A Girl Named Maria

"I think so," Louise said.

"Want to try?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Okay, like before, I'll pull you along, and when you're ready, just let go and try it. I'll be right there to catch you if you need me to..."

He pulled her along for a few feet, then Louise let go and started to sink like a stone. He dashed back for her, pulled her up and she clung to him fiercely, afraid to let go.

"It's alright, I gotcha."

Louise pulled herself closer, and he could feel her shivering skin through his own.

"Just relax now. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you, okay?"

"Okay."

"Now, let's have some real fun and watch your mother have a go at it!"

"Okay!"

"Alright mama-san, you ready?"

"Si, Tio."

He took her hands. It was, he thought, one of the most electric moments of his life. Her skin on his was simply breathtaking, and he found he wanted to look away lest she see the effect she was having on him.

"Okay, now I'm going to pull you through the water. Just let your legs float free..."

"It feels so good," she said. "It's almost like you are flying through the sky!"

"I know, it's great, isn't it? Do you want me to let go of you?"

"Maybe not yet, Tio."

"Fine by me." He continued to walk her around the pool, almost face to face, and he found he simply couldn't take his eyes off hers.

"Okay, maybe I try now?"

"Ready when you are," he said...and she let go...fell behind...began to sink...and he pulled her back up...to him. She kicked harder, kicked until her elbows and forearms were resting on his chest, her face just inches from his.

"I think I like swimming," she said quietly as she looked into his eyes.

"Me too," he whispered.

"I'm hungry," she said. "Is it lunchtime yet?"

"I have a place in mind."

"Okay, but try with Louise one more time, okay?"

He pulled Maria over to the shallow end and took up Louise and began to tow her around again, but she slipped free and began kicking and stroking and breathing on her own, and was soon doing well enough for him to relax. Louise then swam to her mother's side and put her feet down on the steps.

"Ooh, that was wonderful, Louise!" Maria said.

He came alongside and the girl stood up and flew into his arms. "Oh, that was so good. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

He hugged her, seemed to melt into her, and suddenly he knew in his heart what this was all about.

+++++

The Gulfstream took off for Colorado early the next morning, and they were back on the ground before noon. He drove slowly into town, the roads a mix of deep snow on hard-packed ice and therefore demanding his full attention, but he made it into the garage without mishap. Maria and Louise carried all their new clothing into their suite, and he took the elevator up to his room and put on his ski clothes, then rode back down to the ground floor, collected his skis and stepped out onto the slopes. Once his skis were on he made a few quick turns down the hill and skied right onto the high-speed quad, and he was off to the top of the mountain.

He had never married. Never really even come close, but as the chair carried him up into the clouds and the snow, he wondered why and the thought pressed in from every side of his being. Still, he thought he understood Maria, Louise too. He had never had a wife, never had any kids of his own, and now it was simply too late.

Or was it?

He was going to be seventy in a few too short years, but he had pushed his body too hard too many times over the years to think he might make it ten more years, let alone twenty. Hell, he wasn't even sure he wanted to live that long. He'd seen too many people grow too old, in the end becoming a burden to friends and family, or worse, an embarrassment.

"I don't want to go out that way," he said to the clouds.

But then the thought hit him, right between the eyes: 'Just how DO you want to go out, Jacko?'

Alone?

You want to spend the rest of your life...alone?

Was that it? Was the reason really so simple?

"Is that it? Is Maria simply...safe? There are a dozen A-list actresses back in Beverly Hills who would do anything to grab hold of someone like me. So, is that why I'm beginning to feel the way I do about her?"

Yesterday had been something special. Swimming at the house, then out Sunset Boulevard to The Chart House on the beach for an early dinner. The three of them walking hand in hand on the beach afterwards, and it turning out to be first time the girls had seen an ocean, any ocean. Yet everything had seemed new to him, too. It wasn't just the newness 'they' were experiencing, it was the newness he was experiencing – through their eyes. It had been the most satisfying day of his life, and perhaps because everything was becoming clear.

Then they were back at the house on Foothill.

Louise, full of happiness, full of life. Maria, as sexually charged as any woman he had ever known, yet possessed by a calmness that only a dedicated mother would understand.

He had sat up with them both out by the pool, and they had talked about the things they had seen and done that day, and the girls had talked openly about what a miracle he had become – to them. Louise soon grew sleepy, went off to her room, but Maria stayed by the pool with him, talking a little from time to time, looking at him constantly. Finally she had said it was time to go to bed, and she had held out her hand. She led him to her bedroom and they had made love all night long. Simple, pure love. A lot of holding and hugging, which soon turned into the most incredible kisses he had ever experienced, then the wildest, most uninhibited sex of his life. When they finished she had simply formed herself to the contours of his body and he had soaked her up, every inch of her, until a few hours later they were kissing and touching and dancing in the light they made together – again.

And for the first time in his life he knew exactly what love was. And he was there.

The chair danced in a bitter gust and he swung his skis, getting the circulation in his legs and feet going again as the unloading platform materialized in swirling mists just ahead. He swung the footrest up and out of the way just as his skis slapped down on the soft powder snow, and he pushed himself out of the chair and down the slope to a flat area near the top of the run, then flicked his goggles and got his poles around his wrists before he took off down the mountain.

His legs felt good, his breathing too, as he arced across the face of the run. Suddenly he knew he was in for the run of his life. He felt great, more alive than he had in years as he slashed downward in a series of tightly linked turns that were fast turning into pure exhilaration. Then...

He saw a shape out of the corner of his eye.

'There! Over there!'

'That little kid, he's cutting across the slope, heading right for me!'

He tried to cut behind the teenager but caught an edge, and his body vaulted sideways through the air. He hit hard, his ski's bindings released and he began sliding head first down the mountain, then his shoulder caught something hard under the snow and he felt himself cartwheeling, spinning out of control toward those very same protective trees that lined the edge of the trail like sentinels.

He felt those trees reaching out for him, calling him to their embrace.

Then, impact, slamming into trees, tree limbs knifing through skin, shattered bone knifing through flesh...

More spinning, then he could feel his head slamming into...pure white light...

Then he felt nothing at all.

+++++

She was still unpacking all their new clothing when she heard the doorbell.

Then knocking on the door. A hard, insistent knock.

She walked up the stairs and over to the main entry foyer, and she could see two police officers standing out there in the snow.

She opened the door.

"Maria? What are you doing here?" one of the local cops, Randy Newman, asked.

"Oh, si, I'm living here with Señor Jack now."

"Oh, well, listen, Jack's been involved in an accident. Up on the mountain. He's... "

But Maria had burst out crying, and Officer Newman thought the whole scene felt a little odd.

"Is he alright," she said through streaming tears.

"I don't...they're not sure...yet." Newman saw a little girl running through the house, saw her run up to Maria and grab her around the waist."

"Mama, what is it?"

"It's Tio, Louise. He's been hurt, up on the mountain. He's at the hospital now."

"Oh, Mama, no! The dream will be over!"

Newman looked at the girl, wondered just what the Hell that meant. "Look, I can take you down to the hospital if you like..."

"Si...yes, yes. Let me get our coats..."

They drove out of town on 82, out over the Roaring Fork, then up the little hill to the hospital. Newman parked near the Emergency Room entrance, then helped the girls into the hospital.

He asked the admitting nurse where Jack was; she advised he was still in surgery. The nurse looked at Maria and Louise and was just getting ready to take them to the family waiting room when she asked: "Are you family?"

"What?" Maria responded.

"Are you family? Only family are allowed back in surgical waiting. It's policy."

"Yes, yes we are."

Newman looked at the nurse and shrugged. Almost everyone in town ate at Pepe's and, therefore, almost everyone in town knew Maria, and they knew she wasn't a liar. And of course everyone knew Jack, knew his reputation, but no one had a clue about Jack and Maria. Still, in this town? Hell, anything was possible.

The nurse escorted them down to the waiting room, and gave them each a bottle of water.

"Someone will be back to tell you how the operation is going, as soon as we know."

There was a television on in the waiting room, tuned to one of those 24 hour news stations, and already Jack was THE news. There was a reporter, standing just outside the hospital's entry in a howling blizzard, telling the world about the accident, retelling the storyline of his career, talking to the world as if Jack was dead, and Maria began to cry again. Louise simply looked empty, ruined, like a just glimpsed world full of wonder and joy was suddenly at an end.

After what felt like days a surgeon in green scrubs came into the waiting room.

"Maria? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Doctor Bill, how is he? How is Jack?"

The physician pulled his face mask down, and Maria could see pursed lips and skepticism written all over the man's face. "Are you and Jack together?" he asked.

"Yes, yes, but I think it is a secret still."

"Oh."

"How is he?"

"Oh, he's going to be fine. He'll set off metal detectors in every airport he goes through from now on, but he'll be fine..."

But Maria and Louise didn't hear too much after 'he's going to be fine...' – indeed, they couldn't even see the doctor's face anymore...

But the doctor knew love when he saw it, and Maria was in love. That would do, for now.

+++++

They were escorted to his room a few hours later, and Maria burst into the room only to find 'her Tio' on the telephone.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, smartass. You tell that motherfucker I won't do it for less than ninety. And get on to CNN, willya? Tell that goombah idiot out front I ain't dead, and that they've misspelled my middle name again...yeah, yeah, just like at the Oscars. Stupid Goddamn Motherfuckers!"

He looked over at Maria, then at Louise, then winked an eye and held up one finger.

"Yeah, Murray, listen, Maria's here. Get to work on that personal stuff, willya? I don't want her to have to worry about things like this ever again. Anyway, I'll call you in an hour. Yeah, yeah, probably in Vegas, unless I can talk a JP into doing it here."

He flipped off the phone and only then did Maria begin to focus on Jack's body. His left leg was in traction, so was his right shoulder, and he had a few lacerations beside a black eye.

"So," she began, "I hope you are not counting on me learning how to ski?"

He laughed, held out his good arm. "Come here, baby," he said, sounding for all the world like Humphrey Bogart. "And you'd better give me a decent kiss!"

"Dr Bill, what has happened to him?" she said as she leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips.

"Yeah. Maybe Boo Radley here," the man said while pointing at the surgeon, "can explain it to you, 'cause I sure can't understand a goddamned thing he's told me so far. Only that airport metal detectors are going to be a pain in the ass from now on..."

"What?" she said as she looked at the surgeon. "What does that mean, Dr Bill?"

"Yeah, Doc? Take it away, would ya. Try to explain it to me again, and try using one syllable words this time, wouldya?"

"Look, Jack, before I can...well, she say's she's family. I can't talk about this stuff around her unless she is."

The man took Maria's hand in his, looked her in the eye.

"Doc," he said, "she's the love of my life. She and the kid, well, they're all the family I got, if you know what I mean. We ain't married yet, but anyway, if she'll have me, I sure want her to marry me. Say, maybe you can be our Best Man?"

Now Maria was crying again; Louise looked at her mother hoping against hope she wouldn't say something stupid...

"So, what do you think of that, darlin'? Think you'd like to spend some time as Mrs Jack?"

But now Maria was looking at him with something else in her eyes, something beyond a love cast off from far-away lands, to a love where fear held no sway. She looked back on her life, on the simple journey that had taken her from the innocence of bare-footed squalor to this cusp of a new world, here in this hospital room, and she took his face in her hands. She held his face while she kissed his lips over and over.

When she was finished – it might have been weeks later – she looked up and saw that Louise and Dr Bill had left the room.

She looked around, perhaps a little mischief in her eyes, then with her hand she reached under the sheets, sought out a very special place and began to...

"Ain't life grand," the man said as he looked into the woman's eyes, as he fell back into the light of her precious smile.

+++++

They were married a few weeks later, and the Hollywood types invited to the wedding could hardly believe what was happening.

"I hear she's a waitress?" was the most common piece of "news" spread that afternoon.

This was followed more than once by:

"Probably a wetback. Goddamn illegal aliens."

And then there was Jack's favorite:

"Bet she tricked the poor sap into it..."

But it seemed to Jack that these people hardly cared about happiness, any kind of human happiness, or whether Jack was truly happy – or not. They seemed to care more about their status at such affairs, and certainly much more about style, than they were concerned about such simple human truths as love and, perhaps, maybe, human compassion and understanding. In fact, when he looked out over the assembled Glitterati that afternoon he thought of them as carrion, as decayed creatures that seemed to be living caricatures of style over substance, at least when any sort of human principle was at issue. Still, he thought, these people seemed to epitomize the age they had created.

Even so, the man enjoyed every minute of the Gliteratti's presence at his marriage to the shy little girl from Mexico. To a girl named Maria. His marriage was, he came to feel, a repudiation of human mendacity, and he wanted to have them witness his final turning away from the evil that consumed their flesh.

He never did make another movie, by the by, and oddly enough no one seemed to miss him but the people who actually went to see movies from time to time.

+++++

And so it was that in the fullness of time the man adopted Louise, and before he slipped away from this earth he saw her graduate from college, and go on to medical school. He missed that graduation, however, but only by a few months. He was proud of her, that much was known, and he had loved her as his own.

There's still a ramshackle Mexican place out on the edge of town, out under the south side of the sky, though the name's been changed a time or two over the years. Pepe moved on a few years back, and a gal named Maria took it over and named it after her husband, or so the story goes, anyway. The place is called "Jack's" these days, named for some 'old school' movie star, and there are some pictures of him on the walls, too.

Rumor has it that the gal running the place used to be a waitress there, and that she had been married to the big-shot movie star whose pictures hang on the walls, but really, nobody believes that kind of nonsense.

I mean, really, just why on earth would some A-list Hollywood actor marry a waitress he ran into one day in a dive like this?

It just doesn't make any sense at all, does it?

(C)2015 "Adrian Leverkühn"