Page 31 of Here One Moment

“No, I’m not,” says Cool Guy. “Just…you know, weird.” He gestures with his chin. “She’s back there.”

Leo turns. There she is at the back of the line, wheeling a small suitcase: innocuous, self-contained, sane. A grandmother who travels regularly. Not a fortune teller. Now that Leo is out of the claustrophobic airplane and back in the familiar bland world the sinisterness of her words has almost dissipated, like the way huge emotions produced by a movie or a concert fade.

He had discreetly observed her across the aisle after the flight attendant brought her back to her seat. She’d shut her eyes and had apparently fallen into a deep sleep because the landing wasn’t enough to wake her. Her closest seatmate, the man in the window seat, didn’t try to wake her either. As soon as the seat-belt sign went off he nimbly slid in front of her knees and out into the aisle. Just before Leo left the plane he glanced back to see if she’d woken yet, but her eyes were still shut as the passengers filed past, many of them giving her curious looks, but no one attempting to speak to her.

“Yeah, so she told me I was going to die in a fight when I’m thirty.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Leo. “She told me I’m dying young too.”

The line is moving again so they are no longer parallel.

“Put it out of your mind!” says Leo over his shoulder as everyone steps forward. He’s nearly at the front of the line.

Cool Guy gives him a cool thumbs-up with his free hand. Leo wonders if it was his injury that caused the lady to choose that particular prediction for him. Did she honestly believe what she was saying? She seemed to believe it. He recalls the symbol on the lady’s brooch and how it had seemed weirdly relevant to him in some specific way: How could that be? Now he can’t even visualize it. Was it an infinity symbol?

She’s obviously too far away for him to see the tiny brooch from here. Theoretically, he could have leaned over, put on his reading glasses, and studied it when she was asleep on the plane, but he didn’t want to risk having an elderly lady open her eyes to the sight of a male passenger looming over her, staring at her chest.

The man in the high-vis vest holds up one finger.

“Just me,” agrees Leo, but then on impulse he looks back for Cool Guy. “Where you headed?”

Chapter 26

I have described the phenomenon I experienced at Hobart Airport where I kept recognizing people or thinking I did, and how everything and everyone seemed to symbolize something of personal significance. I was relieved when it was time to board. Once I was on theplane the foolishness of my thoughts would surely end. I planned to do sudoku. I had an advanced “ultimate challenge” puzzle book in my bag.

I boarded behind a very tall young man wearing blue tracksuit pants and a white T-shirt. He reminded me of the very tall young boy I once loved. I told myself that many young men have vulnerable necks. It is the juxtaposition of their broad shoulders and boyish hairlines that breaks your heart.

Someone asked if he was a basketball player and he said that he was not. He answered patiently although something about his tone made me think he was asked that question a lot.

A woman said, “Hope you’re in the exit row,” and he said yes, he always booked the exit row, and the woman said that was sensible.

I thought about the first time my tall young man boarded a plane and how he would not have known anything about exit rows.

I felt in danger of being swept out to sea by a giant river of memory.

I showed my boarding pass to the flight attendant, who was so stunningly beautiful I wanted to stop and take her in like a water view.

“Welcome aboard,” she said with a smile. “Four D. On your left.”

I was relieved because she reminded me of no one from my past or my present, she symbolized or signified nothing except youth and beauty, and I thought all the foolishness was over and done, but then I saw the other flight attendant: a young man. Also attractive. Fair hair swooped artfully back from his forehead and green eyes. I felt the most awful plummeting sensation in my stomach, like when you step out onto nothing in a dream. He did not seem to recognize me, and I thought, But how could that be? How could he just…forget? There was no doubt at all in my mind. It was definitely him.

I didn’t stop. When you’re boarding a plane you are a can of soup on a perpetually moving factory production line. I found my seat.

A man with the demeanor of an army general helped put my bag in the overhead bin. I did not require his assistance, but I appreciated it. I think I may not have thanked him. Manners matter. I feel bad about that.

I sat. I buckled my seat belt.

A woman wearing a bejeweled caftan banged my temple with her elbow as she looked for her seat number. She did not apologize.

A well-dressed, distinguished, and worried-looking man with no luggage took the aisle seat to my left. He had a copy of a magazine called Construction Engineering Australia, which he did not open. His hair was curly and too gray for the youth of his face. I looked down and saw he was tapping one foot, the incessant shoe tap of an impatient man, a man who would rather die than wait. He wore beautiful oatmeal-colored suede boots. Armani, I thought, or perhaps I even whispered it.

The impatient man was seated next to the couple who were not my friends Jill and Bert but who radiated their same friendliness and good humor, their delightful joie de vivre.

I looked at the seat pocket in front of me and read the words: What are you waiting for? Book your Jewels of Europe River Cruise today!

Chapter 27

Eve and Dom stand at the baggage carousel at Sydney Airport surrounded by people staring grimly at their phones and occasionally looking up to scowl when there are still no bags. Nobody smiles or congratulates them like they did in Hobart. Now their wedding clothes feel like Halloween costumes and it’s not Halloween. Nobody is thinking, Aww, young love; they’re probably thinking, Euuww, stupid losers.

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