in me just gets all excited at the prospect of seeing him again.”
“And your romantic mind just starts reeling .” Jules gives me a wry grin. I know she doesn’t really want my dream to come true, and I kind of understand. She’s been Grace to my Will for a long time now, and it’s gotten comfortable.
I decide I won’t torment her by waxing rhapsodic on possible happy outcomes for finding Carlos. Besides, I want to be by myself, to think more about things and, yes, maybe to hit the computer. I say, “You about ready?”
She nods. “You’re going home and start looking right now, aren’t you?”
I shake my head. “You know me too well.”
We both laugh.
A T HOME I slip out of the jeans and button-down shirt I wore to dinner and get comfortable—flannel boxers and a T-shirt. I go into the second bedroom, which I have set up as an office. There’s an old porcelain-topped table my grandmother once owned that I use as my desk, a simple wooden chair from IKEA painted orange alongside it. It’s where I had thought I would one day write the great American novel. I’m still waiting for that day to come.
Ezra, my fat orange tabby, waddles along behind me. I call him my shadow because he follows me wherever I go. He missed the memo about cats being independent. He hops up on the couch, swishes his tail a couple of times, and then curls into a ball. In seconds he’s snoring. I have lived with no other male longer than Ezra. In July, we celebrate eight years together.
Sitting down at the desk, I pair up my iPhone with my Bose mini speaker and put something soothing on, the Pandora New Age Ambient station. I open my laptop, bring up Google, and pause as the multicolored logo confronts me. The empty search box almost seems like it’s waiting.
Are you sure you want to do this ? I wonder for, like, the thousandth time since seeing the guy who looked like Carlos on the ‘L’ this morning. I honestly can’t think of a single reason not to. I mean, the worst that could happen is I find him and he’s not available.
Or I don’t find him. So? I’ve gone without Carlos for thirty years now. In fact, he seldom crossed my mind anymore. It was just that thinking I saw him today reawakened desires even I didn’t realize were lying dormant.
I do want to find him. Maybe this is the way it’s meant to be. I wasn’t ready, and maybe he wasn’t either back then. But look at how much the world has changed. Look at how much I’ve changed .
I type his name—Carlos Castillo—into the search box and pause once more, knowing that to press Enter could be putting me on the path for a life-transforming change. Just like a single phone call years ago turned everything on its head, a single string of keystrokes tonight could make a huge difference in the course of my life.
I press Enter. Immediately, millions of results come up. At the top of the page, there’s a heading, “Images for Carlos Castillo,” and I peer eagerly at the five or six pictures, thinking (hoping) that maybe one of them will be my Carlos. Just like that. Just that easy. But they are all of a bearded, professorial type who looks nothing like Carlos, even with my mental aging of him.
I am tempted to delve into the images first. Don’t they say that we males are more visually stimulated? But somehow I manage to restrain myself and scan the web listings below the images. There are a lot of listings about Carlos Castillo Armas, a Guatemalan military officer who seized power in his country in 1954.
There’s another listing for the military guy that makes me chuckle, because it’s put together by an organization calling itself the “United Fruit Historical Society.” Seriously?
What I want is to unite two fruits the years and circumstances have separated. I smirk and continue to scan the listings.
There’s a Facebook profile that looks promising because of its Chicago listing connection, but when I click on the page, the guy in the profile
“And your romantic mind just starts reeling .” Jules gives me a wry grin. I know she doesn’t really want my dream to come true, and I kind of understand. She’s been Grace to my Will for a long time now, and it’s gotten comfortable.
I decide I won’t torment her by waxing rhapsodic on possible happy outcomes for finding Carlos. Besides, I want to be by myself, to think more about things and, yes, maybe to hit the computer. I say, “You about ready?”
She nods. “You’re going home and start looking right now, aren’t you?”
I shake my head. “You know me too well.”
We both laugh.
A T HOME I slip out of the jeans and button-down shirt I wore to dinner and get comfortable—flannel boxers and a T-shirt. I go into the second bedroom, which I have set up as an office. There’s an old porcelain-topped table my grandmother once owned that I use as my desk, a simple wooden chair from IKEA painted orange alongside it. It’s where I had thought I would one day write the great American novel. I’m still waiting for that day to come.
Ezra, my fat orange tabby, waddles along behind me. I call him my shadow because he follows me wherever I go. He missed the memo about cats being independent. He hops up on the couch, swishes his tail a couple of times, and then curls into a ball. In seconds he’s snoring. I have lived with no other male longer than Ezra. In July, we celebrate eight years together.
Sitting down at the desk, I pair up my iPhone with my Bose mini speaker and put something soothing on, the Pandora New Age Ambient station. I open my laptop, bring up Google, and pause as the multicolored logo confronts me. The empty search box almost seems like it’s waiting.
Are you sure you want to do this ? I wonder for, like, the thousandth time since seeing the guy who looked like Carlos on the ‘L’ this morning. I honestly can’t think of a single reason not to. I mean, the worst that could happen is I find him and he’s not available.
Or I don’t find him. So? I’ve gone without Carlos for thirty years now. In fact, he seldom crossed my mind anymore. It was just that thinking I saw him today reawakened desires even I didn’t realize were lying dormant.
I do want to find him. Maybe this is the way it’s meant to be. I wasn’t ready, and maybe he wasn’t either back then. But look at how much the world has changed. Look at how much I’ve changed .
I type his name—Carlos Castillo—into the search box and pause once more, knowing that to press Enter could be putting me on the path for a life-transforming change. Just like a single phone call years ago turned everything on its head, a single string of keystrokes tonight could make a huge difference in the course of my life.
I press Enter. Immediately, millions of results come up. At the top of the page, there’s a heading, “Images for Carlos Castillo,” and I peer eagerly at the five or six pictures, thinking (hoping) that maybe one of them will be my Carlos. Just like that. Just that easy. But they are all of a bearded, professorial type who looks nothing like Carlos, even with my mental aging of him.
I am tempted to delve into the images first. Don’t they say that we males are more visually stimulated? But somehow I manage to restrain myself and scan the web listings below the images. There are a lot of listings about Carlos Castillo Armas, a Guatemalan military officer who seized power in his country in 1954.
There’s another listing for the military guy that makes me chuckle, because it’s put together by an organization calling itself the “United Fruit Historical Society.” Seriously?
What I want is to unite two fruits the years and circumstances have separated. I smirk and continue to scan the listings.
There’s a Facebook profile that looks promising because of its Chicago listing connection, but when I click on the page, the guy in the profile
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