the trip

 kathy and larry went to the bahamas. they were on vacation. their first vacation together in the eighteen months they had been dating. 
it was larry who proposed the trip. kathy was touched. she didn't think he had it in him to suggest a trip. she had reconciled herself to either trying to awkwardly bring up the idea and the possibility of a lengthy discussion about the edges and nature of their relationship, or to relegate herself to vacation alone or with her friends, wondering why he wasn't with her and whether to break it off and move on.  
larry asked when they were out to dinner at The Bells - a cute restaurant on the south side of the newly hip area. the place had the requisite atmpspheric edison lights, dark wood, full -wall distressed mirrors, unpolished brass and a waitresses who looked dusted with film glamour of the '40s. they got two dozen oysters, a split between malpeques and welfleets. they laughed about one of kathy's friend's alice, who told kathy about how her boss fell on the stack of papers he gave the temp to shred, right after the meeting where he chewed out alice for using the wrong stock paper for the presentation to the new clients. 
after their giggles died down, but the oceanic ooze still sloshing their giddiness around, larry tenderly took her left hand into his right from across the table, and kissed the third knuckle. his saliva glistened on her hand in the textured lights and a strand hung tenuously down his chin. 
in the glowing mirrors, he said - hey babe, let's go down to the bahamas. let's go down to the beach. let's see some rotting fish wash up on the sand at sunset, when the ocean sheds itself of the day's old relics and the salinic detritus appears charmed for a few minutes in the cooked egg sun on the horizon and magenta cloudstreaks. she breathed in shallowly, squeezed his hand and with cracking voice, said - that would be lovely. 


for the next few weeks they planned fastidiously for the trip - kathy more excited about the planning than larry, but surprised at how engaged he was.  he called the horseriding stables, emailed the hotel to make sure they had the right combination of fruits that kathy loved. although it was only august, they planned the trip for late winter, when they anticipated needing an escape to survive the last dirty stretches of winter. everyone in new york needs an escape, they said to each other. 
larry said he got the idea from the winter before when on the train to work every day, the bahamian tourist signs dominated the air space above the seats, taunting him. he swore to himself then that the next year he would go. he would be the one to come back into the office with a tan, with his ashen, semi-suicidal co-workers envious of him. that year, every time he would get a little down, he nested back into that fantasy, with anticipatory smug satisfaction. when he thought about bringing a girl with him for that trip, and the pictures he would post to social media, and show everyone, his pre-excitement intoxicated him deeply beyond any joy he expected from the trip itself. he liked kathy ok too, and he figured she would be fun on a trip like that.  
kathy herself was actually more gushy about how far in advance larry wanted to plan with her than the trip itself. really, she didn't give a fuck about the bahamas. she really would've preferred something a little more adventurous and non-generically romantic, like cambodia, or even slovenia to look into her roots. but she wasn't going to complain now...