Chapter 51
Gen rushed off the plane and down the corridor, past the security check on her way to baggage claim. She didn’t have much time left. She hurried as quickly as she could, but her feet wouldn’t carry her any faster. She saw him at the end of the hall, standing by a door. He had a big smile on his face and his arms were outstretched for a welcoming embrace. “Flight 521 to Tulsa is now boarding at gate 17,” the voice on the intercom said. She stopped in her tracks. He beckoned her to come closer but she stood frozen in place, unable to move. “It’ll be fine, Genevieve. C’mon, we’ve gotta get going.” She looked at her ticket to make sure she’d heard it correctly. “Last call for Flight 521 to Tulsa.” It was the same dream she had almost every night for over two weeks now. She didn’t know what to do. A lady behind her opened her mouth to speak but all that came out was a shrill noise. Funny, this never happened before. The strange woman spoke again, if that’s what you would call it. Gennie just looked at her, dumbfounded. When she opened her mouth to speak for the third time, Gen realized that it wasn’t the dream woman; it was something in her real world. Her arm groped around for the alarm and numbly felt around on the clock searching for a way to make it stop. It continued. The phone! Her reflexes still dulled from her dead sleep, she picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. “Ok?” she asked in her sleepy daze.
“Ok?” he parroted back, confused.
“Hmm?”
“Gen, it’s me. Wake up.”
“Johnny?” It was just beginning to dawn on her that she was indeed talking on the phone.
“Of course. Who else would wake you up in the middle of the night?”
“Why are you calling me at…” she looked at the clock, “3:47 in the morning?”
“Please tell me you have your passport.”
“What?” She was still for all intents and purposes asleep so this wasn’t making much sense to her.
“Your passport. Tell me you have one. A current one.”
“Um… Yeah. So?” she muttered, trying to wake herself up.
“I got you a ticket to London on the 8 o’clock flight tonight.”
“I can’t come tonight, sweetie. It’s only Wednesday. I gotta work.”
“Get out of it.”
“I can’t just leave tomorrow… today?” She was confused as to the correct terminology. “Maybe this weekend.”
“I’m tellin’ ya. Get out of it. It’s too late. I already bought the ticket.”
“You already bought it?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I miss you... I love you... I wanna see you.”
“Why the hell didn’t you ask me first?” She yawned and rolled over, the phone clasped to her ear with her shoulder. “And what time is it where you are?”
“It’s almost 10 a.m.” he caught her contagious yawn even though he was thousands of miles away. “And the reason I didn’t ask was cause I just decided to do it. If I asked, you’d have said no. So are ya comin’? You do realize that the only answer is yes, don’t you?”
She laughed at his presumptuousness. He knew her too well, but in a way, it did sort of annoy her. But oh man, she really wanted to go to London. She’d been there before and loved it! And, that meant that she’d get to see more shows! “John, I have no idea if they’ll let me. You know this, don’t you? Cause I really don’t have any more time off. It’ll just be a favor on my boss’ part.”
“You can do it Gen, you work for a radio station, I’m on the radio. It’s business, right?”
She rolled her eyes at his feeble attempt at justification. “Yeah, right. So when am I coming back?”
“See, that’s the thing,” he hesitated. “I didn’t exactly buy a return ticket.”
“What?” She was awake now. “You can’t be serious! I have a job, John. I can’t just fly off to Europe to be your groupie!”
Her insinuation hurt him. He didn’t even like to think of her in the same train of thought as a groupie. Surely she saw it for something more than that. “That’s not it, Gen. Why would you say that? It’s just that I didn’t know how long you could stay, so I wasn’t gonna make it any shorter than it has to be. I would like it if you could stay, but I understand if you can’t.” He chewed on his lip as he stared at the city outside the open window of his hotel room. “We get a lot of time off here though, so I’d really like it if you were here with me.”
There was nothing in the world that she would like better than to spend the entire two weeks with him there, but she knew that just wasn’t possible. “I’ll see what I can do, sweetie. Ok?”
“Yeah, Ok.” He paused just listening to her existing on the other end of the line. He wished he could teleport himself through the phone lines and be curled up right beside her. Hell, London was nice, but not as nice as her bed. He quickly realized that he was keeping her on the line in total silence. “Darlin’ you need to go back to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow, Ok? “
“Thanks, babe. I love you. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sounds good. I love you too.”