They are planning a vacation together. They have been planning for months.

She likes the mountains. He likes the sea.

She says if they go to the seaside she would like to watch the waves from a boatdeck. A cruise boatdeck. She hasn’t worn a bathing suit in ten years. He speaks of snorkeling, and sunshine, and baking on white sands. She says sand gets in places that itch.

He is enamored of cathedrals. She prefers cafes. Cathedrals, she says, are dank with tombs of kings and very few poets. Cathedrals are monuments to pride and haughty gods.

Cafes, he says, are an excuse for languor and unfulfilled promises. There is no structure to cafes, no architecture, no permanence. There is sodden conversation and willowy resolve.

They agree to divide – one cathedral and one café per day. He promises to visit cafes, once a day for a specified penalty period, and think of them as places of exchange, maybe even camaraderie.

She pledges a limited allegiance to cathedrals – if they aren’t too gargoyled, too gothic, too grand.
The countries come next. He takes out the maps. He always has maps. He studied maps in school.
She takes out travel books with words in them. Maps confuse her. The countries are never the color she expects them to be. Italy should not be yellow, it should be Mediterranean blue. Germany should be fierce brown (never pink), and Africa should be the green of the jungle, not purple.

He delights in measuring distances by inches on the map. She prefers to measure them by the mood of the moment. Venice is a mood, not a place. It makes no difference that Venice is miles and miles from Istanbul. Istanbul is also a mood.

He says this is difficult to explain to American Airlines.
He speaks in terms of kilometers. She insists on the language of romance. They stare at each other with taut eyes and fold the maps for another day.

There is the cost. Pesos, Euros, or – alas – the sinking dollar?
Should they stay in small guest houses or should they go this once for the chateaux? She remembers the long-ago Audrey Hepburn movies and pleads, just once, for a chateau. He looks at the bank account and suggests inns with the bath down the hall.

They negotiate. One night at the castle for five among the peasants.

Will it be ship, train, or auto?

Will it be a package tour or two for the road?

They eschew the package tour.

They agree over the cabernet that they may be too worldly, too wise, too tall to be packaged.
She says, on consideration, she has decided Norway is definitely out. Too cold. Too blonde. He says he thinks a car would be just fine rather than trains. One of those tiny foreign cars that run on wheat germ and wine.

He is remembering—she knows this – the days when he was strong and young and could back-pack. She nods quietly, says nothing, and together they go to bed.

He wakes in the morning in the mood for Switzerland, having ceded the shore for the mountains. She has dreamed that night of Rome. He says they should settle on Salzburg. She says they should settle on Spain. They turn to the current exchange rate. Perhaps Costa Rica?

She knows that wherever they go he will rise at dawn with a tour list in hand, and a time schedule. He knows she will open one eye at 10:30 and demand a croissant with jam.

She knows he will carry a camera with him like an extra eye, not trusting to the memory of places. He knows she will pose for these pictures reluctantly, squinting into the sun in front of foreign buildings.

They snap the maps shut once again and glance at each other with fond tolerance. They have been together on vacations before And they have – after all – spent so much time planning.

**
Dorothy Storck is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer.