Greyhound is not romantic travel, but if anything, it is interesting. Rob and I had anticipated leaving immediately for Miami..but mother nature had other ideas. That night, New Orleans got hammered by a really hairy storm and it dumped closed to 4 inches of water on the city in a few hours.
First, there was the street flooding. It is rather strange to see a car submerged to the middle of it's tires in water. People wading through the streets with wet pant legs and disappearing ankles. Nutria floated down the cascading river that was the street. Nutria are giant rats, I believe.
Then, the electricity went out. The emergency lights went on in the terminal. Announcements were made about staying inside, and about the inability for buses to get in or out, so we were stuck for some time until the weather cooperated. Rob and I got comfortable, since the seats weren't, against a wall.
The phones still worked, so I decided to call my sister in Miami to let her know we were coming. I was standing in 4 inches of water in the terminal. It seems the floor dipped down about 4 inches toward the front of the bulding where the phones were.
It felt pretty gross and squishy. I tried not to think about what was in that water. It is an odd sensation to experience a flood from inside a building.
I hadn't talked to my sister in about six months but that wasn't unusual. Juanito answered the phone in his thick Cuban accent, "Hal-lo?" he barked.
"Juan, it's Lissy! How are you?"
"Leezy! Me fine. How you? Where you?" I explained that I was still in New Orleans, but was leaving.
"I put your sis-ser on," and muffled voices could be heard.
"Hey, Lis!" Mindy sounded rushed, and there was salsa music blaring on her radio. I heard her yell at Juan to turn it off.
Finally, we were able to talk about my leaving New Orleans, and my impending entrance into the Navy. I could see Rob reading my Marie Claire magazine, his short blonde bangs fell over to one side and he kept brushing them out of the way.
Melinda asked when I was going back to St. Louis. I was due back in May.
"So you are going to go back home and finish school? Or work?" She was puzzled.
"Nope, I'm coming to Miami. With my fiance'" and even though I was sober, I liked the guy!
"FIANCE?!!" she screamed. "When did you get a fiance?'"
"Oh, I didn't tell you about him? Well, it was a while ago" I couldn't exactly tell her that a while ago was less than 2 days. Because she'd judge him.
The sheer stupidity of what I was going to do never occured to me. I know now it occured to my sister, but she didn't want to step on any toes.
"So much to do! Well, call us when you're bus comes in and we'll come get you" and as she hung up I heard her say to Juan that he needed to call Father Juarez to marry us.
When I hung up the phone, Rob grabbed me and hugged me. "This is gonna be great. You and me getting married" he murmured into my ear. It was so affectionate, so familiar and so intimate, the way he touched me and talked to me. I felt like we'd known each other forever.
Rob called his parents and told them he was extending his vacation further and he would call them when we got to Miami.
We went back to our luggage, and made a makeshift couch out of it.
The night was long. Our heads on our duffel bags, cuddled up like two puppies, we talked all night long, giving each other a crash course in our lives. I told him everything. It was nuts..but I instantly trusted him. We watched people who were marrooned on this landmass like we were, and it seemed they were a lot more panicked about being stuck than we were. We snickered shamelessly about it.
Finally, we fell asleep, spooning, and I felt very safe, and slept as sound as you could for sleeping on the floor of a greyhound station. The water hadn't risen any more, so it looked like we would stay dry.
Finally, at 7:30 a.m. the next day, our bus left New Orleans.
My fiance' ended up sitting across the aisle from me next to a guy that had just gotten kicked out of Navy boot camp. The guy, who resemebled Ed Grimley, was still in his dungarees. He wouldn't shut up, I tell you. He had diarrhea of the lips. Constantly, he talked about the military that did him so wrong.
Finally, I reached across the aisle, gently pressed Rob back on his seat, and told the chap, unceremoniously, to shut the hell up. He opened his mouth a few times, resembling a goldfish, but he did become quiet. Rob slyly smiled at me.
Thankfully motor mouth got off the bus somewhere in Mississippi.
My very own seat mate, an ex-felon going home, kept me and Rob entertained until Stone Mountain, Georgia. This guy told us tales of prison fights and the prison hierarchy. He was a gas!
Finally, when my seatmate was off, Rob and I could sit together. We enjoyed the ride so much. Usually, on greyhound you endure weirdo's, perverts, smelly people. I don't it much mattered to us because we were so busy chatting. We also had a beautiful view. The bus took the coastline route most of the way. Sandy white beaches in quaint little coast towns. I could've lived in any of them.
We talked about his ex-girlfriend. He'd met her on a previous excursion to New Orleans. He didn't really care that she was a stripper at Big Daddy's. But his dad did. His parents told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to be dating a stripper. What would it look like?
Politically, it could ruin his father's fastidious reputation.
I told him about my high school sweetheart who turned out to be a cheating, lying alcoholic who liked to hit women.
I told him about my attack, the abuse, my other problems. I also told him about the good things in my life. I didn't leave all of that out, that I felt very blessed to be alive.
Rob and I discussed my enlistement. I told him bootcamp would be 2 months, followed by training school. I also didn't have a choice where I'd be stationed. He said, well, that he'd just continue his business administration degree wherever I was situationed. How supportive! We had a plan, or so we thought.
The honeymoon started to wear off quickly. Oh, we were still deeply in love when we departed the bus in Miami. We had a great time in little Cuban Miami with my sister, my niece Melody and Juanito. They even made us a little love bungalo. It was a back unrented apartment. They filled it with exotic plants, candles and music. The sheets on the queen size bed (which we utilized the moment we were alone) were burgundy satin. Oh, it didn't have air conditioning, but at night there, you really didn't need it because you had the breeze coming off the ocean. We had large fans too, which made for a sultry romantic evening.
That was our first night.
The 2nd day, we went to look at cakes. Melinda had already priced a pig for a barbecue after the cermony. We had a lot of things planned already because when the guys went out that day, we took the time to iron out some details. Rob and I were looking at all the cakes. I wanted chocalate with white icing. I asked him what kind he liked. He said, "Whatever" and it seemed he really wasn't there.
That night, after he took a shower, he wrapped the towel around his waist. Then, he just fell back on the bed.
I, already having taken my shower, were brushing my hair at the vanity. I put down my brush, took off my robe, and walked over to the bed. I lay down next to him, except on my stomach. I stroked his wet hair and asked, "what's bothering you babe?"
"Nothing..I guess I'm worried I won't be good enough for you," which made me snort with laughter. "I come from a penniless family and you're worried you won't be good enough for me? You need to let that go." He snapped out of it, laughed a bit, and kissed me. Then, we got in a pillow fight. All was well.
The next day, Rob called his mom and told her he was getting married. At first she was mad because she thought he was marrying the stripper. But her told her I was a very nice girl who was in the Navy. She was worried, but she didn't press him.
Our 4th day there, we went swimming at Miami beach. Rob was very pale, the rest of us were American Indian or Cuban. Rob had to sit in the shade a lot, and he looked pissed.
That night, I put Noxema on his sunburn. He didn't really speak to me a lot. But when it came time to sleep, he held me, and he cried. What about? He wouldn't say.
After he stopped sniffling, I turned over and lay on my back. In the darkness, I thought about his tears, his mood change. He fell asleep.
And it finally started to occur to me that maybe this was a bad idea. As if by chance, Rob said, "Vanessa, Vanessa!" I knew that name, that was his ex-girlfriend, the stripper.
I knew I shouldn't be with a guy I didn't know, who was on a rebound.
The very next morning, before he woke, I got up and got ready. My sister was on the porch drinking her morning expresso, and as if she knew, she told me to "come here".
"Lissy, I'm sorry. He does seem like such a nice guy. But he's not the one for you," she said when I told her what had happened. So, I decided to send Rob back home to Conneticut.
When he got up, I gave him time to wake up, and asked him to take a walk with me. He didn't kiss me good morning, so I guess he knew what I was thinking.
We walked down to the little Cuban-owned cornerstore. Once I started talking I couldn't stop. He held my hand as I told him how unfair I thought it was to either of us that we get involved too soon. That we weren't ready. Rob, studying me with those baby blues, finally stopped me talking by pulling me into his embrace. I was worried about messing up his Van Halen shirt with my mascara, but he told me it was okay.
He told me I was right, and that we would just have to not get married now. We needed to stay in touch until I got out of bootcamp, and then we could think about dating.
That day, at 3:00 p.m. I put him on a bus to go home. He put his hand on the glass on the bus as if to try to touch me one last time.
I cried. But I knew it was better this way.
Juanito and Melinda, who had watched from their car, soothed me, like two hens.
"Lissy, he is nice guy. But he is young. Too young to marry. You would have troubles" "I know" I said, blinking back huge tears." I just really liked him".
When we got home, I went back to my little bungalow to reflect on everything. As I lay on those burgundy sheets I remembered New Orleans, the bus ride, and everything here. How he finally said, at the cornerstore, that he wasn't ready either.
I fell asleep, only to awake to Melinda standing over my bed. I'd been asleep for an hour and a half. What is it?
"You got a call. It's Rob." What the hell was he calling me for? Did the bus stop already?
"Hello?" I said quietly.
Traffic could be heard in the background. "Lissy, I wanted to call to tell you something.."it was Rob all right. He was hesitating. Why? "Lissy, you left something at the payphone at the corner market."
"Thanks Rob, but how would you know that?"
"Well, uh, I'm there". I thought he was gone the whole time, and he had actually gotten off the bus, taken a cab to little Havana, because in his words, he "just couldn't leave" me. Of course I went to the cornerstore. Of course he was there. I was so happy to see that I meant enough to him for him to come back. But it wasn't going to work, and I knew it.
We kissed, we hugged, and this time I really cried (I cry a lot). I ran my fingers through his silvery blonde hair, and looked into those pacific blue eyes. He called me his "senorita" and I called him, "my cherub".
It was sickening and stupid, but the time was ours.
The next time he boarded the bus, it was for good. I did cry, but I still had that peace that I was making a good decision amid the stupid ones I had made, one after the other, from New Orleans to Miami. My sister told me something I try to remember:
"Don't cry because it's over, Smile because it happened".
When I got home, I went ahead and packed my stuff up again. After all, in couple of weeks, I would be leaving for bootcamp. When I opened up my suitcase, what should I see but his two favorite cd's, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. A little note: please keep these. I want you to have them.
Love, Rob.
2 weeks or so later I left for bootcamp.
12:56 p.m. - Thursday, Oct. 23, 2003
Recent entries:
What you missed - January 16, 2012
%%older_entries%%From hell - October 19, 2010
%%older_entries%%a rant from a few weeks ago - August 17, 2010
%%older_entries%%Tired - June 20, 2010
%%older_entries%%A beautiful lie - March 11, 2010
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