Surprise trip

I’m tired. I woke up twice last night - that must be why. So the chit-chat of the dentist, which I normally find pleasant, is making me cranky. And I am already irritated enough for having to take two hours off work for an aching tooth. 

“It’s nothing concerning, John. You have a cavity, but since you come in regularly, it hasn’t gone deep. I have to give you an injection before we start, however.”

An injection? That sounds fishy. I’ve had a couple of cavities before and he never had to give me an injection. I thought about saying something, but what was there to say? He would have given me some explanation I wouldn’t understand, and then I’d give him the go-ahead anyway - so whatever, as long as I get back to the office before the stock market closes. 

A loud sound coming from above wakes me up. It sounds like the cry of a seagull. The air smells salty and the top of my head feels warm. When I open my eyes, the shiny blue of the ocean at midday makes me squint. I look down instead, only to see I am barefooted in the sand. 

“Oh, hi, John, you’re awake!” 

To my left, my wife is laying on a chaise-longue. 

“What on earth, Connie?”

“Surprise, we’re on vacation! Come on, let’s go get you some flip-flops.”

She stands up and wraps herself in a pink kimono. I start following her, dragging my feet across the beach.

“Connie, did you call my work? I really shouldn’t just go missing like this.”

“Wait for me here. I’ll get you some flip-flops from that green booth over there.” She crosses the street running. 

I feel hot and exhausted and like I could cry. I reach for my phone to see if I have any signal to get into my email. To my horror, I’m wearing short khaki pants with no pockets. 

Connie comes back with a pair of green shoes in her hands. They’re going to look hideous on me. 

“How is it to be out of the gym trainers or office shoes for a change?” she says, dangling the hideous green pair in the air. 

“Thank you! It’s just what I wanted.” I give her my best sarcastic smile. She ignores me.

“Can I borrow your phone? I need to call Pete and let him know I’m not going back to the office today.”

“I don’t have a phone, John. We’re on vacation, remember?”

“Connie, I’m serious.”

She just keeps walking. 

We are now approaching a more urban area. On both sides of the road, there are stalls with bananas, coconuts and oranges. People are hanging out in groups, loosely dressed and speaking to each other loudly. A newspaper stand wouldn’t be so bad - maybe I could have a look at the finance section. 

“And that’s when I said to him I preferred the green one.”

Oh, Christ. What is she talking about?

“You should have seen his face, John.”

“I bet.”

“Anyway, the next morning, when I went to the shop - ”

Why are there no people on their smartphones? I’m quickly looking through faces in the crowd. People are wearing colourful caps and sleeveless shirts and hippie canvas bags. Some of them are carrying swimming coils, yet no one appears to have a smartphone. Don’t these people watch the news for god’s sake?

“And I just felt that combo was too sweet. You would have liked it.”

Oh, shit, I lost it again. Tea. Chai latte. A coworker Veronica. Latte again. Is she talking about Starbucks?

We enter a bodega. 

“Connie, I’m not trying to be a jerk, but I’m really worked up about this work thing. I told Carol I’d meet her over breakfast to discuss a client’s risk appetite, then scheduled -”

“John, enough. Did you even bother to look around you? See how the scenery’s changed.”

“Yeah, yeah, I put it together that we’re in Thailand.”

She rolls her eyes. “Nobody likes a know-it-all.”

“Listen, I need to know what’s the plan with this vacation. Do we have a phone in the hotel room? Or did you perhaps pack my laptop?”

A bartender puts in front of us two drinks I don’t remember ordering. 

“John, how long are you going to be like this?”

“Well, work is crazy right now and you’re not exactly helping.”

A flinch of sadness in her eyes - it was the truth after all. 

“Yes, yes, work. Work is always crazy. Even more so than your wife.”

Weird joke. She now has a mean face and it’s driving me crazy. 

“That’s very unfair, Connie.” I reach for the glass and drink it whole in one breath. It touches the table with a bang. Connie raises her eyebrows in surprise.

“That was a very alcoholic cocktail you just chugged.”

Great. What was I thinking? Talking my wife into returning home isn’t going to get any easier if I’m hammered.

“So, for how much longer is work going to be crazy?” She has her mean face again. 

“We’ve talked about this before, I am up for a senior position, the one”

“…with the office on the 37th floor. I thought you already got promoted six months ago. Work was crazy then too.”

“Yeah, that’s right, but that was just an intermediary step. I’ve got my eyes on the big one.”

“And that’s it, one more step and you’re there?” 

I nod.

“And how many more months for this last step?”

 Am I getting drunk already? 

“I’m sorry, I feel a little strange.”

“You don’t know that stuff about me anymore.”

A sad expression has now replaced her mean face. 

“Like what?”

“You know, like how I’ve been trying a new type of tea every day.”

“Oh, honey, but you’ve been doing that, for, what - ”

“Five weeks.”

Damn. How did she find thirty-five different flavours of tea?

“Or how I helped Justin paint a wall in his flat after he broke his arm surfing.”

Who’s Justin?

“Or how on Friday evening, when you stay late at the office, I - ”

Suddenly, her words all sound strange. Did she just start speaking French? 

We are now walking on the sidewalk, as cars speed by. I can’t recall if we ever paid for the drinks and I prayed Connie didn’t talk me into drinking another one. She is talking in a slow sweet voice but I still struggle to get the meaning of what she is saying. 

“Connie, look, look! To the right!”

Far in the distance, I see the gorgeous tail of a dolphin jumping out of the water. And another one. And another one. “Connie, look at the dolphins!” 

She turns her head and laughs at me.

I’m panting. It looks like we’re going up a hill. 

“Yeah, so I often wonder, John, if there is such thing as people meant to be together. The universe is so perfectly put together, but cares so little about humans.”

The universe? I look at the sky and faded red lights reveal themselves from underneath the clouds. I keep staring into the lights, and spirals take shape. Colourful spirals spin slowly, allowing my eye to look deeper and deeper into the galaxy. 

“Connie, am I on drugs?”

“Are you feeling alright?”

Damn, that was a yes. “You know they do drug screenings at work.”

We’ve made it to the top of the hill. As I look down, the water hits the rocky blocks at the bottom of the hill. If I look long enough, I can see rocks being smashed into smaller pieces. Some of the pieces fall back into the water with a splash. Some keep going up, defying gravity. I follow pebbles’ trajectories into the Milky Way. 

‘And that’s why I might have to undergo surgery”, Connie sighs. 

“Honey, that’s terrible.”

Walking down the hill is so much fun. I see two large elephants in the distance and I start stomping my feet hard into the grass. Yet I can’t see any prints on the ground. Am I invisible? The thought terrifies me.

“Connie?”

“John?”

Good. I glance back at the top of the hill. From below it looked like a volcano and for a second I thought of running back up to look inside it. I look at my feet again. Right - simply talking to Connie didn’t prove she could see me.

“Connie, are my cheeks red?”

She comes close to me. Her eyes are sparkly and her lips are apart. She is gorgeous like a butterfly, not like me with huge green feet and what felt like very thick eyebrows. Her left hand touching my chin sends shocks through my body.

“Now they are.” She smiles cunningly.

A few miles down the road, we are now approaching a very busy part of the city. It has gotten dark in the meantime and I feel like I have been awake for ages. Connie’s hair is no longer tied in an updo, but laying freely behind her shoulders. 

“And Veronica was so stressed about it. She didn’t even thank me for the gingerbread.”

Gingerbread?

“When was this?”

She looked at me like she was happy I had asked. “Last December. I didn’t see what she was so mad about, it’s not like I pushed my opinion on her or something.”

“Hmm?” 

“’Cause she was really stressed. I just told her maybe she should worry less about the job, it’s not like her entire life revolves around working. That’s how it is for me, anyway.”

Work? A few images of my office on the 36th floor flash before my eyes. Work, what an alien concept. I call myself free-willed but I go to work every day. I can choose what to work, but not whether to work. Or not realistically, anyway. 

“I still had some gingerbread left from that time when I baked with her. But you were always eating at work so I don’t think you had the time to try it.”

She didn’t look mean when she said that. So Connie was really hurt at those times. 

We are now about to immerse in a crowd of people that are going in the opposite direction. They are all wearing white shirts and seem to be going to a party. I try to grab Connie’s hand before we collide with the first row of people, but she slips away and I’m left behind. I hear people’s voices close to my ear. I might have said “sorry, sorry” idiotically a few times, although I can’t tell if I said the words or just thought about them while making my way through the crowd. 

When we finally pass it, Connie is a few feet in front of me. The colours look now saturated, like the things around got painted in tones of yellow and mustard on a dark canvas. 

A face catches my eye. He’s an old bagger sitting on the sidewalk. He has a watermelon at his feet and I find myself walking towards him. I don’t know what I want to say. He has large round eyes the colour of olives. I feel two coins in the fist of my left hand. Did I ask Connie for money? I gave him to the bagger without looking at them. He smiled with his teeth and reached for my palm. 

Back on the street, my head is spinning. “Connie”, I pant, “there you are.”

She walks towards me smiling and right then, she looks exactly like when I first met her in my last year of college.

“What have you got there?” She grabs my left arm and opens my fist. A fortune cookie with a sugary drawing on top. “It has a Christmas tree”, she beams. 

We didn’t have a Christmas tree this year. I can’t remember a reason. I don’t even remember noticing that we didn’t get one. But Connie probably didn’t notice either - she would have said something, I guess. She was very into making sure that we sorted all the recyclables in our house back then. But that’s how Connie was - she’d really get into things once in a while. Yeah - I remember, she was also into baking. That’s probably when she made that gingerbread. I would sometimes smell cupcakes when I would start to get ready at 5. In the evening I was too tired to smell things. 

We are now in front of a four-floored building. 

“Wait for me here, I’ll quickly go inside to get something.” 

I look inside my fist again. The drawing on the cookie now looks like a half-moon.

What did Connie drug me with? 

She comes downstairs in a slippery green dress and wearing red lipstick. The dress is the colour of seaweed and I liked that. 

“Let me show you something funny”, and I open my palm to show her the drawing that was no longer a tree. Her eyes widen in excitement. 

It now has the shape of a guitar.

She grabs my hand. “Come on, we’re going dancing.” I look at her with what must have been surprise. “We’re going to live the other half of our lives.” 

Did she really say that? 

We’re in a crowded bar with loud music. Some people are hanging out at tables, some are smoking on the terraces or even inside on armchairs. Some are dancing in the right part of the room. The lights are dim. 

Connie pushes me into a group that is dancing to what in my head sounds like Abba. She starts moving her body around gracefully. 

“You were right with what you said before”, I start talking in her ear, “with what you said to Veronica.” Not everything should revolve around work. 

“I’m so happy to hear you say that, John.” Her eyelids are painted blue. 

“I really want to make it further than this, you know,” I find myself saying. 

She nods. “I know, Johnny - ”

Johnny?

“- but you have to have some balance.” 

Several more people start coming to the dancing area. This must be a popular song. Connie and I get squeezed into each other. She smells like chamomile and as I touch her shoulder, her skin feels warm. 

I’m staring at my shoes - when did I change my flip-flops? - and at the shiny squares of paint on the dance floor. I see the world from knee-down. Is this how a kid sees the world?

Some guy pushes me out of the club. Connie is yelling at him “Hey, easy, easy, no need to be a jerk.” 

“What just happened?” My left arm hurts from having someone squeeze it really hard.

“Oh, honey,” touching my face “those guys were just really plastered.” 

We go to another club. The drawing on the cookie fortune now has the shape of a cosmos flower.  

We’re back on the beach. I’m sweaty and I smell like liquor. Connie’s dress is a little wet too and she has glitter in her hair. 

“You had some dance moves back there.”

“I did?” 

“OH, I saw you.” 

She’s laughing frantically. I grab her waist and hold her. 

“How did you snatch that?!” I gush pointing at the bottle of wine in her hand. 

“Come on, like you’ve never stolen drinks from a party before! I knew you in college, you know!”

I reach to grab the bottle.

“Nu-uh, you have to catch me first!” 

I never expected her to start running and I never expected my body to just jump and follow her. 

We are running barefoot on soft grains of sand. I don’t feel tired - my body is putting in more energy than it ever did on the treadmill.

“John!” and I follow the sound of her voice. 

The sun is now up and we are staying in a line. Connie’s fidgeting and in this light, I see there’s glitter on her cheeks too. We get a giant pink cotton candy and for a second I don’t feel like getting my fingers all sticky. Her fingers dip into it and she brings a fluffy piece to my mouth. She then grabs a piece herself and jiggles. I feel grateful. 

My head feels hot and it becomes clear that the sun doesn’t care much for my hat. My arms feel dirty and my clothes are wet. My head is aching and spinning. I want to take a shower and have breakfast and Connie’s just smoking her bloody cigarette. I’m suddenly very angry with her. All of these are her fault.

I clench my fist as I try not to say any of those things or worse. 

The cookie - I still had it. I throw it in my mouth and almost choke on the fortune. 

I open it.

“To truly listen to each other, a little self-awareness is necessary.” 

Good one. 

The announcements at the airport still feel a little too loud for my hangover head. But

I’m back to normal. Yeah, I’m back to normal. 

Connie’s wearing a beige shirt and a leather purse. She has pink lipstick and long pants; I miss her messy hair and wet dress.

“You’ve changed.” 

She smiles from under her glasses. 

“Yeah. Here’s your computer, and your gym bag. Without delays from the airport, you’ll be back for your three o’clock meeting.”

“Connie - ”

“I noticed you signed up for the fund-raising at The Ritz. I’m visiting Darlene’s gallery in the area and - ”

“Connie.” 

Why did she change? 

“Do you want to get something to drink from the cafe over there?” 

She raises her head. 

“After all, I don’t remember tea from Thailand being on your already-tried-hot-beverages list.”

“Except for -”

“- that one time when your aunt came back from her honeymoon with gifts.”

“Yeah.” She grabs my arm smiling.