Remembrance on the Runway, Cont’d

Joe rubbed his eyes as he thought over his last email. The plane had another 45 minutes to land. He watched the bubbles rise in the ginger ale bottle the stewardess left him and wondered aloud how they matched the tempo of his stomach. He felt much like he had the day they first got acquainted.

—

Sandy, sporting pigtails and wearing a pair of gold cutoff MC Hammer pants, walked past Joe in the school cafeteria. It had been a slow day of studying until suddenly… her.

“Are you going to eat that pizza?” Sandy had brazenly asked as she sat down beside Joe.

Joe had looked into her brown eyes, and he was a goner. Even remembering it now, he fell in love again. Before he could say no, it was already at her chin.

“Mmm. You have good taste!”

“One way to find out,” Joe said, leaning into her space.

“So, do you want to talk to me?” Sandy asked, using the vernacular of the day for dating.

Joe had laughed at her forthrightness. “Do I even know you?” he asked.

“How could you not know me? We’ve gone to school together forever.”

“I’ve never met…” he began.

“Don’t lie.”

It seems like yesterday, Joe thought to himself.

“Can you sing?” Sandy had asked him out of the blue.

“Sing? Do you want to keep your ears?”

“I know you can sing. Sing something.”

He wasn’t about to burst into song in the cafeteria, though his heart seemed to be doing just that. But he played it cool. “After you ate my pizza, I may sing murder.”

Sandy had giggled as she leaned in for a quick peck on his cheek.

On the plane, Joe started to fall back asleep, the music of Eric Church glazing his earbuds:

I think about 17
I think about my old Jeep
I think about the stars in the sky
Funny how a melody sounds like a memory
Like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night…

Joe closed his eyes and relived their first time. He saw Stacy in her white wedding dress with black lacing, the way her breasts shimmered as he slowly released them from her gown. He felt again his hands grazing her hips as her eyes spoke, I trust you, and his hungry lips conveyed, I need you.

Before long, they were rocking the bed—inexperienced, messy, and not caring. His member prodded past insecurity as he marveled at the sensation of her inner thighs against his body. Slowly, Joe worked his rod in and out, getting deeper. Sandy’s feet locked behind his back as he rocked, watching her round breasts undulate methodically. He loved how her body looked and felt.

On her back, Sandy lifted one arm to balance against the bedpost, then let her other hand follow the curve of his back as he pounded more fiercely now. Together they rode the bedsprings rolling beneath them like surf. Sandy’s legs began to flop as her body started jolting. They both breathed fast…

Joe’s dreams flashed erratically: the dance on the beach when she accepted his marriage proposal, then far ahead to her crying eyes as she walked away at the airport three months ago, then back to an argument they had a year prior as they watched kids on a playground one cloudy day.

“We will have kids!”

“Joe, you heard what the doctor said. I can’t have a baby!” Sandy cried.

“He’s not God!”

“You aren’t either!” Sandy started to walk away, but Joe reached for her. She buckled against his shoulder, sobbing as he brought her hands to his sides.

“He has the final say,” Joe told his heartbroken wife.

“But…”

—

The plane touched down, rousing Joe from his fitful sleep. As soon as he had clearance to take his phone off airplane mode, he checked again for any message from his wife.

Two words: “I’m pregnant.”

No way, Joe thought, but then his last words from the dream echoed in his head:

“He has the final say….”