On The Road

Fiction: A Storm

   

I knew John was flirting with a woman seated behind me without looking back to check her out. When he reached up for his glasses, he revealed his intent. Removing them slowly, he unhooked one side then the other, like a stripper lowering her bra straps. Uncovered by the thick glasses, his naked blue eyes were his most appealing feature. He looked past me to the woman, aware of the effect of his practiced gesture. I knew it well. His routine opening salvo, I’d fallen for it myself years before. “Hello there!” he was communicating to her with eye-to-eye hubris. “Look at me. I’m looking at you.”

I expected his next move. He’d lean toward me, feigning interest, so the woman would see he was a nice guy, the sort who listens to his wife—a bitch, he’d tell the woman later, who doesn’t understand me. I sighed and wiped my forehead. Our Costa Rican get-away to save the relationship wasn’t working. And now rain was in the forecast—lots of rain.

The air in the restaurant was sultry and still. We’d climbed over a sandbag barrier stacked at the front door. Workers were installing sheets of plywood over the large windows. Waiters were lighting candles.

John continued his blatant preening as I clutched the menu. I hoped the woman behind wasn’t falling for his tawdry come-on. Oblivious to my awareness, he turned sideways to present his best profile. He pushed up his sleeves and flexed, swaggering though still seated. Glancing her way again, he stretched himself to his fullest height in his chair. A glass of wine arrived. I gulped it down to dull my embarrassment and anger.

The woman must have paid her bill and left because John put his glasses back on, slouched in his chair and stopped pretending an interest in our conversation about the weather. I made a few sarcastic remarks about his conceit and his dangerous over-confidence. He shrugged. Back to normal, our relationship was gasping its last. The lights went out in the restaurant.

We ran back to our hotel room as the rain shifted from torrent to deluge. Dirty water seeped under our door and despite using towels and the bedspread as a dam, we couldn’t hold it back. Our bed became an island, water creeping up the legs. Like Zombies we lay side by side on it, afraid to sleep, carping about each other’s mistakes.

At daybreak, we couldn’t open the door blocked by a wall of mud. We climbed out the window and wallowed through slippery muck to the hotel lobby where we joined a crowd of marooned guests and staff. Mud-spattered and sleep-deprived, everyone waited for rescue. I turned to speak to John. He looked past me to someone behind and undaunted by the disaster, began his ocular strip-tease. I heard a distant peacock crowing.

Eleven inches of rain fell in eight hours. The banana crop, backbone of the economy, was destroyed. Bridges collapsed; roads washed out. I flew home alone.