Once my initial giddiness and tendency toward hero-worship faded away I began to notice the tension between us. While it was alarming to realize I was overwhelmingly attracted to another man, it was also comforting in many ways when I discovered little signs that Zach had the same feelings about me.
He gave me repeated warnings in the first few months of my employment regarding the impending traveling he would have to do. I couldn't quite believe it was as big a deal as he made it out to be. Finally, one afternoon in July he wheeled into his office, where I was perched on the edge of my chair waiting for his arrival, with a manila folder in his lap. He pushed the door shut and then handed the folder to me.
"Eugene, Oregon," he said without preamble of any sort. "Next Sunday. I need you to come with me. Is that a problem?"
I shook my head. "I love Oregon. What's it for?"
"I am a guest speaker. Modern American Writers, blah blah blah blah…" He grimaced and rubbed his left shoulder with his right hand. "It's a terrible honor to be asked, you know. I'm just thrilled." The last bit was spoken in his Madeline voice—the high-pitched, Long Island imitation he used when mocking his publisher.
I laughed. "So, what do I need to do?"
"Well, since Madeline is too busy for me and her assistant is too stupid to book a flight correctly, you'll have to get the tickets, and make sure we're not leaving at six in the morning or anything ridiculous. As you may have noticed, we require special accommodations. You have to drill that into their heads, trust me. Also, rooms at a hotel close to campus. We'll be flying back Tuesday, as late as you can find a flight, because I'll be very hung over. Okay?"
"Alright. Got it. Can I have some money, boss?"
He retrieved his wallet from his back pocket with a bit of difficulty and took out a credit card with Madeline's name on it. He grinned as I took it. "You know what? I think Little-Brown should compensate you for all your trouble. Let's fly first class."
"Cool. If you're going to be on the computer I can go do this at home. Do you want me in your class tonight?"
He nodded. "I told you, I'm going to take up as much of your time as I possibly can." Then he pushed himself closer to his desk, until his legs were out of sight and he was in position to wreak havoc on the self-esteem of one of his online students. He made another face and rubbed his shoulder again as the computer booted up.
Impulsively, I stepped behind him, laid the card and folder on his desk and put my hands on his shoulders.
"Did you skip PT again?"
"No, Mummy Dearest, I did not. I imagine that's what hurts. That woman is the devil; I don't care if you don't believe me. Damn, that feels good. You can have a raise."
I laughed, rubbed harder so that he moaned. I was suddenly very warm; it started between my legs and moved upward to my face. It was a familiar heat, but disconcerting nonetheless. His back and shoulders were muscular, taught and hard under my fingers. I could only stand it for a few minutes, and then I pulled my hands off of him and said that I had to go.
He looked up at me as I was taking my things from his desk. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
"You're blushing, little Irish girl."
"I'm… it's warm in here. Isn't it?"
He nodded. "It is. Go make those reservations. I'll see you at six."
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I picked him up, as per his instructions, two hours before our flight to Oregon. He was a very light traveler, bringing only a hanging garment bag, a backpack and his laptop. I had my ever-present mail-carrier's bag and a suitcase that rolled. He offered to have one of the airport staff carry the luggage, but looked relieved when I assured him I was fine.
"There's nothing heavy, and mine rolls," I said, shrugging off his offer. "It's fine. Now, had I brought more shoes…"
I'd always wondered what was involved in traveling with a disability. I tried to tell myself not to be so excited, that it was intolerably weird, but my interest was beyond piqued. It was a lot more complicated than I'd imagined. Zach was patted down when we went through security. The guard must have been new, because he seemed terribly embarrassed when the alarm went off as Zach rolled through the metal detector.
"What? Does it surprise you that it went off?" Zach looked up at the man, arms folded, smirking.
I looked at the pink-faced guard and said, "I just can't take him anywhere."
"Sir, um, I'm going to, uh…"
"He's going to frisk me," Zach informed me. Behind us, several people were watching the show with amused expressions. "You can go ahead. Make sure all the proper arrangements are made. You know how hard it is to find good help and all."
I stuck my index finger into his face and said, "Behave yourself."
The people at the gate were quite prepared, which Zach swore was a miracle. A few minutes after he joined me there, the woman from the podium came over to us and asked if he was Zach DiMarro.
"I am. Why does that matter?"
"Sir, we'll be pre-boarding in ten minutes. The aisle chair is ready and we have staff to assist you in boarding. Is there anything else you need from us today?"
"No, thank you."
She smiled brightly at him and shook his hand. "Well, I hope you have a nice flight, Mr. DiMarro, and thank you for flying with us."
As she walked off Zach gave me an amazed look. "What did you do?"
"What?"
"She was too nice. And they haven't fucked anything up yet. I've been here a good ten minutes and nothing bad has happened. Why not?"
"Um, beginner's luck?" I asked, grinning at the expression on his face.
"You're a witch. A neo-pagan, green-eyed, Celtic fairy-witch."
"Have you been drinking?"
"Not yet, no, but I do intend to start shortly. Thank you for reminding me."
Soon, the happy flight attendant at the podium then made her announcement that pre-boarding was beginning and so our chatting was cut short. I stood up, slung my bag over my shoulder and looked at him for further instruction. He looked like he was about to go in for major dental work.
"Take my lap-top, please; I won't be able to carry it."
I did as I was told, as usual with him, and followed him to the walk-way that led to the plane. There was a man there with a very thin wheelchair who asked Zach if he could transfer by himself. Zach nodded and asked him if I could go ahead. He was sending me away. I complied, thinking it was novel to be the first one on the plane and for once not have to wait for people to put their crap in the overhead compartments.
It was a small plane, and the first class section was made up of only three rows of seats. We were in the first, which was spacious and comfortable looking. I sat down, shoved my bag under the seat in front of me and held the bag containing Zach's computer on my lap. In a few seconds the man in the airport uniform came down the aisle backward, pulling Zach in the skinny chair. I noticed that they had strapped him in. He looked uncomfortable and I felt sorry that he had to put up with that kind of thing. Briefly, I wondered again what had caused his being in the wheelchair in the first place, then he was there beside me and I was distracted. He pulled himself into the seat beside me and then positioned his feet using his hands. He lifted himself up slightly by using the armrests, then he looked over at me.
"See?" he asked. "Fiasco. And that's when they do everything right."
I shrugged. "Hmph. You should try flying into Calcutta."
"No, thank you. May I have my computer?"
I handed it to him. "Have you written your opening statement yet?"
"No."
"Did you pick something to read?"
"No." He laughed and shook his head. "Actually, I haven't decided on poetry or prose yet, either. That's probably a problem. Do you think that's a problem?"
"No, not at all. How long are you supposed to be up there?"
"About half an hour. There are three of us, so…"
"Read 'Gravel Roads' and 'On Hannah's Grace', and then read the first three pages of Off Season."
He looked at me. "Have you given this some thought, Katy?"
Slightly abashed, I hung my head and looked up at him through the coppery fringe of my bangs. "Actually, no. I just, sort of, know your work. Pretty well."
He smiled at me; not his usual sarcastic, slit-eyed grin, but a real, beaming smile. "Okay. I'll read what you want."
I was quiet for a moment, then I said, "Thank you, for letting me work with you, and… and everything. I've been enjoying it, I don't know if you noticed."
His eyes met mine and crinkled mischievously at their corners. "I've noticed. And I'm glad."
We were quiet for a few minutes as the rest of the passengers started to board the plane. I dug through my bag for a book, finally pulled it out and was about to open it when Zach made a sound: sort of a quiet snort of self-approval.
"What?"
"The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. I knew you were a Plath girl."
"Oh, why? Not every woman in the world with an English degree is…"
"No, I'm not generalizing. I'm talking about 'a pale face bathed in tears, here, just a wraith in the moonlight'…"
Without thinking, I punched him in the arm so that he drew back, laughing loudly.
"How in the hell did you find that?" I practically shrieked at him; the man behind us started at the noise. My face was hot and I was giving serious thought to suicide. Zach was quoting a poem I'd had published in a literary journal, now defunct, of no consequence, when I was eighteen. The thought of him reading my teenage, love-stricken poems made me literally sick to my stomach.
He was still laughing. This was clearly the most fun he'd had in weeks. "I think I've memorized the whole thing. I can recite it for you. 'In this box'…"
"Zach, I swear I will kill you if you don't shut up."
"Why?"
"Because I don't think I've ever been so embarrassed in my life. And I have three older brothers, Zach—I know about being humiliated."
"It's not humiliating. It isn't bad, Katy. It's adolescent, it needs shaping. But you have talent; you could be a great poet. Now, I don't recommend you try making a career of writing short stories…"
My heart stopped. "Oh, no. No, you didn't."
The story was called "One of Those." It was in a very small magazine of young writers—a story about one of my slutty friends from college. Even at the time it was published I wondered why it was accepted; now I was sure it was terrible. I hung my head in utter, abject shame.
"I don't believe you found that crap. How?"
He shrugged. "I have amazing internet search engine skills."
"Okay. Now tell me why?"
"I wanted to know. You're so passionate about words, about the art of it; and you're the perfect… companion, I guess, for me. The way you deal with my moods, know how not to bother me when I'm working, and to give me a push now and then when I need inspiration." He touched my hand, sending electric chills through my body. "Only another writer could do that. I wanted to see what you could do, and why you quit."
"You want to know why I quit?" I cocked my head at him, looked into his blue eyes.
He nodded.
I took a deep breath. "It's a funny story. When I was twenty three, I made a chap-book. It was fifteen poems, the ones I thought were my best. And I sent them to three people. And none of them responded. So, I figured…"
"Katy, do you realize how many manuscripts and letters and everything else a well-known writer gets? That was stupid—that's no reason to quit writing. They may not even have seen them."
I shrugged. "I know. I guess, now I know. But I lost my faith in it, and it stopped being that important to me. Then I got caught up in Bijendra, and…"
"Who were they--the three writers?" He'd started deflecting the conversations from Bijendra unless he was asking me questions.
"Joyce Carol, of course…"
"Of course." He grinned; she was our shared favorite.
"And Dawn Saylor."
"I don't even know who she is."
"You wouldn't. She's a slam poet, but I love her."
"Who else?"
I made a face at him. "Guess."
He shook his head. "Tell me."
"Zach…"
"I'm really sorry, Katy. I don't think I ever saw it. When was that?"
"Seven years ago. Its okay, I don't think I really, truly expected anything to come from it. I was just all ego back then, you know?"
His fingers closed around my wrist and he continued to look into my eyes so that my whole body felt as if it were being consumed in flames. The flight attendant had started babbling on the intercom and his quiet voice was drowning hers out. Had we been sitting outside of the plane, directly beside the engines, I still would only have heard him.
"You should start writing again, Katy. Write something for me."
For a moment I just looked back into his eyes. Then I shook my head.
"Don't argue, Katy. Just listen to me. You were good. I could make you great. I want you to write something for me."
After all that, and staring into his eyes as he stared into mine, what could I do but nod? I accepted his instructions as I accepted everything else he told me. In matters of returning calls and getting to appointments on time, I was fully in charge of the man beside me. In everything else, it seemed, he was the guru and I the student.
Finally he seemed to realize we were sharing a prolonged physical contact and he removed his hand with a small smile. "I mean it."
"I know. I'll write you a poem."
The rest of the flight was spent alternately reading a few words and looking at him from the corner of my eye. He typed, frowned, deleted. When we reached our destination he had finally written a five minute introduction speech and was very proud of himself. I was tired from the effort of sitting still in his presence for so long and still hadn't recovered fully from having him touch me for so long. We disembarked with only a little trouble about luggage and made our way to the Enterprise stand in the airport. I drove us to the hotel, checked in and we went up to our rooms.
His was bigger, which he said was because it was the handicapped room. Mine was attached to his by a door which, ironically, was just a bit too narrow for him to get through in the chair. After I put my things on top of the table in my room and briefly checked my hair in the mirror I knocked on the tiny door. He called out for me to come in.
He had left his wheelchair in favor of the bed, where he was sitting against the polished headboard with his laptop and a notebook. He was twirling a pen in his left hand, not looking at the computer screen. I was still unused to seeing him out of the chair. It struck me how thin his legs were, and how they lay in front of him as if they were dead things, not part of a living, human body. I lingered in the doorway, not staring exactly, but close enough to make me blush.
"Yeah?"
"Oh. I was, um, there's a restaurant downstairs… I was thinking about dinner. Although it's only like six thirty here," I laughed. "I hate flying west."
He nodded solemnly. "Dinner is good. You could find a room-service menu?"
"Okay."
I rummaged in the desk drawer until I found one and then sat, timidly on the side of his bed. I was vaguely afraid I was going to knock him over or cause some other problem with my presence beside him. He noticed my nervousness, of course, and being Zach laughed and told me I could calm down.
"Sorry," I said, looking at the laminated menu sheet instead of him. "I just… I don't want to…" Didn't you used to be able to string together a sentence, Katy?
I was braced for another round of teasing, but he surprised me. Gently, he put his hand on my knee and squeezed slightly. "I'm not that fragile; and I'll let you know if you do something wrong, okay?"
Reluctantly, I looked up at him, into his eyes, and nodded.
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So, we had dinner. And we had two bottles of red wine, so that I spent most of the next day swallowing migraine pills and hiding from the light. His reading was brilliant, the audience loved him and I was proud to be there with him, grateful for the chance I had to be near him. We were invited to a party after the reading; of course, Zach accepted and I spent the next several hours helping him fight off a deluge of under-graduate English majors and their portfolios. At three in the morning I pulled into the parking lot of our hotel. Before I could get out of the car, Zach grabbed my wrist, leaned over and kissed my cheek.
"Hey, I had a really good time tonight. I'm glad you were here with me."
Did he just fucking kiss me? "I did, too. I'm glad I was invited. And, you did really well tonight. I was… impressed."
I was made ridiculously horny and had to seriously contemplate excusing myself in the middle of his reading, actually. But I couldn't very well tell him that.
"Okay," he said, smiling and releasing me. "Good. Now let's go get some sleep--you have luggage to drag through an airport tomorrow, you know?"
The physical contact came to an abrupt stop when we got back home. My belief was that we both knew how dangerous it was, in quarters as close as his office and apartment. For about a week he even quit calling me over to his place. That didn't last long, though; for which I was, of course, glad.