24. Facebook Friends

Lana remained in the bedroom for an inordinately long time, feeling like a scolded teenager, and resenting the feeling. Scott’s dangled carrot of conciliation was just that: a carrot. He had not offered any sort of autonomy; he had only issued his usual demand in sugarcoated form. Eventually, she dressed in pajamas and went downstairs. Scott was on the sofa reading the same brochure he’d been reading earlier. Nothing had changed between them, nothing had happened. If she was going to feel like a slut, she might as well do it with someone who appreciated her and spoke the King’s English. She would have emailed Julian immediately, but she couldn’t. ‘Why was that?’ she fumed to herself. ‘Because my assholian husband is here, ignoring me,’ she snarkily answered herself.
She went looking for Tory and Mea, but they were hiding somewhere.
“Have you seen the cats?” She asked.
“Nope.”
“Why is it they disappear when you are around?”
Was she picking a fight?
“They know I don’t like them.”
“How do they know that?”
“How the fuck would I know? They’re fucking cats!”
There, the venom in his voice was plain. If he wanted to have a knockdown drag out, well bring it on.
“Are you fucking with my cats?”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘fucking with them.’”
“I mean, are you yelling at them, hitting them.”
“No. I just toss ‘em off the furniture that they shouldn’t be on, and I ignore ‘em. I gotta tell ya, Lana, I don’t really care to be interrogated.”
“No?”
Silence. He’s not going to rise to any further bait. She headed for the kitchen and the liquor cabinet. It was martini time. She failed to offer him anything. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. He joined her there. He opened the fridge door, and fished out a beer. He popped the snap top and took a big slug.
“You got a case of the ass?” He asked. The idiom made her almost smile.
“You asked me along on your trip,” she replied. “I thought I had the right to decline. I did not have it pitched at me as the usual order. I’d just fucked your brain out. I thought I might have fucked you into being a gentleman. I was wrong.”
He set his can ever so gently down on the counter.
“I guess that’s a yes.”
“You make it very hard…”
“You make it very, very hard.”
Despite herself now, she smiles.
“It’s effing Christmas, Scott. Let’s deescalate.”
“Agreed. I’m going to get in that effing Cessna tomorrow at the crack of dawn, and I’m going to fly to California, hop, hop, hop. It’s a lot of little stops.”
“Cal Rogers.”
“What?”
“The ‘Vin Fiz.’ There was only one part left on that thing that hadn’t been changed out. And then he died flying into a flock of gulls.”
“Geez, Lana. Are you spooking my flight?”
“Are you killing my love?”
There was a pause. He picked his beer up off the counter and took a hefty slug.
“Lana. Listen to me. Listen carefully. I’m telling you that I love you.”
“You’re telling me that like a drill sergeant.”
“I don’t…”
“What?”
“Have the words like you do.”
This frank admission of a failing cut her to the quick.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry that I’m verbally clumsy?”
“Sorry that…
She had to think about why she felt sorry. Into that pause he waded out.
“I’m trying in my own way to say that these long flights are risky. If I’m going to go down…”
“Scott, you’re too careful to go down.”
“Hear me out. I want to go down with you.”
“You’re trying to say you want to die in my arms?”
“Or at least by your side,” He said.
‘To die by my side,’ she thought. This beautiful flyboy might have some poetry in him after all. Was she making a mistake? He continued,
“I have to go. It’s a business.”
The Bar exam, the fact that he won’t let her study for it pours back in like shit over the damn. It’s another walled off topic. She’s trying to deescalate.
“I too want a business. I want to know what it feels like to make my own money.”
“It feels good, Babe.”
“Scott, give me this one chance.”
“OK, I can’t deny I think you have a great idea. Go for it. Work your ass off. ‘Cause that’s what it’s gonna take.”
“Truce. I’ll take it.”

At dawn the next morning, she heard him packing, and she heard him close the door. She heard his car drive off, and she felt… liberated. She exhaled, finally. The marriage she was in was too much like work.

At last, Lana again had the luxury to open her laptop and look at email. She read Julian’s about ‘love being a four letter word.’ She now had the ability, the peace of mind, to reply:

“Julian,
When I say I love you, I know whereof I speak. I got the Greek thing down. I was trained as a lawyer. I know you’re a dude, no matter how decrepit, so I assume you’re worried about that potbelly and eros. I think you need to chill. I’m all agape over here in P-burg.

Keep me abreast of your findings…
Lana”

Julian was monitoring his in box assiduously in Stephen City. He saw her instantly and instantly replied:

“Glad to know you know some Greek. Some of my best fiends are Greek. And agape is a good thing to be. You are quite right that my aging process embarrasses me. I think of myself as your age, but if I want to shave my face, I have to face a mirror. It always provides a shock. How did I get to be so grey? I’m Gray, not grey.

Is there any way in hell that we might become Facebook friends? It might make it possible for us to chat.
JJG”

Lana read this in real time, and sent Julian a friend request. In real time, he accepted.

“Julian,
Facebook friends we now are. Chat me up, please do.”
LMAA”

Into a Facebook chat window, Julian typed,
“Llama! Dalai Llama! Speak to me!
And into a Facebook chat window Lana typed,
“Bow down before me oh sacred cow!”
They were now free, these two, to have a conversation in real time, the speed at which two hunt and peckers could type.

“I do bow down. I’ve read your blog.”
“I’ve read your blog.”
“We’re bloggers.”
“Yep.”
“Julian.”
“Yes, Lana?”
“Are you really a professor?”
“I am. I profess.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Bow down.”
“Do I have to?”
“No.”
“I like that.”
“Thumbs up?”
“Way up.”
“So, Lana, aka Amy, what do you do for fun?”
“I talk to you in FB chat.”
“Sweet.”
“You’re sweet.”
“You think?”
“Therefore, I is.”
“Is that, ‘ah is?’”
“Drawl.”
“Drawl.”
“Listen, professor, I wanna hear your voice. Drawl.”
“How the hell we gonna do that?”
“Silly. The phone. Call me at 681-347- 4780.”
“OMG.”
“Is that too much?”
“It’s a Rubicon.”
“A line to cross.”
“A river to cross. It bridges the Rimini and the Cesena.”
“My husband is aloft in a Cessna. Does that count.”
“You’re freaking me out.”
“Why, because I have a husband?”
“No, because you get the homonym that is ‘Cesena’ and ‘Cessna.’”
“I get the homonym, but I also get that an aircraft is not a river.”
“I get that you get aircraft.”
“Do you fly, professor?”
“I have flown, confessor.”
“Tell me about that.”
“I have had the flight obsession for a while, but I am too deaf to pass the test. I fly models, and I’ve paid a CFI to take me up in a Tampico.”
“Cool, prof. You match me, but my husband has a license. We fucked in the cockpit.”
“Roger that.”
“Not put off?”
“No. Turned on. What do you expect from me?”
“Honesty.”
“That you shall have.”
“Look. I gave you my number. That doesn’t mean you have to call. No pressure.”
“I want to hear your voice as well.”
“Well then.”
“Ah yes. Well then.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“That’s all you can do. That’s all I ask,”

The Boxing Day chat was indeed the crossing of a Rubicon. We don’t know where Caesar crossed it, but we know where these two did. It was on Facebook, between Stephens City and Parkersburg.