A Road Trip with Dirty Laundry

For another, despite Shane's remark the previous evening, he and I had just about run out of energy. Also, while I still considered him sexy and sweet, we were also running out of things to talk about. We came from different backgrounds and had different life goals. Over eggs and grits a mutual realization developed between us that while this had been a fantastic stop, we also had to journey on. Shane even mentioned his mother would be expecting him home, and he would be unable to explain this kind of delay to that very traditional woman.

Our companions jumped at that, Michelle noting that Richie would be getting worried where she was, Brian saying he had a date coming up with an old girlfriend. Which left me to agree with the wisdom of packing it in.

We checked out and met in the motel parking lot for goodbyes. Shane and I exchanged addresses, with promises to write and to call if we were ever in each other's neighborhood. Michelle and I got into our car to journey on, primed with detailed directions by the two guys. Shane leaned through the passenger window and we exchanged one more lengthy but tender kiss.

He also wondered aloud if we would be good enough to ask Richie to find his footlocker and mail some of his civilian clothes to him, which we had one final laugh over. I promised I would see to it, and he gave me the key to the locker. Our eyes held each other as the car started to roll out of the lot.

As we reached the street, Michelle broke into my reverie, remarking, "Brian! The SOB."

"Why, what did he do now?"

"He was working so hard to get into my pants, a real comedian but oh so lonely and in need of a woman, and all the time he had a hot date coming up with a girl friend!"

That broke into the sadness I was feeling at parting from Shane. I could not stop laughing for miles.

Late that day, we reached Alabama and found a motel room near the base. We called Richie and told him we would be there the next morning. He was waiting outside his building when we arrived, and proudly waved the three-day pass he had finagled after our call. Michelle virtually mugged him, jumping into his arms, smothering him with kisses.

"You don't know how glad I am to see you," she exclaimed. "We have a lot of missed time to make up for." Richie barely had time to give me a sister-hug before Michelle virtually dragged him off to our motel room, telling me not to be in any hurry to come back there for a while. I made a tour of the local park and some thrift shops before meeting them for dinner that evening. They looked exhausted but happy.

I confess to being a little lonely and bored the next couple of days as Michelle and Richie spent a lot of time at the motel "planning the wedding." Apparently my help on that was not needed as much as Michelle had earlier led me to believe.

Richie did have time to locate Shane's foot locker and get his civilian clothes, although he felt a little odd doing so since he did not know him. "What are the odds? A guy who forgets his clothes is lucky enough to choose a restaurant where he meets two strangers going to the same base he just left, who feel sorry for him and agree to forward his stuff," Richie said.

Michelle and I nodded, as we exchanged glances.

I found boxes and packed Shane's clothes in one, then packed the other with my dirty laundry addressed to me at my parents' house. That way I avoided time at a local laundromat and could use the space in my bags for my thrift shop finds, avoiding extra luggage fees from the airline. I included a note in my box of dirty clothes, in case Mother should open it, saying I did not expect her to do my laundry but just put it aside until I got home in a couple of days.

Another note went in the box with Shane's stuff. I got a little gushy in that one, telling him again how much I treasured the chance interlude, hoped we would stay in touch and maybe even get together again some day. I even put quotation marks around "get together," drew two crude, semi-pornographic stick figures and signed it with a lipstick kiss.

I was going to address the packages in long hand, but Richie told me he would have the p.o. print mailing labels since my handwriting was so bad.

My flight arrived home ahead of the package, which came the next day. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find a bunch of man's clothes along with my note to Shane. Richie, or the base postal people who printed the addresses, must have confused the packages and mixed up the labels. I repackaged Shane's stuff, updated the note with an apology for the confusion and the delay, and sent it off again.

Next afternoon another box came in the mail, containing my clothes. They had all been freshly laundered and packed neatly. There was a nice note from Shane stating he was a little befuddled upon opening the package, expecting his clothes, only to find a lot of woman's underwear; until he saw my note to Mother and figured a mix-up had taken place.

"I hope you don't mind," he added in the note, "but I was a little turned on by your used panties because they carried your scent, and I even hated to wash them since it took that away. Let that German psycho-guy Freud read anything he wants into that, but I hope we continue to stay in touch and perhaps someday get together for a drink or something. I sure wouldn't mind the 'something.' Oh, Brian said to include his regards for you and Michelle. Love, Shane." He enclosed a picture of himself and Brian, both smiling with their thumbs up.

I wrote back, thanking him for returning my laundered undergarments and for his nice sentiments. I kept his note and still have it. We exchanged a few more letters over the years -- Shane wrote when he put a down payment on a ranch and some time later enclosing a flier for his horse training business, and again when he found a new girlfriend. I wrote him when I got a job in journalism and reunited with Dan a few months after the road trip, once again after eloping with Dan a year later, and then again upon the birth of our daughter.

In his last letter, Shane announced he too was getting married, and apologized for not sending me an invitation, but it would make his bride uncomfortable. She had seen my letters, and he had informed her of the chance meeting a few years before. She was an old fashioned girl, and asked that he break off the correspondence, and upon reflection he figured that was probably better for both of us. It had tapered off anyway as the roads of our lives continued to diverge.

"But you will always hold a special place in my heart," he wrote. "I owe you a debt I can never repay for having boosted my spirits and sense of self-worth at a low point, and I will always remember you fondly." That was so sweet. I wrote back a brief note that I felt the same, wishing him and his bride all the best in coming years -- the usual stuff.

Reflecting back, I realize that what I loved most about Shane was not his expertise as a lover. It was his firm but low-key sense of direction -- a leadership style not relying on ego, smugness or sarcasm, but based on mutual respect and consideration for the other person's feelings.

For years I kept his story to myself. I started this narrative because I was irritated by my husband Dan's smug dismissal of my navigation abilities, and wanted to show him I have navigated fairly well in life, making the best of any wrong turns. By the time I finished writing, I had calmed down.

I still love Dan and do not intend this to upset him, just to deflate that superior driver's seat ego a little. Since we were split up at the time of these events, this is not a story about an "indiscretion," and he should be sophisticated enough to handle it. It may even turn him on a little. If he doesn't stumble across it in the near future, I may present him with a printed copy.

Dan and I have been together several years now. The road I took during the time we were apart may have been a different one and a less direct one, but not necessarily the wrong one. It was just a nice detour, dirty laundry and all.