I Regret Nothing

I slid into a black vinyl seat in a music-themed bar somewhere in the liminal space between the puddle jumper terminal and the big dogs in Terminal C of the Houston airport that loaded up for the larger destinations. I really wanted to rest on the ride home, so I ordered a G&T with extra lime and prepared to work on my patience.

By the time my flight from Vegas landed in Houston, I'd already scrubbed the glitter off my hands twice, and I still hadn't figured out what to do with the rest of her. It was easy to be Glittery Gabriella that owned any room she walked into in Vegas. It was expected, given that you were one of the most powerful retail buyers in the Southeast. Atlanta wasn't New York, but it wasn't chopped liver among clothing rep territories.

Like that mattered to anyone outside the industry. But it was a living and thankfully she was good at it.

About the time I was settled in and delighted by my faint taste of citrus, someone sat two seats down from me. Beat-up briefcase and broken-in jeans with some very fancy ostrich skin boots that look oddly out of place in the rest of the practical outfit. We briefly made eye contact, and weirdly his face registered recognition, and he called me by my childhood name, Gabi.

Thankfully, his name was stitched above his pocket on the Carhartt double-pocketed work shirt he wore, and the name I answered to in high school gave me a vague sense of context. I smiled overly brightly because I really had the barest thread of an idea of who this guy was, other than we had probably both survived the Inland Empire of CA together at some point. Good old San Gorgonio High School, I still woke up sweating sometimes when the good old days sneaked back in my dreams and the nightmares just made it feel never ending.

“Hello Darlin, fancy meeting a familiar face in this strange place, how have you been?” I asked him.

“I guess I am doing all right, but not as well as you clearly. I don't remember the southern accent; where did that come from?”

He took a moment to take me in from head to toe in a completely hetero male way of appreciating a few curves. I gave him a minute to peruse and smiled when he got back to my eyes. “I started out making fun of the accent in Atlanta and funny story, my mouth just stuck this way. I don't even hear it in my head anymore.”

He ordered a Sam Adams and turned in his seat towards me. “Tell me about your life. Was it as exciting as you planned?”

Exciting? Did I tell him about my desperate move to join the Navy so I could finance my future that had already been squandered by bad decisions and bad life choices by my parents? Or the years of double shifts and non-stop hustle to always make commission or risk not eating lunches that week? Taking crap and the occasional slap on the ass from good ol boy retail owner who thought all women lived to serve him. If it got me a larger order? Sure. That is a glittery story.

“Oh, you know. Bright lights, big city, it has had its moments. How about you, where are you headed?”

“Headed to Vegas for the Concrete Convention.”

“Well, you better drink up; I hear those guys try to drink the city dry every year; they might be worse than the Scotsmen who descended on Boston for the World Cup.”

He threw his head back and laughed at that, and I had a sudden memory of a boy in a football jersey that was way too large for him, the sunlight bright overhead, and as he laughed at a long-ago joke I couldn't remember. “Funny story, there are a lot of Mcs in the building trades. There may be a Venn diagram of connection.”

We had a moment of quiet appreciation as I tried to reconcile that beautiful boy and this sun-drenched man with crow's feet and quick wit. Had I missed a golden opportunity that had stood right in front of me once upon a time?

He tilted his head a little and looked back in time at me too. “You know I always wanted to ask you out back in the day, but you seemed so consumed with your ambition to get out of Highland I just couldn't ever seem to break through.”

I took a minute to process that and savor the fact that longing still existed in my world. I smiled and reached an open palm out along the bar towards him and said, “You know I really regret running so fast through my life towards my goals that I didn't look around more at the people who were with me in the moment. I was a little too caught up in my own main character energy. I didn't mean to make you an extra on my movie lot.”

He took my hand in a warm clasp and 20 years slid off his face. “I know why you were desperate to get out; the place caved in after we graduated. I'm glad you made it.” He gave my hand a little squeeze and let go.

I stood to head towards my gate, and he did as well. I handed him a card, and he gave me his, and we promised to stay in touch. As I turned to go, I told him to give my regards to his wife, and looked down at the gold band on his finger, and saw the crow's feet deepen as the tension in his face flashed by. He nodded, and gathered up his well-worn briefcase, and headed the opposite direction.

I walked toward my gate without looking back, the way I'd been doing since I was eighteen years old, and I still couldn't find a single thing about that habit I regretted.