We rode the elevator to the third floor. I slid the key card in, and when we entered the room, the first thing I noticed was a huge king-sized bed piled high with pillows. A large flat screen T.V. hung on the wall across from the bed and four dining chairs and a table sat next to a roll top desk and mini refrigerator. The living room area had a coffee table, couch, and two chairs arranged in front of another T.V. The air conditioner blasted frigid air into the room. A tray of four plastic-covered glasses sat on a low table by the door. I unwrapped two, walked into the bathroom, and filled them at the sink. Anna followed me, and I handed one to her. She stared at it for a few seconds before she raised it to her lips and drank.
We checked out the rest of the bathroom. A giant glass-walled shower occupied one corner of the room and a marble counter with two sinks and a basket of soap and shampoo stood between the shower and a deep Jacuzzi tub. Two white robes hung on a hook by the door.
“I’m going to call Sarah, so I can get my mom and dad’s number. I told her to have them wait by the phone. How many hours behind Chicago are we?”
“I think eleven. When I talked to my dad he said it was already 8:00 p.m there.”
Anna sat down on the bed and grabbed the pad of paper and a pen from the nightstand. She picked up the phone and dialed. “It’s busy. I’ll try her cell.” Dialing again, she waited and then hung up the phone. “It just kept ringing.” Anna frowned. “Why isn’t she answering?”
“Because she’s probably calling everyone you know and they’re calling her back. Her phone will probably be ringing for the next several days. Let’s get in the shower. You can try again as soon as we get out.”
We stayed in the shower for almost an hour, scrubbing and laughing. Anna couldn’t stop washing, even after I told her she was definitely clean.
“I’m never going to take another bath for as long as I live. I’m officially only taking showers,” Anna said.
“Me, too.”
When we finished, we dried off and put on the bathrobes. Anna squeezed toothpaste onto two toothbrushes and handed one to me. We stood in front of the double sinks brushing, rinsing, and spitting. She put her toothbrush down and said, “Kiss me right now, T.J.”
I picked her up and set her on the counter, then took her face in my hands. We kissed for a long time.
“You taste incredible,” I said. “You smell pretty good, too. Not that I ever minded when you didn’t.”
“This is better, though,” she said, resting her forehead on mine
“Yes.”
We left the bathroom, and I stretched out on the bed with a room service menu in one hand and the T.V. remote in the other. “Anna, take a look at this.” She was tearing into a package of sweet-tarts but she plopped down next to me and checked out the menu. She handed me the bag of Doritos and I opened them and crammed a handful into my mouth. Nacho cheese had never tasted so good.
It was hard deciding what to order because we wanted everything. We finally narrowed it down to steak and French fries, spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, and chocolate cake.
“Oh, and two giant Cokes,” Anna said.
I called room service and placed our order. Anna grabbed the key card and something off the low table by the door and said she’d be right back.
“You’re naked under that robe,” I reminded her.
“It won’t take long.”
I channel-surfed. Every station was broadcasting tsunami coverage. Anna came back into the room carrying a small bucket. I sat up. “Is that ice?” I asked.
She put a piece in her mouth and said, “Yep.” She lay down on the bed next to me and I watched her suck on it. She sat up and untied my robe. Opening it, she ran her hand gently along my side. Despite the pain, my body responded to her touch immediately.
“You have some spectacular bruises developing here,” she said. “What happened?”
“There was a huge tree trunk in the water.”
“You don’t get along well with those,” she pointed out.
“This one hit me.”
Anna put another ice cube in her mouth and kissed my neck and my chest.
“How long until room service gets here?” she asked.
“They didn’t say.”
Anna kissed my stomach and moved lower. When I felt her mouth on me, I gasped because it had never been cold before. I closed my eyes and rested my hands on her head.
When room service knocked on the door a little later, I tied my robe and answered it. The man that delivered the food put everything on the table and as soon as I added a tip and signed the check, we spread it out, taking the lids off.
“We have silverware,” Anna said. She held up a fork and stared at it for a second before spearing a meatball.
“And chairs.” I said, pulling one out and sitting down next to her. I handed her some garlic bread and cut a piece of steak. I groaned when I put it in my mouth. We fed each other bites off our forks and drank our Cokes. Our stomachs filled up fast; we weren’t used to such heavy food, or so much. Anna carefully wrapped up all the leftovers and put them in the refrigerator.
We stretched out on the bed afterward, to let our food settle. Anna played with a piece of my hair and put her head on my shoulder, tangling her legs with mine.
“I’ve never been so content in my life,” she said.
I muted the T.V. We had been watching coverage of the tsunami while we ate, amazed at the amount of devastation. Indonesia seemed to have been hit the hardest and the death toll had already reached the tens of thousands.
“I feel terrible saying this because so many people have died, but if it hadn’t been for the tsunami, we’d still be on that island,” Anna said. “I don’t know how much longer we would have lasted.”
“I don’t either.” I stretched my fingers toward the nightstand and turned the clock radio on, fiddling with the dial until I found an American music station. Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” was playing, and I smiled.
Anna sighed. “I love this song.”
She snuggled closer, and I held her tight.
“Has it hit you yet, T.J.? That we’re safe and we’re going to see our families again?”
“It’s starting to.”
“What time is it?” she asked.
I turned my head toward the clock. “It’s a little past two.”
“It’s one in the morning in Chicago. I don’t care. I’m going to try Sarah again. There’s no way she or my parents are sleeping anyway.”
Anna sat up and reached for the phone, pulling the cord across my body. “I’ll try her home number first.” She dialed and waited. “It’s busy,” she said. “Maybe she’ll answer her cell.” Anna dialed the number and waited. “It went straight to voice mail. I’ll leave her a message,” she said, but then she hung up without saying anything. “Her mailbox was full.”
“Try again in a little while. You’ll get through eventually.” She handed me the phone and I put it back on the nightstand. “Anna?”
She snuggled back into my arms. “Yeah?”
“What about John? Don’t you think Sarah probably called him?”
“I’m sure she did.”
“What do you think he’ll do when he finds out you’re alive?”
“He’ll be happy for my family, of course. Other than that, I don’t know. He’s probably living in the suburbs with a wife and a kid by now.” She paused for a minute and said, “I hope he gave my stuff to my parents.”
“Where will you live?”
“With my mom and dad. Wherever that is. They’ll want me to stay with them for a while. Then I’ll get my own place. I still can’t believe they sold their house, T.J. They always talked about buying something smaller someday, maybe a condominium, but I didn’t think they’d actually do it. I grew up in that house. It makes me sad to know they don’t own it anymore.”
I kissed her, and then I untied her robe and slipped it off her shoulders. We made love and fell asleep afterward. When I woke up it was 5:00 p.m. Anna slept soundly beside me. Staring at the ceiling, I thought about our conversation. I had asked her about John, but I hadn’t asked the only question I really wanted an answer to.