looked like it had been recently cleaned. I slung my bag over the top of the adjacent seat and swiveled the chair with my knee before sliding into place. It was barely 8am, that time of morning when eastern shuttle commuters flooded airport terminals and elbowed each other for pole position in the race to get a cab on their way to the office. Already I had been nearly flattened twice as I made my way through the terminal.

The bar called out to me, and not just because I needed a number of drinks before I could fly without becoming wildly psychotic. Airport lounges during early morning hours were something to behold. Never were they treated with any kind of respect. Only two types of lounges opened this early in the day: The kind with nondescript entry ways and anonymous faded beige walls that opened at 6AM and were populated by elderly vets who needed a drink during every waking hour to expel whatever horrors of war they brought home; and airport lounges, the haven for those with lengthy layovers and poor souls suffering from jet lag. There was a third type in this scenario. The kind of traveler needing liquid sedation to ease the fear of flying. This was my type. But my kind was barely a blip on the radar. My kind could take a train if it were truly that debilitating a condition.

I mistook the guy behind the counter restocking the bar supplies for a bar back until he adjusted his apron and with a stereotypically thick Brooklyn accent normally reserved for Robert DeNiro or Chazz Palminteri asked me what I’d have.

8AM was too early for Scotch. Even in these circumstances, three fingers of Scotch before noon was bad form. Gin was the work of the devil. I never liked the stuff. Too bitter. It always tasted like lime zest to me. I brushed off some lint gathered on the lapel of my Banana Republic winter coat while I considered my options.

“Why don’t I come back when you know what you want,” the bartender suggested. There were no other customers to help, just the man and me. He was just like the people across the bridge in Manhattan; always in a hurry no matter the time of day.

“What is your house vodka?” I asked.

“Smirnoff.”

He might as well have told me they served bottled crap. Smirnoff was charcoal filtered and the food and drug administration allowed for a certain amount of charcoal to leak into the vodka, no harm no foul. Of course Smirnoff’s defense always had been the alcohol content of the vodka snuffed out any harmful implications from the charcoal, but I didn’t feel comfortable guzzling liquid carbon. If man was working so hard to get it out of the air, why keep it in the drinks? The only drink I was comfortable having charcoal-filtered vodka in was a bloody mary. The lycopene compound found in the tomato juice could counteract the negative effects of just about anything in that cocktail. That was the extent of my alcohol-cum-chemist ability.

“Give me a Sky martini, dirty,” I told the man. If Smirnoff was his well vodka, Sky was probably the top shelf. Airport bars always charged by quality, never quantity. A Heineken would never be the top of the rock beer at any other bar, but at the airport it was an eight dollar investment.

The bartender grunted something in his thick Brooklynese and nodded in response.

LaGuardia came to live with a crackling overhead announcement that flights in the American Airlines wing would be delayed while they serviced a part of the runway. Chunks of tarmac missing in the runway, I thought. Yeah, that puts my mind at ease. I removed the cell phone in my pocket and started dialing.

“Hey buddy,” the bartender said while he loaded my martini into a shaker, “can’t use a phone here.”

I don’t know if I looked surprised or irritated, but when I responded by telling him “or what? The terrorists will have won?” he pointed to a vacant spot across from the bar.

“Over there,” he grunted. “You can only do it in posted areas. I’ll have your drink waiting.”

By the time I made it over to the spot I saw the sign on the opposing wall instructing travelers not to use their cell phone in such public establishments as restaurants, bars, and gift shops. Under my breath I muttered in amazement how for once New York had managed to outdo California in the pansy department. The designated cell phone area was basically a large rectangle drawn out on the floor with clear plastic walls surrounding it, much like the smoker zones in other domestic airports. The people inside talking on their phones and syncing their Blackberries looked like technology on exhibit. I sighed and started dialing as I joined the masses behind the clear divider. As if a plastic barrier with an open ceiling was going to contain the radio waves and make things safe for everyone else at LaGuardia.

“Hi there,” said the voice to me.

“Did I wake you?” I asked.

“No, I’ve been up since five. Big day today!”

I couldn’t disagree. Later this evening Carolyn would be displaying some of her photography in the university art gallery as part of her certification for a Masters Degree in Fine Arts. Four fine arts candidates rotated their exhibit, and each received a big gala introduction in the company of their friends, family, and colleagues to pay off the hard work and high tuition fees they had incurred over the past couple of years. It was as much a celebration as it was a big sigh of relief for finally being done. Carolyn had asked me to introduce her exhibit and originally I was hesitant. At the time I was being prodded by my boss to do it in order to make her happy, but there was much more at stake. Doing it meant traveling to Toronto by plane, which was never fun. In a much larger sense it meant drumming up all the feelings we continued harboring for each other, and doing that only magnified the growing distance between us. I don’t know how couples ever managed to successfully navigate a long distance relationship. I guess it took a certain kind of person. And neither of us was that type of individual.

Carolyn’s exhibit coincided with a trip I was already making to New York for an interview with Columbia University MBA admissions officials, so it was hard to argue tacking on a side trip to Toronto. No matter our tenuous past and uncertain future, it was impossible to cast her request aside. I couldn’t be that kind of ass.

“Are you in the bar? You must be in the bar, your flight leaves in an hour.”

“I am but I’m not. Apparently in New York they don’t let you drink and carry on a phone conversation simultaneously. Homeland Security is on the case.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said. “Where are you? JFK?”

“No. The other one. LaGuardia. And the longer I talk to you the less time I have to get loaded.”

“Looks like you will have to get used to the idea of flying.”

I scowled. “I think not.”

“I don’t know what you freak out about. The flight isn’t even 90 minutes long. I’m sure you can get away with being only a little buzzed and it will all be okay,” she said.

I twirled around a set of keys in my pocket. The terminal was starting to fill up, ebbing and flowing with a rhythmic influx of people as planes landed and others departed. I took a look over my shoulder at the bar and saw the filled martini glass waiting patiently for me. Stools around the bar gradually started filling with passengers looking for a breather.

“What time is tonight’s event?” I asked.

“7pm. They request all speakers arrive by 6:30.” She sighed. “Are you sure you don’t want to just stay with me tonight? Seems silly to book a hotel room for yourself that you will hardly be in.”

“I think it will make things easier if I stay in a hotel,” I quickly replied. And it would. All romantic implications aside, Carolyn would certainly be at the gallery into the wee hours while she celebrated her achievement. I wasn’t expected to be at her side, and I definitely would not be going back to her apartment just to wait up for her. Besides, I needed to go home the following day. I had a job. I had an ill mother to take care of. My dog hadn’t played or gone for a walk in days. A hotel was the best solution.

Sensing a need for a topic change, Carolyn moved to a different subject. “So how did the interview go?”

“We talked about all the things I’d covered at interviews with other colleges - the past, grades, where I saw myself in five years, what kind of candidates they expected, and so on - but I didn’t get a good vibe from it. Although I told them I’d work like a dog and be a successful alum, the kind who would give something back down the road, it didn’t sound like they were looking for that kind of person. They wanted a legacy. They wanted the offspring of a long line of Columbia grads, and I couldn’t give them that. The only kind of name-dropping that carried currency was from people whose great-grandparents and beyond had attended their school. Oh well. I still have USC and Stanford in the mix.”

“When is your Stanford interview?” she asked.

“We haven’t set a date, but it will be soon. It has to be,” I laughed, “they’ve already closed the application window.”

“So what did you do with the rest of your time in New York?”

“What, last night? Not much. It would have been far better if everywhere I wanted to go wasn’t already closed. The Russian Tea Room. Closed. CBGB. Closed. Tavern on the Green. Closed for remodeling. I ended up going to some hipster bar called O’Connells, and then dinner at the Hungarian Pastry Shop near the Columbia campus. That was pretty much it.”

I took another look back toward the bar, urgently longing for my martini and perhaps another, and another, if it could be squeezed in before boarding began. When I looked this time, however, the seat next to mine was being used by some morbidly obese woman who’d tossed my carry-on onto my stool. The woman oozed over the sides of her barstool, partially filling the seating space of the stools to each side of her. Her clothing was the biggest, most wrinkled stuff I’d seen - was it 4xl? - and her breathing looked labored even from this distance. I quickly told Carolyn I had to go and would call her later in the afternoon.

Zig-zagging through the pedestrian cross-traffic of La Guardia, I made it back to my seat and took an extra long sip from the martini glass. The olive juice had collected at top and provided a sour zing of flavor that cut through the vodka. The bartender looked up from drying glassware to see if the right customer was drinking the drink, and without waiting for him to ask in his Brooklynese accent if I wanted anything, told him to get another dirty martini going. I took another sip, tilted my head back, and with eyes shut savored the flavor as the martini drained down my throat.

That’s when I heard her, the obese woman sitting next to me. The labored breathing wasn’t just breathing. It was wheezing, the kind that sounded like a low, bass-filled, lodged whistle. I moved my carry-on to the side away from the woman and sat down. At least I tried to; I had to close my knees together tightly in order to sit. Soon my thighs began cramping. Knowing the same closed quarters were in store for my commuter flight, I had to get rid of this woman. I looked around the bar. Too late. Every seat had been snapped up. I drew back the shirt sleeve covering the face on my IWC wristwatch. 8:30. I only had 30 minutes until boarding time. I hadn’t seen any other bars in this terminal and wasn’t sure I would have the time to search for one, order some drinks, pay the tab, and make it back to the gate currently across from me to board.

I had to get rid of this woman.

With a big smile I turned to talk to her. “Hi,” I began, while rolling the stem of the martini glass carefully between my middle and forefinger. “Where are you flying to?”

“What do you care,” the woman grunted.

I cared because I did not want to run the risk of her small Cessna frame being on my flight, let alone next to me. It was an honest, friendly question. Her choice to blow off the question so crassly was not something I expected. It did make navigating the situation a lot easier, though. I no longer had to play nice.

I was taking the final swig of my drink just as the bartender approached with its replacement. I traded glasses with him and asked the fatty, “and you? Would you like anything?” Without turning to face me or making eye contact, she waved me away. I looked at my watch again. Mick was right: Time waits for no one. I would have to step things up.

“I know the trend is to lose all the baby fat as soon as you can after giving birth, but kudos to you for bucking the trend. I mean, increased chance of heart disease and diabetes be damned! Sometimes people are just a lost cause, you know?”

The woman turned to me with a look on her face that matched what I imagine the look on her face would be if somebody ever had to inform her that her children have died.

“Fuck you!” she exclaimed in a Jersey accent. She motioned forward once, then twice, and the momentum picked her off the seat. She swung her purse around, cutting a wide swath that was clearly meant to hit me but I ducked its path. She threw one more nasty look before waddling to the other side of the bar where another chair had just freed up.

The bartender snickered to himself from his post, but it was loud enough for me to hear.

“I might be the asshole,” I told him, “but at least now I can decompress to my actual size.” I stretched my legs and took another big swig from the martini glass.

My phone started ringing again. Dammit, what did Carolyn want now? I took the phone from my pocket and before retreating to the cell zone to answer asked the bartender if I could take the drink with me. He shook his head without blinking. The phone continued buzzing. I took one more sip from the glass before I peeling off for the cell zone. Without looking at the incoming call info I assumed it was Carolyn wanting to remind me of some detail she’d overlooked.

I clicked on the phone to talk. “What did you forget to tell me?”

After a long pause and some radio noise, the kind that suggests the person on the other side of the call was jumping between different cell networks, she spoke: “Hello, Reed.”

I knew this voice. I imagined her saying the salutation through gritted teeth. I took a long breath and closed my eyes, almost hoping I would find myself in another place talking to anybody else when I again opened them. When I opened my eyes I was still in the same walled plastic cell phone addict zone in Concourse C.

“Hello Deirdre,” I said. I thought I was done with her. I figured Deirdre MacKenzie had faded back into the woodwork of everyday life, no longer looking to jeopardize her already broken parole on threatening phone calls and interstate telecommunications infractions.

“You remember. My my, you sure know how to warm a woman’s heart.” There was another pause and click, presumably while she again jumped networks. She’d improved at covering her tracks. Why she was willingly taking the risk was still a question mark.

“No witty retort? No high and mighty opinion handed down from the hallowed halls of Reed Becker? The last time we spoke you were so rude, so demanding with your filthy, vile language.”

“The last time we spoke I remember discovering that you wanted me to turn you into my fuck slave,” I said, my voice cracking some. Other people on their phones in the cell zone turned in startled amazement, suddenly more interested in my conversation than their own. “I also remember you not denying any of it,” I added.

“I know what you are trying to do, Reed. It won’t work.”

“Really? I remember you being quite eager to terminate our calls the last number of times. Does my figuring out the truth take all sting from the sensation? Or are you willing to come at me with renewed vigor despite the terms of your parole?”

On overhearing the word parole, more people quickly ended their calls and moved an open ear closer to listen in.

“Your little parlor games won’t deter me,” Deirdre countered. “Do you think I am afraid to zap your home phone and fax lines with automated call loops? That I won’t find a way to get to you inside that office tower where you work? That I won’t send a suspicious package to your condo right now just to make all your neighbors nervous?”

My eyes shot wide open and people in the plastic cell booth looked at me dumbfounded while I gazed into the distance with what probably looked like a crazed stare. Deirdre didn’t know! She thought I had been working at Chiat Day, that office tower in the sky, all this time. She thought I was still living in the rented condo in West L.A. when I’d been living with my mother, caring for her for a solid six months. She didn’t know I was in New York! The light bulb went on in my head as I considered the possibilities. It was too perfect a scenario, but too often we do not get the opportunity to end things on our own terms. The opportunity laid in front of me. I was happy. For the first time I was having a conversation with Deirdre MacKenzie, the queen of crazy, and was not scared. It felt too good to be true. I started laughing.

“Do you think this is funny?” Deirdre asked. “I promise you, it is not.”

“I think it is. Quite indeed,” I chuckled. “I think a great cosmic realignment has occurred.”

“Oh?” For the first time during our conversation there was a sliver of uncertainty in her voice.

“The last few times when I’ve stated you are only doing this because you need a man to take command of you sexually, it was all bravado. It wasn’t about putting you on the defensive or gaining the upper hand. All I was doing was trying to make myself believe I was not scared.”

“Doesn’t sound like it worked, Reed,” she responded proudly.

“You’re right, Deirdre. It didn’t. But that was the past. In the past few minutes talking to you, I’ve realized something that truly makes me no longer afraid.”

“What’s that?” she asked, playing along.

“You don’t know a damn thing about me anymore. And you have no other tricks up your sleeve, no effective ways of getting to me.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s what I know, Deirdre. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that deep down inside you get your rocks off thinking about some macho guy totally manhandling you and giving you the screw of your life…but there are more important things in play. At least they are for me.”

I paused before launching into what I knew would be my victory lap, my ace in the hole. Deirdre didn’t respond; she had no idea where I was steering the conversation.

“You see, that big building in mid-city Los Angeles you think I still work at? I haven’t been there in a very long time. That condo you used to address rotted flowers and hate mail to? I no longer live there, and haven’t for a while. As a matter of fact the only life line you have to me is this phone, and as soon as I hang up that access will be gone too.

“No matter how much you try to keep holding on, no matter how much you skirt the system in Delaware by jumping cellular networks to cover your tracks from the parole board, we are through.”

“Is that what you think?” she asked. Her voice quivered a bit. After all the times the fear had come from me, this time it was clearly in her voice.

“It’s what I know,” I declared. “For years I have kept as anonymous as I could. I deleted email accounts, changed ISP services, abandoned online profiles. I didn’t answer my phone. I rarely retrieved mail from the mailbox for fear of what might be inside. I went into a witness protection-like state, doing my best to remain below the surface and out of reach. But all that ends as soon as I hang up this phone, because when that happens, I will change numbers. I’ll change accounts. I will get a phone in another family member’s name. To you, I’ll be a ghost.”

Deirdre didn’t say anything. It was still settling in. She was still processing the outcome of three years of her time and many broken laws.

“Maybe you’ll have more luck with the other two guys. I don’t know if you have been bothering them much lately, but if you have I can assure you it will not continue for much longer. I owe the Delaware department of corrections a long overdue phone call.”

“Well, if that’s what you think then -”

I didn’t let her finish. There would be no souring my moment of glory.

“Too bad, too. Under other circumstances we might have been cordial. We may have gotten along. Who knows, you could have been my fuck buddy.” I paused while the everyone around my in the cell zone again listened in at the mention of profanity.

“I’m sure somebody in prison will make you theirs. Goodbye, Deirdre.” Without listening for a response I terminated the call and powered off the phone. I looked at my watch; the cabin attendants would begin boarding any time now. The martini glass still sat on the bar, partially filled. Damn. There was no more time for drinks. I didn’t even feel a buzz.

I slipped the powered down phone back into my pocket and made for the exit. The people crowding the cell zone parted like the red sea to let me through, presumably fearful I’d have a nasty word for them, much like I’d had for Deirdre, had they not let me pass.

The guy closest to me clasped me around the shoulders. “Duuuude,” he grinned with a mouthful of imperfectly set teeth, “I would have totally just made her my fuck buddy!”

_____________________________________________________________

It was the same Radisson, the same clean foyer with the same staff wearing the same pressed maroon outfits displaying the same smile. The same level of service. The same job requirements. It felt much longer than eight months since I’d last been here, rushing from a job transfer at the ad agency back to home in order to watch my father die. It was a surreal feeling to be back in this place, and I swore there was a moment when the travelers and business people in the lobby slowed to a crawl despite the ongoing noise and rapid pitter patter of feet on the marble floor.

The room was the same, the closet the same. I took off my coat and hung it on the same peg mounted to the inside of the door, just as I had so long ago. Looking out the window at the waterfront, I craned my neck to see as far southward as I could. I cracked open the honor bar and reached for a Johnnie Walker red. It was nearly noon…no time like the present. I’d barely thought of what I could possibly say at Carolyn’s premiere later in the evening, what I could articulate to her peers that would cast her in a light different from the one in which they already viewed her. I strained to remember some anecdote that could portray accurately the caring and attentive person she was. I took a long swig from the airline-sized whiskey bottle, draining nearly half its volume. Looking again at the waterfront, I focused on the lakeside walking path popular with the lunch crowd. It was lunch time and the walk was filling up. I smiled. Time to find an old friend.

Outside I dodged traffic and the occasional car horn as I made my way across the busy boulevard and into lakeside park. Joggers parted and went around me while I navigated the park’s path. A mother pushing a side-by-side stroller for twins weaved in and out of my path, mumbling something contemptible under her voice while she cleared the way.

Lunch was the time of day I’d always been able to find Samuel, the retired widower whose sole mode of exercise was a midday walk around the lake front path, a routine he used to follow with his late wife Minerva, now re-enacted daily as some bit of tragic romance for the ages. I’d befriended Samuel during my work transfer, when I preferred to wander the city and learn what I could, back when I opted for exercise over lunch. Much like the postal service, Samuel was at the lake taking a walk or people gazing from a nearby bench come rain or shine. Heavy snow was the only thing to keep Samuel away.

I finally came across Samuel at the far end of the path, seated in a different area than where I was used to finding him. He didn’t look any different than I remembered: Same brownish blazer, same grey-and-black plaid fedora, same distant gaze in his eyes. I sat beside him on the bench. He didn’t turn to acknowledge me. We sat in silence for a moment, and just as I opened my mouth to say something, he addressed me without turning:

“I knew you were coming today. I knew you were coming even before you did. A few days ago I thought about you and knew you would show up this week. Maybe it would be today, maybe tomorrow - but I knew you would come.”

He turned and looked me up and down. “You don’t look so good.” Samuel had always been a very forthcoming individual. The man didn’t edit his opinions. “That is some short hair, much different from before. I don’t like it.”

“I am still getting used to it, too.”

“Where have you been all this time? I thought something might have happened to you, maybe an accident or something. One day you were here, and then, whoosh!”

“My father died. I had to fly back to Los Angeles.”

Samuel shrugged. “It happens.” There was no ill will in his words. As a man who’d had his share of death and misfortune in life, the idea of mortality did not faze him.

“So I guess that means you don’t work for that fancy ad company on Spadina any more.”

“No.”

He scratched the top of his nose, and turning his attention to some birds feeding along the shore, asked “are you working at all?” It was very fraternal, the level of care in his voice.

“Yes. Small group in L.A, but it is still advertising.”

“It keeps you busy.” It wasn’t a question, it was an assessment.

“Temporarily, yes. I am investigating some colleges for a graduate degree.”

Samuel turned his attention back to the bench. “Aha! Plans to become a captain of industry?”

“Something like that,” I responded.

“Don’t forget the schmucks, the little people when you have become Mister Big Time. It’s their backs you’ll step on as you make your way to the top.”

I smiled. “I suppose you are right.”

“My Minerva always used to remind me of the same thing when I was a working man. She told me I shouldn’t get too caught up in work life because I wouldn’t be working forever. And what are you when you no longer work? A schmuck, just like the rest of ‘em.” He wagged a finger at me. “Don’t you forget.”

I nodded in agreement.

I stood up and Samuel groaned, shuffling his feet as he sat. “Do me a favor my boy and help me up.” I grabbed him around the elbows and jerked him away from the bench.

“You’re stronger than you look,” he declared. We began walking against foot traffic, but after a few steps I made a counter-clockwise motion with my finger and we turned to move in the opposite direction.

We walked in silence for a few minutes, taking in the scenery while I routinely slowed my pace as to not leave Samuel far behind.

“You haven’t told me why you have returned,” Samuel finally said, breaking the silence.

“Oh, it’s that girl of mine, as you probably can imagine,” I said with a monotone delivery.

Samuel stopped walking and turned to me while we still in the middle of the path. “What is it about suave, urbane men like us that we can’t keep our women issues in order?”

I smiled at his grouping us on the same level. “I don’t know,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m delivering her introduction tonight at the university. There’s a photography exhibit fine arts students must take part in, and tonight is her debut.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Samuel responded, unimpressed.

“Only if you don’t take it against the greater backdrop of our still-undefinable relationship.”

“Ah, well you should have said so!” Samuel straightened up and adjusted his shirt where it met his belt line. “I think I need to go back to a walking cane,” he announced, “walking without one hurts my back too much.” He stopped by a nearby light pole and leaned a hand to its cold metal.

“You’ll be like this one day too!” he snapped when he caught me looking at him like he was a wounded animal.

After two aborted attempts he pushed himself away from the pole and we were again on the go.

“So what will your move be?” he asked.

“I can ignore the situation and let her enjoy her night, but I have the feeling that is the wrong move since we will both be there. Just because it is her night that won’t mean we’ll be able to put our relationship on the back burner.”

Samuel stopped and rubbed the grayed, two day old stubble on his face while gazing into the distance at nothing in particular. Then, turning toward me, with the closest thing he could muster to a smile, responded, “I’m sure you’ll think of something.” That is what I most admired about Samuel: He didn’t care. He’d seen enough and experienced enough in life that even when he sounded like he cared, he actually didn’t. Wishing it away with the hope you’d think of something was good enough for him. In this particular case, it was good enough for me, too.

_____________________________________________________________

I’d never seen the university awash in light after dark. The multitude of bulbs made the buildings look like a Pink Floyd or U2 concert. The added bonus of heavy air bordering on fog gave the gallery building an otherworldly, ethereal glow. Outside people were gathering, a mix of artists, fans, family, and nervous students.

“I really like your blood red tie!” the woman at the table exclaimed when I stepped forward. Thanking her for the compliment, I identified myself and asked if there was a separate entrance or room for presenters to gather.

“Ah, you’re a presenter! And who are you presenting?” she asked with a suggestive wink.

“Carolyn Perrotta,” I responded dryly.

“I like her work, especially what she does with clouds. It’s very surreal.” The woman unspooled a pair of paper tickets and tore them in half. “There’s a reception for the featured photographers and invited guests - that would be you - in the gallery foyer.” She motioned to her right. “The entry is just around this corner.”

I took the tickets and gestured to them. “Am I entered in a raffle or something?”

“No, silly! They are drink tickets. Enjoy!”

Inside a group of ten to fifteen people congregated in front of the bar, a portable thing with a portable banquet table set up behind it to hold the plastic tubs containing the beer. Two bartenders with crooked, clipped on bow ties and rented tux vests frantically filled orders, spilling wine into glasses and drizzling liquors over the edge of jiggers.

I cut a swath through the small group and leaned an elbow on the bar top. Instantly my jacket sleeve started absorbing the excess liquid coating the bar. Great.

“Glenfiddich, rocks,” I called out in the direction of both bartenders. Without acknowledging the order they continued working furiously until one slammed a rocks glass down in front of me, sending up a splatter of booze and melted ice. Into the glass he dropped three cubes and followed with a brown stream of Scotch that flowed evenly until the ball stop-cocked the bottle from dispensing any more.

“Hello, I don’t believe we have met,” said the voice behind me as I handed the bartender my drink ticket. I took the drink in one hand, cradled with the cocktail napkin, and turned to find a 50-something matronly woman in a Chanel business suit and leather patent pumps.

“Marlene,” she said loudly, extending a hand. “I am curator of the gallery and organizer of tonight’s event.”

I quickly switched the drink over to my left hand and returned the shake. “Reed. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Are you a photographer? I thought I met all the photographers for tonight’s session,” she continued.

“No, I am not,” I said, shaking my head in unison. “I am presenting a photographer.”

Almost in unison, we both said Carolyn.

“That’s right!” Marlene said. “I thought the name sounded familiar. She’s mentioned you. Very excited about you coming to town for this.”

Great, I thought. All the more difficult it will make things when I leave.

“So do you have a humdinger of a story to introduce her with?” Marlene asked.

Like a story about how such a smart, masters degree-bound woman could be so dumb as to have an on-again, off-again boyfriend who lives in another country? I thought.

“You’ll just have to wait and find out,” I responded.

“Oh, you’re no fun!” she teased. Then, looking over my shoulder and past me, added, “I’ll let you two rehearse your entry.” Marlene nodded at whomever she saw behind me and took her leave.

“You know how much of a sucker I am for a guy who can fill out a suit just right,” said Carolyn from behind me. “You come here often?”

I turned, ready to respond with full wit, but gulped and swallowed my words. For all the times I’d seen her, in both formal settings and everyday occasions, never did she look more beautiful than in this very instant. She took another step closer, her dangling earrings swaying gracefully as the white gold glinted in the light. Her evening dress was as graceful as it was provocative, hugging and accenting the curves and features of her body like a perfectly broken-in glove. She adjusted the upper portion of my tie where the dimple met the Windsor knot, and smiled that million dollar smile of hers.

“You couldn’t look anything less than stunning tonight,” I said. She wasn’t making this any easier.

“Why thank you sir,” she said with a runway-like spin to model her outfit for me. “Does Mister Fashion approve?”

“Mister Fashion is in awe. Is there anyone else in the room? I don’t really notice.”

Carolyn smiled again and drew closer for a kiss, but I turned so the most she got was a cheek peck. As she recoiled I caught a look of question on her face, but before she had the chance to ask what was exactly going on we were interrupted by a voice from the other side of the room. A male voice.

“Hey, where did you disappear to?”

Upon hearing the voice Carolyn stiffened up and backed away from me to the point where she wasn’t invading my personal space any longer.

When the man approached he smiled at Carolyn. “Is this the guy?” he asked. She nodded without looking.

“Damn good to meet you!” he said, taking my hand in his and giving it a firm shake. “I’m Patrick. Carolyn and I are classmates in the program.”

“Hey, Patrick. Reed.”

“Yeah, I know. She talks a lot about you. When they set up this thing we decided we’d be each other’s date, and I think it’s totally cool you’ve come out here to do the introduction…”

His voice trailed off into the distance. I could see his lips continue to move, but the accompanying voice was no longer there. Only the sound of white noise and a hollow, reverb-heavy hallway was what I heard.

“Ohhhh, so you are his date?” I asked, looking only at her.

Carolyn fished in her clutch for a drink ticket, and quickly dispatched Patrick. “Why don’t you get us something from the bar.”

“Uh, okay, what would you like?”

“Anything with gin,” she quickly responded, steering him toward the bar. As soon as Patrick was out of earshot she nervously said, “Let me explain. Patrick is -”

“He’s your boyfriend,” I interrupted, completing the sentence for her.

“No! He and I, well, Patrick he’s…it’s all very casual,” she stammered.

“You brought a date to your premiere, at which I was presenting,” I said incredulously.

“Patrick and I have gone out a few times, just hanging out. We mutually decided to go with each other long ago, long before I asked you to show up. And we are both exhibiting our work tonight, so what was I supposed to do? Kick him to the curb and still show up tonight?”

Carolyn was about to launch into a longer explanation but Patrick returned with their drinks. Carolyn took her gin and tonic, dumped the lime garnish into the drink, and started stirring the swizzle straw nervously.

Sensing the change in atmosphere, Patrick said he was going to mingle with some of the other students so that Carolyn and I could catch up, seeing as we went back the way we did. Thanks, Chief, I thought as he walked away.

“You’re enjoying this!” she exclaimed in a heightened whisper.

“Help me understand how I would derive satisfaction from seeing my girlfriend with another man,” I asked.

“So this month I’m your girlfriend?”

“You seemed to think so when we were together at Christmas!” I snapped.

“Don’t get mad at me! You’re the one who made the rules, who said in order to preserve the sanity of this crazy setup we would date other people during the down times. Don’t try and turn it around on me like that!”

“Oh no?”

“You think it would have been any different had the situation been reversed, Reed? The great and mighty Reed Becker - all women take a number and wait to be served! I know what I have to go up against. I see how the women throw themselves at you in that god-awful blog. I see how much they flirt with you online. You don’t think that drives me crazy knowing I am thousands of kilometers away while plenty of women have you at arm’s length?”

“Then why do you do it?” I asked, my voice getting louder. “Why go to the trouble? Why put your heart out there like that?”

“I do it for the same reason you do: We are two dumb people, caught up in a love we can’t shake ourselves loose of.”

Carolyn was breathing faster now, the kind when emotion gets the better of us. The kind that occurs when you try to force back tears.

“All I ever wanted was you,” she continued. “It kills me when we are apart. No amount of email and phone calls can fill the void. And now it kills me even more that you are here and we are like this. I want you to whisk us away to some place where it can just be you and I.”

“It could have been like that, at one time,” I started.

“But it’s not. You have goals, I have goals. I wanted a degree, I wanted to get a leg up on my career. And now you want the same.”

“Those are just excuses,” I said with a wave of my hand.

“No. They are goals. They are things we intentionally put between us.” She closed the gap between us. “As experienced as I am in relationships I can’t make things better for us.” She paused and I could see tears beginning to well up in her eyes. “I can’t get it right since I’ve met you.”

She started crying. “Maybe the day will come - someday - when we’ve chased our dreams and fulfilled our goals, and then maybe - just maybe - we can love each other as much as we love ourselves.” She wiped away tears from her eyes. “Great! Now my makeup is running. Fuck!!”

Marlene re-appeared about the same time our voices had begun rising. “Is everything all right? Anything I can do to help?” she asked in an attempt to smooth things over.

“Perhaps some tissue,” I suggested. “I’ve seemed to upset her.”

Marlene disappeared and returned in moments with a fistful of Kleenex. “Take all the time you need, dear,” she said, throwing me an additional angry look. She’d already cast me as the villain in the scene.

Carolyn continued sobbing while wiping mascara away from her eyes. I remembered her telling me once about the sting runny mascara can bring to the eyes. Her lower eyelids began swelling the more she dabbed them with the tissues.

“God, I probably look like crap now,” she muttered.

“You still look fantastically incredible,” I told her. She shook off the compliment and continued cleaning herself up.

“So what do we do now - bag the whole thing?” I asked.

“We can’t just bag the whole thing. I have worked hard for the past two years just to get to this night. I can’t walk away now. I need it to graduate!”

I looked around the room. Most of the crowd had returned to their own conversations and diversions. Carolyn and I were no longer a spectacle.

“I wasn’t talking about the exhibit. I was talking about you and me.”

Carolyn finished cleaning away the runny makeup and adjusted her hair. With a sigh, she responded softly, “I cannot decide for you, but I will do what I have always done: Make the most of what we have when we are together, and long for more during the periods when we are apart.” She drew closer and put a hand on my side. “I’m a lover and a fighter. That’s what I do.”

“Okay, Tupac,” I joked. “So what are you going to tell Patrick?”

“I’ll tell him I wasn’t that into him. He’s realized that already. He knows there are more important people to me.”

Carolyn looked at her watch, the thin Coach bracelet watch I’d given her at Christmas. “The night is about to get underway.”

I smiled. “I thought it already had,” I responded.

“Nice try, Captain Smooth,” she laughed. “I mean the presentations. I should go freshen up. I can’t appear looking like my makeup’s been done by the Joker.” She kissed me softly on the cheek and disappeared into a restroom.

The atmosphere in the main room of the exhibit hall was hushed but festive. Guest after guest lauded the photographers on display. One of the speakers introducing Carolyn’s classmate told a story about the two of them growing up and the importance pictures played in their lives. Another made a stirring tribute to her deceased father, and told a story about the first camera she received when she was seven years old.

I still hadn’t come up with a moving introduction, a way to succinctly portray the kind of person Carolyn was, and the devotion she brought to her work. A flash from the past came to me, a time while we were in Scotland burying my father. How she was able to take the most desolate and lonely times and turn them into gilded memories on Agfa paper. The way she looked at nature the way you or I looked at pieces in a museum. How she believed there was no such thing as a bad day of photography. I wanted to tell the people in attendance that if we saw to our lives with half the passion and energy Carolyn brought to her work, we would all live richer lives.

When I saw her smiling, engulfed in the events of the evening, the hard work over years and years having come to fruition, I knew I couldn’t say any of those things. I couldn’t separate Carolyn the professional photographer from Carolyn the person to whom I had grown so close. At least, not in any meaningful way that would benefit the people in the gallery. Anything I said would be about the feelings that remained intact, and whatever remained to build upon in our crazy relationship.

“And now I would like to introduce our next speaker, who will introduce our next MFA candidate, Carolyn Perrotta,” said Marlene, breaking my train of thought. She extended an arm in the direction where we stood, and looked down at a note card. “Mr. Reed Becker.”

I adjusted my tie and stepped forward. The applause was low and brief as I took the podium. I adjusted my tie one last time and looked out across the smiling faces. Carolyn stood a few feet away to the side, out of my view. On the elevated screen behind me a slide sequence began playing that synchronized selected pictures from Carolyn’s work to a color montage.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to tell you about a girl. A girl who at an early age developed a hobby, and from that hobby beget a passion. A passion that has sustained her entire life. A passion we could only hope to find in our own lives. With this passion she guided her work, showing love and devotion not at all unlike that of a parent. Her work became her little children, each absorbing her loving touch while imparting a unique look of its own. I only hope she finds that kind of passion, that level of reward, in the people she surrounds herself with, and the career track she pursues once outside these university walls. But no matter what, the passion will always remain, of that I am convinced.

That was what I said to myself in my head. It would have been an ideal introduction of appropriate length. But anybody who had been in earshot of our conversation earlier would have read clean through the introduction, would have seen the subtext for what it was.

I gripped the sides of the podium and took a breath: “Ladies and Gentlemen, your lives will forever be enriched once you have seen the world through the eyes of Carolyn Perrotta.”

Stepping back from the podium, the AV tech running the slide show realized after a beat of silence that I had finished my tremendously short introduction. Immediately he began the photo showcase.

Shortly after the lights dimmed I slipped out the side door.