My fingers trembled with anticipation as they fumbled to dial Maribeth's work number. She was one of the top psychologists in the VA system based in San Antonio, Texas and I was calling from my office outside of Baltimore, Maryland.
I didn't normally call Maribeth there, but the question I was dying to ask her just could not wait for a later time. Oh, I suppose it could have waited, but I couldn't.
I got the operator immediately, and heard a nice Texas drawl ask me, to what extension I wished to be connected? For just the barest instant I considered saying, "Please help me connect with that hot Doc on the fifth floor with the wet pussy." but out of a sense of decorum I think I said, "7443 please."
After four rings, I assumed that Maribeth was away from her desk and I was about to mentally compose a message In my head when she picked up.
"Major _______"
"Is this the Major _______ that I've been sleeping with or is that some other Major _______?"
"Gary! What an unexpected surprise."
"I've been thinking about you and there's something coming up that I want to talk to you about, got a moment?"
"For you, I'll make a moment...or an hour...or a day."
"How about a week?"
"A week?"
"Listen, we may buy that company in Mexico City that I told you about, remember?"
"Uh uh."
"I've got to go down there for a week to ten days and meet with the accountants and do what we call due diligence, you know, confirm what they've told us about the business, make sure they don't have any debts we'd end up being responsible for etc. I'm leaving two weeks from Monday, any chance you could come along?"
For the past two and a half years I had been having an affair with Maribeth. We had actually dated while I was in college but we had gone our separate ways and had lost track of each other until, by chance, we bumped into one another in a Dallas hotel lobby twenty three years later.
Unfortunately, our affair had been limited to one or two days at a time as our busy schedules permitted, and during those, way too brief encounters, we had both expressed a wish for the opportunity to be together for a longer period. My trip to Mexico City presented just such an occasion, but only if Maribeth could actually join me.
She wasn't saying anything, but I could hear a desk drawer open and the sound of paper being shuffled, so I assumed that Maribeth was quickly checking her commitments. A moment later I heard her voice again.
"There's only ten conflicts with those dates, but of course I'll come."
I briefly wondered how someone in her position would be able to deal with those ten conflicts, but since I had seen Maribeth pull miracles out of nowhere for some time, I didn't waste too much brain power on dealing with her issues.
I started to ask her if her passport was up to date, but quickly caught myself. Of course it would be up to date. She was an officer in the Air Force and as such would have a valid passport just in case the needs of the service required her immediate presence in some far off foreign land. I didn't know about the Air Force, but I knew I had needs of her services in Mexico City in two weeks.
Several days later, I called again to discuss the logistics and found that Maribeth had already resolved six of her ten conflicts and was making progress on the other four. I had secured the use of the company plane and was happy to tell her that we'd be avoiding most of the hassle with immigration and customs in Mexico.
Maribeth told me that she had gone shopping and had a few surprises for me, but of course, refused to divulge any details. She also told me how excited she was and I assured her that I was as well.
The company plane was a Hawker 800 that was built in 1990. The eight passenger jet was a nice upgrade from the Lear that had preceded it, and I had put in a few hundred hours in the plane, but only occasionally had I been the senior executive. If this trip had been in the U.S. I might have had the CFO and the Chief Legal Counsel along, but since it was in Mexico, I was the only passenger, at least until we landed in San Antonio and Maribeth came aboard.
I had explained to Chris, the Chief pilot, that Maribeth was a translator that we had hired for the visit since she had the deep financial vocabulary that would be essential. Of course she possessed no such thing, she was proficient in Spanish but I doubted that she knew the difference between a "Cuentas por cobrar factorizadas" and a "LÃnea de crédito sin garantÃa." This little white lie was accepted without question since Chris generally had no need to understand the business purpose of any of the flights he flew.
For obvious reasons, Maribeth and I eschewed any overt displays of affection as she boarded, and Chris surprised me when he helped Maribeth up the ramp by welcoming her with a nice "Bienvenida a bordo." Maribeth smiled and I could see right away that she thought he was cute.
Soon we were seated across from each other in two seats on the starboard side of the plane. She looked around the interior and silently indicated her approval as the plane taxied and was soon a couple of thousand feet over South Texas.
During the flight, I took the opportunity to explain the details of the trip over coffee and a bagel. We would be staying at the Intercontinental Presidente de Mexico on the Avenue Paseo de Reforma that was adjacent to Chapultepec Park just west of the Central Square which was called the Plaza de la Constitución, but which most Mexicans call the "Zocalo."
I mentioned, but Maribeth was already aware of, the U.S. Army's assault and subsequent capture of the citadel at Chapultepec during the Mexican War in 1847, which brought that war to an end and resulted in the U.S. Annexation of California, Texas and most of what now makes up the American Southwest.
I had stayed at the Intercontinental on two previous occasions, so I was familiar with the hotel and its surroundings. I mentioned to Maribeth that the circumference of Chapultepec Park was almost exactly five miles, which was the length of my normal morning run. However, I was quick to point out that running at Mexico City's 7,349' was a distinct departure from the 102' I was accustomed. Maribeth sort of nodded, and I wondered if she wasn't preparing herself to find that I had expired during this morning exercise.
Mexico City sits in a depression surrounded by mountains, so the plane had to execute a little hop before descending into Toluca International Airport. This wasn't the main commercial airport of Mexico City and to my knowledge only private aircraft used this particular airport. The day was cool but getting warmer, so the walk across the tarmac wasn't unpleasant. As expected, we were virtually waved through immigration and customs without a hitch and the limo driver we had arranged was waiting.
Mexico City traffic was heavy, but I had never been on any road around the city that wasn't. There's a standing joke, that the only mechanical failure that will remove a vehicle from the road is a broken horn, and given the condition of some of the cars and trucks that we saw, I wasn't sure it was a joke.
Our room at the Intercontinental was on the 17th floor and I had asked for one overlooking Chapultepec. The view was spectacular! Mexico City often experiences severe smog, but the weather this day was clear and crisp. The citadel itself sits on a low hill at the northeast end of the park and rises slightly above the surrounding forest. Farther down, the landscape is more open with a number of lakes and canals that seems to have been randomly placed. At the extreme southern end of the park was the Mexico City Zoo. I had walked some of the paths in the park over the years and had always found the experience delightful. The boundaries of this green oasis were easily discerned from this height and we could see much of the Central City with the jumble of structures ranging from the magnificent to the dilapidated spread before our view.
The room itself was no less spectacular. Unlike any other hotel I had ever stayed in, the room windows were longer horizontally than vertically and covered almost the entire 20' expanse of the exterior wall as a solid piece of glass. A marble topped desk was located on the left side looking out on the marvelous view. There was a beautiful king sized bed on one side wall, and the bathroom filled half the space opposite the windows, but it wasn't entirely a separate room since it was enclosed entirely by glass walls.
While I was gazing over this landscape, two arms wrapped around me and I felt Maribeth's head cushion against my shoulder.