A Place to Be. Nancy Degenhardt
in her wanted to get up and look through his wallet. No, she thought, I can't do that. This feels right. I'll have to trust my feelings. He emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
The sight of him aroused so much passion that she felt overpowered, but she still managed to smile at him and said, "I don't even know your name. I'm Kate Dorsey."
He smiled back. "My parents named me Rodney Shaw, but I would rather be called Rod." He decided not to tell her that while she was asleep, he had already checked her name in her wallet. He mentally noted that for the first time he had broken protocol and given someone his real name. He extended his hand and took hers. After kissing hers, he said, "Glad to make your acquaintance, Kate Dorsey. I went ahead and ordered breakfast for us. I hope that‘s okay?"
"It is if I have time to take a shower before it comes."
"Sure."
After her shower, she wrapped herself in a white terrycloth hotel robe, walked out of the bathroom, and Rod escorted her to a table in front of the windows. In the center of the table covered with a white tablecloth was a vase with a single red rose. At each end of the table were cups of steaming hot coffee and plates containing French toast, Canadian bacon and strawberries.
"This looks wonderful. I'm famished," she said as she sat down.
"Do you want to go out later for a Christmas dinner?" he asked her.
"Not really," she replied.
"Good. I was hoping you would feel that way. I'm going to order us a dinner from room service."
While he was shaving in the bathroom, she absent-mindedly picked up his shirt, trousers, and sports coat that he had left on the floor. Strange, she thought as she folded them and laid them on a chair, all the labels have been cut out.
They decided to go for a walk. It had not occurred to either one of them that they did not have any presents to exchange. On the quiet deserted sidewalks flanked by old buildings, they chased each other, laughed, and threw snowballs. It was cold, but the sun was out and glistening on the snow. Breathing hard, they found a stone bench in front of a tall fir tree watching over a small park. He brushed away the snow with his gloved hand, and they sat down.
"I don't know where you're from. I want to know everything about you," he told her.
"I'm from nowhere," she said. "I was born somewhere, Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia to be exact, but we moved when I was six months old and never returned there. I was an Army brat. We constantly moved. I often went to three different schools in a single year. My mom was a pretty petite woman who could twist my tall ramrod straight father around her little finger. But she died of ovarian cancer when I was eight and my brother Tom was ten."
Rod took both of Kate's gloved hands into his. "That must have been rough."
"Yes, it was. My dad was devastated. We continued to travel with him from post to post. He ran our household in the military manner. The only way he knew, I think. My brother who had my mom's dark hair and easy smile became a miniature of him. My dad was killed in the Gulf War. That was to have been his last campaign. He was scheduled for retirement. I was supposed to go to my grandmother’s house for Christmas, but as I said, I can't. I think I became a reporter to keep moving. It's all I know."
He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed lovingly. "Let's go back. I'm getting cold." They returned to the hotel arm in arm.
They feasted that night on champagne, roast turkey with chestnut stuffing, green beans, fancy rolls, and assorted French pastries.
They spent the night making love. The floodgates opened and years of loneliness poured through. Through their touching, they explored the edges of their spirits.
When morning arrived, he had dressed, gone out to make some phone calls, and returned as she was waking up. A bellhop delivered the coffee and sweet rolls he had ordered.
He looked into her eyes but couldn't read them. "My plans have changed. I'm renting a car and driving to Florida. I could give you a lift to St. Simons. It would give us more time to spend together."
Her eyes filled with tears as she answered, "That's a good idea; I know I need to visit my grandmother." Struggling with her emotions, she said it wouldn't take her very long to dress and pack her bags.
Returning in exactly a half hour, he found her ready. He did a quick search of the room. They gathered their bags, and he quietly closed the door behind them as they left.
Downstairs, they checked out, walked through the giant lobby door held open by the doorman, and climbed into a hunter-green Ford Taurus. He gave her a reassuring wink and then turned his eyes to the road ahead.
CHAPTER TWO
"Which way are we going?" she asked.
"The most direct route," he answered. "Down the Northway through the Adirondack Mountains and on to the Jersey Pike."
They finally pulled into a hotel for the night south of Washington. Tired and sleepy, they both went to bed and quickly dropped off to sleep.
Two hours later, Kate jerked awake. Rod was screaming and flailing the air with his arms, "Fire, on the left -- look out -- pull back!"
Recognizing what she called the Nam syndrome, she hurriedly climbed into the other bed and pretended to be asleep. She had heard too many horror stories about what vets had done to their sleeping companions while dreaming of being in Vietnam. The dream woke him up. He noticed her asleep in the other bed, as he went to the bathroom to wipe the sweat off his face, poured himself a drink of water, and returned to bed.
The next morning he apologized for having frightened her. He told her that nightmares seem to be his reward for having fought in Nam. They continued their journey. With a reporter's curiosity, she asked him about posttraumatic stress among Nam vets.
Glancing toward her with a kind of painful expression, he explained, "I think it's because this war was part of the sixties." She noticed that his knuckles were tightening their grip on the steering wheel. "Vietnam was like no other war," he continued. "The country was being pulled in every direction -- war protesters, the love generation, riots, and perhaps the biggest factor of all, drugs. How could you fight a war when so many of the men were high?"
Trying to change the subject, she quickly said, "I've told you about my childhood, but you haven't told me a thing about yours."
He turned to her and grinned, relaxing his grip on the wheel, "I grew up in a small town on the Ohio River. My childhood lay somewhere between Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. I had many narrow escapes on that river."
"And then what?" she asked.
"Well," he said, with a serious expression, "college was not part of my parents' dream. After graduating from high school at seventeen, I was told to get a job in the local mill. I joined the Army instead, was recruited into the Special Forces, and sent to Nam. But enough about me." He reached for her left hand, brought it to his lips and kissed it. "Kate, do you believe in fate?"
"What do you mean?"
"I think you and I were fated to meet." he replied. They rode on in silence, smiling at each other now and then.
They picked up some food at a fast-food restaurant and kept driving. At last they exited I-95 and found the St. Simons Causeway. They had called ahead to Kate's grandmother, who had said she would alert the building security and wait up for them. Kate introduced them. The sandy-haired, muscular, forty-six-year-old shook hands with a statuesque, eighty-year-old female wearing her thick gray hair in a short bob.
"I now know where Kate's good looks and her beautiful name come from," exclaimed Rod.
Kathryn smiled and said, "Compliments entitle you to a drink, young man. What would you like?"
"Please, a gin and tonic, ma'am," answered Rod.
Going to the closet bar off her living room, with its walls painted a soft yellow, Kathryn made drinks for the three of them, but after a few sips on hers, she