Chapter 1: Kathy

A Tony and Nancy Story

Life always has coincidences to it. The billion to one shot.

My baggage had not made the last flight from LA last night, so there I was at United's lost baggage store front down by the luggage carousels at ten am and waiting at the counter for them to figure out where my two Anvil road cases had been sent. There were two United people making calls and finally one of them came back with a big smile, so I took a deep breath and thanked the gods for not losing my 'new' Lowell lighting kit that I'd scored a deal on in L.A. and my Hasselblad lens case. I'd reached the point in my life where there was too much gear that wouldn't fit into overhead compartments.

They had not only found my cases, but they would be offloaded at the baggage carousel right outside the glass door in less than five minutes. I thanked them and the gods of baggage and went out to wait.

There was a small crowd of people who were waiting to pick up their suitcases and I ambled around them to the end where they would be coming out. Nothing says 'steal me' like road cases, and I didn't want to take any chances on someone maybe figuring out that there was a lot of money invested inside those silver cases.

There was a cluster of people right by the mouth of the conveyor belt, impatient to grab their gear and go see the sights or hustle to that all important business meeting or to the hotel room the obviously newly wed couple hugging and feeling each other up were looking forward to. The whirring of the machinery starting broke them apart and I was watching them, as was about half the crowd. The word 'steamy' seemed invented for them and even the blue rinsed old lady across the carousel from me seemed to have a faint grin on her face: A little morning slice of life entertainment to keep us amused while waiting for our absent bags to appear so we could get on with our lives.

I noticed that the bride was pretty flushed when she turned around to face the carousel and he suddenly realized that he still had his hand on her ass where it had been digging it's fingers in and everyone was watching. He blushed and then hurriedly stepped around directly behind his bride. The loose, comfortable, khaki pants he'd worn for the flight had a large spot on it very prominently displayed, and yeah, old blue hair is definitely grinning. I smiled and there was my first case coming out, numbero uno in the hit parade. And it slid down to the side rail around the oval shaped machine and five other bags hit it before it was clear of the drop zone. And where was number two? Oh yeah, life was good.

I grabbed the first case and waited for its brother to make its way towards me. In front of me a slender girl was standing and she reached for a bag right in front of my case. It was pretty well wedged in, an armed services duffle bag on top of it, my chunky little case behind and a leather suitcase in front. She had a hold of it, but just didn't have the horsepower to pull it out, not in one shot. Trying to keep along side of it, she stepped back into me, and started to fall over my big, flat light kit. I didn't think about it, I just reached out and grabbed her as she started falling, my right hand grabbing across her shoulder so her neck kind of hit around the crook of my arm, and my other hand got her around the waist. "Whoa," I said.

Instead of a nasty sprawl across my case and onto the floor, I swung her back up onto her feet. She let go of her suitcase and I swung down and grabbed it and my other case and pulled them both out. I dropped my own case onto the floor and turned to hand her the miscreant and said, "Here you are."

And she said, "Tony?"

Kathy was a girl I had gone out with in high school. We'd dated for a while but broke up in our senior year. The last time I saw here was before I split for the west coast and I am not sure when that last time actually was. It took me a second of staring to bring the lovely woman in front of me into focus as 'where do I know you from?' and the penny dropped.

"Kathy! Oh, wow!" I dropped her bag on my cases and gave her a hug. She was still as slender as ever, even more so compared to my memory, but she felt like she'd actually been. She laughed and threw her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "Man, it's been years!" I said into her shoulder. I'd picked her up without effort, she was almost the same gazelle I'd known in high school, but her hair and clothing had changed.

I hugged her for another moment, and then put her back on her feet.

She grinned at me, and I grinned back. Someone jostled her and I grabbed my cases and fumbled my way back a bit out of everyone else's way and she grabbed her bag and followed me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Two weeks vacation. My friend Lisa was supposed to come with me but got appendicitis and couldn't make it. Since we'd booked the rooms, she told me to go ahead, because we couldn't get our money back on the deposit."

"That's bullshit. If one of you is sick, just send the hotel a note from the doctor. They'll give you back the deposit money." I had a pad full of 'notes from the doctor' so I knew what I was talking about.

"You think so? But where would I stay?"

"With us, of course."

"Us?"

"Nancy. She's my girlfriend."

"Oh. Well, I don't know. I mean, how would she feel about you showing up from the airport with an old girlfriend?"

"Aw, she'll be fine. Really. You won't be the only one of my ex's she's meet."

"You're really sure?"

"Hell yeah. That your only bag? Then let's split."

Kathy and I talked about people I used to know and I got caught up on an awful lot of hometown gossip. She mentioned a few people I had trouble recalling but a lot of familiar names I hadn't heard in years had me wallowing happily in nostalgia. I caught her up a bit on how my life had been, how my photography had been going, kind of doing a little low key bragging on being published in the Stone, Creem, and having shot a few covers that were on some fairly well known albums. She was happy that I was making it doing what I had always wanted to do, so that was good. She was living with a guy she 'd met and working as a medical records keeper while he was in grad school and the reason she was away without him was because he had a huge grant project deadline coming up and couldn't get away.

The trip back to Marin took longer because we went downtown and out the waterfront way instead of my taking the faster 19th Ave route. I pointed out objects of interest and she had her head craning out the window of the Z most of the way to the Golden Gate Bridge. I asked her if she was hungry while we were cruising and she said they'd feed her 'breakfast' on the airplane, so she could wait a while.

By the time we got back to Fairfax it was pushing one o'clock. I dug the junk out of the car and she grabbed her purse and bag and we trudged up the stairs. Nancy was at work so we tossed the bag into 'the spare bedroom' and I told her I'd clear it out later that afternoon. It wasn't as bad as it could have been as some friends of ours had been visiting us about two weeks or so ago and I'd been on the road for most of the time after that. So she had no real idea of what a god awful mess it usually was. Hey, I'm an artist! Okay? The desk top is my filing cabinet!

I got us a couple of beers and we went outside and sat under the back porch canopy and had barely settled into chairs when the Cat came bopping up the stairs. I hadn't been expecting her as last I heard she was in Majorca or wherever the hell the shoot de jure was. I could see something was bothering her, but to an outsider it would have been impossible to see. I got up and gave her a hug, one of those ones where you just hold on and really gather in a person's vibes. Something was definitely wrong, but I didn't know what.

Kathy had stood up while the Cat was being hugged and waited to be introduced. When the Cat let go of me, I did the intros. "Oh. I'd assumed you were Nancy." The Cat snorted.

"Do I look like a leggy Texas foldout? Don't I wish!" I gave her a swat on the ass.