Puerto Rico 2004
May 28 2009

I’m sitting in my car. It’s about 11 O’clock at night. There’s a warm breeze blowing out of the south. I’m listening to a favorite CD…Goapele. It reminds me of that night in late summer when I was sitting in that big black SUV in the parking lot of my hotel in Aibonito, Puerto Rico.

I was there for hurricane Jeanne. It was the fall of 2004. We’d all been down to one of our favorite cantinas all evening drinking Margaritas and eating fajitas. Everyone else had gone up to their room and gone to sleep. After all, we had to work tomorrow. We were all there for the disaster and we worked some long, hard hours, 7 days a week, come rain or shine.

I was drunk, but didn’t feel like going to my room, so there I sat in my rent car listening to some jazz. I was in love with Matt from Key West. What a passionate guy! I began to recall how he felt in my arms. He was the first man I had cared about since my divorce 2 years before.

I cried the first time Matt made love to me. It surprised him. He was lying on top of me and he says, “Are you crying?”

So I tried to hide it. I was a player. I never got serious about a guy. I’d find one in whatever city I was working, we’d have some fun for a while and then I’d say good-bye and move on to the next city. I loved my lifestyle and never had any thoughts of changing anything, especially not falling in love.

So I lied. “It’s just this stressful job. I’ve been on the road for 4 months. It’s tougher on a woman.”

We spent 6 weeks together on the gorgeous island of Puerto Rico. Even though our work days were long and hard, we had so much fun there! One night at our favorite club, we were standing out in the cool night air sipping crown royal and laughing about some applicant as we watched a lunar eclipse.

I remember looking up into the dark night sky with Salsa music in the background, surrounded by my friends thinking, “Damn! This is about as perfect as an evening ever gets!”

That’s the way it feels tonight. I’m sitting in the car listening to my favorite CD. There’s a lovely breeze blowing. The world is all beautiful and glowing with sound and light and warmth. It doesn’t get much better than this.

God must love me.

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Comments from Our Readers

  "So, what happened to MAtt?" - Stan, May 29 2009 - reply
  "Matt went home to the Florida Keys in late November. I stayed a little longer and finally went home to Dallas around Christmas. I never saw him again but still think of him." - Anne Carol, June 14 2009 - reply

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