Halfway There (3 page)

“How'd it go?” she asked.

“Okay, I guess. They were nice. We've already got our first assignment.”

“Really? What's that?”

“I've got to figure out when I ovulate.”

“That should be pretty easy. You're always complaining about PMS.”

We picked up the ovulation kit at Walgreens. Three months later we picked up another one, and four months after that we were back again. The verdict was in. I didn't ovulate.

It didn't matter what time of the month I peed on that stupid stick, it remained stubbornly unchanged. I counted days. I tried different kits. We even stopped having sex for a couple of months on the outside chance it was throwing off my cycle. That didn't work, so we tried to have regular sex thinking that might make the little eggs drop. While we had a lot of fun, it didn't change the test results.

One morning as I was in the bathroom trying to hold that stupid little stick steady between my legs, Ellen knocked at the door.

“How's it going in there? I don't hear anything.”

“It's not easy to pee on command, you know.”

“Try running some water.”

“Just give me a minute.” About that time a little trickle ran down my leg and onto my fingers. “Shit.”

“What? Are you sure you're holding that thing right?”

I looked down at the stick as I finished peeing over it and the rest of my hand. Was there a wrong way to pee on it?

“I think I'm peeing on it just fine. Thank you very much. I peed on it so well, in fact, it's all over my hands at the moment.”

“What side did you pee on?”

“The side with the little window.” I put the stick on the bathtub to wait the requisite number of minutes and washed my hands. Ellen came in and stared down at the stick.

“I don't think you peed on it right.”

I gritted my teeth and flicked the soapy water at her. “If you're such an expert, you try it next time.”

All of this was to no avail. The damned indicator never did change color, not that day and not for the several months following, so back to the doctor I went. There were tests they could run, but it all seemed too much. What had been a great idea in the middle of the previous winter was now just a pain in the ass. To make matters worse, the donor we'd settled on had disappeared from the list. That was the straw that broke the camel's back—or in our case, cut the proverbial umbilical cord. I'd had enough.

“So what do you think about getting another dog?” I asked Ellen one afternoon, as the summer sun hung low on the horizon.

She looked at me over her margarita glass. “All right, if you really want one.” She paused and took a drink. “Could we name it ‘Jacko'?”

I am not a morning person. Weekday mornings can only be managed by a carefully coordinated ritual which consists first and foremost of coffee, then treats for the pets, a bath, and finally, a search for something passable to wear. I hate work clothes, so this part of the morning usually doesn't go well. Generally, mornings are not very memorable. In fact, I try to forget them because if they are memorable, it means something in my ritual went awry. However, there was a morning, many years ago now, that I remember with great clarity. I remember because it was the start of what can only be called an
obsession
.

That morning, I turned on the television as a distraction before having another look at the Dockers and polo shirts which hung in my closet stubbornly
refusing to magically transform themselves into anything close to what I wanted to wear. I didn't want to watch anything. I only wanted background noise. I had just turned back to look at my miserable excuse for a wardrobe when this terrific shriek came from the television. I whirled around to see what in the hell could have made such a bizarre sound.

Standing in the middle of a wide battlefield was a tall, dark-haired woman in a leather gladiator outfit. She whipped out a round disk and flung it at a rather silly group of villains, her black hair circling her face like a demonic halo.
Woof
, I thought and took a long drink from my coffee mug. I watched as a shorter but nicely built blonde chick saddled up beside her and said something. That was the day. That was the day I was hooked. That was the day
Xena: Warrior Princess
came into my life. It hasn't been the same since.

What followed was an ever-escalating cycle of addiction. It started with watching
Xena
in the morning before work; then it had to be recorded so Ellen and I could watch it together. That Christmas, Ellen bought me the first season on video. We watched Xena ululate morning and evening for nearly a year, but all too quickly the series was over. I had fallen in love just as this stupid show was coming to an end.
I responded by buying the entire series and promotional programs on CD. If I had had a coke addiction, it wouldn't have cost me as much, and I'm not even counting what I spent on the fan club products. Those folks at the Xena Production headquarters seemed to know exactly when I needed a fix.

“What in the world do you like about that show?” my friends asked.

I tried to explain that my interest was purely intellectual. I was evaluating the show for its cultural impact and how it presented a new model for feminism—how the strength of a woman could be shown physically, not only emotionally. Because my friends know me so well, I didn't get very far with this line of discussion, so I tried a different approach. Once, at a party, I took a poll: Which one, Gabrielle or Xena, was the hottest? Gabrielle won by a clear three-to-one margin which immediately and inexplicably prompted a lively discussion about
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, a show for which I have not even the remotest regard. It was obvious that I needed a new group of friends.

Thank God for the Internet. Some wonderful woman had a blog devoted to the scholarly consideration of
Xena
. At last, I had found my people. I read
all the postings. I searched the latest gossip. I was enthralled.

“Are you still on that stupid website?” Ellen asked one night over the phone. She was out of town again at some stopover during one of her week-long flying jaunts.

“Yeah.” I wasn't paying any attention to what she was saying. I was reading something very,
very
interesting.

“Hey, do you want to go to L.A.?” I asked.

“Why?” she yawned.

“Renée O'Connor, you know, Gabrielle from
Xena
, is going to play Lady Macbeth at a Shakespeare festival out there.”

“Let me see if I understand you. You want to fly all the way to L.A. to see a play?”

“No, I want to go to L.A. to see Renée.”

“I thought you liked Lucy Lawless. You know, the one who played Xena, your love goddess.” She was mocking me.

“Yeah, but she's not quite available at the moment. Come on, this will be fun. Let's be a little adventurous.”

“How much is this little ‘adventure' going to cost us?”

She was trying to make her voice sound skeptical, but I knew I had her. She was one of the clan who fancied Gabrielle.

“Not much. You fly free—” I started.

“I know that. How much is it to get you on an airplane to L.A.?”

A few more clicks to find out about fares. I told her the price. Ellen balked.

“Eight hundred dollars plus the cost of the hotel!? Have you lost your mind?”

“We'll need a rental car, too,” I continued, deciding the best strategy was to push the cost to its most ridiculous extreme and come down from there.

“Sure, then there's the damned rental car.”

There was something in Ellen's voice I couldn't quite place. I let the phone go silent while considering my next move. It was my money, but we had been trying to be a bit more frugal after buying two cars the previous year.

“You know,” Ellen broke the silence, “I think if we made plans to visit my mom while we were out there, it would be okay.”

Ah, there it was. I had forgotten. Sharon and her boyfriend, Al, lived in Palm Springs, a mere “hop” south from L.A. Sharon was not my favorite person,
but it looked as if the road to Renée would have to go through Palm Springs. Ellen had played me like a flute. I was stuck.

The first time I met Sharon was at Ellen's college graduation. She rode a bus from California to Baltimore. That was my initial clue that this was a woman I would never understand. She got off that bus frazzled, tired, and determined. Yes, I know all these emotions, but what I don't understand is putting yourself through a four-and-a-half-day bus ride. She said she took the bus because she didn't like to fly. In my opinion, that's what the in-flight cocktails are for. Little did I know that drinking wasn't the only thing we didn't have in common. In fact, the only thing we had in common was that we both cared about the same person, albeit in completely different ways.

During Sharon's visit I learned she was a scary mixture of infantile stubbornness and motherly love, and religious conservatism added in for good measure. What she wanted she got, with her uncanny knack of making you feel guilty for not doing it for her in the first place. As far as her being my mother-in-law, I have always been grateful half a continent separated us. Now, here I was, willingly going out to meet her. It was almost too much. I decided it was
best if I didn't think about it too hard.

I made the arrangements: a one-stop flight (Southwest doesn't seem to do it any other way) from Saint Louis to L.A., an historic hotel, and the absolutely necessary rental car. We would get in late on Thursday and leave mid-morning on Monday. A quick trip, but then I was only going out there to see Renée no matter what plans Ellen had made.

The flight out of Saint Louis was uneventful. Ellen made sure strong cocktails flowed my way, and often. She knew good and well that keeping me understimulated and over-lubricated during a flight was the only way for her arm to remain attached to her shoulder. Flying is a crapshoot, a risky venture I rarely willingly sign on for. I'm quite convinced that one of these days the plane is going to drop from the sky, and to be frank, it's not the dying that scares the shit out of me. What scares me is the thought of the sheer terror I'd endure before going splat. I was thankful that liquor in great quantities, did the trick, so Ellen flirted with the flight attendants and I drank my gin and tonics. About the time we hit Phoenix, I was in a blissful state of semi-intoxication and dozed the rest of the way to L.A. It was the perfect way to fly.

My head bobbed up off my shoulder as we touched down. Ellen was saying goodbye to her new friends as I surreptitiously wiped a bit of drool from my lips, thankful no one was looking. We got our bags and went to get the car. Everything was going well until, as we were standing in line, I felt an unmistakable wetness between my legs.

“Shit.”

“What?” Ellen turned to look at me.

“I have to find a bathroom,” I replied as I started to scan around the crowded terminal for any sign of a toilet.

“I told you to go on the plane.”

“I didn't need to go on the plane. Do you have a tampon?”

“No, I don't start for another couple of weeks.”

For once I was jealous of Ellen's endometriosis. Her gynecologist put her on the pill to ease her cramps. This meant Ellen knew to the day when she would get her period. I wasn't so lucky.

“Hold on. We're almost at the counter. This shouldn't take too much longer. We'll stop at a convenience store on the way to the hotel.”

Almost on cue, the man in front of us had a problem. This was made clear by his tone of voice and
the violent waving of his hands. He obviously wasn't happy with the service he was getting. It took three agents and another twenty minutes before we got to the counter. To make things more interesting, we couldn't find our rental car. Through a parking lot at least two football fields long we searched endlessly for a mid-sized sedan that looked like every other mid-sized sedan. I gave up and followed Ellen up and down the rows. Her persistence prevailed. We loaded our luggage in the trunk. It wasn't until she got behind the wheel that I remembered I hadn't put her on the paperwork as a driver.

“Is there anything else you forgot about?” she asked getting out and letting me slide over to the driver's side.

“I didn't feed the cats. Does that make you feel better? Also, I think I might be leaving a permanent stain on the upholstery, okay?”

Ellen slammed the door. “You'd better be sober by now.”

I ignored her, started the car, and headed toward the highway. We had a choice—north or south. It was then that I asked her if we had a map.

“I thought you downloaded one from MapQuest before we left.” I hadn't, so we took another five
minutes or so trying to find a stupid rental-car map. No luck.

“Look, we'll call the hotel. They should be able to give us directions from here.”

“Okay, what's the name of the hotel?”

I stared at her for a minute trying to keep a straight face.

“No fuckin' way. You didn't forget the name of the hotel. No—”

I started to laugh. “Okay, okay, we're staying at the—” My mind was blank.
Oh God
. “Wait, hold on. I have the receipts in my bag. Why don't you dig them out?”

“Why aren't they in your purse? Look, you're the one that forgot the name. You go get the damn receipt.”

“Hold on we're staying at the, the—” I stammered.

“Just go get the receipt.”

I pulled over and took my own sweet time digging the paper from my bag.

“Here it is, Your Highness,” I said and presented the sheet. Ellen took out her cell phone. The battery was dead.

“Just take the next exit. We'll stop at the first gas station we see. You'll get your plugs, and I'll get
directions.”

It was another hour before we found a gas station and yet another hour before we found the hotel. Ellen wasn't speaking to me, which worked well for both of us. I draped her jacket around my hips to cover Mother Nature's calling card as we entered the hotel lobby. Once at the counter, we were greeted by the most comically effeminate man I think I have ever met. It was all I could do to keep from screaming “STOP! No more affectations,
please
. No one can be that gay. Just give me my damned room key!” Ellen got us registered, while I bit my tongue and gritted my teeth. When our room keys finally appeared, I snatched them up and ran. I left it to Ellen to get the luggage. By the time we slipped between the sheets, it was around three in the morning.