Free Three Rivers by Roberta Latow

out, ran a brush through her hair, added a touch of lipstick and started back to Anthony. As she stepped through her doorway she saw him go into one of the bathrooms. There was no one in sight, and so she went to the bathroom door and knocked gently. Anthony opened it and Isabel went in. Not knowing what to say to him, she said nothing, but simplyslipped her arms around his waist, pressed against him and kissed him: on the lips, next on one cheek and then the other; she kissed one eye, the tip of his nose, then the other eye and back to his lips again. This time his lips parted and she kissed him deeply. He never touched her. She stood back and looked at him. He pulled her towards him and held her and they kissed deeply again. Then he looked at her and said, “It’s too late now, Isabel, years too late. I like boys now.”
    Isabel was not surprised. There had been talk about it for as long as she had known him. Some said that he was exclusively homosexual, but, of course, she knew better, and had guessed that he was simply bisexual, but had never known the truth until years after they parted.
    “Isabel, you are as lovely as ever,” he said. “There are a hundred things I would like to say to you, but it is all too late. Let’s go watch the movie before we are missed. I don’t think it would be a good idea to be caught together in here.”
    Isabel knew that he was right; she also knew that everything was over except a silent bond that would never be broken, talked about or used.
    “I will go first,” she said.
    He touched her hair, smoothing some strands that had been out of place. “Yes, go. I will wait a few minutes.” He smiled. “I never thought you could do this to me again. You go ahead.”
    Isabel made her way through the dining room and into the main cabin of the plane. She was relatively composed concerning Anthony, and was far more disturbed about her memory of the past and the role that she played in their love affair. If she was upset now about what had just happened between them, it was not with him, but with herself. Isabel did not take failure very well at the best of times. She saw this as another mistake, an act of aggression, not of love, hence a failure. Although Isabel no longer tormented herself over circumstances that she could not change, she wondered about real love for and with a man.
    It had taken Isabel a long time to throw out of her life all that she had been taught about men. All the experiences that she had been through as a result of that teaching boiled down to the reality that she was capable of real love for a man. What she’d felt at the moment she sawAnthony was not love but desire. Their sexual feelings for one another were so highly charged that it created an instinctive bond between them. Because Isabel would not recognize that this sexual attraction was a matter of surfaces, she was dishonest. Because of her own vanity she’d been completely wrong about Anthony and love.
    How horrid and unjust to both of them that she should have lied to herself all those years ago and labeled that highly charged sexual feeling between them something more than passion. How much damage and hurt had been done by her, out of her desperation to find love? No longer desperate, she could wait, and if genuine love were to come to her she would recognize it, just as she could now recognize its pale imitation.
    She went to the far end of the cabin, where the tournament was in progress. The stewards were standing around the backgammon table watching. Gamal was fast asleep in a chair. One of them came forward and asked Isabel if she was ready for the movie. She said as soon as Mr. Moressey returned. Just then they saw him enter the main cabin and so they went forward to meet him. The steward settled them into their chair, which was more of a love seat, actually. There were ottomans to put their feet on, and when they were both settled in, it was like a large chaise longue for two. At each side there