“Want to meet me in Israel?” Steve asked.
The crackle in the phone line annoyed me. “Israel?” Isn’t there a war going on over there? Then like a Rolodex, my mind flipped to the business of our restaurant. It was September 1991 and Steve was trying to win me back into his life. Our life. The one where we spent the last two years falling in and out of love. He was a 52-year-old Jewish widower with thick lips, curly salt and pepper hair, a toothy smile, and a perpetual nail biter. Steve had an insatiable desire for my youthful attitude and perky tits. I was a 30-year-old recovering Catholic with blue eyes, short, auburn curly hair, and a propensity for doing the right things for the wrong reasons. I had a need for security that bordered on dysfunctional. Steve spent most of his time in Miami, while I lived seventy miles south in Marathon, Florida to manage our sixty-four-seat run-down diner.
I sat up in bed and propped the pillows behind my back. I looked toward the digital clock on the bedside table. 11:39 p.m.
“It’s late. Where were you?” I asked ignoring his question about Israel. He’d wooed me in the past about trips abroad. Sadly, he didn’t always deliver.
“I just got back from the theater. Did I wake you?”
“Uh-uh,” I said. I had imagined him with a beautiful woman. Then realized he had every right to want love and companionship. It’s not as if I were a model girlfriend.
In 1989 during the first three months of our relationship, I cheated on Steve with a local bad boy who wore a silly grin and no shoes.
I rationalized that mess because Steve had left me to run the diner while he traveled to Europe for ten weeks. The following summer I discovered Steve had a one-year-old son in Hungary. I followed up with a fling and fell for a square-jawed Air Force National Guard reservist/bartender named JJ. Steve’s doctor friends introduced him to a heavyset woman who wore oversized silk flowers in her long dark brown hair. In between these trysts, Steve and I talked about an engagement. We traveled. We fought. We split up and reunited.
“Hello,” he said.
The line was clear now. I inhaled deeply.
“Are you there?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I am here alone Maureen.” His native Hungarian tongue butchered my name. Something I’d grown accustomed to, but I melted a little inside when he called me by my name instead of “honey” or “baby.”
“How long would we be gone?”
“It depends.”
My pulse throbbed in my throat and wrists.
I ran my hand through my unruly curls and smelled chlorine on my skin and hair from a swim earlier in the evening. I shuffled the pillows lowering them behind me to support my aching back. I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand and took a long pull on the cold water while I considered my next question. We often danced around each other’s questions. Our relationship thrived when we were apart and made plans to get back together. We’d met on a blind date in Los Angeles after a three-month long-distance phone courtship. Me in Pittsburgh. He in Marathon. I know now why some couple relationships blossom and thrive. Time and separation keep love fresh. Exciting. “Will we travel together?”
He chuckled then coughed to clear his throat. “Which question should I answer first?”
Silence filled the line.
“I’ll fly from Budapest. You will fly from Miami to New York, then Paris, then to Tel Aviv.”
He had my itinerary planned.
He was sure that I would meet him. I wasn’t confident, mature, or secure enough to know how dysfunctional our relationship was. I wanted to please him and had a hunger for travel that I couldn’t satisfy on my own.
I sighed into the phone. Do I tell him the staff is stealing and risk not going to Israel? When Steve had called in the past, I flew. Six or seven weeks out of the winter season to snow ski. Long weekend cruises to the Bahamas. Paris. Buenos Aires. I needed my staff. They knew it. They wanted me to leave. Worse, I wanted to go. Couldn’t wait to go.
“They are stealing.”
“Which ones?”
“The dishwashers. The servers. I don’t know. I don’t have time to spy on them.” The words flew from my mouth like platters of biscuits and gravy sold in the restaurant every day.
Our relationship was built on loneliness, need, and a May-December love affair, not trust, the core ingredient of any successful relationship.
Steve had charisma and an unending supply of airplane tickets. I was reckless, and yet somewhat plucky, looking for a father figure to take care of me. After two years, we had crushed any hope for building a solid, healthy relationship, but both strangely held on to the idea that “the next time” we’d get it right. He would propose. I would settle. Ending the awkward, messy pas de deux we’d started.
“You’re going to have to fix that before we go,” he said. His voice sounded sleepy.
“Of course.” I just didn’t know how. “When would we go?”
“October.”
“Is it safe? I mean, the war and all.”
“The war ended earlier this year baby.” He laughed again. But his laughter was tinged with impatience.
His words stung. I swallowed my pride and was relieved he could not see the warm burn I felt on my cheeks. I wanted to shout, I have no idea what’s happening in the world because I am stuck managing this greasy, run-down diner twenty-four seven. But I knew that wasn’t altogether true and that I shouldn’t blame him for my ignorance about world affairs or anything else. I also knew I’d do whatever it took to meet him in Israel, including not doing anything about the theft. Then I asked Steve the same question I always asked when he wanted to whisk me to an exotic destination. “Are you ever going to ask me to marry you?”
“Why don’t we wait and see what happens in Israel?” His voice purred through the line.
And just like that, I believed in us. Again.
***
I didn’t notice the chatter in the Charles De Gaulle airport until I took a break from reading my Cosmopolitan magazine.
I scanned the growing crowd around me. When I had settled into the chair thirty minutes prior, there were only a few people in the waiting area at the gate to Tel Aviv. I noticed for the first time I was the only single, white American woman traveling to Israel that evening in October of 1991.
My eyes landed on the young man sitting across from me. He stared at me with round black eyes. He was dressed in American clothes, but his light brown skin and dark tousled hair whispered a life of hot sun and wind-filled desert days.
The gate attendant made the announcement to board the plane. My skin tingled. I picked up my carry on, stuffed my magazine in my bag, and stood to get in line behind the man who stared.
“You are traveling to Israel alone?” He’d turned to speak to me. He looked no older than I did. His voice was soft. Exotic. Anxiety trickled down my spine, found its way to my stomach, and then did a little flip.
“I’m meeting my fiancé, Steve,” I said. “In Tel Aviv.” Did I disclose too much?
“Where in Israel will you be staying?
His question seemed innocent enough. “With my fiancé’s family,” I said as confident as I could muster.
We shuffled toward the gate.
The man in front of me explained that I’d need to be more specific on my customs form.
“King George Hotel,” I said.
It was a small white lie. I heard my sharp American voice ring out over the cacophony of sounds in the airport—bleating goats, and people speaking in languages I didn’t understand. The customs agent stared at me with impassive eyes and then banged the stamp down on my passport. I flinched and hoped no one noticed.
I waded through the dense crowd toward the luggage carousel. Dust invaded my sinuses and my nostrils dried out. The smell of fried dough, lamb, and sweat lingered in the still, hot desert air. I was a long way from the Florida Keys where fresh fish sandwiches, margaritas, and Jimmy Buffet were on the menu.
I wheeled my suitcase around a corner. The commotion I heard when I got off the plane spread before my eyes. A sea of people stood behind a wall of bars painted pale blue, separating the terminal from the outside. Men wore traditional long robes and red and white checkered headscarves. Women wore face scarves. They swayed, shoved, and called out to everyone and no one it seemed. Hasidic Jews stood in somber, traditional black suits. Their side tendrils and long beards defined them. Bedouins, whom I’d only read about in National Geographic magazines, wandered back and forth in long dust-covered robes. Goats followed them, neck bells tinkling. I searched the crowd for Steve. My stomach fluttered as if a swarm of moths was caught in a Mason jar. I felt like I’d stepped onto a movie set, yet I didn’t know the title or the plot. I said a Hail Mary for strength and the perfect ending. Then I saw Steve’s beaming white toothy smile. I felt flush with relief.
A week later, we arrived in Eilat at dusk by rental car. We ate a light dinner and slept in a small hotel. The following day we snorkeled in the clear turquoise waters of the Red Sea and frolicked on the beach. Our week in Israel had been a whirlwind of adventures. Jerusalem with the beefy police bodyguard cousin. Jericho and a camel ride. Prayers and tears at the Western Wall. The Dome of the Rock. Yad Vashem. Masada. We drove to The Dead Sea for a swim and a mud bath.
Swaddled by his knowledge and love of the land, I fell into our familiar pattern; him the teacher, me the hungry student.
We made love during the early morning blood-red sunrise. We ate yogurt and hummus for breakfast and whole grilled fresh fish for dinner. Despite our closeness and my feelings for him, I wondered, even obsessed about this special trip. Was this “the one?”
The next day we crossed the border into Taba, Egypt. That night, he didn’t get on one knee and propose as I’d imagined. Instead, he handed me a small square box as we stood in the dimly lit hotel room just after dinner. My insides quivered as I opened the box. When I removed the ring from the box and saw the slight tint to the stone, I felt my lips tighten. My heart pounded. It wasn’t a diamond, but rather a 3-carat blue topaz solitaire.
“I know it’s not what you wanted,” he said. A sad, sweet smile filled his chubby face.
I felt betrayed. Embarrassed. Feared I had made a bad decision again. Worried about the cash register back home. Mad at him. Angry at myself. He saw the look on my face and took me in his arms. Oddly, I felt safe. I knew he loved me. I loved him. I needed him to help me mature and be a better person. And I knew he needed me for his own selfish reasons.
Our relationship was messy. Complex. I understood I needed to stay grounded, trust in the moment, and not fret about the past, or worry about the future. I held back my tears and said, “It’s beautiful.”
***
