Airplane Rides

by Jake Alexander

  I let him sit with his thoughts for a moment while I sorted out his story. I felt a little guilty about having treated him rudely, and wanted to make it up to him.

  “So what did she say in the journal?”

  Daniel pressed his lips together in thought, developing the paraphrase.

  “It said she was missing something that caused her sadness.”

  “Missing what?”

  “She didn’t know. Something was just missing, a void that left her unhappy.”

  There was a sadness of his own that tugged at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

  “So what about the departure of these two people makes you question your faith?”

  Again Daniel pursed his lips, but this time with more introspection. He took a sip of his drink to clear his throat and then turned to face me.

  “I guess I question why these people didn’t find what they were looking for in my parish.”

  I tried to hide my smile as the words rushed to the back of my lips.

  “So this is about your job.”

  “These events don’t make me not like my job,” he responded with less grace than he had previously displayed.

  “Perhaps, but you are questioning whether you’re any good at it because you lost a few customers.”

  Daniel was not accustomed to being spoken to so bluntly, and I reminded myself to be more delicate.

  “You’re an interesting man,” Daniel said to me, letting the sting of my statement wear off.

  “How so?” I asked, permitting the conversational offensive. It was the least I could do, considering he was a man of God.

  “You are unencumbered by the feelings of others.”

  “Are we back on the guy from this morning or are we talking about you?”

  “Neither, the statement was about you.”

  “And why would you find that interesting?”

  “It just seems I keep running into that.”

  “Maybe I can be a bit direct but…”

  “I was talking about people who have stopped caring.”

  There was a deafening pause between us while the question of my hopelessness returned to mind.

  “Let’s get back to what we have a prayer of fixing here. A woman leaves your parish, worse yet a young girl commits suicide, and you start questioning your faith. I can’t help but think it sounds more like your confidence is shaken.”

  Daniel did not respond, and I could feel him drifting away.

  “So the good news is you’re not questioning your faith, only yourself,” I said trying to pull him back into the conversation.

  Daniel remained silent, doing his best to appear unaffected as I searched for ammunition.

  “Say you’re a surgeon instead of a minister and a patient dies on your operating table. Do you suddenly question your ability to preserve life?”

  “How is that relevant?”

  “How is it not? The surgeon heals the body and you, the soul. Odds are, either of you is going to lose a patient once in a while,” I replied, intentionally trying to shake the ego off his back with my words.

  While I waited for the statement to sink in, a small lightning bolt hit my brain.

  “Daniel, why are you going to New York?”

  Daniel turned and faced me, his eyes admitting what he had omitted earlier.

  “I need some time to think about my role in the church.”

  “Thinking about giving up?” I asked in a hushed tone.

  Daniel’s irritation with my inquiry was about to boil over.

  “Why is this important to you? Will you be making jokes about my problem like you did about the man this morning?” he asked with more skepticism than I thought a minister was allowed.

  “Not at all…” I found myself searching for the words to explain. “If I didn’t care I wouldn’t ask.”

  The implications of my own statement flooded my brain and warmed me like the blanket the gate attendant had promised. I reached over and gave his forearm a friendly squeeze.

  “Because if someone like you loses faith, where in this hell would that leave someone like me? Take your walk, clear your head and go back to your church.”

  I followed my driver through the airport exit, across the drop-off lanes and out into the parking structure. The driver hit the alarm and popped the trunk on a late model back DeVille using the remote from about twenty-five feet out. Comfortably tucked into the rear with my bag in the trunk, I settled into the soft back leather seat and turned my thoughts to the evening ahead, but uneasy about the intentions of my new acquaintance. As we circled through the lot towards the garage exit, I saw Daniel standing on the curb in front of baggage claim.

  “Swing around, I want to give a friend a ride.”

  I nodded, confirming for myself that it was time well spent.

  The driver obeyed, continuing through the exit toll and circling back to the main departure loop. I twisted around, trying to keep Daniel in my sights, losing him several times behind passing buses and shuttle vans.

  When we finally arrived at the spot where Daniel had been standing, I got out of the car and looked for him in both directions. A traffic cop gave my driver the eye, pushing us to move on.

  “Just give me a minute,” I shouted respectfully across the hood of the Cadillac.

  “Move it or I tow it,” responded the officer.

  I thought to explain but knew it was futile. I gave a quick last look around to confirm that Daniel had disappeared and I got back into the car.

  Months later, I was eating dinner at a quiet table for one at the Hudson River Club. Night had fallen on the empty boat slips in the basin of the Manhattan Yacht Club. It was early and I was enjoying the solitude and the last of my cabernet when my cell phone shattered the moment. I pulled the phone from my breast pocket and with it Daniel’s business card, which I had inadvertently tucked away several months before. I let the incoming call go into voice mail while weighing my aversion to the intrusion and the importance of knowing his decision. Swallowing my final sip, I dialed his number and unintentionally glanced skyward as I hit “send.”

  “Hello?” he answered with his gentle voice.

  “Is this Daniel?”

  ”Yes.”

  “Did you enjoy walking in Central Park?”

  After a long pause I heard him exhale with recognition.

  “I did.”

  “I’m glad. Everyone needs a walk though the park once in awhile.”

  I could hear Daniel’s warm chuckle on the other end of the line.

  “It was good advice. How are you?”

  “Better,” I replied honestly.

  “I knew there was a prayer,” he stated proudly.

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  Again I heard his patient laugh in the distance.

  “You’re checking up on me.”

  “So, if I need to find you, this number is good?” I asked, ignoring his statement.

  “Yes,” he replied. “This number will be fine.”

  Chapter Six

  AA Flight #1409

  Dallas (DFW) to Los Angeles (LAX)

  We Americans are fascinated by infidelity. We can’t get enough of who cheated on whom, with whom and where. We are perversely mesmerized by the accounts of how the newest member of the adultery club was exposed, humiliated and branded with a scarlet tattoo. We want the details on the fallout, and rely on people like Barbara Walters and Larry King to ask the wronged partner if it hurt and, if so, how bad. The driving factor behind this fascination is the simple reality that infidelity is an offense everyone is capable of. Most will claim otherwise, but it is very natural and understandable, because sex with a new person has a powerful allure. I remember a film in which a woman confesses to her husband, that she fantasized about abandoning him and their children to pursue a sexual encounter with a military officer who she had seen but never spoken with. The film alternated between the confession and images of the fantasy; the handsome stranger wrapped i
n her long legs, her head thrown back, her beautiful engorged lips gasping for air. It was the kind of sex that only Hollywood can deliver and as much as we judged her willingness to abandon her family, on some dark level we understood.

  In the air, people often tell me of their infidelities, sometimes in an outright confession, sometimes in fewer words. One with the fascinated, I always take the time to listen. Occasionally, I come across someone teetering on the fine line of “disturbing their universe,” stirred by an innocent half kiss from a family friend or the inadvertent but recurring brush from a colleague. They spend hours evaluating the possible interpretations, contemplating the undertones. They anxiously await the next encounter, if only for a naive illusion of closure. The opportunist in me finds these women dancing on the edges of their envelopes the most exciting; their monogamous innocence there for the taking, the rush of tempting them to jump off their ledge of indecision and into an irreversible secret almost impossible to resist.

  On a reassuringly sunny Tuesday, I boarded a Boeing 757 at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport destined for Los Angeles, my last stop on a three-city road show. I had hosted a late afternoon cocktail party the day before in Atlanta, immediately after which I caught a 6:35 flight to Dallas in time to meet a few of the city’s larger hitters for drinks at the Crescent Court Hotel. Cocktails at the Crescent Court were predictably followed by a more private reception at Cabaret Royal, one of Dallas’s famous gentlemen’s clubs. Despite the late night escapades, I had delivered a breakfast presentation without showing signs of fatigue and was continuing on to Los Angeles to finish my effort at another cocktail event that evening.

  I was in relatively good shape for road show duty, as I had kept alcohol consumption to a minimum the evening before. In a room of red neon and pink velvet couches, the most beautiful women in all creation danced their heartbreaking dances and caressed our vanity. They reminded us that we were warriors and they did it all in three minutes and for only twenty dollars. Such events had unfortunately grown old for me, and I had long since stopped asking the question “What’s a nice girl like you…” because I had learned that the answer is “for two thousand dollars a night.” It had been equally long since I had enjoyed the dance of some young maiden while she whispered tales of the forbidden and secret treasures only available in the VIP room. Instead, my role was limited to host, wad of cash in hand, selecting dancers and sponsoring their performances for the men in my crosshairs.

  Married men enjoyed these excursions the most, enthusiastically following their instincts in the semi-acceptable forum. Sober and at work, I would watch them from the sidelines, making sure their glasses were full and their laps were warm. Sometimes the dancers would smile at me, one predator to another, like partners in crime. But I had no partners, and I was swift to steer my guests clear of the multiple dance scams or from getting suckered into purchasing four hundred dollar bottles of champagne. Ever the gluttons for relationships, married men tended to develop a favorite dancer, keeping her around for the duration of the evening and making their bid for a “private show” back at the hotel. I had witnessed the pattern a hundred times, confirming for me again and again that each of them would cross the line into infidelity given the chance, every single one of them. Like hyenas on an incapacitated zebra, the dancers were quick to spot their type and would string them along, dance after dance into the thousands of dollars. Betrayed by their egos, the men believed that they were somehow special. In the end, I would guide them home, broke, drunk and slurring their affections for the women whose real names they didn’t know.

  For sport, I enjoyed spotting the real players on the circuit and that evening had noticed a dark brunette named Rachael circling the floor. She stopped by to show me her smile and offer her services.

  “How much?”

  “One song is twenty dollars,” she replied, draping herself across my lap and interlacing her fingers behind my neck.

  “I’m not asking for a dance,” I informed her, holding the stare.

  She eyed me carefully.

  “You a police officer?”

  “Do I look like a police officer?”

  “Where are you from?”

  “New York.”

  “Let me see your driver’s license.”

  From my suit breast pocket I pulled my wallet and extracted my license, holding it out for her to see.

  “I don’t really do that…”

  “But in this case…”

  She paused cautiously.

  “Fifteen hundred and I can meet you after work. Where are you staying?”

  I smiled, finding my prostitute radar perversely amusing. Now that’s a skill they should teach the boy scouts; start a campfire with two sticks - get a little brass pin, pick out the hooker posing as the Accounting Director’s girlfriend at the company Christmas party – get another pin.

  “It’s a bit late for me, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll pay you a hundred dollars to answer one question honestly.”

  “What’s the question?”

  I pulled a crisp one hundred dollar bill from my wallet and returned it to my pocket.

  “Why do men pay money to have sex with you?”

  “I told you, it’s not like I…”

  “But on those very rare occasions.”

  Rachael’s salesman smile disappeared and she took the bill from my hand.

  “As fabulous as I am in that regard, it’s really because they thrive on the excitement.”

  I nodded to confirm my satisfaction with her answer.

  “I appreciate your honesty.”

  “A deal’s a deal. Got any more questions?”

  “No more questions, but thank you.”

  Rachael’s smile returned, she kissed me gently on the cheek and returned to her rounds.

  I took my aisle seat in first class, handed my coat to the flight attendant and pulled my shirt out slightly so it wouldn’t be wrinkled when I arrived in LA. I was happy for a few hours of solitude before my next performance. Overestimating my energy, I took out my cell phone and contemplated a last minute phone call to an old girlfriend, thinking it might be nice to have someone waiting for me at the hotel when I returned, but before I could dial, my seatmate arrived and the looks of her changed my plan. I stood to let her pass and used the opportunity to measure her at a forever five-foot-ten, supplemented by modest black heels. She had a healthy tan and dark brown hair cut short to reveal a carat diamond stud in each earlobe. In beautiful contrast with her otherwise dark features, and hidden behind stylish black rectangular glasses, she had inviting eyes that matched perfectly with the Dallas sky.

  She said hello in a friendly voice while I admired the black Chanel skirt suit that hugged her athletic physique. Inconspicuously, my eyes trailed down her body, beginning at her neck and ending at her well-defined calf muscles that had a Stairmaster certification tattooed just above her ankle. When she turned to sit, my eyes were waiting for hers. My silent gaze informed her of my intentions. She smiled in response, allowing me to believe that her door was open.

  “I love your glasses,” I said as I sat back down.

  “Thank you,” she replied with delight. “I just bought them.”

  “An excellent choice, they’re perfect on you. Heading home?”

  “No, this is home. I have a meeting in LA tomorrow.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a sales rep, I sell telephone systems.”

  “Is that exciting?”

  “Not really,” she said with amusement.

  “Where do you stay when you’re in town?”

  “This time I’m staying at the Four Seasons. A special treat.”

  “Let’s hope so,” I thought.

  Her smile was beautiful, framed by naturally full lips and accompanied by a striking jaw line. Again she caught me looking at her, face to face, taking in each of her attributes, individually none perfect, but together breathtaking.

  “I’m sorry for offending you this
early in our conversation, but may I ask how old you are?”

  She was surprised by the question, but appeared to forgive me.

  “How old do you think I am?” she returned playfully.

  “I guess slightly older, but you look thirty-three, thirty-four at best.”

  “I’m thirty-nine,” she said with honest pride.

  I smiled and shook my head in agreement to let her know that I believed her.

  “Well, time has been very kind to you and I can’t imagine not having told you so.”

  She smiled at me in sincere appreciation and lifted her left hand into view.

  “You’re precious, but…” she said, waving her hand to be sure I noticed the three carat oval-cut diamond perched high atop a fountain of platinum.

  “How very Texas,” I said, taking her hand gently by the fingers and admiring the stone. “Is your husband this big as well?”

  She laughed and let me hold her hand a little longer than I needed to.

  “He is, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she replied.

  “Don’t be so sure if he knew what I was thinking.”

  “And you work fast!” she added.

  “Well, men are faster than women.”

  “How unfortunately true!”

  “Not what I was referring to, but we’ll get back to that. Men are faster in that they know much sooner whether or not they would engage in sexual relations with a woman.”

  “As opposed to a woman knowing if she would sleep with a man?”

  “Exactly,” I answered, forcing her to ask.

  She pursed her lips realizing I had put her into “check.”

  “So how long does it take?”