I sat in my train seat, watching out the window at a tired five foot five-inch, fifty-year old, 140 pound beauty struggle to get a very overweight wheelchair bound man to the door of the car in front of ours. There she could get help in getting him onto the Amtrak train to LA. I was sensitive to her plight but luckier than she. My wife and her chair are so much smaller and I am much stronger.
Carole, my wife of thirty years, loved to go on cruises. Amtrak was the best way to get all her support equipment from Seattle to LA. She was sleeping now. I snuck away to the dinning car for coffee. I had made coffee drinking into a vice over the last twelve years of very early retirement and full-time care giving.
The cute little wheelchair pusher was already there, staring out the window sadly as the telephone poles whizzed by.
"We have something in common. Can I sit and have coffee with you?"
"Sure. Company would be nice. What do we have in common?"
"We're both pushing someone around in a wheelchair. I'm pushing my wife. We're going to LA to catch a cruise. Where are you pushing your guy?"
"To catch a cruise. Which one are you going on?"
"Celebrity through the Panama Canal to Fort Lauderdale. How about you?"
"The same one. We have even more in common than we thought."
We talked longer than we should have. Her name was Hope. Her husband had diabetes, could barely walk and weighed about three hundred pounds. Like me she wanted to give this cruise to her spouse and thought it would probably be his last. We promised to meet the next day for early breakfast because both our counter parts slept late.
We waved to each other several times as we crossed paths in the boarding process, welcoming brunch and at the abbreviated evening buffet.
We talked and really enjoyed each other's company the next morning. We both obviously missed healthy, un-drugged, playful conversation with someone of the opposite sex. I confessed to Hope, "I have to start forcing myself to get more cardio exercise. I'm going to try the morning fast walk on the deck that goes all the way around the ship. You have such a beautiful body, you probably don't need it, but why don't you meet me at six each morning for a walk and then a coffee before our regular days start?"
"Well thank you for noticing my body. I cannot commit to every day but let's try it at least for tomorrow. Your body doesn't look like it needs any toning either."
I smiled and decided to tease, "Parts of me have been neglected and need to be exercised. I get strength exercises but never seem to get my heart pumping anymore. I need to test my endurance and see just how old I've become."
Hope caught all my innuendos as well as the real truth of my words, "I know what you mean. Sometimes my muscles ache in the evenings and need a massage but not once during the day did I even breathe hard."
"All right, then it is agreed. Tomorrow morning we try to make each other breathe hard."
I really enjoyed watching her divert her eyes and her skin blush at my words. I helped her up and walked her to the elevators. I went up and she went down. Don't I wish?
About half way around the first lap the next morning, Hope commented, "I need a sports bra to do this."
"I definitely have noticed."
She looked down at the front of my sweat pants. "I haven't seen one of those in a while."
"Well this one hasn't seen anything to appreciate as much as you in a while either."
Another quarter of a lap, Hope pulled up. "I promise to get a proper bra, but that's all for me today. The bouncing is starting to hurt."
I grinned at her and then looked serious, "I understand maybe we can jog again tomorrow."
"What? What was it you started to say?"
"Don't make me say it. I'm a naughty man and often have to control my thoughts. I don't want to run you off. I love your company, talking to you and it's going to be great fun starting my day exercising with a beautiful woman a few times during this trip."
"I might be naughty too. What were you going to say?"
"I just had a crude little bratty boy thought of asking you if I could kiss them to help them feel better."
"This little girl brat likes that idea but wouldn't do it in the middle of the jogging track."
"Come with me, little girl."