Brad couldn't have cared less he got the window seat in the beginning of the flight. Now, though arcing down from the southern sky and getting a view of the big river, he was suddenly curious. He hadn't seen her for nearly a year. Which speck on the earth below might she be?
They had first met at Madison Square Garden last summer. She was a freelance trainer for the Annual American Horse Show, and he was doing the lighting for the event. He was up on the truss and saw her pass under him. Cowboy hat. Jeans. Cowboy boots. She couldn't see him. He wanted to talk to her. Just talk. And he did. First at the catering table, and then, over the next few days, coffee and dinner. On her last night there, they kissed. They both wanted more, but held back. Neither said why. Distance.
Since then there had been a few phone calls and emails. These though, they tried to avoid. Instead there were letters. They both felt the same way about the written word expressed on paper. More soulful, more romantic. And yet patient and subtle.
He could make out farmhouses and ploughed fields. Then silos and cars. Eventually even cattle. As the pressure of descent came over his head, he turned from the window and stared ahead, chewing hard on his own teeth.
He walked out the gate and across the lobby of the airport towards the glass automated sliding doors. Funny how even in what would be considered a stick state back in New York, you could always find airports trying to compete for a top modern impression. Once he crossed through the threshold, the building could no longer conceal the rugged nature and living beauty of the state. He walked on as instructed, and at the end of the road, he could make her out. She hadn't bothered to park in the lot, but instead pulled off the road and halfway under a tree. She was leaning up against the old flair-side Ford she had written of. It was a red, faded by the sun, time, and weather of Missouri. No cowboy hat today. Her hair hung long, brown like fine suede. And the sun lit its outline like a halo. She wore chaps. The cowboy boots too, with spurs no less.
He walked up to her and as he tossed his duffel in the payload, pulled her into his arms.
"Hey, Jessie."
They kissed for a deep solid minute. When they came apart, his arms still around her waist, he could smell the earth on her. It was in her hair and there was honeysuckle on her tongue and breath.
"You drive, Brad. I want to look at you."
He'd wanted to look at her too. The whole flight he'd thought of her. And as she walked around to the passenger door, he watched her rear swing side to side in tight faded jeans and thought of pulling them off. He wondered how he would drive.
They both climbed in and he put the old Ford in gear. She lurched forward and the road pulled underneath them. As she navigated he would steal glances at her during the few seconds she was not staring at his handsome, if rugged face. She was wearing an off white denim shirt with the top three buttons opened. He couldn't tell if she wore a bra or not. He had always noticed her breasts. Not at all because of their size. They were hardly large. Rather they were very round and moved with her, without moving about her. They were a part of her, not something outside of her to be admired. One more detail in the portrait. She was beautiful. Skin tanned without being unnatural. Nothing in her hair but dust and dandelion seeds. She was earth.
"I can't stand it anymore."
