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Benny & Ray 48 ghosts From Ben's Journal Dee Gilles Rated PG

"That's what we need - ridiculous odds and just a speck of hope that someday we'll beat them."

Ray Vecchio/"You Must Remember This"

19 February 2001 Monday 21:00

Well, events certainly turned interesting in Florida this weekend. Ray managed to run into Suzanne Chapin of all people. "Small world" indeed.

She was attending a seminar entitled "Methamphetamine Lab Interdiction" at the Law Enforcement Conference in Miami, which Ray and I attended.

As a member of the RCMP, I did have the clearance to attend, but since I was not there officially representing the RCMP, I had decided to pay out of pocket. Naturally, I attended as many lectures as possible to get a value for my dollar. I also attended a hostage negotiation seminar, a gang investigation class, and a very interesting lecture on "Suicide by Cop". I had chosen to go to the hostage negotiation seminar instead of the "Methamphetamine Lab Interdiction".

As my lecture concluded ten minutes early, I waited by the door of Ray's class. All the attendees had left the room. Ray and the Suzanne stood near the podium, chatting, standing too close. Except for a short, sleek haircut, she looked no different from when she had encountered Ray in Chicago so long ago.

I cleared my throat as I stepped into the room, and Ray instantly moved three feet back. He smiled at me nervously, and re-introduced us. I told her I remembered her.

Ray informed me that Suzanne had just invited him for a drink at the hotel bar, but he was about to decline. He gave me an odd look.

"Nonsense," I had said, "She should join us for dinner instead." We had plans to go the "Alta Mar" for seafood. I recognized the look Ray had sent me too late, as soon as the words were out of my mouth. It was a look of embarrassment, awkwardness.

Unfortunately, she accepted the dinner invitation.

It couldn't have been a more uncomfortable evening. On the short walk from the Marriot where the seminars were held, to the restaurant, Suzanne saw too late Ray's gold band, and naturally asked about the lucky lady in his life with much chagrin. Ray turned beet red and stammered that she was someone really special.

I was shocked. And I was really hurt that Ray was too embarrassed to tell her that he was married to me. I've never seen him have that kind of reaction before.

Later, after dinners of broiled mackerel with peppers, Lobster Don Carlos, and lemon Yellowjack, Suzanne took notice of my gold band and asked me about MY lucky spouse, and I quietly confessed that his name was Ray Vecchio, and that I was the luckiest man in the world to have him..

The conversation went downhill from there. I tried to ease the tension telling an Inuit tale that I thought was rather amusing, and Ray rather tersely told me to shut up. Dinner concluded very shortly. We decided to keep the conversation to the perils of modern-day law enforcement.

We walked her back to the Marriot in near total silence. There wasn't much to be said. The two of them were practically strangers, anyway. This was no grand reunion. No passionate kisses. It was nearly seven ago when Ray confessed his love for this woman, declared that she was "the one".

But too much time had passed, and then, there was me. We shook hands, we three, in lobby of the Marriott. I watched Ray wistfully watch her as she moved toward the elevators. I was stabbed with guilt. What if she was "the one" for Ray and I had prevented their fateful reunion?

Ray turned away from me in bed that night, something he'd never done before.

And it made me so afraid.

It was uncomfortable between Ray and me Saturday morning as we rose and checked out of the hotel.

In the car, I asked Ray if he had rather fly back to Chicago today instead of continuing the vacation in Boca Raton this weekend. He snapped at me "of course I wanna go to Boca! I wanna see Aunt Gigi, and I wanna spend some time with you!"

Somewhere near Fort Lauderdale, I asked him if he was angry at me for telling Suzanne Chapin the truth. I watched his profile. He said he wasn't, but clearly he was.

He pulled the car over, after a few more minutes of silence. He said I hadn't done anything wrong, but that sometimes, every once in a while, he felt certain regrets in his life, and this was one of those times. Meaning that he wasn't married to a woman and didn't have children, a dog, a house in the suburbs. He was sorry sometimes that he wasn't normal. It was hard for him for be this way.

I told him that he in fact did have a wonderful Husky named Pearson who loved him, and that we were married in the spiritual sense, which was what mattered, and if he wanted, we could move to a house in the suburbs. We'd even have children if he wanted. Only I couldn't do anything about `being a woman' part, although I would gladly dress like a woman if that's what he wanted; I had before.

"I'd want our own children," he said, "so they'd have to come from you." he said. "I want a little boy that looks exactly like you, Benny," he said. "Can you do that for me one day?"

I never really craved children for myself, but him, I said, "Yes, I will," without hesitation.

"Thank you," he said. "And Benny? You don't have to wear a dress for me. Promise me you won't."

"Of course. I'd do anything for you, Ray."

He leaned over and kissed me.

"And I'm sorry for being so mean to you last night, and this morning. You didn't deserve that," he said after he started up the car and we continued up I-95. Tell me that Inuit story, would you?"

"You WANT to hear an Inuit story?"

"Yeah."

So I told him the one about a caribou, an elk, and a wolf who walked into a bar.

Ray laughed all the way to Boca.

Finis