That was four years and a winter ago. I never forgot his kiss or his eyes and how they stared back at me. Sometimes they woke me up from dreams so pleasant my body couldn't help but respond to the feelings stirring within. Even after all those years I knew it was him as soon as I saw him. Time had been more than kind to his features; his face was darker, more rugged and stubbled. His hair was shorter but still covered in a well-worn cap. He was broad-shouldered and walked absently down the airplane aisle looking at something on his phone as he passed.
"Hank, you're never going to believe who I see!" I said to the man that had become my boss and friend. Years before, he hadn't been happy that I was his top candidate. He wanted a man, and we both knew it. Helen, his wife, worried about equal opportunities because Hank was so outspoken about his right to have a male companion. Despite his insistence that no women make the top one hundred, she didn't cancel my interview when she found out that I was one. The thing he said about suing was a lie to intimidate me. No one had ever sued him. But after he hired me, he didn't have to worry about it. I don't think any of us expected my companionship with him to last as long as it had, but there we were, four-and-a-half years later heading out on yet another escapade together.
The producers of the show made a three-part series about picking Hank's new companion. The entirety of ten interviews were filmed, cut, spliced, and edited into made-for-TV segments and the most magnificent kiss of my life played out on national TV for everyone to watch. The guy I kissed, the one that had just passed me, declined to grant permission to have his face or name released, which meant he also declined payment for being featured on the show, for our brief but unforgettable moment. His face had to be blurred for TV, but I had the unedited copy and watched it more often than I would ever admit. I replayed the kiss over and over again, usually on the occasions that I was lonely and longed for a partner to share my life with, like Hank had in Helen. I tried to schmooze his name from Penny, the executive producer, but she was a stickler for the rules and refused to turn it over. I gave up after years of random asking and somehow made myself believe that he was the one that got away.
At the end of interviews, I had been in a neck-to-neck tie with one other candidate, a guy named George, a former tactical engineer in the Army, who had been just about everywhere Hank had. He was tough and to-the-point and detail-oriented in a way I only wished I could be. We were each given a trip to guide Hank through. Usually Hank knew what he would be doing, where he would be going, and how we would get there well ahead of time. Next to his affinity for his family, Hank's biggest love in life was travel. He memorized places, routes, explorers, tactile maps. Travel was his hobby as much as his passion, but for the final phase of the interview, we were supposed to help him plan the trip based off of the viewers' suggestions.
I felt like I was the lucky one because our final phase kept us "home" on US soil. That show would air the weekend before Independence Day and the producers wanted to make it patriotic. I knew the States well; George knew places abroad. George's adventure, chosen at random from a bowl of ideas that came from viewers and scoured by the producers, was a trek through Death Valley. We weren't a survival show, but that one was almost like it. It got so hot, they actually had to hide out in the AC of the Jeep for the hottest part of two days to avoid over-exposure even though they brought good supplies. Mine was a trip through a mountain trail in Yosemite National Park. We hiked easy trails, talked to rangers, checked out some buffalo, listened and felt a herd of them rush past us and even got to touch one that had been attacked and mauled by wolves. There were no horrid temperature spikes or drops. The climbs were challenging but manageable for our experience levels. I felt bad for George, but not bad enough to turn down the offer when Hank said I was his number one choice.
He said it was my experience with Evan and my tendency to get off track when talking that were my winning characteristics. Hank decided he quite liked the way I could stop mid-sentence or cut him off in his to describe something I saw. He said it felt like what vision must be for a person. George wasn't like that. Neither was Tucker.
Tucker, my predecessor, my boss's best friend, my one-time almost lover, was soon to be my co-companion. Hank's ratings on his prime-time specials had been steady for years but had skyrocketed, quite unexpectedly, the year before. No one knew why, and it didn't matter too much. What mattered was that Hank was good for ratings, and the networks came calling. He was offered a regular weekly spot on the Extreme Outdoor Network, which meant more travel, more adventure, and more places. Those of us in the inner circle knew that Hank planned to retire when he hit fifty to turn his efforts more toward advocacy and education. He looked at the show as one last hurrah. One that didn't include me. He wanted Tucker, now fully recovered, to accompany him on his trips for EON. It was a blow to my ego more than my career. I would stay on as his companion for the prime-time network specials which were strategically turning ever so slightly more towards advocacy with each special. Between the shows with Hank, consultations with schools working with kids with sensory disabilities, and my own advocacy stints, I had plenty to keep busy and on the road more than six months of every year.
Some people didn't believe Hank was serious about retirement, but all of us who knew him more intimately, Helen, Tucker and I, felt sure fifty-years-old would signify the end of the adventure shows, if not the end of Hank's traveling. He wouldn't be too old or out of shape to continue, but he couldn't rebound from injuries as quickly anymore, and his hearing was going down fast. Besides that, he'd had his fun, he was ready to be philanthropic and even more insightful and inspirational than he already was. He was going to speak to the lawmakers and write books and go places and inspire the masses to believe in bigger things than they currently did. And we knew something the producers didn't: Hank had been offered an advisory position for a firm that dealt with cases where individuals with disabilities were discriminated against. The advisory position would comfortably fund his golden years, leaving him plenty of royalties to travel the world in leisure and privacy with.
Hank could never stop traveling, of that I was sure, but once he retired it would be he and Helen, seeing the world at her speed. I think he planned to keep a basic Intervener on staff, but he wouldn't need us. It was ok. Or at least I kept telling myself that. Like Hank, I couldn't imagine a life without travel, but I was getting lonely for a home base, and unlike Hank, I had no home.
I lived with friends or family or in extended stay hotels when there were big enough breaks between shows and consultations. It never bothered me until Tucker and I considered becoming more than just co-workers. He was a wayfaring, wandering soul, worse than Hank or I could ever think to be. He said it was in his blood, got it from his sailor father, and shared it with several of his brothers and sisters who couldn't be tied down either. His older brother, Jake, who lived on the Northern California coast, was building a boat to travel the oceans in. Tucker's brother's place on the ocean was a home away from Hank to me after Tucker introduced me to the family. Jake's wife, Scarlet, became a fast friend. I seemed to always gravitate to their place even after Tucker and I decided there was nothing between us. He moved on quickly. Her name was Brenda, and he didn't want to make it weird or anything; neither did I. We literally shook hands and let the idea of getting together go, even if Helen and Scarlet didn't. The truth was, Tucker was easy for me to let go of, but Scarlet and Jake and their life by the ocean were too special to walk away from just because Tucker and I didn't work out. Thankfully they kept me around and let me loaf there if ever I was on their side of the country.
Tucker and I should have known we'd never work out. I wasn't interested in anything but one true love that would last forever. I knew he was out there, and I would rather be alone than settle for anything less. Tucker was too transient to be the one for me. Love was just another adventure to him. He charted the territory, he explored, he discovered, intricately, intimately; he learned everything single thing about every tree and rock, or in the case of his lovers, their heartbreaks and happiness, and he lived it all honestly and openly and completely. And when he knew every detail, every inch of land or skin, of whatever it was he was exploring, he could, and would, and did move on without a backward glance or regret. He never lied about it, not from the first time he told me he wanted me. That's why he and Hank had the kissing game. It was easy for Tucker to kiss the girls and make them cry. I can't say Hank agreed with Tucker's philosophy. Helen sure didn't and was always trying to save Tucker and get him to see how wrong it was. I didn't judge. I just knew his kind of love wouldn't do for me.
I was fine with that. I knew he wasn't the one, and I didn't want him, but something about the realization of it hit me. Maybe it was my age: I was closer to thirty than twenty. Maybe it was the way my career was changing. Maybe it was seeing Hank come home to Helen and Jake to Scarlet. Out of nowhere I started to feel like there was a gaping hole in my soul. I was alone and homeless and for the first time I wanted someone and somewhere to come home to. And at night, when I dreamed alone, home always resembled a pair of blue eyes I saw once upon a time on a plane and lips I tasted only briefly and a name a producer refused to give me. But how did a modern-day gypsy find home when he wouldn't release his name?
And then he was there, walking past me, oblivious to how he had haunted me.
"Hank, it's him!" I said. "The blue eyes . . . that guy I kissed!" Hank and Tucker played the kissing game a lot but I only did it when Hank made me, which was only three other times.
"Which one? You've kissed a lot of guys."
I punched him, "You're a funny guy," I said. "The guy from my interview."
"Oh, well, are you going to let him walk away this time, too?"
"I don't know."
"I do. You owe him another kiss. Go get it, tiger!" he said to me, partly in fun, but part of me knew he would insist as my boss if I let an opportunity like this get away from me, especially since he was taking this particular trip to appease me.
"How about you get his name this time?" Hank laughed. There were too many people boarding and shuffling to their seats. I told Hank, and myself, that I would go find him after we were in the air.
We were on an international flight from LAX to Dallas to Cancun and then onto a smaller air strip in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula rain forest to make a trek into the ancient Mayan city of Coba. The trip, essentially the entire TV special, was one of Hank's parting gifts to me. I had always wanted to see the temples, but Hank had already been long before me or Tucker or either of his shows. He didn't see a point in going again to a place he had already been. The way he figured it, he needed to experience as many places, climates, topographies as possible to know what they were like. His memory was keen enough to keep them preserved once he'd been there. I brought up the Mayan ruins every time he was planning his next adventure and every time, he refused. Then for my last birthday he surprised me with the plan for our next TV special. He gave me a mapped-out trip of the El Castillo complex in Coba and a special-only-Hank-could-finagle-trip up the crumbling stairs of Las Pinturas, the church of the city. I hugged him enthusiastically, then turned to hug Helen as well, knowing it was probably her insistence that contributed to his decision.
After we were in the air heading for the ghosts of the Mayans, I told Hank I was going to go find Blue Eyes. I made my way to economy class, smiling the whole way at the unbelievable chance encounter. I spotted him after scanning the first half of the plane. What was even more amazing than him being on the plane was that the seat beside him was empty. It was an open invitation to find out who the man of my dreams was in real life.
"Hey . . ." I said to get his attention after I stopped at his row.
He looked up and something like recognition flooded over his face. He knew me, but many people did by then. I was used to people asking if I was that lady that worked with Hank Moore, not as often as an actress would get noticed but it happened.
"Jordan," he said.
"You remember me?" He nodded. I continued, "This is going to sound so crazy, but I looked for you after that . . . day. They wouldn't tell me your name. But I saw you just now and I had to come find you."
"Uh, Jordan," he smiled. "That's my name, I'm Jordan Merrill. What are the chances, huh? Wanna sit?" he gestured at the empty seat.
"Sure," I said moving carefully over him to the middle seat excruciatingly aware of our legs touching. "So . . . I saw you come on the plane . . . and, um, Hank . . . well, he said I should kiss you again."
"You do everything he says?"
"Only if I want to," I smiled.
He smiled back and asked where we were headed. I answered and flipped the question back to him. "Going down to help rebuild some buildings in some village with my buddies." He leaned around the seat to point out five men, four Hispanic and one white, whom he was traveling with. "They," he said, referring to two of the Hispanic men sitting together, "are from the village. There was a bad storm that came through and wrecked a lot of the town. Their church . . . here in America . . . collected money for supplies to fix it, and we're all going down to help with the reconstruction."
"That's awesome!" I said. "Do you do that kind of stuff a lot?"
"Me? Nah, never. This is only the second time I've ever been on a plane."
"What?"
"Yeah, crazy huh, meeting a girl like you on the only two flights I've ever been on, and we have the same name?"
I was in shock. "It's like we were meant to meet."
"Something like that," he nodded the same slow calculating nod I remembered from our first encounter. "After you're done in the jungle and I'm done helping them out, you wanna meet up sometime?"
"Yeah, I'd like that. Where do you live?" I asked.
"Right now? California. How about you?"
I chuckled, "I don't even know." I shook my head, "I'm pretty much a modern-day gypsy, I guess. If I had to pick a place I guess I mostly live between Florida, Maryland, Washington, and California. That's as good as I can get."
"How does that work?"
"Well . . ." I said, twisting in the seat to face him easier, "my parents live in Florida. My best friend lives in Baltimore, Hank's family lives in Washington and . . ."
"Aha, you got a boyfriend in California?" The obvious disappointment on his face encouraged me in a sick sort of way. The dull in his eyes and crease in his forehead said he was interested, and a boyfriend would ruin a chance with me.
I laughed, "No, nothing like that. Tucker, Hank's other companion . . . has family there. He's like me. So is his brother, Jake. They get my wandering ways. Scarlet, Tucker's sister-in-law is my other best friend, so I go there a lot."
"So, gypsy lady, are you a country mouse or city girl?" he asked, his eyes sparkling again, mesmerizing me.
"Ehhh, if I had to pick between the city and the country I'm for sure a country girl, but cities do have their charm at times. And you, Blue Eyes?"
At that he smiled and looked down at my hands which had somehow made their way to the top of his arm as it laid across the arm rest, "Country through and through. Long live Dodge trucks and country music,"
"Is that a fact?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said, tipping his hat my way.
"So where in California does a country boy live?"
It was his turn to laugh. "In the big city, close to UCLA. I'm working with my uncle and these yayhoos," he gestured back to the others, "but only until I have enough to build my own place in the woods far away from any trace of civilization."
"For real?"
"Maybe . . ." he shrugged, watching my face to see what I thought about his plan. We talked a little longer about the safe things people talk about when they're testing the water—work, weather, current events—all the while hoping for something more.
"I have to get back up there," I said when the conversation started to dwindle. Hank wouldn't mind being alone, but I didn't want to overstay my welcome and go from the TV personality that Jordan randomly met on a plane to the crazy chick that tried to talk to him his whole flight. If I had to use Hank as an excuse, I would.
"Right on," he said and stood when I did. He followed me up and said hi to Hank again.
"This is Blue Eyes?" Hank asked. He wasn't facing either of us and, like sometimes happened, I wasn't sure who he was talking to, but was afraid where the conversation was going to go.
"Yes, Hank, this is him. You'll never believe what his name is . . ."
"What?"
"His name," I said bending closer to Hank's good ear. "It's Jordan."
That made him laugh as much as it had us. Then he did turn, as best he could, in the direction he thought Jordan was and asked, "Did you kiss her again? She's been mooning over the last one for years now."
"Hank!" I stammered.
"Not yet," Jordan smiled. He had me; he knew it. He ate it up. He looked back, I thought to see his buddies. The curtain between first and economy was pulled shut.
"Nobody's going to try to pay me for this one, are they?" I mistook his look; he was checking for the cameras.
I shook my head, embarrassed and overwhelmed with the situation and a whole lot more focused on him than Hank. "No, no cameras this time. The crew's minding their own business," I said and pointed out our four-man crew, who were most definitely not minding their own business but mine. I suppose for Jordan it was strange being watched. It had been for me at first, too, but I got used to it, and whether they had cameras or not, by then I was used to them watching me.
"If you weren't so pretty it might not be as hard to walk away," he smiled and pulled me to him, tangling one hand, determinedly, in my hair. He drew me closer still with the other arm firmly around my waist.