Page 4 of In Flight

“It’s not a random guess. It’s a deduction. You claimed I know nothing about you, and I’m proving the opposite. You’ve dated a man you’re not really into for a few months now, so you must feel like you don’t have a lot of relationship prospects. You probably didn’t get much male attention in school, and so you’ve schooled yourself not to expect it. That bracelet you’re wearing is an antique, and it’s very expensive. Your family is wealthy. Your mother is probably a queen bee, and you might have a sister or sisters who are similar. So you fade into the background with your art and your handcrafts and your cozy life in Savannah and pretend it doesn’t matter to you that no one notices you.”

There’s nothing I can do but stare at him, breathless and frozen.

Exposed. Utterly naked. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this vulnerable before.

For the first time, the corner of his mouth quirks up in almost a smile. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“You’ve managed to hit on a few details anyone might have noticed and made up your own interpretation of them,” I manage to say with a semblance of coolness. “But you’re not as brilliant as you believe. I can do the same thing with you.”

“Can you?”

“Yes. I can.” I look him up and down the way he did me. I’m not a detail person. Everyone who knows me would testify to that. But I have pretty good intuition, and it feels like I know this man already.

Certainly as much as he knows me.

“Your family isn’t wealthy. They’re probably not poor—just regular middle class. You definitely don’t live in Savannah. You’ve obviously been working, so I assume you’re heading home to Boston. You must have had to travel to Savannah for work. You have some sort of finance job and are working hard to climb the corporate ladder. You spend your money to look like you’re a success, but inside you’re not really convinced that you are.”

His gaze is colder now. Less smug.

I’m hitting the target, and it gives me confidence to go on. “You want the world to believe you’re completely in control and have everything anyone could want, so you hide all your vulnerabilities. You probably have a girlfriend. She’s wealthy and beautiful and socially connected, and that’s everything you’re supposed to want. You might even marry her. But you’re not any more into her than I’m into Cash. She’s an accessory to who you’re trying to be.”

The last bit is a wild guess. Nothing but instinct. But I can see I’m right in that too by the narrowing of his eyes and the tension in his jaw.

“There’s no way you saw any details in me that would lead you to such a conclusion,” he says coolly.

“I don’t analyze details like you. I use intuition. But as you can see, my sense of things is every bit as effective as your brilliant deductions. What I don’t understand is why you’re back here with me. The man you want to be should be all the way up there.” I gesture toward the business-class cabin. “Why are you back here?”

He stares at me. Doesn’t answer.

“You’re not going to tell me?”

For a moment I really think he will. Something flickers in his expression that looks like acceptance. Acquiescence.

But he pulls it back into his detached smugness, turns away from me, lowers his tray table since the seat belt light has been turned off, and opens his laptop again.

He starts to work and doesn’t look at me again.

I’m actually hurt. It feels like a rejection. Like he slammed a door in my face.

After a while I manage to pull myself together and brush off the weirdly intense interaction.

It doesn’t matter. This man is a stranger. I’ll never see him again.

He doesn’t matter. I don’t even know his name.

He’s merely a rude, obnoxious stranger who is my unwilling seatmate for a short time.

Neither one of us says a word to each other for the remaining two hours of the flight.

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