Paper rustled as he folded the London Times and glanced at his watch. “I think that’s us,” he said, getting up as Flight 2 was called again.
The Concorde held a hundred people in two cabins with two seats on either side of the aisle. The decor was muted gray carpet and leather, with spaceship windows too small to gaze out. Flight attendants were British and typically polite, and if they knew we were the two passengers from the FBI, Navy, or God knows, the CIA, they did not indicate so in any way. Their only concern seemed to be what we wanted to drink, and I ordered whiskey.
“It’s a little early, isn’t it?” Wesley said.
“Not in London it’s not,” I told him. “It’s five hours later there.”
“Thank you. I’ll set my watch,” he dryly said as if he’d never been anywhere in his life. “I guess I’ll have a beer,” he told the attendant.
“There, now that we’re on the proper time zone, it’s easier to drink,” I said, and I could not keep the bite out of my voice.
He turned to me and met my eyes. “You sound angry.”
“That’s why you’re a profiler, because you can figure out things like that.”
He subtly looked around us, but we were behind the bulkhead with no one across the aisle, and I almost did not care who was at our rear.
“Can we talk reasonably?” he quietly asked.
“It’s hard to be reasonable, Benton, when you always want to talk after the fact.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean. I think there’s a transition missing somewhere.”
I was about to give him one. “Everyone knew about your separation except me,” I said. “Lucy told me because she heard about it from other agents. I would just like to be included in our relationship for once.”
“Christ, I wish you wouldn’t get so upset.”
“Not half as much as I do.”
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to be influenced by you,” he said.
We were talking in low voices, leaning forward and together so that our shoulders were touching. Despite the grave circumstances, I was aware of his every move and how it felt against me. I smelled his wool jacket and the cologne he liked to wear.
“Any decision about my marriage can’t include you,” he went on as drinks arrived. “I know you must understand that.”
My body wasn’t used to whiskey at this hour, and the effect of it was quick and strong. I instantly began to relax, and shut my eyes during the roar of takeoff as the jet leaned back and throbbed, thundering up through the air. From then on, the world below became nothing but a vague horizon, if I could see anything out the window at all. The noise of engines remained loud, making it necessary for us to continue sitting very close to each other as we intensely talked on.
“I know how I feel about you,” Wesley was saying. “I have known that for a long time.”
“You have no right,” I said. “You have never had a right.
“And what about you? Did you have a right to do what you did, Kay? Or was I the only one in the room?”
“At least I’m not married or even with anyone,” I said.
“But no, I shouldn’t have.”
He was still drinking beer and neither of us was interested in canapes and caviar that I suspected would prove the first running of a long gourmet game. For a while we fell silent, flipping through magazines and professional journals while almost everyone else inside our cabin did the same. I noticed that people on the Concorde did not talk to each other much, and I decided that being rich and famous or royal must be rather boring.
“So I guess we’ve resolved that issue then,” Wesley started again, leaning closer as I picked at asparagus.
“What issue?” I set down my fork, because I was lefthanded and he was in the way.
“You know. About what we should and shouldn’t do.”
He brushed against my breast and then his arm stayed there as if all we had said earlier was voided at Mach two.