People come down the escalator toward where I stand, confused about where I am meant to be. I shuffle through them as they flow around me; I am convinced they must be leaving somewhere ... surely it is somewhere that they come from after all?

Why am I lately the last to know where to go and the first to strike out for where I should stay away?

My feet touch at the escalator that travels up to the next level. Mezzanine, they call it. I always think Mezzanine levels are afterthoughts. As if the architect stuck that level in later, when the client says, oh, but we need a level for all the meeting rooms and mini-conventions we'll hold here in this hotel! And by then, all the numbered floors are taken. So what should be floor 3 becomes the Mezzanine.

I dislike escalators. I don't know why but perhaps it's because when I'm on one, I must wait, patiently, to arrive at a place I'm not sure I should be.

My foot touches the metal grate at the top rise and then the next step finds me walking on carpet. Better grade of carpet than most of these hotels with small convention quarters that usually stretch out on three different floors. Usually it's the second, Mezzanine and then up higher so you have to take an elevator and you think perhaps you're going upscale but all you're going is up.

I wander the floor. There are meeting rooms here, yes, but no registration desk. No big sign boards and busy women in tight clothes scrambling behind long tables with white or blue bunting. Dammit. I should have asked before I left the hotel room.

"Excuse me? I'm looking for the registration desk for the Risk Management Association's convention?" Why am I asking this woman? She looks as lost as me.

"Oh. I don't know. I'm actually here for a real estate seminar. Perhaps on the third floor?"

Great. I run across a real estate agent with no sense of direction or location. My luck.

I wander back to the escalator. Up? Down? Oh, who knows!

"Excuse me, I'm trying to find the registration desk for ..."

"RMA?"

"How did you know?"

"You're carrying the brochure."

I look at my hand. Indeed I am. I grin at him. He's just observant, not a mind-reader. "Okay then. Do you know where we check in?"

"On the floor below. Come. I'll be your escort."

We go down the escalator and then walk a long way, past a set of elevators and then a bank of windows that overlook a park. Before long, we find ourselves approaching a throng of people. This has to be it. This is the typical scene ... everyone milling about ... trying to find people they know, contacts they want to make ... they read your nametag but don't look at your face unless it's you they want to meet.

My escort goes into the fray first. He looks back at me as I follow in his rather substantial wake. He's already checked in. He's just being a nice guy, helping me find where I should be, just ever so nice as he hovers nearby as I queue up by the alphabet and eventually give my name.

I stand at the table as a pert older woman goes in hunt of my registration packet. The packets are filed in huge boxes on tables behind them. She seems to be having a tough time. I sigh. It would be my luck if she found no copy of my registration. I make the mental adjustment to not get angry, to be reasonable, to kill her with my sweetness until she wants to help me.

But, no, that won't be necessary. Here she comes, packet in hand, smile in place.

I am signing for it when I hear a voice say a name I know. It is several rows over, in the alphabetically arranged lines. It's surprising I've heard it. Have I some subconscious, long-thought-buried ability to pick his voice out of a crowded din? I lean forward to see around others in other lines who are waiting on their packets.

Oh god.

It really is him.

What's it been?

Oh, too long.

Too many gallons and gallons of water under too many bridges.

It's him and I am not prepared.

The woman is now shoving my packet in my hand and I know the woman behind me is anxious to get hers. I smile all round and edge out of the line.

My escort, nice guy, is still hovering. Okay, so I know he's not being nice just to be nice. Not since his next words are to ask if I have dinner plans. Oh, my, yes indeed, I hear myself saying.

Indeed I do have dinner plans.

Dinner in my room.

Shoes off, skirt off, watching something on TV, no phone calls from home.

Before I unpack, I do look over the registration packet. I study the courses and seminars and panel discussions that are on parade in the various sections of the main convention brochure.

He is part of a panel, I discover. On the second day. It is a late addition. Would I have come if I'd seen his name? If I had, at least I would have been prepared but I do think I would not have come.

His panel discussion is part of a track I would not take. There is a course opposite this one, on a track I plan to follow. So I cannot go to his panel. Inconvenient but there you have it. That is the way of things at conventions ... one can never see all one wants.

My phone rings. I don't want to answer. I think it's my nice guy escort. But I answer anyway and it's not him. It's a woman from one of our suppliers. She and several others from her company are there, manning their booth at the trade show.

So you made it in, she observes.

Indeed I did, I observe in reply.

Do you have plans, she wants to know. Do I? I think so but these things are uncertain just now. I may even be leaving my job soon ... but I don't tell her that because that would certainly bum out the entire group since they think I'm a great contact inside the company I work for. And I am. But it's because I like them and I like their product ... and because I suggested it to my boss after the last convention and earned a 'great idea' from him while he earned a bonus from his boss.

Life. You know? It's certainly not the worst thing that can happen to you. Maybe it's when it no longer holds a shock for you that it gets to be the worst thing. I'm the wrong one to ask. I've had my fill of shocks, thanks. Thanks ever so.

"We're going out for drinks before the opening night mixer dinner cruise. Join us." 

I don't want to go out drinking. I do not want to go on a cruise and certainly not one of those "things" they do at conventions ... where some people have the time of their life chatting and flirting. It used to be that I had a ready excuse to not go ... or at least to cut off any flirting directed my way. But I am suddenly, unpreparedly in the position of having too many opportunities open to me for the kind of mixing I've had ready reasons to never do for ... well, for quite a few years.

Really, what I want is to take a long bath. "Shall I meet you downstairs? In the bar?"

"In five!" She is far too happy; I am not worth that kind of enthusiasm.

But five turns into ten and that turns into 15.

She's probably calling other clients or potential clients ... come join us for drinks, she's telling them, in five!

I am sitting at the bar. It's where I think I am comfortable waiting. If I sat at a table, men would assume I wanted company. Sitting at the bar, they may assume I want a drink but they will hesitate to see who I'm waiting for. If no one comes for a while, then they will send me drinks and looks.

He comes in when I've been at the bar for ten minutes that were supposed to be five. He sits at the bar, around the curve from where I am poised on a tall chair with my knees crossed and my skirt hopeful in its desire to creep up my thighs a bit more than I used to allow it.

I watch him. Not covertly but not ostentatiously. I watch him through the reflection in the mirror that hangs over the calm, plush bar. He glances around but I don't earn more than a scan that he'd give about any woman, I expect. Far less than I'd think he'd give a woman alone unless she's a total hag.

Damn.

He doesn't even recognize me!

When I saw him come in, I had this vision that he'd take one look at me, rub his eyes, say my name and come over there to where I was and ... and ... God. It wasn't as if we could take up where we left off.

Maybe he recognized me and is giving me the blank.

Would he do that?

Maybe.

Would I?

Not with the way my insides felt when I saw him walk in. I should go over and say something ... shouldn't I? But what to say beyond hello and the inevitable fakery? Now that I think on it ... what would we bloody say anyway?

It's been ... what ... has it been that long? Is that why he looks like such a man now when before I used to think he looked so damned young to be so serious when he'd be too serious and sometimes in a mean way?

It has been a long time. I count the years on mental fingers ... nine years. Good god.

Men should be shot for getting better looking, more appealing, more attractive when they age that many years. 

"You weren't waiting long, right?" she says, the woman who works for the supplier, my erstwhile convention friend.

"Just a few minutes." It's funny to me how this will work and how I can already feel it. 

"Well, the buses are actually outside! Cannot believe they are on time. People are already gathering out there. So we should go, get in line ... let's see if we can get seats all together for the ride over! Come, come!"

I follow them out. There are four of them. Three are with the supplier; the other one is a potential client who is at the convention as their invited guest. I suppose I am to be the one they figure will give an unsolicited testimonial to this guest ... about how great the product is and how great it was for me and my company. I don't mind. This is what happens at this kind of thing. And already I am falling into the convention conventions ... where you latch on to others you know from before the long trip to this other city and even if you'd not have doted on them away from this microcosm where you would be alone without these tenuous friends, in the scope of the convention, you will be great friends.

Such a cynic.

When did that start?

Oh. A few years ago, I suppose.

This opening night event is popular. I never really like them. Forced gaiety. And how to act, how to act? Dress too business and you're a drudge. Too risqué and you're labeled. Too casual and you're dismissed. Too expensive and you're avoided. Drink too much and you're looking to become the joke of the convention. Don't drink at all and how boring can you be, really?

I should be freer than I am, I tell myself. I have no ring. No reason to care. No one I'd have to lie to if I danced too close and did something even closer later in the cloakroom.

There's something about this that doesn't feel like freedom ... it never has. Maybe if I'd been the one who'd been having an affair? Maybe then.

It's too new. I plan to stick with my women friends.

We are shuffled toward the second bus. We wait our turn, polite and laughing softly in the warm evening. The stairs loom; I wave the others ahead of me. I say hello to the driver as I pass him because I know no one ever talks to him. It'd be lonely; surrounded by all these people coming in and going off ... but never noticed as long as the ride is smooth.

I cannot see far when I am finally past the driver, heading for a seat somewhere in the vast bus. You have to rise up two steps just to see down the aisle. It seems crowded. People milling about, trying to take their seats, saving the companion seats for late friends. The seat backs are so tall that you cannot really tell when a seat is occupied until you are even with the row.

We are forced to split up, the five of us women. Two sit here, next to each other. Two more find seats together and one just behind them, the next aisle back. That's the one I take.

I settle into the seat and look out of the window but then the lady who called me to ask me to come tonight pops her head over the seat to include me in the group. She really is pretty nice, actually, I think to myself. Imagine worrying over including me even on the ride? Empathetic, that's what she is. I like her more and I hope it's not just the convention friendship thing. She is engaging and lively.

People are filing past me. No one sits with me. They must assume with this woman hanging over the seat chatting with me that it would be messy sitting with me. That they'd be drawn in. Besides, they have friends they want to sit with.

I don't see him, not really, until he is abreast of my aisle. The woman talking to me has blocked my sight of him until he is just there.

"You saving this seat, miss?"

"Uh ... No."

"Evening, ladies."

There's something about the tone he's used as he looks at the woman hanging over the seat and me with my mouth open, caught in the act of responding to her before he interrupted with his presence and question about whether or not the seat next to me was taken. His tone of voice is as if he feels we're being awfully silly and how inappropriate that is at such a business function. The lady hanging over the seat widens her eyes at me, smirks, and then slides down into her seat. Out of sight. I look out the window.

I wait. I wait. I used to do a lot of waiting for him and here I am, waiting.

But he spends the whole ride checking and returning message on his Blackberry. I never thought of him as someone who'd miss the obvious. Miss the woman sitting next to him. Have I really changed that much?

If I have, if I met him tonight, would he give me more than that scan he did in the bar? Would he have taken this seat willingly, on purpose ... his agenda to engage me, gauge me? Would he make me feel like the spotlight was on me? Like I'd just won the lottery? I get a flush all along my body because I will never forget the night we met and how he zeroed in on me and how that felt. We'd been so much younger and fearless. And free.

Oh, how free we were back then.

For a while.

The bus stops. He gets up. Everyone gets up. But not me. I sit staring out the window at the boat we are meant to cruise. It is lit with white lights. The moment the door to the bus swooshes open, I can hear the salsa music from the boat. People from the first bus are streaming up the walkway.

The line on this bus has moved beyond me by the time I rise and join them on the journey out. My girlfriends are waiting on me when I finally emerge. The two that saw him sitting with me have told the others about him. He stood right behind them on the way out of the bus. They have all stood there waiting on me and watching him walk aboard.

He always makes an impression on women. Sometimes he pretended not to notice.

I am deflated. Horribly, utterly deflated. He never even recognized me. He never even felt a tug of attraction for me. When we first met, it had been an instant chemistry. He had been the only man I ever felt that with. And it is all gone. Every last tiny atom of it is gone. For him, anyway. Not for me. I had felt the chemical reactions go off in fire bursts inside me just being near him on the bus.

More than anything else, at this moment, I want to go away from the boat and any chance to see him there.

But I go aboard ... a reluctant prisoner to convention conventions. There's no turning back once you were on the bus. You must go through with the evening's entertainment. You just have to get through it until you can leave with everyone else.

My new bestest girlfriends are before me as we enter. We are each offered rum punches from trays presented by girls in sarongs with flowers in their hair. We wander together for a while, unsure who among us will take the lead so the rest can follow. Eventually, we make it onto the top deck, where I felt it would be good to go and watch us take off from the dock. I still like looking up, at stars, at city lights.

Soon, we decide, why not eat. And so we go off searching for the buffet. 

Plates loaded, rum punches almost gone, we find seats around a round table. I order a piña colada. Two of the others say how good that sounds and order with me. The others get white wine. Dinner is looser than I was thinking it would be. I thought I would be tighter. But there is something about a group of women ... if it's large enough, men do not approach.

Am I watching for him? I try not to. Now, after the bus ride, I would avoid him if I saw him first. 

After dinner, we grab another drink. We hear the pulse of salsa and squeals of half drunk dancing partiers. We head in that direction, fueled up now on enough booze to think standing around in a noisy, sweaty disco area is a good idea. Would we dance if asked? I hope not.

We wind our way in, following each other, doing all we can to not get separated until we can find a table or some section of a bar to gather around. I am already assuming I will be the purse watcher tonight.

My escort of hours earlier must have been waiting on me to show up. He is on me like a drowning man. I hear him thinking, "At last! A woman I have a chance with tonight!"

His hands sweat. I hate dancing with him. He tries to be clever in a dance step but I step on him because he doesn't really know how to lead, which makes me feel stupid. He talks in my ear one minute and the next he is looking around to make sure someone notices him. And then, mercifully, the dance is over. He, however, wants to hang around with me. He invites me to join him at a private table.

No, I smile, I'm with others.

He walks me to my table with my girlfriends and then goes off in search of a chair he can pull up.

"Someone has an admirer," one of the women mouths out to the rest of us.

"I did something very wrong in a former life," I mouth back.

We are roaring with laughter when my escort returns, hitting two men at the next table as he wrestles a chair over to us. I am mortified. Absolutely.

Here I am, free for once, and I get hit on by a doofus who will now proceed to follow me everywhere I go for the next four days and nights. What to do, what to do. I try to shake him by going to get us all drinks, for all us ladies, hoping he'll take the hint when I do not offer to buy him a drink. He follows me to the bar, my St. Bernard, helping me carry the drinks back once they are mixed. I say I have to go outside and smoke a cigarette when the next dance starts. He tags along though he does not smoke. I end up having to dance two dances with him after we return and anyone looking at me could tell that I am miserable and desperate. He cannot tell, of course.

We are at the table as I've told him he has worn out my dancing toes, and he leans in over me and prattles in my ear about his company and how they could not exist without him.

I am dying. Dying. Dying on the vine.

When the next dance starts, I go to the ladies room, thinking at least I can go in there and be away from him for just a little while, to regain my sanity, and maybe escape if I can. I pat him on the arm as I leave, hoping he'll stay put. He does not. Jesus. Just let me pee!

When I come back out, I know he'll be waiting on me. He's disguising the fact he's latching on to me by pretending to be gallant. I cannot believe I have to deal with him. I've steeled myself up to be mean to him, to just tell him, 'look, I'm not interested. Not one tiny bit.' Even that though, I am convinced, will not dislodge this man from my side.

And there he is; end of the corridor, trying to feign aloofness. His eyes light up when he sees me. I do not smile. I am walking toward where he waits and what I really want to do is walk up to him and slug him.

From nowhere, I feel someone walk into me. An arm is around my waist. I start to twist away. But then I make the mistake of looking into the person's face. The man's face. My fingers are on his hand, ready to peal it off.

But it's him.

"Care to dance with me, love? Old time's sake and all that?" he asks me. He inclines his head toward my unwelcome admirer. "Or should I get your boyfriend's permission first?"

He never could resist the grand entrance, the sweeping gesture, the damsel's rescue.

"He's not my boyfriend."

"You never could give me a simple 'yes' or 'no.'"

"Yes."

He smiles at me. It's one of those put on smiles he mastered before he ever met me. He keeps his arm around my waist and sweeps me past my erstwhile escort, whom I do not look at.

I feel free! As if some knight has come along to cut my bonds and free me from every single thing. I am so relieved that it is not until we are at the dance floor, facing each other, him holding his hand out to me to take it, that it occurs to me ... for the second time in my life, this one man has come smashing into a moment and made me feel utterly free.

And glad to be that way, I should add.

Just at that moment, I meet his eyes. He swallows. He won't reveal himself to me, not this easily. I take his hand. It is warm. It surrounds mine because it knows how to do that. I put my other hand on his shoulder. And then he steps into me, his hand on my lower back ... taking the lead with confidence. Dancing me backwards.

My hand slides toward his shoulder blade. I feel him shift to hold me closer. I open my eyes and see his neck.

"It's been a long time, Terrence," I say because something needs to be said along these lines and he would probably say something far worse as the opening gambit if I think back on the last things we said to each other before he kicked me out of his life.

"Should I have ignored you all night, Elizabeth?"

"Yes."

"What fun would that have been?"

"Who said I was looking for fun?"

"Well, never let it be said I'd stand in the way of you and your boyfriend ..." he says, his hands letting me loose, forcing me to grip into my holds on his body.

"He's not my boyfriend! He just thinks I'm an easy mark."

"Then let's shake him, shall we? Least I can do for you ... old time's sake and all."

He waltzes me smoothly out of the disco. We are now waltzing slowly on the open deck where the music still vibrates, muffled and toned down to where we could talk if we wanted.

"I didn't think you knew who I was, Terry." 

His cologne is expensive. I know this. The years have educated me about such things. I can remember buying him English Leather just to play with his feelings about always being mistaken for a Brit when he was in the U.S. or South America ... it was cheap and what I could afford when I knew him ... truth is, it smelled pretty good on him but it was too common. Whatever he's wearing now, it's something that isn't common ... and on the whole, I think it's the cologne that tells me he has come way up in the world since I knew him. This close to him and my memories collide headlong with the fact that I don't know him anymore. He feels more solid than I remember. Somehow more plodding, more purposeful.

"I would never forget you, Betsy," he whispers, right against my ear. "I'd know you anywhere."

Those simple words wash away years of separation and for just a solid moment, I can nearly feel how I'd once felt about him. The way seeing him would make my heart feel. The way hearing his voice on a phone, calling me long distance, would make me taste his palpable yearning to be touching me. The way his hands would steal over my skin when he returned as I lay sleeping in his bed, there only because he said he'd be home one night soon and wanted me waiting there in his bed when he did ... and then he'd show up to begin a wordless, athletic, pitiless reunion.

"So sitting next to me on the bus, pretending to not know who I was when you had to know that I ...? That wasn't very nice."

"Is that how you want me? Nice? Thought I was never nice. Hate to ruin your perception of me."

Oh, yes, those years do get washed away.

He has the memory of an elephant. His memory must not be glossed over, or varnished as if years have yellowed and tinged angry times with just the right level of opaqueness that we can see through, a burnished glaze that takes away the edges that hurt.

"I was just commenting on the obvious."

"You didn't use to be so forthright."

And you didn't used to be such a prig, I think. But then I shove aside that burnished glaze of memory ... and I remember one thing quite clearly: how angry he was in the end. And how I never understood what I'd done then but how angry I was in return ... later.

I am not looking at him. I am looking over his shoulder, my chin tucked in there, feeling him dip my body along to the soft beat of salsa to which he leads me.

"Thanks for the rescue. I'm sure you have better things to do tonight. I should go find my friends now," I say.

"Let's find somewhere quiet. Catch up. Have a drink. Toast this happy occasion."

"Let's not."

I am looking in his eyes now. Bold. Nothing to lose. I don't care if he sees the wounds anymore. The ones he put there aren't so bad considering that I know I put some on him. His eyes are dark in the darkness. But I could see their beautiful shade of blue green even in pitch black, that's how well I know them. They focus and I see bitter feelings for me.

How did we get here from that moment we first met and he made me feel so desirable and alive?

He blinks, looks down. Breathes deeply. Looks up in my eyes. Something has changed. I don't even begin to want to guess what it is. "One drink, Bets. Swords down."

"One." My voice is tight; my answer is instant.

After all this time, this is what we are reduced to ... one drink between strangers feeling obligated by a past when we were more intimate than possible. The wall between us seems to have gone back up as we maybe both remember things we should not and forget things we should not.

He is smoother than I remember him. A new sheen; sophistication. He was always a man's man, always seemed to know what to do, how to take control, how to teach me an experience. But I can tell from the way he smoothes his way from holding me in a dance, to guiding me, one hand at the small of my back, toward stairs that lead up and up to the top deck. What can I tell? That life has brought him a smoother style. He knows things now, about things money can buy and should buy. He has a different lifestyle than when I knew him.

"Name your poison," he says. He used to say that all the time, imitating my old boss.

I feel the smile press into existence. He grins in response, glad I am glad he remembered something we used to find amusing together.

"Champagne then. If you're gonna be such a smart ass, it'll cost you."

"You're a more expensive date now, love. Good thing it's just one drink."

I stand at the side window as he goes to get drinks. I am looking out and up ... stars almost burnt out thanks to the interference of city lights in the near distance. When he returns, it is with two flutes, chilled. A barmaid is setting a champagne bucket atop a table nearby. He indicates that this is where we shall have our drink.

"You always did try to skirt the rules and push your luck, Terry. We said one drink."

"I don't push my luck anymore, Betsy. Just thought you deserved a better quality than the champagne they sell by the glass here."

That touches me. In the beginning, I always assumed his motives were pure and meant just for me. In the end, I always assumed there was an ulterior motive to every gesture that seemed pure. I don't know which it is here, but I assume it's a little of both. For some reason, I find that endearing.

He pours. We sip. Our knees are touching. The table is small. His hand covers mine after he puts the champagne bottle back in the bucket. His hand is cold, damp at first. Slowly, it warms to my skin. He plays with my index finger as he sips. I stare at him over my flute as I sip.

"I still hear from Walt's family. Do you?"

"No."

"His sister has two children. She named the boy after him. He is ... so not Walt that it is hilarious. I imagine Walt shaking his head with disgust and trying to influence him to be a bit more rowdy."

He smiles at that. I picture Walt, what he'd be like now. I had stopped doing that but here I am, with the man I met only because of Walt ... and he comes to my mind.

"How is little Henry? The charmer?"

"No longer that little," he says with a grimace. "But still the charmer with the girls."

"He comes by it naturally. In his genes."

His face softens. "He still thinks I should have married you. Tells me I made a big mistake letting you get away."

"You didn't let me get away," I whisper. "You got rid of me."

I don't know if he's heard me. He doesn't really react. He's still looking at me as if I'm the one who got away ... the old girlfriend he wishes he'd not lost. But the truth was different. And it still hurts. Because I loved him. For me, he was the one that got away. And that's the truth.

"That was a mistake. And I paid dearly for it, love, if that's consolation."

"It's not. As if I would wish that for you. And I resent you saying such a thing about me."

"You've changed, Betsy. There was time you would have let that slip by, just to maintain civility."

"We all change, Terry. Life can beat your best ideals out of you."

"Or it can hone them to a finer edge."

Now I am embarrassed. I am beaten down. He has risen above. I hate that we've met just now. That he is seeing me like this.

"One thing hasn't changed. Every bloke in this bar felt you come in here."

My eyes drop. I shift in my seat. "Don't resort to empty flattery, Terry."

"Let's put it to the test. Come dance with me ... you watch them watching you, even if they're with someone. C'mon, love. Let me win one, eh?"

He means that I should let him win this disagreement. He used to never ask to win ... he'd maneuver or outflank me if it was important. Or he'd go silent. Well, to be fair, that was at the end and what can you really say when it's at the end? All the rules change ... it's not right to judge a lover by actions at the end when love isn't enough anymore or when love is the reason everything has changed between you.

"I don't need to dance again. I'll just say thanks for the compliment."

He is subtly dragging me to my feet; his hand that was atop mine is now holding it up off the table in that gesture of invitation to the dance. My face is ablaze. I didn't deserve the compliment because it wasn't true.

The moment I am in his arms, the last thing I'd do is look around at others. That last glass of champagne has made me light ... I hold onto Terry. His arm slips around me a bit more, adjusting our bodies into alignment so close we could still be lovers. I put my head down on his shoulder, close my eyes. He is strong, in command. If I keep my eyes shut, I can forget the past and pretend we've just met. That he's coming on to me, seducing me, wanting to get in my panties tonight. Nothing more, nothing less. Just an assignation between strangers meeting at a convention.

If we were strangers, I'd do him in a minute tonight. He is simply that kind of man to me, that kind of animal magnetism.

He bends the arm he's been holding out, the one gripping my hand as we danced slowly to a smoky, sultry tune. Now he curls it up between our chests. I feel his breath on the side of my neck. His cheek smoothes over mine. His hand on my waist flexes, grips, caresses. My arm slides across his shoulder to where my fingers can touch his neck. I stroke his hair at the nape, feel it, caress the skin. His lips rest lightly against the side of my neck. I feel him start to harden. I shift so I'm faintly pressing in there. He pulls me in ever so slightly tighter, as if he cannot resist his desire for the friction.

I never would have guessed he could do all this while dancing to music like this. Or that he could do it so subtly. He has definitely learned new moves. I suppose that I have as well. I don't remember ever even wanting to dance with him like this. Now, I could do it all night long.

The song is over. We still move in the same rhythm. A new song comes. We adjust for its slightly different rhythm.

"Always wondered if you ever found him, Bets," he whispers hoarsely against the shell of my ear. His tongue maneuvers the lobe to where his lips can encase it within warmth.

I shiver in response. This emboldens him to suckle that earlobe just a bit before letting his teeth touch then release.

"I thought I had. I was wrong."

"Not the right guy?"

"That too."

This is when he releases me and leads me back to the table. That one drink turns into a second. I let him pour it. He makes no pretense that he really wanted me to leave after one. I make no pretense that I really want to leave.

Now he leans across the table. I take a deep breath before leaning in to take my now-filled flute from him.

"What did you mean by that? That he was the wrong bloke for you or ..."

"I was wrong to think it's what I really wanted. But I was also wrong that he was who I thought he was. I wanted passion but not the angry kind. I wanted safety but not to give up freedom. I wanted someone safe but that doesn't exist, I think."

His eyes are latched on mine. I lick my lips, nervous. I should never have said that to him. It was too much. Too truthful, too raw, too undignified. I should have left before he poured me another drink. I'll never live this moment down. All my life, I'll remember this and shudder at having said those embarrassing admissions to this man.

"I was in such a downward spiral. I knew I was taking you with me."

"If I had been better, a better lover, a better woman, I would have saved you."

Tears come from nowhere. I am baring my soul but at least he is baring his as well. We are saying words only possible from the long distance of time.

"A man has to save himself. I pushed you away to prove that you'd always come back. But then you didn't."

I blink and another tear comes out. His thumb wipes it away. I put my hand on his face, my fingers searching like a blind person to gather the sense of him. "You wanted me to come back to you?"

"Told myself I was doing you a favor. You deserved someone different than me. You wanted marriage, kids, to be settled. I didn't. Thought it was in my past ... had a son, had been married, didn't want any of that."

"The next time I saw you, though ..."

"You had moved on. I hated you for that."

"I was so hateful to you. I have regretted that so much. I just rubbed it in your face ... but I honestly thought you were there to show me you had a better life without me ... that you'd hooked up with the kind of woman you really wanted ... someone not like me. Someone who didn't put demands on you."

He sips from his flute. I do the same with mine. Is he as embarrassed as me that all this just gushed from our mouths like this? We wait years and years ... and then spill our guts in a rush of words to each other that took less than a few minutes? When we were ever like that?

Oh, wait. I remember ... when we were free ... we could have said that to each other, felt so good about being safe enough with each other to say it ... back when we were free to love. I can't believe I lost him. I feel my head floating. I want to cry. I want to sob. I want to stop remembering how he made me feel. I want to stop this.

"We did a number on each other."

"No wonder you didn't want to know me anymore," I say.

"When I saw you in the bar ... thought you'd come say something to me."

"I was afraid."

"You never used to be afraid of me."

"I'm afraid of a lot of things now that I used to not be. Life lessons, eh?"

"More?" he asks, already pulling the bottle out of its ice bath. I shake my head but hold my glass out when I realize I don't want to leave on this note. I don't want it to end on such a pitiful dirge.

"Can we change the subject? This has gotten way too deep." I am grateful for the smile he gives me. "You look fantastic, Terry. Now that we've broken the ice but good ... bring me up to date in your life?"

He grimaces, groans, puts his hand up as if he's fending me off.

"Don't make me beg."

He smirks. "Used to love it when you begged."

He used to always know how to make me laugh, even when he was being bad and purposely changing the subject. He still has the knack. I laugh and blush. Then gaze off, saying, "Yeah, well, if I remember correctly, you had a certain winsome quality when you'd be on your knees in front of me, begging."

His chuckle in response is so dirty.

Long moments go by. His hand falls atop mine again. I turn mine, palm up, grip my fingers around his. Squeeze twice. Still looking off through the window. Stars in the distance. City lights less intense. I wonder if we are far from shore but know we've not left the harbor far behind.

"Had some bad years, Bets. Had to learn my own life lessons. Don't like the memory much ... still too recent. Still not sure I won't fall back into that trap. But I'm trying."

"Still with Luthan?"

"No."

I turn to look at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. Still in the business, though. Just have my own shop now, with a friend. Do it our way. Safe. Smart. Back ups for back ups. Only use good people we trust."

"All the things Luthan didn't always pay much more than lip service to." My voice is both empty and bitter.

"It got worse." His voice is an echo of mine.

"I'm so sorry. That must have been rough on you."

"I should have left years ago. I just ... guess I thought I was at the top and didn't want to think I could have done it all for nothing in the end."

I squeeze his hand. He responds. I lean over the table. He leans back into the chair, tugging my hand until it's now resting on his thigh. "It would never have been for nothing. I won't believe that. You were always a good man. Good at what you did. The best. I always believed that."

His eyes dip down, looking at my knee that is pressed against his. Or maybe he's looking at our hands, holding each other.

"You are a good man, Terrence Thorne. I wouldn't have loved you otherwise."

"Wasn't always good to you, Bets. Not sure I deserve that from you."

"I said you were good. Not perfect."

He is looking at me now. Eyes so steady. "So I've my own shop now. How you like that? Me, the boss man?"

"Can't picture you doing the paperwork drill, honestly."

"Hate it. Hire it out now that I'm boss."

"Of course." I sip, feeling even more floaty. "Still out in the field? Still in danger?"

"Always, love. You know me. Danger is my addiction."

His tone is so flip. I see the mark I've left on him with that comment I made there at the end of our love affair. 

He had come back from one too many escapades. One too many close calls. I had said, and I believed it, that he was addicted to the danger inherent in his job. That he preferred to have to force the issue, to go in on the rescues, to face up to the kidnappers ... that negotiations were boring to him.

That I could no longer deal with knowing he cared that little about his future ... about a possible future with me. That I needed a safer man. A safer life. A man who felt passion but within reason. A man who put me first. A man worth building a future on, dammit.

He had not seen me as his future. He thought I was out to reform him. He needed me to just love him and be happy with the status quo. He needed me to not make him compromise. He had started pushing me away until, at the end, a few months later, he'd told me to pack whatever I had in his apartment before he got back from Croatia and leave the key on his front table on my way out.

I never realized until later that I'd insulted him in the particular way I had. I had been angry. I was wanting him to change without realizing that I loved him for all he was and changing him wasn't what I wanted. That what he'd done was push back but only after far too long of me provoking him over a loss that wasn't his fault. But that particular revelation was years in the making. Years.

"Where are you living now?"

"Still in London."

"Never given thought to moving back to Oz?"

"At times. Not seriously."

"I was there a few years ago. My husband wanted to dive the Reef."

"Tell me about him. About your life. The years between then and now."

"It'd be hopelessly uninteresting."

"You could start by telling me why you took your ring off. I'd be interested in that, Bets."

My thumb rubs where a wedding band used to be. "What, you think I took it off so I could come here pretending to be single and have a little fling while I was away from home?"

He shrugs. "You've a tan line, love. But you know how I don't like to jump to conclusions without enough evidence."

I bristle. He could be such a judgmental prick about women and fidelity. I try to take my hand back, the one he's holding ... but he drags it up his thigh a bit before pressing down on it. The action brings me closer, leaning more into where he sits at my side.

"I took the ring off this week. But not because I was coming here. The fucking divorce was final on Thursday. Happy now, detective?"

He gives me his best contrite look. And sympathy. And maybe pity. I hear myself choke. My throat closes; it's swollen with unshed tears. I try to drink champagne, drink away my sorrows, know I'm already approaching inebriation but suddenly wanting to drop way over that line and get smashed.

But I choke for real this time ... sputtering and gasping ... he is smacking my back ... then rubbing it gently, small circles ... warming my insides just from the touch of his broad palm. Then as I really catch my breath, he is holding me tight and telling me to take shallow breaths, slow and easy ... now take a deeper breath, he whispers ... trust me, he says ... I remember a time when him saying that would have made me so angry. I also remember a time when him saying that would have made me melt into a huge pile of goo. Funny how we color two such simple words by how we hear them with different ears over time.

He hands me a napkin. I wipe my mouth and then excuse myself to go to the rest room. I am unsteady on my feet but he lets me stand on them unaided. Inside the brightness of the ladies room, I contemplate escaping from him.

I look in the mirror as I put on gloss. He hates glossy lips. At least, he used to. He said he hated kissing lips with 'all that gunk' on them. My hair has flattened in the humidity of the off shore breezes. I toss it over and finger comb it. When I look back in the mirror, I think, 'not too bad after all this time' but I am so much older that I wonder if it shocks him that I am not the girl he once held and made love to in sheets that got tangled and spent.

Before I leave, I wipe off the gloss. 

I would rather be with him than escape. Freedom is the ability to actively make that choice.

He watches me pick my way back to the table. I hear his voice, from our shared past, telling me that he loves the way I walk ... that it is so natural and so steady it makes my hips sway just right ... any more would be vulgar. As I imagine him when he once said this to me, I realize I am swaying way too much just now as I walk back to him, knowing he is assessing me intently for all his seeming nonchalance. I try to look away from him ... the lights have those bright circles around them so I take a deep breath and appreciate the high of too much champagne on top of other drinks that night.

The flutes on our table are full again. The bottle is upside down in the bucket. Before long, we'll finish this drink and we'll have no more excuse to be together. I'll go find my friends and hope I won't do anything embarrassing in this quasi-drunk state. The escort of earlier in the evening will find me again and pester me in the hopes that me being drunk will make me less choosy. Terry will meld into the crowd and disappear from my life forever.

"Will they shoot us if we take these flutes out to stand on the deck a bit? I could do with some air," I say when I reach him.

He stands without hesitation. Hands me my flute. Picks up his. He slides a hand behind me, along my hips, until he rests it on my waist and pulls me with him toward the glass door that leads outside.

Mmm. Good god. I remember him in this mode. Silent. In charge. Daring the world to interfere with the trouble he wanted to get up to with me. At the age I am now, there isn't a lot of trouble he can think up that I would be scared to consider doing with him. I am moist in several places.

Because I trust him to watch over me, I think, and hate that I do. But I hate worst of all that I find myself wanting to be alone with him when I should be scared to be alone with a man who once made me so depressed that I married the next man I dated because he seemed safe.

Wind whips at us. The air is cooler, the sky clearer. I smell brine. He walks slowly with me; my free hand trails along the railing. It is damp with sticky sea spray. Lights of the ship seem directed up toward us, as if we are in a spotlight.

It's so windy up there. I ask if we can go down a deck, perhaps go to the rear where the wind will be blocked and won't be so noisy in our ears. He takes my hand to help me down the stairs and we are still holding fingers together as we walk along the starboard side, heading aft. As soon as we step behind the bulk of the ship's core, the wind is virtually gone except when you leave the bulkhead and go up close to the railing. We stand in the lee and sip champagne and look at each other. Taking my hand from his, I put a finger along his lapel and trace the seam line there.

He steps closer to me. He licks at his bottom lip.

"You used to do that when you wanted to kiss me," I say. We are alone. Anything could happen between us. He looks in my eyes. "Lick your lip like that, I mean."

"If I wanted to kiss you, Elizabeth, we both know you wouldn't stop me."

I used to love him to call me that ... Elizabeth. He draws it out, that name, as if he's making love to it. Stroking it with his tongue, scraping it with his teeth.

The instant visual memory of him, between my legs, his eyes studying my sex before he begins to explore it ... and then lazily stroking it with his tongue ... scraping with his teeth ... and me, always, shaken and flying free.

I put my finger along his bottom lip. It is damp from where he's licked it. I know I'm partially drunk but I feel anything is open to me ... anything I want ... no restrictions ... no ramifications.

And this man I still regret not having in my life, still hold up as a measure for other men in some ways but not all ... this man, this close, the old attractions cannot ever be denied. His fingers fly over my face, tucking windswept tendrils away and behind my ears. I whisper to him, to kiss me, to taste me ... and he does.

It was far too simple to do. But I think we were setting this up the moment we left the bar upstairs.

The kiss is light, like the feel of placing a drop of honey on your tongue and forcing yourself to let it make its slow way to your taste buds. How when it finally seeps into just the right taste bud, the sensation can make you tremble and your knees buckle.

He lets me go. His hands fall away from me. His face turns; his eyes shut; his body tenses.

Oh.

No.

I feel the shakes come over me.

God.

It was just for fun. This is what I feel like saying. I want to shove him, hard. I want to ask why he didn't think about this before he kissed me. Why now? Why make me feel desired only to make me feel like I've embarrassed him because I was so obviously willing to rekindle a physical flame between us, all these years later?

Instead, I smile.

I learned that smile within the last few years.

And I back away from him, twirling away from where he stands immobile and about to say something I know I don't want to hear. I am buzzed and I don't want to come down from the high because when I do, then I will remember all the embarrassing moments since he sat next to me on the bus and up to this moment just now when he so regretted kissing me.

When I stop twirling, slowly, my head thrown back, I bump into the railing. I grab hold of the water spotted railing. I am looking straight up, at the sky that only has occasional stars. The wind is freeform here ... no pattern to it ... cross currents. My hair whips and falls and flies. I look down at the white foam of the boat's wake. I lean over the rail, my hands sliding out, away from me, so I can lean further out, look straight down. I contemplate the wake and the spray that reaches me.

"Come away from there, Betsy. You're getting wet." He touches my wrist. His fingers begin to circle it. I yank it away. I'd fall sideways but my other hand is braced on the rail so all I really do is pivot on my ankles.

"Just go, Terrence. Just go and leave me alone. We said one drink ... swords down. So the truce is over, eh? Just go away. I just want to be here and feel this wind."

"I'm not leaving you here like this."

"Then I'll leave you ... you know, I should. I should be used to this ... you get tired of me and then you make me leave. It's a pattern with you and me, isn't it?"

"I did not get tired of you."

"Then why? Why? I never understood!"

He slides his arms around my waist and gentles my body from where I am. As he does it, his mouth is at my ear. His voice mixes with the rush of the wind. "You don't want to have that chat, do you, Bets? Do we have to go back to that time?"

His body is solid, all man. It is more substantial than my memories of it. Why resist? Even over the years in between then and now, even when I've thought of him and how it ended, I've never denied the wish that I'd meet up with him again ... and I've brought him to mind in bad times when I was married ... even brought the memory of his touch to my bed when it was shared by my husband.

I longed for this to happen and here it is ... I'm coming down off the alcohol buzz and descending rapidly into the fiery libido that has his name attached to it.

In my daydreams, we'd meet and I saw myself telling him to get lost, that I had no desire to ever see him, that he'd not been important ... this was what I thought I'd do, I suppose, have some measure of revenge to get my pride back where he's concerned.

How odd, though, that faced with him, I never did any of that.