My Baby is (almost) a Centerfold—part 3

Memoir and Relationships

My baby is (almost) a centerfold—part 3

I was middle-aged, divorced and dating a girl who was about to become a Playboy model

Because I was invited to speak at a regional dental society meeting, I was in San Diego, or to be more precise, Coronado Island. And because Sherry took me up on an invitation to join me, I was in the cream-colored Hotel Del Coronado limo bound from the hotel to Lindbergh Field to pick her up.

The young, uniformed limo driver had a glint in his eyes and a friendly grin. I chose to sit up front with him.

“You down here for a meeting?”

“Yes. That dental meeting. I’m one of the speakers.”

“Oh. That’s cool. And we’re picking up your girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

The driver took a slightly roundabout route, and off to my right I could see the bright green of the golf course, the shimmering bay waters, and to my left the cozy cottages of Coronado and one of them the house where Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz was written. L. Frank Baum’s house after he left Chicago. For a second I can see the movie version of the Wizard. And Dorothy. And her little dog. And how the illusion unraveled.

We were quickly on the Silver Gate Bridge that curves so gracefully over the bay to San Diego.

“I’ve seen some wild stuff driving for the hotel,” the driver said and looked over at me. I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, just last night I picked up two couples at the airport and guess what? While we were on the bridge heading to the del, they all made love side by side in the back seat. And they left the privacy screen up. And then the wildest part? When we got to Coronado, they asked me to turn around and go over the bridge again and on the return trip I saw the girls climb over each other. They changed partners and had crazy hot sex while I drove back over the bridge. Pretty wild.”

I counted the minutes it took to clear the bridge. Quickies, I guess.

Yeah, buddy, I know what you’re saying.  Are you always this subtle? Right. I didn’t say it.

At the airport, he parked next to the white curb and I went inside. I checked the board and walked up to her gate. The passengers on her flight disembarked and I saw her and ran to her. I took her carryon bag and we held hands. We walked outside and I saw the limo’s driver’s side door pop open and the driver walked around to the rear passenger side and waited for us. When we were close, he opened the door.

“Oh! Is this for us?” Sherry sounded delighted.

I helped her in and got in beside her. She sat close to me.

All the way back, the driver kept looking in the mirror, and not at the traffic behind us. Once he stopped at a red light and looking at us didn’t notice when the light turned green. Someone behind us finally honked his horn, and our driver moved.

“He keeps staring at us,” Sherry whispered. She leaned against me.

“I know. He thinks he might get a show.”

She laughed. “Silly boy.”

He dropped us off at the hotel entrance and we went inside.

“Wow,” Sherry said. “This is quite a place.”

“Sure. It’s a grand historic place. Thomas Edison himself turned on the lights when it first opened. Now, if you want, we can have a drink down here before we go upstairs,” I said.

“No. I’m ready to go upstairs with you.”

Yes. I was ready for that too.

I carried Sherry’s one small bag, and we got into the ancient elevator. The operator pushed the button for our floor. Once inside the room, Sherry reached into her bag and removed one item, something small and pink. She smiled and disappeared into the bath. She emerged only minutes later, looking like a model, showing off wonderfully in her pink negligee.

We were together then as we had always been, close embracing, kisses, pure and then something altogether unknown, a presence, another presence was with us. A glimmering light, all in white, descending as though an angel had joined us. Maybe just my overstimulated imagination, I thought, overstimulated as I certainly was. We fell asleep.

Sometime in the night, after midnight, I woke up and felt her beside me. I held her and she woke up too and we were tangled together again, and I felt that presence but stronger this time, and then we were surrounded by pure light, both held by it and I felt the bed fall away. We were still in full embrace but now held in downy soft angel’s wings four or five feet off the bed just hovering beneath the ceiling. We both gasped, amazed. The white cloud of softness eventually lowered us to the bed.

“My God!” Sherry gasped. “What on earth was that?”

“I don’t know. But if I said we were lifted by an angel’s wings and held in pure love, would that be far off?”

She sat up to cover herself. “You’re talking about something beyond. Maybe it’s just good sex. Or maybe the room is haunted.” She gave me a quick kiss then lay down under the covers again.

“I think it means something, you know?” I said quietly in the dark.

“Hmm.”

“I mean you felt it too, didn’t you?”

“I felt something. Do you think we really levitated?”

“It sure seemed that way.”

“Scary,” she said.

“Or wonderful. I think it means something. Like the presence of love. Or God’s angels came to us. Lifted us.”

“I’m not sure I believe in such things. Look, I really love to be with you, but real love? Jesus.”

I felt her turn over in the dark, turn away from me. We didn’t say anything more that night.

In the morning I cuddled her from behind, but she pulled away and got out of bed.

“I don’t want to,” she said and headed to the bathroom and closed the door. She stayed there for a long time.

I got up and dressed.

“Would you like some breakfast?” I asked when she came out. “I can order room service, or we can go down to the restaurant.”

“I don’t want breakfast,” she said. Her face looked drawn and unhappy. “You can go. Then go to your meeting. Maybe we can have lunch together later.”

“Is it because of last night?”

She looked down and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.”

“It’s a mystery I know. I’ve never felt anything like that. I just think it was something special.”

“I don’t believe in mysteries,” she said. “Or religion either. Maybe I don’t believe in anything.” There were tears streaming down her cheeks.

Something inside me seemed to drop, something made of ice and stuck in my stomach.

I skipped breakfast and went to the meeting where the marketing discussion was on mailers to increase new patient numbers. An old idea, I thought, and one that can backfire, and I said so. But no one seemed to understand the negative aspect. They will understand, I figured, but only after they try it. It was easy for me to understand the wrong result, the reverse impact, that morning.

At noon I drove us to the California Pizza Kitchen in a local mall. We ate mostly in silence. I recalled something I’d heard: a friend is someone with whom you can be silent. But I couldn't be comfortably silent with her. I still felt that cold ice inside.

I turned in my rental car, and we caught an afternoon flight to San Jose. It is not a long flight, but it felt interminable with both of us side by side in nearly complete silence. My chest and stomach were hollow, empty, as empty as the air. Nearing the airport on our northbound flight, we were both looking out the window when a southbound aircraft at the same altitude flashed by us very close. Sherry flinched and let out a soft startled scream.

“My God! That was close. Did you think that was close? Was that a near miss?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It looked close to me. Never seen another airliner come that close before.”

She sat back and closed her eyes. “Everything scares me now. Everything.”

“It’s okay. I’ll drive you home.”

“No. I parked here, in long term parking. I’ll drive myself. Then you go home too.”

“You could drive to my place. Spend the night.”

“Not tonight,” she said.

I waited until Wednesday to call her, and she sounded like her old cheerful self. “I’m thinking of dinner out on Saturday,” I said. “That little place downtown. Would that be good?”

“Sure,” she said. “I could even come over to your place after.”

“Perfect. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

But on Saturday when I knocked on her door there was no answer. I knocked for quite a while. I drove to a gas station and called her but there was no answer. An old Beatles song played in my head. No reply.

I drove downtown, a bit too fast, feeling frantic inside. I looked in some of our familiar places, I went to the restaurant I was planning to take her to.  Was she there with someone else? I took the glass elevator to the second floor, entered the place, ran past the Matre’d, scanned all the tables and she wasn’t there. People enjoying quiet dinners looked up at me. Some curious. Some annoyed. Some alarmed. I ran out.

Back in the car, I headed north on the 680 wondering whether I’d find her at another favorite of ours. I switched on the radio. Elton John’s “Candle in the wind,” played. I could relate. I did relate.

Of course I was talking to myself all the while. This sucks, you know. Yes. Maybe you’d better stop. Okay. You don’t want to get a ticket. Okay.

I took the next exit. I parked on a side street and tried to calm my thumping heart.

A candle in the wind. I saw an image in my head; I saw an open window and curtains rustling in wind that was blowing and on the table a candle burning, the flame violently disturbed and nearly being blown out. Was there a movie scene like that? Probably but I couldn’t place it. Regardless, a weak-ass image. Can’t be an image of a man. But it was.

 Time to go home. Forget this shit. The girl already told you who she is. Time to believe her.

I got back on the freeway and headed south.

Sherry called me the next day and apologized. She said she had met someone new and she had been with him that night. He owned a software company in Sunnyvale. He was a person of some importance, she said. And she was his girl now.

Somehow, the candle didn’t go out.

In late summer her beautiful nudes were featured in Playboy. “Girls of Silicon Valley,” the feature was called. Of course I bought the issue. She looked wonderful stripping out of a one-piece swimsuit by the side of a fancy swimming pool. So delightful she looked in one of the photos, that I found myself wanting to clip it out of the magazine and hold it to my heart.

I also thought that the next time the guys came over for pizza and beer and baseball on TV, I’d show them this issue and point her out. “She was my girl for a while,” I’d tell them. “I slept with her maybe forty or fifty times.”

But I knew I’d never do that. I couldn’t even keep the magazine around. I rolled it tight in one hand and headed out to the apartment dumpster. I pushed open the heavy lid, threw the mag inside, and let go.

The lid crashed down with a dull thud.

I walked back to my apartment alone.