It is a waking dream that suffuses my vision. Bright noonday light hazes into the grey fluorescent glare of the airport interior. Memories mix with imagination. The first time, we met as penpals, as friends; this time there is something else, something new and young, but at the same time, so very old. Possibilities are like electricity behind my eyes, sparking, sharp, distracting. The change of the light reflects the state of my mind as reality dissolves into a dream.

I know before I see you that you are still wearing that red shirt. I smile inwardly and it finds its own way to my lips. My eyes are scanning the masses of people so quickly I am almost afraid I’ll overlook you, but I know better. You’ll be inside, waiting by the gate, just like we planned.

The sunlight’s fingers are slipping from my back as I step across the threshold, closer to you. The whoosh of the automated door and then the air conditioning draw me deeper inside the clinically drab building. People are chattering. The PA system cracks and blares. Luggage thumps over obstacles. Heels click and wheels squeak on the tile flooring. Spartan bare walls echo the cacophony into a stereo surround sound-like effect, but I can’t hear any of it. My ears are full of the sound of my own rapidly escalating heartbeat.

I see you first. That red shirt is hard to miss. You think that shirt is obnoxious, but you wore it to identify yourself to me the first time. But I didn’t need a marker to find you then either. It is however the loudest shade of scarlet I’ve ever seen. It enunciates the pale color of your skin between your freckles, and underlines the sparkle in your eyes. But it is still just an afterthought. Everything else fades as my focus closes in on you. The space between us is shrinking, the moment drawing nearer, but the clock is still ticking. You turn towards me, the way people feel a stare, and stop.

I forget what I look like, but I know it is different from the last time you saw me. Wondering what you’re thinking, if you're comparing, requires too much structured thought and I let it fade into the background, leaving the thought right where I’d been standing.

Your bags fall to the floor as I take long strides toward you, hardly noticing my feet or where they land, dodging people passing as if they were merely fixtures. You shift your weight from one foot to the other, leaning forward just a bit, in that awkward yet steady way of yours that I find so endearing. I want to run, but a thread of dignity laced with uncertain hesitation restrains me. At the last second, your arms part just enough for me to squeeze between them. Your embrace is every bit as firm and affectionate as I remember.

My hug for you has its own special distinctions. I wrap both my arms directly around your middle, instead of over one of your arms to create a polite distance. My hands are open, not clenched, fingers splayed against your ribs as if I were trying to stretch myself around you. Though the top of my head doesn’t quite reach your shoulder, I stand on tip toe with my eyes closed and turn my face, not out toward your shoulder, but in toward your neck where I can whisper in your ear. “I’m so glad to see you.”

A moment has passed but I’m still squeezing you ever tighter. I can’t help but smile as I feel your nervousness melt away, and your embrace constrict even more snugly than my own. You’re nearly bowing over me to rest your chin on my head when you tilt slightly to the side and reply, “You too, hun.” All your awkwardness from a minute before has burrowed its way into me. I am all too aware of the circle of silence growing around us as people cut a wider berth than is necessary. Some stare. But I’m not yet ready to part with you now that I have you in my grasp. I wish you could just absorb me, that I could fall into you. I know that the moment I shift we’ll part like a knot coming untied. My feet are cramping from standing on my toes, but I ignore it. I can smell laundry detergent from your shirt, fabric cleaner from the plane, stale moisture and sweat; it’s a long flight. There’s a hint of cigarette smoke as well, crisp and sickly sweet, laced deeply with remembrances. I know you’ll be wanting one soon. As I begin to straighten up I breathe in your scent again. This time I find shampoo. The cool metal frames of your glasses press against my skin. Our ears brush, then our cheeks. After nine hours your jaw bears stubble. You give the slightest flinch; you have always been self conscious of that. I remember what I felt like last time, hugging you after nine hours in the air. In the back of my mind a panicked voice was muttering about sweat and smell and embarrassment. But you were as unfazed by my condition as I am by yours.

This greeting is not the first, but it is a first and carries with it echoes of the past. A mingling of fact and fancy, memories and hopes. Last time in London, our positions were reversed. You were waiting there for me, but you had no idea how long my soul had been waiting for you. You were standing in the waiting line at gate four holding a white sign bearing my name, doing your little nervous shifty dance. I knew you hadn’t spotted me yet, so I crept up behind you and tapped you on the shoulder. When you turned around I could see the concentration on your face, and then the recognition wash over your features and bathe them in a smile as you bent down and engulfed me before I knew what was happening. My excitement, worry, anxiety were expelled and replaced with the warmth and comfort you squeezed into me with that embrace. My mind’s eyes were open now to a whole new world, one that unlike my reality, fit without force, abrasion, or breaking edges. I had found my home, and it wasn’t London’s international airport. But like all good things it wouldn’t last forever.

Doomed by time, feeling its hand hovering over us, I hold back tears as I look up at you, standing in an airport in Los Angeles. We were going to run this gauntlet again, only this time, though we both knew it would be different, neither one of us knew how our encounter would conclude. Pregnant with emotion and expectation, the moment stutters. Urgency prevails. Time is slipping away even as we stand there, so close together, and yet with so much distance still to cover. “Let me help you with your bags.” The heavy weight of tears threaten to spill over my lashes so I draw back from you and drop to grab hold of one of your bags. My movements are swift, fleeting, a reflection of the time rushing past us.

“I will not.” I hear your rolling lilting accent even in the small words.

One side of my lips quirks up into a smirk. “But you’re on holiday in my country-“

“’Twould be ungentlemanly. I won’t have a lady carrying anything for me, even here.” Your smile is serious.

We’ve had this conversation before as well. I lost and walked empty-handed, but I didn’t mind then, nor do I mind now. “Yes, sir.” I concede. Arguing, even good-naturedly, is fruitless. Questions overflow. “How was your flight? Are you hungry? What do you want to do first? Would you like to walk around and stretch your legs?" And it begins—my holiday in heaven.

The world fades back into the parking garage, hot, loud, stinking of exhaust. You carrying your bags, and me excitement, we pass by myself, walking the same way we had just come, before you and I and the bags and the chatter evaporate under the hot summer gaze of the rational sun. We don’t see me, but I see us. I wish I knew… but I am not sure what. My heart is pounding, my legs don’t want to hold me. I clutch my purse close. It’s a piece of reality; along with the sounds of jet engines and car horns it grounds me.

No more rehearsals, day-dream reveries. I breathed deeply, tossed my long hair, and rolled my shoulders back as I approached the airport’s reflective glass doors, wincing slightly at the image before me. It was more of a swish than a whoosh, but they slid open, and I stepped into—not a dream, not quite reality—but something like heaven, to look for a red shirt.

I don't know what true heaven looks like, but I have imagined it freckled, bespectacled and scarlet swathed.