Christine said, “Not the cigarette kind, honey.”
“Oh. Good,” Casey said, then returned to her pop-up storybook.
“The thing is,” Jim said, “I’m new in Los Angeles, been there only eight
weeks, and I’m your classic, original lonely guy. I don’t like singles’
bars, don’t want to buy a gym membership just to meet women, and figure
anybody I’d connect with through a computer service has to be as
desperate and messed up as I am.”
She laughed. “You don’t look desperate or messed up to me.”
“Excuse me, sir,” a stewardess said with friendly firmness, touching
Jim’s shoulder, “but I can’t allow you to block the aisle.”
“Oh, sure, yeah,” he said, standing up. “Just give me a minute.”
Then to Christine: “Listen, this is embarrassing, but I’d really like to
talk to you, tell you about myself, what I’m looking for in a woman, and
see if maybe you know someone. ?”
“Sure, I’d love that,” Christine said with such enthusiasm that she was
surely the reincarnation of either some hillbilly woman who had been a
much sought-after troth-finder or a successful schatchen from Brooklyn.
“Hey, you know, the two seats next to mine are empty,” he said “Maybe
you could sit with me the rest of the way. . . .”
He expected her to be reluctant to give up window seats, and an
unexpressable twist of anxiety knotted his stomach while he waited for
her response.
But she hesitated for only a second or two. “Yes, why not.”
The stewardess, still hovering near them, nodded her approval.
To Jim, Christine said, “I thought Casey would like the scenery from way
up here, but she doesn’t seem to care much. Besides, we’re almost in
the back of the wing, and it blocks a lot of our view.”
Jim did not understand the reason for the wave of relief that swept
through him when he secured her agreement to move, but a lot of things
mystified him these days. “Good, great. Thank you, Christine.”
As he stepped back to let Christine Dubrovek get up, he noticed the
passenger in the seat behind her. The poor woman was evidently
terrified of flying. She was holding a copy of Vis Pis in front of her
face, trying to take her mind off her fears with a little reading, but
her hands were shaking so badly that the magazine rattled continuously.
“Where are you sitting?” Christine asked.
“The other aisle, row sixteen. Come on, I’ll show you.”
He lifted her single piece of carry-on luggage while she and Casey
gathered up a few other small items, then he led them to the front of
the plane and around to the port aisle. Casey entered row sixteen, and
her mother followed.
Before Jim settled down himself, something impelled him to look across
the wide-bodied plane to the aerophobic woman whom they had left behind
in row twenty-three. She had lowered the magazine. She was watching
him. He knew her.
Holly Thorne.
He was stunned.
Christine Dubrovek said, “Steve?”
Across the plane, the reporter realized that Jim had seen her. She
wide-eyed, frozen. Like a deer caught in car headlights.
“Steve?”
He looked down at Christine and said, Uh, excuse me a minute, Christine
. Just a minute. I’ll be right back. Wait here. Okay? Wait right
here.
He went forward and across to the starboard aisle again.
His heart was hammering. His throat was tight with fear. But he didn’t
know why. He was not afraid of Holly Thorne. He knew at once that her
presence was no coincidence, that she had stumbled on to his secret and
had been following him. But right now he didn’t care.
Discovery, being unmasked-that was not what frightened him. He had no
idea what was cranking up his anxiety, but it was escalating to a level
at which adrenaline would soon start to squirt out his ears.
As he made his way back the aisle toward the reporter, she started to
get up. Then a look of resignation slid across her face, and she sat
down again.
She was as easy to look at as he remembered, though the skin around her
eyes was slightly dark, as if from lack of sleep.