Waiting for Armando (Kate Lawrence Mysteries) (26 page)

I stopped coughing long enough to laugh. “Yes, I remember that brand. When do they generally wise up and start bringing their own brew to those meetings?”

“Oh, the sharper ones start
carryin
’ Thermos jugs right quick, but the others, what can I say? They must think it’s part of the six years of misery they have to put in before they can get even by
torturin
’ the younger ones,” Margo chuckled.

“And
Belasovich
will have a busy day lined up bragging to everyone within earshot how he was right about Ingrid all along,”
Strutter
commented. “God forbid I’m not among those paying homage, at least for a few more weeks.”

She winked and hugged me briefly, and the two went out the door.

I returned to the living room and looked at the tangle of arms and legs, hirsute and otherwise, reluctant to wake anyone. In the end, I pulled pillows and comforters out of the hall closet and tucked them in the appropriate places. I left the TV on low and switched off the room lights. No one stirred, and I took myself to bed.

~

Early the next evening, far too nervous to eat dinner, I soaked my bumps and bruises in a tepid bubble bath, wondering what the evening would bring. Then I dressed carefully in a red sink blouse with a big, open collar, a flared black skirt, and high-heeled black sandals. I clasped a gold chain-link belt around my waist and added tiny gold hoops to my ears. Armando had given them to me for Christmas one year. Our sartorial preferences have always varied widely. He prefers skirts, cinched belts, and small earrings on women, and I like to wear pants, big shirts, and dangly earrings. Predictably, I have a little of everything in my closet.

Checking myself out in the full-length mirror behind my bedroom door, I felt as fluttery as a teenager awaiting a blind date. Except for the teenager part, it wasn’t a bad analogy. Who would get off the plane tonight, the Armando I knew or someone changed by this trip into a man I didn’t know? Even to my own eyes, I looked worried. After considering the array of perfume bottles on my dresser, I finally wet the stopper in the Shalimar bottle and touched it to the inside of my wrists and the back of my knees. It had always been his favorite. I wondered if I still was.

“Wish me luck,” I urged the cats on my way out of the bedroom. They sprawled indolently on my damask bedspread and gave no sign of wishing me anything, except perhaps good riddance. Their bellies were full, and a nice breeze flicked across the bed from the open window. I left them to their post-dinner nap.

Before bathing and dressing I had gone online to check the status of the
Avianca
and United flights Armando had mentioned in his message. All seemed to be well. I tucked the slip of paper with the flight numbers into my purse and headed out through the garage.

As I drove north on Interstate 91 through the summer dusk, I remembered the Hartford-Springfield airport of the 1960s, before it had become Bradley International. With exactly two runways laid out amid the tobacco fields, the airport had been large enough to serve the region’s needs but small enough to be uncomplicated and comfortable. It was rarely necessary, in those days, to park more than a hundred yards from the main entrance of the single terminal. Inside, excited children flattened themselves against the windows in the waiting areas, thrilled by the sights and sounds of the big birds as they came and went before their eyes. The arriving flights would slow and turn at the end of the runway, then bump slowly to within a hundred feet of the terminal, where stairs would be wheeled beneath the passenger hatch.

After what seemed an agonizingly long time, the hatch would be opened by a pretty, uniformed stewardess, who stepped onto the platform at the top of the stairs to bid departing passengers farewell. Those unsteady on their feet or burdened with belongings would be offered a helping hand by an officer as they descended to the tarmac. If it was raining, umbrellas were passed out to shelter the passengers as they made a dash for it. I had been one of them on more than one occasion.

Now, travelers waited until their air-conditioned plane was securely hooked up to an air-conditioned tunnel that emptied directly into an air-conditioned terminal. After making their way through the security area, they moved in herds toward the baggage claim, searching the crowd of waiting friends and relatives for familiar faces. I preferred the old way, a sure sign of advancing age.

It being a Monday evening, I was able to locate a parking space in the short-term lot, close enough to the international arrivals terminal to be
walkable
in my high-heeled sandals. Halfway to the entrance, I turned back to memorize the location of the car, something I had been known to forget on previous trips—also a sign of advancing age, I felt sure. With the row number firmly in my mind, I took a deep breath and walked on, trying to calm myself. If I looked as jittery as I felt, I would probably raise the suspicion of the security guards that seemed to be everywhere.

Once inside the terminal I located an arrivals monitor. It confirmed that the flight was on schedule. I followed signs to the B Concourse and descended an escalator to the baggage claim and ground transportation area. Perhaps a dozen other women and children were already waiting, dressed casually in jeans and shorts. Suddenly, I felt out of place in my girly clothes. I wondered if we were all meeting passengers on the same flight. If so, these must be the families of the crew Armando had been traveling with, a thought that made me even more uncomfortable than I already was. Damn. Not only did I have to suffer through this iffy reunion scene without throwing up, I had to do it in front of his co-workers and their families.

Too restless to sit still, I
paced
up and down in front of the big windows overlooking the pick-up area, where weary travelers from a previous flight stood surrounded by their luggage, awaiting shuttle buses to the many parking facilities that circled the airport. As usual, I had arrived punctually, so now I had to wait. I tried to picture Armando strapped into his seat in the second-class diner that had miraculously been propelled thousands of miles through the air and was now descending slowly, slowly through the summer dusk toward the runway. What was he thinking about? Or was he sleeping, something I had always envied his ability to do on planes? Would he be tender and apologetic as he told me that our years together had been wonderful but now were at an end, because he had come to realize that South America was his true home? Perhaps he would be polite but aloof, hoping that I would see the way things were and spare him the need to put it into words.

I looked at my watch for the twentieth time. Several minutes still remained before the official arrival time. I stared out the window and remembered one of the first flights Armando and I had taken together. We had been returning from an all-too-brief winter vacation in Florida, during which we had spent every minute of five days and nights together. We had experienced a record-breaking heat wave, walked our feet into blisters, danced all one night to a traveling Glenn Miller orchestra, made love like teenagers, seen the Cirque du Soleil, and eaten and drunk our way through a dozen restaurants in the area. We had been exhausted when we finally boarded our return flight and taxied onto the runway in preparation for take-off. At that point, the captain announced that the flight would be delayed until thunderstorms cleared out of Atlanta, our interim destination.

Had I been traveling alone, I probably would have been on my knees in the aisle within ten minutes, begging the attendants to open the hatch and let me out; but Armando held my hand and found a crossword puzzle for us to do together and teased and tickled and otherwise distracted me until we were finally cleared for take-off. We soared through the darkening sky above the clouds, watching the stars come out above us and the lights come on below us. When at last we circled Bradley prior to landing, tears slipped down my cheeks. He hadn’t said a word, just brought my hand to his lips and let his eyes say it all. That had been the first of many vacations we had shared, and they always ended with a wrench of separation.

My reverie was broken by the announcement of the arrival of United Flight 2048. I imagined the big bird swooping down out of the sky, touching down, then slowing sharply before turning sedately from the runway and bumping slowly to the gate. The luggage conveyor at the far side of the big room clanked to life, and the arriving flight number began flashing above it. Excited children hopped from foot to foot and chattered as they strained to see their arriving daddies, and the women who tried to keep them under control wore bright smiles of anticipation. I hung back a little in the face of these family homecomings, uncertain of my status. Was Armando coming home, and was I part of it?

The first passengers straggled in, blinking owlishly in the unaccustomed brightness of the overhead lights. Most were Hispanic, deeply bronzed from recent sun, carrying totes and sweaters, handbags and magazines, and all of the other paraphernalia one always seems to accumulate on long flights. As the number of arriving passengers increased, the noise of joyful reunions added to the mechanical racket of the conveyor, and I watched shyly as two young men wearing
TeleCom
windbreakers were claimed by their waiting families.

I saw Armando before he saw me. He came into the baggage claim area a little hesitantly, waiting politely, as always, for those in front of him to find their friends and family and move out of the way. I could see him clearly, a worried expression on his face as he searched the crowd. Carefully, he scanned the faces before him, looking, looking. Instinctively, I raised a hand, and he spotted me in my red shirt, half hidden behind a column. Our eyes met, and his expression cleared immediately. He broke into a face-cracking grin, which I’m sure I returned.

The questions vanished from my mind and heart. Armando had come home. For a moment, neither of us moved, and then we both did. I was enveloped in a rib-crushing hug that left me gasping. When we finally broke apart, the bulk of the passengers were snatching their luggage from the carousel and heading out to the parking lots. We held hands fiercely as we waited for Armando’s bags. Oblivious to the crowd around us, we gazed at each other like lovesick teenagers.

“So,
mija
, what have you been up to while I was safely out of the way, eh? Our telephone conversations have been so sketchy, I don’t even know how your new job is working out. Has anything exciting been going on?”

I smiled into his eyes and replied truthfully, “Nothing as exciting as having you home again, Handsome. Let’s go home.”

Fourteen

Friday morning, July twenty-fifth, I greeted Charles, who was manning the security desk as usual, signed in as Lizzie Borden for old time’s sake and took my last ride upstairs in a
Hellavator
. I almost relished the sickening sensation of my stomach being left behind as the powerful machine surged skyward. Never again, I promised myself. I entered BGB on thirty-eight and waved to
Quen
as I crossed through reception to the stairs. At my pod I dumped my purse into the bottom drawer of my desk and surveyed
Bellanfonte’s
closed office door with amusement.

He was tenacious, I had to give him that. Two weeks ago after Margo,
Strutter
and I had finalized the details of our plan, I had handed him my letter of resignation. He had scanned it briefly, standing at the door of his office, then looked at me, astounded that I would voluntarily give up the privilege of serving him.

“You’re kidding,” had been his only comment.

I assured him that I was not.

He took a step backward, closed his door in my face, and did not address me directly again, limiting subsequent communications to handwritten notes, voice mails and dictation tapes.

Strutter
hadn’t fared much better. When she gave
Bolasevich
her notice, he went straight into orbit, alternately screaming epithets at her and attempting to cajole her into withdrawing her resignation. She remained politely steadfast. Finally, although clearly beside himself,
Bolasevich
decided to ignore the entire situation and hope it would go away.

Simply stated,
Strutter
, Margo and I had decided to go into business for ourselves. The events of this extraordinary summer had sharpened our awareness of the passage of time and how important it was for us not to waste whatever days we had left in this life by working for people who did not value us. We had inventoried our skills, taken a hard look at the opportunities presented by low interest rates and a hot housing market, and decided to go into the realty business. We would specialize in nontraditional housing for nontraditional families, such as single-parent households, three or more generations living under the same roof, same-sex partnerships, and entrepreneurs who wanted to live and work at one address.