Summer Stories: ‘Destiny Falls (1974)’
1.
I call myself an Expo widow, even though my husband, Stan, is very much alive. Two years ago, he joined the Expo ’74 Commission and became a ghost in our marriage. One year ago, he moved us into a penthouse apartment in the newly built Riverfalls Tower (We’re moving up, Maxie! he’d said) and disappeared back into his work.
Last Sunday, I served him two Green Hornet cocktails on an empty stomach (So minty! he’d exclaimed) and asked if he’d take me to see Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson at the Opera House, and then to dinner at the members-only Expo ’74 Club. When he still resisted, I’d sweetened the deal. “What if we don’t go to the Suki Yaki Inn tonight and instead,” I pause for dramatic effect, “we stay home … and watch ‘Kojak.’ ” His response? “Who loves ya, baby?”
Tonight, I dress for dinner – a maxi dress from Rusan’s, a pair of wooden platform sandals from the Bon – and pour myself a glass of Blue Nun. I drink it, standing on the wrap-around balcony, waiting for Stan to get home from work. For the past nine months, I’ve watched as Spokane’s railroad and industrial past is erased – tracks and trestles, depots and warehouses – to make way for the World’s Fair and its dream of a brighter environmental future. It wasn’t until I woke up one morning and saw that Crystal Island lay bare, that I realized sometimes progress can break your heart. I went to bed and stayed there for a week. Twenty-three years ago, a boy named Johnny Lombardo, who drove a delivery truck for Crystal Laundry, got down on one knee as we were crossing the Howard Street Bridge and asked me to marry him. I looked into his green-gold eyes, as wild as the falls below us, and considered our future: his eager expectation for me to stay at home, like his mother, and cook and clean and make a brood of beautiful babies. “Seven,” he said. “Maybe 10.” Children and a husband required cooking and cleaning and caretaking. I could barely do those things for myself. I looked into his river falls eyes, said no, and fled. That no chased me all the way home. Three weeks later I met Stan, a junior executive at the Crescent, who told me he was going to make it to the top faster than the express elevator to the Tea Room. He took me out for fancy dinners, he took me dancing, he introduced me to cocktail bars with funny names – the Donkey Room, the Monkey Room, the Fez Room. “How do you feel about children?” I asked him one night while we were drinking champagne cocktails in the Florentine Room at Phil’s Fine Foods. His eyes got wide. “Who wants children when we have all of this?” I married him the next week.
When I hear the ping of the elevator, I splash chilled Chablis into a glass, and meet Stan at the front door – take his briefcase, hand him his drink, lean in for his tight-lipped peck of a greeting. He moves toward his recliner and the evening news. “Drink up, Stanny,” I say. “We have to arrive early enough to get a good seat.” He sits down, takes a swallow of wine, frowns. “Get where?” he asks. “The show? Dinner?” I say. He takes another sip of his wine, says, “Why would I want to go the fair, when I planned the whole darn thing?” I glare at him, but his eyes are already locked on the television screen. “Stan, you promised.” He pulls the lever on his Lazy Boy and sighs. “Maxie, if you want to go – go. No one’s stopping you.” I think about what I am missing: the Plank Steak for Two, the bottle of Barolo, the strawberry shortcake. “What about dinner?” I ask. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll order a pizza pie.” I look at him, reclining in his chair, TV Guide open on his lap, a self-satisfied look on his face. “I wish you’d disappear,” I say as I turn and grab the car keys out of the bowl. “What was that?” he says. “I said, Enjoy your pizza pie, dear.”
2.
I am roiling with anger by the time I pull into Stan’s space in the parking lot of the Expo business office and kill the engine. As I pass the butterfly that marks the Lilac Gate, I realize what a mistake I’ve made in parking on this side of the river – how far I have to walk to get to the other side.
By the time I reach the Opera House, it’s after 7. The security guard standing sentry at the entrance says, “Sorry, hun, not a seat left in the house.” Unbelievable. “Now what?” I say. “The Kino-Automat is down the way,” he says, jerking his thumb in the direction of the theater. “You could see that movie everyone is talking about.”
I look down the sidewalk and see a bespectacled little man, in a black suit and bowler hat, waving at me. I walk toward him. “I have a spot for you and the movie starts in,” he checks his watch, “three minutes.” He leads me to an empty seat near the front of the theater and sits down beside me. “Is this your first time seeing our film?” I nod. “It’s interactive,” he says. “You get to decide what happens next.” He points to the buttons on the arm of the chair. “Green for yes and red for no; whichever choice gets the most votes determines the next scene. Just like life.”
During the movie, I think about my life’s yeses and nos. As if reading my mind, the little man leans over. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” he says. “No matter what choices you make, the outcome is always the same in the end. Just like this film. That, my dear, is the nature of destiny.” I think of Stan, of Johnny. “That’s not true,” I say. “Oh, my dear,” says the little man, “but it is.”
The movie ends. I turn to say goodbye to my new acquaintance, but he is gone; in his place is a bear of a man. “What happened to the little man who was sitting here?” I ask him. He looks at me with a start. “Lady, I’ve been sitting here the whole time.”
3.
I leave the Kino-Automat feeling like I’ve drunk too many cups of Folger’s instant coffee. Head spinning, heart racing, unsettled. I need to eat. I stand in line for a Belgian waffle and can hear Stan say, they’re the best! I realize I don’t have my purse and walk back to the theater. The doors are locked. I ask a passerby for a dime, find a payphone, drop the coin in, and dial the apartment. A recorded voice comes on the line: We’re sorry; you’ve reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error – I hang up, my dime is not returned.
Halfway across the Howard Street Bridge, I feel like a might collapse from my quick walk across the Expo grounds, the movie, my hunger. I stop, lean against the railing, look at the falls, their violent beauty. It is the same spot where Johnny got down on one knee, cars driving past, and proposed. The night I said no. The night everything changed.
“Max!” I hear someone call. “Max!” I look to the left and see vendors vending, shoppers shopping; to the right exhausted fairgoers exiting the Expo. “Max! Over here.” And then I see him. Johnny. Older, but Johnny. “Are you real?” I ask. He laughs, says, “Are you?” I shake my head, “I feel haunted.” Then I ask, “What are you doing here?” He’s still laughing when he says. “You told us to meet you here? Howard Street Bridge? The entrance to Canada Island?” He punctuates each statement with a question mark. “Us?” I say. And then I see her. The river of black hair, the river falls eyes. “Mom,” the girl says looking directly at me. “Dad says if we hurry, we can get a Belgian waffle before the concert starts, but he said I had to ask you first.” I am shocked silent, I can only nod. The girl continues, “Oh, and I read in the paper that Kris and Rita might sing together tonight. Wouldn’t that be groovy?” And then, as I stand on the bridge, over the roaring falls, I can no longer hear anything, but the little man from the theater saying, “It’s the nature of destiny.” Johnny touches my arm, says my name. Asks, “What do you say?” I don’t know the question, but tonight I say – yes.