Jacuzzi for Two

Jacuzzi for Two

This is a long one for me. I had in mind something a bit more wanton, and someday I may still manage to write that, but it seems the characters had other ideas. They took control of the story and did what characters have been doing for generations; they hijacked the story.

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I was up at dawn after too few hours of sleep. This is what a hangover feels like when you haven't been drinking. Today was the day and without ceremony I began to pack my bags. I was leaving. I was done. We were done. I'd had about as much of this as I could stand and we were calling it quits. Don't get me wrong; I'm not a quitter, but when you're done, you're done.

What's that you're asking? Divorce?! Hell no! I'm talking about work. We'd been on the road for five weeks, living in a hotel on the wrong coast, working day and night seven days a week without a break and we were done! The tests were successful. We had what we needed. It was time to go home.

About the time I finished packing, and as I contemplated making yet another cup of really bad hotel coffee, there was a knock on my door. The walk to the door was six steps and I had to drag myself there. It was Claire.

"Well hello, sleepyhead! You look like you died and forgot to fall down."

"How can you be so chipper in the morning? I feel like sleeping for a week."

"You can sleep when you're dead. Oops! Sorry. I need to show a little more respect for the recently departed." If you aren't used to hearing a forty-nine-year-old woman chuckle as she pokes you in the ribs, there isn't much you can do but smile and take it. That isn't fair. Plenty of women, both young and old, like to poke men whenever they get the chance. The thing about Claire is she hasn't got a mean bone in her body. She really is the definition of "laughing with you, not at you".

So long as I'm telling tales out of school, there are a few more things you should know about Claire. One is that at work she tends to be one of the guys. She's an engineer and a damn good one, but when she got into the profession women were few and very far between. Whether it was her nature or a conscious effort, she became one of the guys to fit in. She can dish it out and she can take it and there are a lot of men who don't respond to that kind of woman with romantic intentions. Show them some Barbie who gets confused tying her own shoes and they drool down the front of their shirt, but show them a smart woman who knows her own mind and they go running to momma. I suppose because of this, she is about as insecure in her personal life as she is secure in professional efforts. At least, that's my impression. She's always been direct and seemingly confident with me, but that may be partly because of who or what I am.

I'm not someone you push around, but I do believe that most of the time you can stand up for yourself without pushing the other person down. I try to practice respect for everyone I meet. Also, I will admit to being just a bit clueless at times. I like people, but they tend to surprise me a lot. I expect the worst from every situation, but I hope for the best from people. Does that make sense?

Anyway, back to the hotel. I stumbled back to my cases and Claire followed me into my room.

"Ah, James, there's something I need to tell you." I turned to look at her. "You don't just look like death, you smell like it, too!" She was smiling when she said it and there was a hint of apology on her face, but she wasn't kidding.

"We're due at the accelerator in thirty minutes."

"We can be late. It's bug out day. There's time. Why don't you take a quick shower and put on some clean clothes? I'll wait for you in the lobby and tell them we'll be a little late."

"I suppose we did work more than our share of shifts." I was starting to smell myself and that's not good.

"And brush your teeth while you're at it."

I flashed her a dirty look, but she had already turned and was walking to the door. "You sure you don't want to scrub my back for me?"

"I'm sure. Scrub your own back and wash your ass while you're at it, or you can get your own cab."

"That's cold, woman!" I'm fortunate she didn't turn around because I was doing everything I could not to laugh.

It took me twenty minutes to scrub, brush, and dress. I have to admit the shower made me feel alive again. Claire was right, not that I would ever admit it to her.

How do I describe our relationship? Is she a friend? She is more than that. Is she my work partner? No question there. Is she my work wife? No, I hate that term! What's more, she's never once given off anything like a sexual vibe. Is she my sister? I hope not. There have been times since my divorce when I was sorely tempted... I suppose you could say that after my parents and siblings, she is the person I trust most in life. That trust has been earned many times over and I hope she feels the same about me. She is a straight shooter, generous to a fault, sometimes overly defensive, and never throws anyone under the bus. Claire is the one thing that makes these long trips bearable.

Once I'd known Claire long enough and that mutual trust began to develop, I began to see behind the veil. That confidence she projects at work hides a real insecurity in personal matters. I've never asked, and I have no right to, but I don't think Claire would ever have described herself as attractive or sexy. At the same time, I've watched her with children and it's like the engineer just melts away and there's a warmth and patience. She stops being one of the guys. Small children find her irresistible and before long they're sitting on her lap and telling her their short life's story. A man could do a lot worse than her. That's one thing I knew for certain.

I was now wearing my last clean pair of clothes, and my bags were packed for the last time. I found Claire as I checked out and we grabbed a cab to the accelerator.

Yeah, that's another thing. We build devices that are designed to measure and perform in radioactive environments. That means we take them to accelerators, prove they work and try to break them. The end result is often a device that is "hot" as we say. Have you ever tried to bring radioactive hardware onto a plane? You won't do it twice. You'd be amazed how excited everyone becomes when the alarms go off, and then there are those long, unpleasant conversations in closed rooms. You miss your flight, and if you try to get cute someone sticks their gloved finger where fingers are meant to go and... You can avoid getting arrested if you have the necessary paperwork, but you won't be flying anytime soon. Like I said, it's a mistake you don't make twice.

You also need to know that there aren't a lot of accelerators in the country and they aren't interchangeable. Each has its own abilities and limitations. That's how it came to pass that a bunch of people who work on the East Coast were camped out on the West Coast for way too long.

We got through security at the accelerator, which isn't as serious as you might think, and Steve Perkins came over as we joined the effort to pack up the equipment. Steve was the Project Manager. "I've got a problem."

"What's new?"

"My parents got T-boned last night when they were driving home from their night out. Thankfully, dad was sober behind the wheel, but they got messed up pretty bad. They're both in the hospital."

"Oh, Steve, I'm so sorry!" Claire placed her hand on his arm as she said it.

"I appreciate that. The thing is I was going to drive the hot hardware home. Now, I really need to fly."

I should mention that the hot hardware is never overly radioactive and it's never a real threat to our health and safety. The problem is it doesn't take much to set off the alarms at the airport. The plan was to pack the hardware in "the hot box" with enough shielding to drive it home. That meant sitting in the same car with it for a week, so as you might imagine we take the question of shielding quite seriously. This time, it was mostly alpha particles and it doesn't take much to stop them.

"So, what's the plan?" I knew the answer before he said anything.

"I was hoping that one of you two might drive it back."

"Why us?" We said it in unison, like some English-speaking Greek chorus.

"Baxter and Carter have classes starting and Jackson has a wedding to attend."

"What about Franklin?"

"Too young."

"Perkins?"

"Too old."

"What about Jamison?"

Steve smirked. "He has seniority."

Claire turned to me and said, "You feel like we drew the short straw?"

"What straw? I never saw any straw! Did you draw a straw?"

We looked at each other for a moment, silently agreed, and said, "Okay, but you owe us."

"Great! See you back home on Monday."

"No, you'll see us when you see us." I was digging in my heels.

"Come on, you can make that drive in five days easy."

"We can, but we won't. We're going to take the opportunity to see a few things."

"I can't authorize the extra days and I don't want you driving all over creation just to satisfy your curiosity."

"In that case, I hope you enjoy your drive home. We'll be flying." Claire was giving him her best "Don't mess with me" stare.

Steve thought for a while. "Okay, but don't go nuts."

"Too late!" Claire does like to laugh at her own jokes and I was grinning like a fool. Let's face it, driving cross country with my friend is not a bad way to spend the week, and if we can play hooky a little it's all that much better.

I looked at Claire, who appeared to be looking forward to our trip as much as I was, and I said, "I'm going to have to do laundry."

Steve took care of cancelling our plane tickets and we got on with packing the equipment. In the end, the hot box was just one large, heavily built, plastic crate with wheels and a collapsible handle a lot like a very unfashionable suitcase built for travel. It filled the back of our SUV, but with just the two of us we could stow our suitcases in the middle seat.

The team finished packing, we stowed our bags and the hot box in the SUV, and the team went their separate ways. By then it was one in the afternoon. I had the first shift behind the wheel, pushed the START button, and it was silent.

"Hybrid! Nice." Claire pulled a thumb drive from her pocket, inserted it into the nearest USB port, and hit PLAY on the screen.

"Classical?"

"It gets better." she said.

She linked her cell to the car and in about as much time as it took me to buckled up, she had the GPS on the screen and our course plotted. "Let's blow this popsicle stand!" Claire is basically a big kid at heart and she makes me smile.

It was a stressful start with intense navigation to get us out of town, the GPS feeding directions to Claire and Claire feeding orders to me while I dodged some of the worst traffic in the country, but about thirty minutes after Claire said "Let's blow this popsicle stand!" we were eastbound and leaving the city behind. Always the organizer, Claire started searching the internet for someplace interesting to visit.

It didn't take her long to find it. "Joshua Tree! We're headed right for it!"

"How far is it?"

"It's only 120 miles from LA! We'll be there in a little over two hours if we don't hit any traffic jams."

"Sounds like a plan to me! I've always wanted to visit there." And that is how Claire and I spent the late afternoon and early evening at Joshua Tree National Park. We were the typical tourists, or maybe we were the worst kind of tourists. We didn't have the time to do it right. We stopped at the Visitor Center, read the brochures, took the most recommended hike, and all the while we watched for rattlesnakes. Okay, we're not exactly city slickers, but we aren't Wild West cowboys, either. We knew there were rattlesnakes in the desert and we knew we didn't want to meet them. That didn't stop us from thoroughly enjoying the time we spent there.

By evening we went in search of a place to stay. We had to drive east for about thirty minutes before we found a place that wasn't already booked, but it was summer and peak family vacation time. We made a mental note and would try to plan accordingly in the future, but we found a perfectly clean, if somewhat aging, motel in a small town just off the highway.

The town wasn't much, but it had everything we needed for our first night on the road. We got two rooms near each other, a couple of very good burritos at a small place by the highway, some tequila from the town's liquor store, and two much-needed showers. I don't like climbing out of a shower feeling refreshed and then slipping back into the same clothes I'd worn all day, but I had no choice. When Claire and I finally sat down to enjoy a little tequila and ice, we were in no shape to do anything more than talk, drink, and plan.

"I need to do some laundry. I can't wear the same clothes all week."

To say the least, I didn't get any argument from Claire. "Not if you want to ride in the same car with me!"

"What would you say if we could find a laundromat tomorrow and do a few loads? If we're lucky, we could get a meal at the same time and still put two to three hundred miles behind us."

"That works! I could do some laundry, too." She gave me a sly look and said, "A girl needs some choices in her wardrobe."

"You look good in everything you wear." She thought I was shining her, but I honestly meant it.

"That's the compliment I was fishing for!"

We silently sipped our tequila for a minute or two and then I observed, "You know, we probably should make a decision pretty soon to either head north or south."

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking we can't go to both Chicago and Florida on the same trip."

"Smartass! I mean, where are you thinking you want to go?"

"I don't know. I've been to Indianapolis before, so that's out!"

She snorted and gave me her elbow.

"Believe it or not, I've never been to Yellowstone. I do want to go someday. And I have this strange desire to see Sue in Chicago."

"Who is Sue?" For a moment, I thought she was annoyed.

"The largest and most complete T. Rex ever found. It's at the Field Museum in Chicago." That earned me a second elbow. "What?" She looked just a bit miffed for some reason. "Maybe if we time it right, we can catch a concert or something while we're in town?"

Claire was just looking at her lap, smiling, and shaking her head. I don't know why. I thought it was a perfectly good suggestion.

"I do like those ideas and you're not the only one who's never been to Yellowstone. On the other hand, we're already very far south. If we head east, we can visit The Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and the Carlsbad Caverns. We cross Texas mostly for the BBQ, and before you know it we're in Vicksburg. We can relive the Civil War while we drive north to Boston."

"Or, we could skip the Civil War, hit New Orleans for some gumbo, and then tour the warm southern beaches we're deprived of at home!"

We had a plan.

At that point it was getting late, or late for us. We'd had an early start to the day with too little sleep the night before, too many hours of packing and driving, and we were both ready for bed. Claire finished her drink and I walked her out the door, standing outside and watching her return to her room until she was safely inside and her door closed.

In the morning we gathered what little we had unpacked the night before, which means I was once again in the same clothes as I wore at the start of our drive, and we went in search of a laundromat. Big or small, every town has one and we quickly found theirs.

I was claiming two machines and trying to throw my briefs into one unnoticed when Claire spoke up. "Why don't we combine loads? We'll throw our khakis in one, polos in another, and dress shirts in a third. We can do our unmentionables in this one."

I looked at her with some surprise.

"What? Are you afraid of my granny panties? They won't bite. You might even learn to like them!" She had that "I dare you!" look in her eyes.

"That's what I'm afraid of." Well, it was the truth. Riding across country with your platonic friend is one thing, but riding with a woman who gives you the hots when you can't have her is something entirely different.

"Chicken! I promise I'll be gentle." With that, she reached into the machine where I was throwing my shorts, pulled them out, and threw them in with her own.

I wasn't going to argue about it, so I went along and tried to be nonchalant. Tell me how does a man act nonchalant when he's growing a boner in his shorts? That gave me a lot to think about as we walked the two blocks to where we'd seen a breakfast diner. I thought, "I was married. I've seen my share of panties. It's nothing to get overly excited about. So what's going on with me? Claire is a woman. She wears panties. They need to be clean for our drive. What's the big deal?" I once heard it said that nobody can lie to us as well as we lie to ourselves and I was telling myself lies in a big way. The world is filled with women who could throw their panties in a machine as I watched and it would mean nothing to me. Hell, they could take them off as I watched and toss them over their shoulder, and at most I'd be curious. Okay, I'd be very curious. I mean I'm not made of stone. Still, Claire throws last week's panties in a machine and all I can think about is slipping my hands into the pair she's wearing now. It was starting to look like it was going to be a very long trip.

We settled into our booth and picked up the menus. "You're looking a bit flush. Are you feeling okay?"

I could only look at her and say, "Yeah. I'm fine." Did I see a little glint in her eyes, a little smile on her face?

Breakfast was terrific. Anytime you're close to the Mexican border you can expect to find a great breakfast that will fill you up for the whole day. We decided to sample the menu and ordered different things, then divided the plates in half so we each got some of everything. I can't tell you which I enjoyed most! Was it the huevos rancheros, the Southwestern Bennies with the brisket and salsa verde, the freshly made tortillas, or just the coffee? Man that was good coffee! The huevos rancheros didn't transport at all well from one plate to the other, so we just ate off both plates as they were.

"Hey, save me some of that!" She was playing dueling forks to keep me away from the Bennies. I moved over to the huevos, and she dueled with me over that plate as well. I knew she was in a playful mood, so I started to pull one of the plates toward me and she pulled it back. Then the other. Then the first.

I raised my fork and waved it in the air to make a point. "We'll order a third plate if we have to."

"Oh, let's try the biscuits and sausage gravy! That should be good."

"Girl, they're going to have to wheel us out of here."

She just giggled.

However, that is exactly what we did, although not the wheeling part. We finished our first breakfast, and I ran back to the laundromat to move our clothes to the dryers. (Damn, there are those panties again! Did she plan it this way?) Then I hustled back to the diner for the country biscuits and more coffee. We skipped lunch.

When we figured the clothes were about dry, we got two last cups to go and walked slowly back to the laundromat. We folded and packed our clothes and somehow she managed to be folding my pants which left me to fold and pack her panties. (I'm serious. I think she planned this!)

We were packed and driving by about 11 AM, which was no great accomplishment, but we did have clean clothes for the next week. Our second day on the road was fun, and we only stopped for gas and coffee. We made The Grand Canyon by early evening.

Conversation on the second day of our drive started out light, but soon took on a more serious tone. We talked about the accelerator runs and about the team. Mostly, we talked about the team. We'd known most of them long enough to know the stories they don't often tell. Some of them are sad, some of them are funny, and some of them are just plain nuts. Come to think about it, that pretty much describes the team as well.