MIA
My flight to Miami was unremarkable, except for the airline losing my rollaboard. Small plane, mandatory gate check, and yet, no blue suitcase with busted wheel flung up into the jetway upon arrival. “I don’t understand,” I said to the woman at baggage claim. “Where did it go?”
The woman took my gate check ticket. “Happens all the time,” she said. “Name?”
“Can they check cargo again?”
“We’ll deliver it as soon as it turns up. I’ll need your name and a description of a few items inside the missing piece, please.”
The office was cramped, papers stacked high, central air blasting from a vent overhead. The woman tapped her pen and looked past me at the line outside her door. What could I tell her? The purple strap-on would be easily recognizable; the matching fur nipple clips. “Melanie Mahoney. There are three white cotton v-necks folded across the top,” I said.
The woman raised a brow.
There was the red lace crotchless bodysuit I’d bought as a gift. The black satin handcuffs.
“A pair of gray flip-flops,” I said, “in the front pocket.”
She scribbled this down. “It should be less than 24 hours,” she said. She slid a copy of my claim and a plastic-wrapped toothbrush across her desk. “We’ll call you.”
“I’m only here three days,” I said, but she was already waving the next person in.
*
The South Florida humidity hit like a bowl of chowder. I shed a layer, draping my faded oxford over my shoulder, as the cab line inched forward. A trio of women giggled behind me — perhaps at the toothbrush shoved into my back pocket — one had Laura’s full mouth, which I couldn’t wait to match with mine.
What would it be like to kiss her?
The Laura look-alike caught my eye. An unguarded stare of recognition. I nodded, but shifted to face forward. If I’d been here for any other reason I’d have chatted her up, tried for a number. But I was here for Laura. No distractions.
We’d agreed over the phone on this one-time indulgence — a no-strings-attached long weekend to plunge into the waters we’d been toeing for years. Blow off some steam. Finally answer that question hanging between us. But without my suitcase, I had no armor. To be without my trusty harness and the beautiful, brand-new, amethyst dildo — to use only my hands, my tongue, to make her come — that was an intimacy I hadn’t anticipated.
Laura had married Chelsea last year, a destination wedding of enviable snapshots that had crowded my social media feeds. Now they were trying for a baby, but the first several IUIs had failed. A few more, she’d told me, and we’ll have to move on to IVF.
I wish there was something I could do, I told her.
Actually, she said. There is.
I might’ve said no to her proposition under other circumstances but I was single and bored and she’d been teasing me for so long about the time we almost hooked up that I couldn’t help wonder what I’d missed out on. A getaway would do me good anyway. Soak up some rays, indulge in a few Mai Tais. I had all those built-up vacation days that I’d lose at the end of the fiscal year, even my supervisor had been reminding me.
The cab driver who herded me into his Prius seemed unfazed by my lack of luggage. “Nice spot,” he said, when I recited the hotel address. “Lots of honeymooners, poor fools.” He eyed me in the rearview.
“I’m here visiting a friend,” I said
He gunned it into traffic, apologizing for the lack of AC. “New car, and already kaput. They don’t make them like they used to.”
When we pulled into the drop-off crescent, I saw why the place was a lover’s haven. The bleached-white concrete building loomed straight out of Instagram — huge hibiscus draping the pergolas, a crystal blue fountain burbling, shrubs pruned to the shapes of swans and hearts rustling in the breeze. Romantic, if you like that kind of thing.
I tipped the guy extra, though he’d done no heavy lifting, and crossed a little white bridge. Pennies, nickels, quarters glinted in the water below. Opening the glass doors that fronted the lobby, a scent so strong I nearly gagged walloped me. I knew the fragrance — sweet and heady, almost a taste — but its name escaped me. I hoped the room didn’t reek too.
The check-in person was polite, though I couldn’t help but notice the way they kept looking behind me, as if waiting for someone to join me. “She’ll be here later,” I finally said, but they just smiled and handed over the key card.
I waved the bellhop away with a shrug that belied my growing anxiety about how, exactly, I would please Laura in this connubial heaven while our toys floated somewhere in purgatory. There was an open-air bar across from the elevator bank — art deco, with a salt water pool glittering in the center like a jewel — but I punched the up arrow. A nearly naked hetero couple joined me while I waited, pawing each other as if they were already back in their room.
It didn’t seem fair to travel all this way and be so unprepared.
*
Laura had hinted at booking a suite so I had: king-sized bed with coral velvet comforter and fainting couch, breakfast nook, a veranda overlooking the pool. It was beautiful, but I couldn’t shake a creeping sense of disappointment.
The bed was huge, almost too luxurious. There were chilled bottles in the mini-fridge, but who knew how much it would cost me if I cracked one, so I brushed my teeth and stripped down to my briefs and bra and took a glass of water outside. I’d have to find a package store. Overgrown palm fronds shaded me from the pasty people dotting the pool lounge, sharing drinks and laughing. Only one couple sported deep tans. My suit was in limbo with everything else. I’d have to buy another. There were no storms on the radar, no black clouds threatening the next few days. Unless, of course, my missing suitcase counted.
I needed a change of clothes at least, something lighter than jeans. I checked my phone — nothing. Laura’d been adamant about my not calling her, even though a phone call or text between us wasn’t unusual. Chelsea, I’d been told, did not find me a threat.
*
“Flamingos or ocean swells,” I asked Laura when she finally rang.
“What? Um, flamingos.”
The blue would have matched my hair better, but I put the waves back.
“They lost my luggage,” I said.
Silence on Laura’s end. Then, “Bummer, can I bring you anything?”
I couldn’t exactly ask to borrow her wife’s strap-on, could I?
“Nah,” I said. “I’m at Target picking up some basics.” I tossed SPF 50 into my cart. “What’s the plan?”
“I had a couple showings pop up. Be there by six.”
I glanced at my watch. “There’s one little glitch—”
“Unh-unh,” Laura warned. “No glitches.”
The sterile store aisle looked exactly the same as the store aisles at home. The closest thing they had to a sex toy was Astroglide. I thought of our dildo cruising somewhere in the friendly skies. Sure, I could Google a sex shop and score another. But was I that desperate? That — scared? Surely the suitcase would arrive.
“I’ll explain when I see you,” I said. “Soon.”
“Soon,” she echoed, her attention already elsewhere.
*
Laura knocked exactly at six. Her punctuality charmed me, so unlike any of our friends, none of whom seemed to own a clock. She breezed in, a lavender silk dress draping her lithe figure, bringing with her the smell of musk, the same scent she’d worn in college. Her nails were freshly polished and her lipstick bright. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she breathed, sliding off her heels. “Did your suitcase show up?”
I shook my head — I’d called the info line but received none — and said, “Drink?”
“Yes, please,” she said, appraising the room. “This is gorgeous.” She perched on the edge of the fainting couch, looking like she might swoon: now that she sat still, I could see shadows beneath her eyes, the pinch of lines bracketing her lips.
I handed her a lowball. “Mmmm,” she said. “Just what the doctor ordered.”
“I know,” I winked. She didn’t say more, and I let the silence linger, hoping she’d make a move. After a moment, I continued, “So—”
She gave me a raw look, almost pained.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Tired,” she said. “Exhausted.” She lifted the hem of her dress, revealing a pattern of quarter-sized bruises on her thighs. “Hormonal.”
“What happened?”
“Clomid. Bravelle. To help my eggs.”
“Could it be the sperm?”
She sipped, shook her head as if clearing an ugly thought. “It’s triple tested or something.”
“What does Chelsea think?”
“That we should be patient. She writes the checks every month like it’s any other bill.” Laura thunked her glass down on the coffee table.
“More?”
“In a bit.”
“Should we talk?”
“I thought we just did.”
“You haven’t changed your mind?”
She eyed me for a second, then rose and crossed the rug and placed her hand on my chest. Her spicy scent made my head spin. “Did you change yours?”
“I just—” I didn’t want to break the news. I felt like a rock star who’d lost her guitar.
Laura withdrew her hand, looked around the suite again. “Pour me another?”
“I’m happy I’m here,” I said, easing the cork from the bottle neck. “But—”
“How are things up north?”
“Ada and Lex are splitting,” I said. “Diva’s closed.”
“I heard,” she said. “I guess nothing stays the same for long.”
“I got promoted.”
“No more nights?”
“Blissfully, no.” I gave her the drink. “I’m almost on a normal person’s sleep schedule.”
She smiled, wearily. “Cheers,” she said, with a clink. “There’s hope for you yet.”
“Listen, I’m not sure how to say this—”
“Are you backing out on me again?”
“It’s not that.”
Laura ran her finger around the mouth of the glass. Despite the AC, it had already begun sweating. Then she tossed it back and blotted her mouth. “I can tell Chelsea you’re in town. We’ll go out for drinks.”
“No, listen — I — bought all these new toys for us,” I waved my hand vaguely toward the ceiling, trying not to over-analyze her nonchalance, “and they’re MIA. Or, not in MIA, as the case may be.”
“Toys?” She groaned. “I’m not a kid, Mel. You’re not here to babysit me.”
Here was the irreverent Laura I’d boarded a plane for, the spark I craved. I cupped her face in both my hands. She tensed, as if she might break free, but when I kissed her, she surrendered.
*
She left at ten on the dot. I lay in bed thinking of how efficiently she zipped her dress, re-twisted her hair, spritzed herself with perfume. Wiping every trace of me from her surface. Breezily kissing me good night.
This, you, she’d whispered, right before her phone alarm interrupted us.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the woman I’d just fucked was not the woman I’d been chasing all these years. Where was my brash and rebellious and carefree Laura? When had she bruised and softened into an overripe peach? I remembered taut muscles and tan limbs, carousing in bars, running trails, stretched out on the couch during afternoon movie binges. I still wanted her, but that chemistry between us — it seemed to have gone missing.
Eventually I got up. I lived alone, but being alone in a hotel room was different. Like I was a character in a romantic comedy, or a horror flick. It was too late for the pool, so I ran a bath. The water felt good, sluicing over my sore shoulders. I’d amped up my routine in the department weight room over the last few weeks, eager to look buff for Laura. She hadn’t commented.
After, skin scrubbed clean and smoothed with the hotel’s apricot lotion, I crawled between the rumpled sheets, trying to hold the image of Laura beside me. All I could picture was her next to Chelsea, in their bed, going over their days, the slight exhale where Laura glossed over our hours together with some premade excuse, smearing us into a blur of nothingness.
It hadn’t occurred to me what it would be like, to play the part of someone’s secret. I wasn’t sure it suited me.
*
In the morning, when I called the info line, an automated voice informed me that there was a delay in delivery of lost luggage due to high volume of misplaced bags.
“I’m only here two more nights,” I said to my empty room, and again to the customer service rep I waited 15 minutes to speak to.
“If it doesn’t arrive before your departure, report it missing when you land at your final destination,” she said. “Eventually it’ll get there.”
I hung up and cursed our ability to hurtle through space in a tin can. For all our technological advancements, meant to make life easy, still I remained baggage-less in an empty hotel room. Sure I could head to the breakfast bar and sit among the happy honeymooners sipping Bellinis and imagining their vows would last forever. Sure I could go for a dip or a walk downtown or grab a shuttle to South Beach.
It would be a blast.
Laura called while I sat by the pool nursing a rum punch and blocking out the coo of couples, at least half of whom I prophesied for divorce before the year was out.
“How’s your morning?” she asked.
“It’d be better if you were here,” I said. I wanted her to agree. She didn’t.
“I’ll be out of the office by noon, but I had to make a doctor’s appointment.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “Just, weird timing. What are you up to?”
“Poolside cocktails,” I said. “I might hit the beach. Stick my feet in the sand.”
“Sounds delightful,” she said. “I should be there by 4. I’ll bring a treat.”
“The only treat I need is you.”
“Gotta go, Mel. Muah.”
I sipped at my watery punch and flagged the waiter for another. Beach-smeach. I hadn’t flown a thousand miles to get sunburnt. I was supposed to be fist-deep in Laura, sticky with her saltiness, not the ocean’s. The least she could do was show up. It’s not like I was asking her to leave Chelsea. I didn’t want that. I just wanted to be something other than an errand slotted into her day. After all that had always been getting in our way — finals, boot camp, trips abroad, visiting parents, other relationships — nothing had changed. Not really. Had I really dreamed this trip would make space for anything otherwise?
All our flirty, furtive phone calls had beguiled me into believing we had some kind of magnetism that needed to be matched. The glamour of making love to Laura in an expensive, tropical getaway glittered, breathless and seductive. A mirage.
“What’s that fragrance?” I asked the waiter when he returned with my drink.
“Jasmine,” he said.
“It’s intense.”
“This time of year it can be overwhelming. By the way, this drink is on Sunny.”
“Who?”
“Lady over there — she’s a regular.” He pointed to the deeply tanned woman I’d spotted from my balcony yesterday. With her was a younger guy, rippled over with muscles, drinking what must’ve been a Blue Lagoon. She waved.
“Uh, thanks, I guess,” I said, flashing my hand toward her.
“She’s a type, but sweet. Just be firm with her.” He paused and smiled in her direction. “You won’t notice the jasmine after a while. It kinda recedes into the background.”
“Sure,” I said, “thanks for the tip.”
I guzzled my drink, left a big bill, and hightailed it up to my room to wait in peace.
*
Laura arrived closer to supper time, looking over her shoulder as I ushered her in.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
She shook her head, exhaling as she took in the drawn drapes and dim light.
“The hormones,” she said, “make me jittery, especially right around dinner.” She kicked off her heels.
“Do you want to get something to eat?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. To be out together. What if— ?”
“Room service then?”
“No, Mel, thanks. I’m not hungry.”
I dropped onto the turned back sheets, deflated by her tone. Had the magic between Laura and me been all in my head? Was last night a dream? “I thought we were going to enjoy ourselves,” I said. “But you’re—”
She crossed her arms. “Sorry I’m putting a damper on your little getaway.”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re distracted. You don’t seem happy.”
“You think I’d be sneaking around, risking everything, if this wasn’t worth it to me?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said.
Laura looked away, and I thought she might step back into her shoes and disappear. She didn’t belong here, any more than I did. But she said, “I don’t know if I should be a mother. Maybe I’m too selfish.”
I hadn’t, until that moment, thought of Laura as anything but confident and easy in her life. She seemed to float through everything, to land wherever, whenever, she pleased with exactly what she wanted at her feet. I’d never seen her so naked, standing there with her dress fully buttoned. I patted the mattress, and when she sat, I put my arm around her. “These things take time. You’ll be a great mom.”
“How do you know?”
I didn’t. But I couldn’t tell her that. It was all a leap in the dark.
“Call it a hunch,” I said, taking her hands. “Amazing things are on their way to you.”
“You’re just trying to get in my pants,” she said.
“Is it that obvious?”
“I’m sorry I freaked out,” she said. “It’s been a tough few months.”
“I get it.” Though really I didn’t.
*
She left at eight with a kiss and a promise to return in the morning. “We’ll have the whole day together,” she said. My last day, I almost said, but didn’t want to spoil the moment.
The night stretched out before me, so I decided to put the trunks I’d bought to good use. The pool was crowded with glazed gazes and neon drinks. I was the only one in the water, the only one alone, and I did laps until Sunny and her beefcake beau slid into the shallow end.
“Nice bod,” she called. “But all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.” I gave her a nod, not really wanting to engage, but she beckoned me over. She wore a brilliant gold sun pendant on a thick chain. “What’re you doin’ here by yourself, hun?”
“Waiting,” I said.
“Romeo’s got other business?”
“Juliet.”
She winked at Beefy as if to say I told you so. “If I were her,” she said, moving close enough that I caught a whiff of gin over the chlorine, “I wouldn’t leave you alone for a hot second.”
“It’s — complicated.”
“Of course it is. You want to come to our place, to — pass the time?”
“I’m good,” I said, “but thanks.” I pulled up from the pool and grabbed a towel.
“We’ll be here, if you change your mind. Drinks are always on us.”
Beefy just sat stirring the straw in his Blue Lagoon. Either I wasn’t his type or he preferred to play back up. Or both.
“It’s a nice offer,” I said. “But I’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“I hate to see a good woman clam-shackled,” Sunny said, loud enough for me to hear, as she rejoined Beefy.
Clam-shackled? That was new.
*
“You’re looking tip-top,” Laura said as she slid into the room the next morning, two coffees in hand.
“Nine hours straight,” I said, relieving her of a cup. I might’ve looked decent, but my mind was clouded, as though it had floated up to join my suitcase. “I got quite the proposition last night.”
Laura’s eyebrows went up. “Oh?”
“For a threesome with a couple of leathery gators.”
“Careful, they bite.”
“Oh, I can handle teeth.”
“I know — that’s one of the things I love about you.”
The word, unexpected, hung in the air between us.
“So, did you—?”
“Nah. Want me to order up mimosas?”
“I’m good,” Laura said, resting a hand on her abdomen. “I should take it easy.”
The day passed like a fever.
And then it was night and Laura stood pulling her hair into a bun, smoothing her dress in the mirror by the door. She said, “No word on your bag, huh? It must be in Doha by now.”
“Imagine—”
“Let’s lay low for a while,” she interrupted.
“How so?”
“Who knows you’re here?”
“My mom.” Who’d only echoed my news and then said, Alone, Mel? Is that a good idea? But I had to tell someone where I’d be, and I needed her to watch the dog. “Why?”
“This has been — amazing,” Laura said. “But I need it to stay in this room.”
“Of course,” I said. “I get that.” I thought of the bruises on her thighs, the weight of her decisions, the future she was gunning toward.
“I had my last IUI yesterday,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“But I—” Something heavy lurched in my stomach. “I thought—” But what had I thought, exactly? That there would truly be no strings?
“I don’t want you to read into it. You know, if it takes.”
“Read into it how?”
“You know,” she said, and I guess I did. “I debated whether to even tell you. I didn’t want to freak you out. Or find out on social media and think I was trying to hide something from you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I guess.” I tried to focus on Laura’s face, but it blurred when I looked at her. “You’re just going to drop this on me and leave?”
“I don’t want to process, you know? I get enough of that in my real life.” She grabbed her purse, swept her eyes over the room one last time.
“So, this isn’t—?”
“Listen, Mel. One of the things I admire about you is how happy you are by yourself.”
Before I could respond, she took a deep breath and let herself out.
For a long time I stood on the veranda and watched the evening crowd around the pool. Beefy sat stirring the straw in his blue drink while Sunny brushed her wrinkled cleavage against another woman’s arm. At least they laid it all out in the open. No hiding.
Before going to bed, I gathered the clothes I’d bought, some with tags still on, and folded them. On the hotel notepad, I scribbled Please Donate and laid it atop the pile. Then I texted Laura: You got this one. I held the button to turn off my phone so I wouldn’t have to wait for her reply.
*
No alarm rang for my 5am flight, and I didn’t report my bag missing when I landed in Hartford. Let someone in Doha put the contents to good use. And when the ultrasound pic showed up in Laura’s feed a few months later, I clicked “Like” with no hard feelings.
It was better that way.