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"Yes! Let's do that," I had agreed. Heather had nodded her approval and had smiled.
The air was still hot when we set out that evening. I realized that the air would likely remain warm all night. This set the stage for romance. Key West seemed so much less important all of a sudden compared to the new unfolding. I must have grinned from ear to ear as I unloaded the luggage. Who in a situation like this would have cared about the dumb Navy anyway?
I think we were both surprised when our lady stepped into the lobby after freshening up. Could anyone have guessed that a backpack would contain an elegant evening dress and a pair of delicate high-heeled shoes? Tony and I had argued whether or not we should wear suits. Luckily Tony had won. He looked dashing in his dress uniform, his hair cut short, perfectly combed. My business suit was no match to his, and my hair was a mess. It had dried in the wind and just wouldn't stay in place. I would normally have been ashamed to face someone like Heather the way I was, so elegant was her appearance compared to mine, but those reservations where abruptly overruled the moment she stepped out of the elevator into the lobby.
By an imperative beyond my own doing I asked her to stop. I stepped back to relish the scene that was unfolding before me.
"You are royal beyond the royalty of any queen," I wanted to say to her in my amazement, "and this without a crown on your head, and so much the better for it. You are more brilliant than a star - a joy to behold - and more elegantly dressed than anyone I've ever seen." But all that I managed to get across my lips was a small, three-letter word: "Wow!" I offered her my hand and bowed.
No one could have been more beautiful in my sight. Her thin black dress matched the dark of her hair. Her perfume blended with the aroma of the mid-summer-night breeze. The dress was cut low. A tiny stone set in silver, a small diamond perhaps, hanging from a silver chain graced its opening. I felt, as though I was in the presence of an angel from God as we left arm in arm, with Heather in the middle. She reflected a quality that I had embraced deep within myself, a quality that wasn't ordinary, which existed on a higher level than the ordinary, a reflection not of dreams, but of my soul. I had fallen in love with her for the brightness of our humanity that was so beautifully manifested in her.
The steak house wasn't more than a block away. I wished it had been ten blocks distant. I felt like a prince going to a banquet at the court of the King of France, escorting the loveliest of all the princesses of all the lands. This wonderful, crazy, beautiful feeling somehow stayed with me right through the dinner. It had burned itself deep into my mind. As far as I can recall, it remained that way through the night and through much of the next day.
According to popular legends these feelings shouldn't be possible unless people are most intimately involved with one-another. Oh how the legends have cheated mankind! In the car we had exchanged some quick glances with a few smiles, but now those smiles seemed to last an eternity. God only knows why, against all logic, she even bothered to smile at me. Tony was the far more dashing of us. He was handsome, and certainly more proper. He addressed the waiter as sir, and the hostess as ma'am.
I never asked Heather why she smiled at me. The important thing was that she did. It felt wonderful. I felt alive. Living was rich. I was happy, exuberant! I felt infinitely grateful for the misfortunes of the two spies that had been caught, and for the chain of events that had brought me to East Germany to arrange for their exchange. If it hadn't been for that, I would not have been sent to Key West for a debriefing, I would not have met Heather and Tony along the way, nor experienced a dimension of life that I hadn't known before could exists in which heaven is unfolding on Earth.
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