Chapter 5: I’ll Have a Twist, Too!

THERE’S A GREAT SCENE with Steve Martin in the movie L.A. Story that Mom just loves. A bunch of Hollywood elite are sitting at a table and start one upping each other with their coffee orders. Martin finally says, “I’ll have a double decaf, half caf, with a twist of lemon.” Everyone immediately jumps in with “I’ll have a twist, too.” Mom just howls when she watches that movie and every morning, I end up presenting her coffee saying, “Double decaf, half caf.” She always responds, “With a twist!” That’s even though she just drinks black full caffeine coffee.

She really likes old movie classics, so we watch a lot of them at home. That one was from way back in the 1990s, last century.

Remember, even as a senior in high school, I’d never really dated. That one time I thought everything was going well and then Dana said she didn’t want to go out with me again. So, Saturday night family entertainment was often watching old movies in our home theater.

Tara and I had been working in the gym together for almost a month and were progressing pretty well. I could pick her up and hold her over my head as she took various poses. One of them that was working out really well was when I held her on one hand over my head with her lying back, completely stretched out and one leg crossed over the other. It’s not a pose you’ll find in many acts.

Anyway, we were finishing up on a Saturday afternoon at the gym and Tara just turned to me all of a sudden and said, “Want to try out that new Mediterranean restaurant over on Lyndale?”

“It sounds pretty good,” I said. “I might try it.”

“Let’s go.”

Call me dense, but I didn’t realize she was inviting me out when she asked if I wanted to try it. It was almost like my sister was there, telling me where to meet her. The more I thought of it, the more I thought my sister was probably the only person who had ever made that kind of suggestion. So, I just figured Tara wanted to talk something out or maybe go over a new pose and how to get into it. I just followed her to her car and got in as if we were going to the school for cheer.

I can drive, but I don’t have a car. Tara’s car is a little intimidating and I wouldn’t offer to drive it. For a small woman, she drives a big car. She can’t depend on the speed, accuracy, or pressure of her legs, so she has hand controls that are a little confusing. I suppose I could get the hang of it eventually, but she told me she nearly crashed every time she got in the car the first month she was learning it.

We parked in a handicapped space. She had Arizona DP plates which are for disabled persons. If she was just moving from one place to another, she usually used her crutches. If she was going to be in someplace for a while and needing to sit, she used the wheelchair. I got out of the car and ran around to get the wheelchair out of the back seat and open it up for her. She positioned it and slid over into the seat.

Unless there was a problem, like a curb or snow, I knew enough not to try to push her around. Tara was really independent and could wheel herself. I stood by and closed the car doors. She pushed the button to lock them.

The restaurant was nice, but not expensive. I was making a little money by giving toddler tumbling lessons on Saturday mornings, but at almost nineteen, I was still mostly saving the allowance my parents were giving me by tossing it in a drawer. They said they’d continue that as long as I was still making progress in school, and I was. I always carried a little cash, but most of my allowance for the past few years had been tossed in that drawer.

“It all looks so good,” Tara said. “What are you going to have?”

“Me? Well, I’ve always been partial to shawarma. I figure if I don’t pig out on it and go sparingly with the tahini, it’s a good meal,” I said.

“Oh, shawarma sounds good. With pita.”

“Yeah. I’ll have pita, too.”

“Look, they have hummus with raw vegetables.”

“Mmm. I love hummus.”

“With a twist?” she asked.

It took me a full beat to realize she’d quoted my mother’s favorite movie. I just stared at her.

“You know that movie?”

“Loved it. Jennifer introduced me to it. You can’t imagine how many old movies I watched when I was basically bedridden.”

“That must have been a really tough time,” I said.

“I was doing okay at first. Then Jackson killed himself. God damn him! We could have gotten through it together. Please promise me you’ll never do that. No matter what!”

Tears were in her eyes and threatened to spill if I didn’t make a definitive gesture.

“My sister said if I ever did that, she’d kill me,” I said.

Whew! Disaster averted. It was the right thing to say and Tara started laughing.

“I think I’ll like your sister. When do you think we can meet?”

“She’s in her first semester at the University, but I think the semester ends December 21 or 22. She plans to come home for the break. Will you be going back to Arizona?”

“No. I figure we’ll have a lot of opportunity to work during the break. We should be able to get some good workouts in.”

Our food arrived. The kitchen just served a platter of meat and vegetables with tahini, a platter of pita, and a bowl of hummus and veggies. We served ourselves from the middle of the table. That was pretty cool.

We talked and I found out a lot about Tara I didn’t know before. She’d started training as a gymnast when she was four! I guess maybe some of the kids I was teaching on Saturday mornings might grow up to be like her. It boggled the imagination. Her entire life she’d been tutored instead of attending school, because she loved gymnastics so much; she wanted to be in the gym all the time. That part sounded familiar. I guess when the bug bites, you get infected fast. Her parents were pretty wealthy and lived in Scottsdale. A gym there took her on until she was twelve and then she moved to Frisco, Texas where the US National Gymnastics team trained. She was selected for the under sixteen team.

That was where she’d been encouraged to try mixed pairs acrobatic gymnastics and met Jackson. They’d trained and competed together for three years, getting to the Worlds just after they turned sixteen. Then the accident cut everything short, ultimately including Jackson’s life.

“That really sucks. Tara, I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’ve recovered this much, and that you came to Minneapolis, and that you chose me,” I said.

“Before you get too enthused, there’s one more chapter you need to know about me,” she said. “Um ... a week before our accident, Jackson and I became lovers. It was a natural culmination of our relationship with each other. But it affected our performance. We paid more attention to our lover relationship than to our routine. That’s why Jackson killed himself, I think. He could probably have stood injuring his partner, but he couldn’t stand having hurt his lover. That’s what I tell myself.”

“Oh, geez, Tara. That’s terrible. I mean, not that you became lovers. I think that’s great, but that it impacted your performance and your lives that way. I’m just so sorry.”

Now I was about ready to cry. I could just imagine the horrid impact that would have had on them. Not just the accident, but the thought that he hurt the one he loved.

“That’s why I want you to know right now that we aren’t going to be lovers,” she continued.

What? She couldn’t know I’d fantasized about that, could she? I was floored and about to bolt from the restaurant. She kept going.

“We can date and do fun things. I’d like that. We can even kiss sometimes and hold hands. We need to keep it out of school, but other than that, I like it when you put your arm around me and when you help me in and out of the car. I like it when you spot my exercises and when you look into my eyes. We just can’t be lovers if we’re partners. Are you okay with that?”

I was in way over my head! I had no idea how she expected me to respond. Sure, it was okay. I never thought there was even a possibility of becoming lovers. That was just something in the back of my overactive imagination. But dating? We could actually date each other?

“Please say you’ll still be my partner, Paul.”

“Y-yes! Of course, I’ll be your partner. That’s what I signed up for. I never thought about ... We could date?”

“Um ... What do you think this is?”

“It’s um ... We’re um ... Wow! This is a date?”

“I didn’t think it would take you that much by surprise.”

“I’ve never really dated. I just ... Yes!”

“I’ll try to be a good girlfriend, but I really don’t have much experience dating, either. And I kind of have this baggage,” she said, tapping her wheelchair. “But before I decided for sure that I’d ask you to be my pairs partner, I spent a couple of weeks coaching you with the cheerleaders to be sure I really liked you, you know? We wouldn’t have had the first meeting in the gym if I didn’t.”

I laughed.

“I went straight from that meeting and had dinner with my sister. I needed to talk out whether I was making the right decision to partner with you. She started teasing me about having a crush on you and then said I should go for it. Honest, I never thought of anything other than being the partner you needed.”

We didn’t have any plans, but neither of us was eager to have our first date end. We ordered a piece of basbousa cake and a cup of coffee for dessert and kept talking for what seemed like hours. Finally, we each contributed our part of the check and tip and I opened her door when she unlocked the car.

“You can lift me in if you’d like,” she said.

I’d lifted her out of her wheelchair on other occasions, so I knew the basic routine. Instead of rolling the chair up tight against the car so she could swing herself in, I got between the chair and the car while she locked the wheels in position. Then I bent over her and slid my hands under her legs while she put her hands around my neck. I lifted her, swung around, and carefully lowered her into the driver’s seat.

Once she was in position, though, she didn’t let go of my neck. Instead, she pulled me toward her and placed a long gentle kiss on my lips.

Oh, wow! A crush? Infatuation? I’m in love!

I folded her chair into the back seat and went around to the passenger side to get in the car. I looked at her and grinned.

“You know, a guy never forgets his first,” I said.

“I thought that was the girl’s line!”

We laughed and went for a little drive around all three lakes before we got to my house. By my sister’s criteria, it was still early for a date to end. She never got in before midnight. But we’d both worked hard all day before going out and it was likely we’d be asleep by the time our heads touched our pillows—even with the coffee we’d drunk.

She pulled into our driveway—still with the carport in front of the garage, though Dad had been saying it was time to close up the garage gym and move the cars back inside.

I turned to Tara and she held out her arms. I folded her in mine, across the console, and we enjoyed another, longer and more loving kiss than the first.

“I wanted you to remember your second, too,” she whispered. Then she let me go and I said goodnight.