Miami-New York

This was my favorite story of all of them, but strangely I am having a difficult time deciding what to say about it. Well, I suppose I can start with the author. Martha Gellhorn was first described to me as "kinda badass" and I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment. She was a little pistol, passionate about her work, her life, and her lovers. She was most famous for her war-time correspondence, if fact, it was said that her correspondences were even better than Ernest Hemingway's. Interestingly enough, she ended up marrying him, although it did not last long due to the potency of their personalities.

It is not surprising, then, that this passionate woman of great strength and many lovers would write a story such as "Miami-New York." A woman in a loveless marriage meets a young officer on a plane, and in the darkness of the red-eye flight, they share an interlude of passion and intimacy. Not fated to last, this interlude is cut short by the realizations of who they are--the woman realizes the officer is young, merely 24, while he realizes that she is actually 35. They maintain a slightly awkward conversation while the flight finishes up, then part ways at the airport, never to meet again. I must admit, given Gellhorn's passionate nature, it makes me wonder if a chance meeting in her life turned into something more torrid, then faded with the morning's light.

It was the poignancy of this story that struck me the most...a woman trapped in a marriage she is unsure about, saddled with a husband who (she believes) loves her not. Is it no surprise then that she falls for the sensual hands and brooding features of the young officer? I think about how this would be different if she had a good relationship with her husband...if her mind was full of tender memories, reassurances of love and devotion, would she have even looked twice at John Hanley? I doubt it. I doubt he would have seen the vulnerability in her features, the need to be thoroughly kissed. And that is where I feel the point Martha Gellhorn was making. She was a woman who had many relationships, many of which simply did not work out. Perhaps this is her message of validation to women in Kate Merlin's situation. Perhaps she is encouraging them to be free, to live their own life, and society be damned.