“No,” I finally admitted.
She patted my hand.
Finally we both laughed.
“What do you mean ‘Fontana pride’? I am well acquainted with how Pop can be, but you always seem to keep your temper in check,” I said as we both started moving toward the bus stop.
“Oh, Annalise, I could tell you stories,” she said.
“Really?”
She shook her finger at me.
“That’s for another day. Today is about sightseeing and sunshine.”
I shaded my eyes and looked up to the sky, then turned away quickly as the huge golden orb caught my eyes.
“Definitely sunshine,” I murmured as I stepped onto the bus.
We reached the Singapore Flyer, and again I shaded my eyes and looked up to the sky.
“Yikes! This is tall!”
“It’s the largest Ferris wheel on the planet,” said Auntie Lil. “Are you ready to ride it?”
“You bet!”
The queue for entry to one of the eight-person cabins on the wheel was not long, so we were soon aboard and ready to revolve for the next thirty minutes. A family with four exuberant children joined us. As we slowly circled, the children squealed in delight at the ability to see the sights surrounding the Flyer.
“This is awesome,” I had to agree with the children as I leaned my head on the floor-to-ceiling glass. We were taller than most other structures in the area.
After a complete circuit, we exited the giant wheel, and I quickly found a bench to scribble my thoughts while Auntie continued the conversation she’d begun with our cabinmates. I snapped my iPad shut when she joined me.
“You are doing much better at journaling than I am,” she said. “I notice that you keep your notes up to the minute.”
“If I don’t, I’ll forget them,” I said.
“I did notice that you didn’t take notes after breakfast.” She had a wry look on her face.
“You mean after that ‘pleasant’ encounter with our dinner companion?” I frowned.
“You are going to let that anger go, aren’t you?” she sighed.
“If I don’t, am I going to get another lecture on pride?”
“No, but you may get a nudge,” she grinned.
I blew my bangs off my forehead. Nothing dies in the Fontana family. But I wasn’t in the mood to hear a discussion about holding on to a grudge at that moment, no matter how kindly she would present it.
“Oh, look at the time. I promised to Skype Rory, and we have access to free WiFi here. I’d better get on that,” I opened my iPad again and walked a few steps away.
“Hey, girlfriend!” her cheery face appeared on the screen.
“How are you so flippin’ perky? What time is it?” I smiled back at her.
“I was expecting this call. Would you rather I didn’t answer? I can hang up, you know,” she teased.
“No, no.”
“What’s up? I can tell you have something on your mind ... and you shouldn’t because you are on an amazing trip.”
I hesitated and turned to see that Auntie Lil had moved away from the bench and was admiring the plants near the exit. So I took a chance and embarked on the whole crab incident, including the follow-up this morning. Rory erupted in peals of laughter when I was done.
“It’s not funny, Rory.”
“It most certainly is. It sounds exactly like something that would happen to you—or to both of us, for that matter.”
“Auntie Lil says I should just let it go.”
“I hate to quote the most popular cartoon song of the decade, but she’s right. Let it go. Why should you care what this stranger thinks? Wait ... you would have been able to let it go if he had been just a random stranger. What made him so special?”
“Nothing, Rory.” She was getting uncomfortably close to the truth.
“Aha! He wasn’t just a stranger. He was a handsome stranger!”
Handsome? I sniffed. Since when have ebony eyes, charcoal hair that flops just so, and a blinding smile been considered handsome? Oh, only since forever.
“You’re taking too long to answer, Annalise.”
“His looks have nothing to do with his attitude.”
“Tell that to everyone who’s ever swooned over Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.”
“Rory, are we going to spend this call discussing 19th-century literature or what?”
“You’re right,” she composed herself. “Tell me what you’ve been doing that doesn’t have to do with flirting.”
“I WASN’T—oh never mind.” I ignored her impish grin. “Anyway—”
“I know, honey, please share the trip!”
I walked over to Auntie Lil, and together we shared highlights with her minus the crab incident.
“So cool! I wish I was there!” she said.
“So do I, but we’ll take another trip.”
“Rory, my love, we are happy to chat with you, but we need to go,” said Auntie Lil.
“Absolutely!” said Rory. “Love you both! Have fun! Eat good foods! Skype me at our next appointed time! Bye-eeee!”
And she was gone.
Even from across the world, we could feel her energy.
“Well, Annalise,” said Auntie Lil. “Onward?”
I put my iPad back in my bag.
“Onward.”
The good thing about our circular journey on the red bus meant that we could visit the island at our own pace. The final stop that we didn’t want to miss was a visit to the Marina Sands SkyPark on top of the Marina Sands building.
“There seems to be a theme to our sightseeing today, Auntie Lil. Everything is very tall,” I commented as the minutes ticked away and the elevator climbed to the top.
“I never thought about it, but you are right,” she said.
We exited the elevator into panoramic views and were speechless at how beautiful the SkyPark’s lush greenery was 57 stories above the city. The wind whipped about us as we strolled arm in arm around the perimeter, mostly silent, stopping once in a while to point out the city’s landmarks.
“Look! There’s the Singapore Flyer!”
“It seems far below us now, doesn’t it?” she said. “I think our hotel is in that direction. And over there is where our music shop is from yesterday.”
“Auntie Lil, we’ve only been here a short time and already had so many adventures.”
“Don’t forget San Francisco,” she pointed out.
“You’re right. And we’ve just begun our journey.”
She glanced at her watch.
“Speaking of which, we’d better get going or we’ll miss our flight.”
“Don’t jinx it, dear,” she laughed as we began our trip down the elevator.
The bus took us to our hotel, where we gathered our bags and managed to zip back to Changi Airport without incident.
“This plane won’t be as big as the last one,” Auntie Lil said. “So we won’t see those amazing premium first-class seats this time.”
“Darn it, Auntie Lil, I was expecting you to surprise me with one,” I laughed.
“Oh, I’d be surprising myself!”
We boarded and got comfortable, but apparently a few passengers were missing, so we needed to wait.
“This flight is long enough without having to wait for people being late,” complained a man a few rows up.
“Do you notice people who speak English seem to talk louder than people who speak other languages?” I whispered to Auntie Lil.
“Take that as a lesson,” she whispered back.
I turned my head back to typing notes in my journal, and in a few moments I heard the English-speaker mutter “Finally.”
Apparently the final latecomer arrived. I jerked my head up to see who could have delayed the trip and found myself staring directly into familiar ebony eyes hooded by serious, sooty eyebrows.
It seemed that Eli Chamberlain was flying to China on this night.
Chapter Seventeen
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nbsp; I quickly ducked my head, and when I carefully peeked over the seat, his face was gone. His seat was farther up front. I leaned over my armrest into the aisle to see if I could see him, and was given a polite but firm tap by a flight attendant to lean back. We started to pull away from the gate almost immediately and were soon taxiing for takeoff.
“What on earth are you doing?” Auntie Lil asked. I had pulled my tablet back out as soon as we were given permission and was banging on the keyboard and mumbling.
“Nothing.” I hunched over my tablet and kept typing furiously.
“Hmm.” Auntie Lil was too sharp to be fooled. She leaned over my shoulder.
“Hey!” I nudged her. “I’m typing here.”
“You’re typing random characters. Unless you took a class in a language I’ve never heard of, or you’re becoming a court reporter, you are flustered. What gives? What did you see?”
By this time we were in the air, so she could unbuckle, and she pushed herself up on her seat to get a better view of the front of the plane. She sat back down with a puzzled look.
“All I see are the backs of heads, most of which have black hair. What shook you like that?”
I took a deep breath.
“Remember how you said I should just forget about the incident at breakfast because I probably wouldn’t see that person in an eon? Well, I guess they don’t make eons like they used to.”
“You’re not making sense.” Auntie Lil shook her head.
“Him. Eli Chamberlain. He’s on the plane.”
“No! How can you be sure?”
“He’s the latecomer. I saw him board.”
She leaned back and smiled.
“It’s not funny, Auntie!”
“I beg to differ! It’s very funny. Here you are, for all intents and purposes STUCK with the very person that you made a fool of yourself—”
“Hey! I thought you were on my side!”
“I am, dear, I am.” She patted my knee. “But this plane isn’t that large. Did he see you?”
“Unfortunately. When he boarded, my head shot up like a groundhog on February 2nd.”
“How delightful!”
“I’m not sure I’d use that adjective.”
“Well, Annalise, what are you going to do?”
“Do? Nothing. I’m going to sit here, and if I see him walk back here, I’m going to pretend to sleep or I’m going to—”
At that moment, I sensed a shadow over my shoulder.
“Mr. Chamberlain, is it?” my aunt’s voice dripped with tea party elegance as she offered her hand across me to the silhouette I could see out of the corner of my eye.
“How interesting to see you two ladies,” he replied.
I took a breath and looked up. I was prepared to match his garden party tones until I saw that he had a napkin.
Tucked.
Into his collar.
Was this some sort of joke? Was this some reference to the chili crab incident? I turned to Auntie Lil, who could barely suppress a grin.
As I turned back to him, I saw a hint of the flashing smile I’d seen at the airport in Denver that day, the smile that went all the way to his eyes.
I was speechless.
“Excuse me.” I pushed my way past him, moved quickly to the lavatory at the rear of the plane, and slammed myself into the tiny cubicle. Staring into the mirror, I could see the bright red spots that had developed on my cheeks.
Who was this, this ... PERSON, who could switch from charming one day to abrupt the next? Then to make fun of me? Who does that?
I must have been in the lavatory for a while because I heard a gentle tapping and an accented “Miss? Are you all right?” from the flight attendant. I smoothed down my hair, exited, smiling, and returned to my seat.
“Well,” Auntie Lil looked up over her reading glasses. “I thought you had taken up residence in there.”
“Not funny. Where’s your friend.”
“I suspect he’s in his seat. Why?”
“Why?”
The problem with having an elderly aunt who didn’t act her age was that she didn’t act her age. Well, she wasn’t pulling me in to a conversation. I yanked my earphones from my bag and ostentatiously inserted them in my ears, making a great show of selecting a tune and raising the volume.
I couldn’t resist making a comment for too long, however, and jerked my earbuds out.
“What did you think about that napkin stunt?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “I thought it was kind of cute.”
“Cute?”
“Sure. It was sweet.”
“Sweet?”
“Annalise, the fact that you are repeating the last word in every sentence I utter is very disturbing.”
“I’ll tell you what’s disturbing. That man’s behavior. Smiling one moment, an ogre the next. It’s like he’s two different people.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
I stared at her.
“Were you not at the restaurant?”
“I didn’t see an ogre. I saw a man who reacted to having dinner spilled in his lap.”
“Just how much wine did you have?”
“A bit more than both of you, since his landed on his shirt,” she grinned.
I refused to address that and replaced my earbuds in my ears.
A moment later, I yanked them out again.
“How did he even know we were on this flight?”
“He didn’t. When he got on, he saw you staring straight at him.”
“I wasn’t staring at him! I looked up to see who the latecomer was and—oh, why am I bothering to explain?”
I jammed my earbuds back in my ears.
A moment later, I pulled them out.
“What about this morning?”
“What about it? He apologized, and you were the one who got snippy.”
“What!”
She took off her glasses and folded them on her lap and turned to me.
“Dear, you are making so much of this. Yes, he had a few moments that were ... less than spectacular, let us say. But, all in all, he seems nice and we don’t really know that much about him, yet.”
“Yet? YET?”
“Now you’re repeating the last word in my sentence twice?”
“Because you are indicating that we’ll talk to him again.”
“Who knows?” she shrugged.
“What did you do while I was gone from my seat?”
“Nothing.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” my eyes turned to slits.
“Oh, Annalise, calm down. All I did was chat with him for a moment. And you do have to admit, we’re in an enclosed space for a finite amount of time, the end of which we will all exit the same path. It’s highly likely that we’ll run into each other again.”
I was silent for a moment.
“You are incredibly logical, Auntie. It’s annoying.”
“And you are making more of this than is necessary. Do yourself—and me, by the way—a favor. Let this go, or even stroll up to his seat and make an apology.” She replaced her reading glasses on her nose and returned to her book.
“I shall take that challenge to prove that I am a big person,” I sniffed. I stood, straightened my outfit, fluffed out my perky bobbed hair, and walked purposefully toward the front of the plane.
Well, I walked as purposefully as one can in a giant flying tube that is jostling back and forth, but you get the picture.
I reached Eli Chamberlain’s seat and was prepared to tap him on the shoulder, but he had on a large pair of Beats headphones with head leaned back and eyes closed.
I scooted back to my row.
“Well?” Auntie Lil said as I hastily buckled myself back into my seat.
“I think he was asleep. Bad form to wake someone up, don’t you think?”
Auntie Lil didn’t respond, but patted my knee and smiled. We both settled in to immerse ourselves in our respective books for the rest of the journey, paus
ing only when the flight attendant brought us our meal.
“This is really good,” I commented as I scooped up the last of my kung pao chicken and rice. Fruit and a small piece of cake awaited for dessert. “We’ve certainly been getting well fed on every flight.”
“Back in the old days, we used to get a full meal on every flight, no matter where we flew,” said Auntie Lil.
“I know. I’m spoiled now. How will I ever go back to being satisfied with that tiny bag of pretzels and a cup of soda when I fly?”
“Have your mother pack a meatball hoagie?” Auntie Lil suggested.
“I don’t know. I think I’d get mugged for it by my seatmate.”
No sooner had we finished our food and enjoyed a delicious cup of jasmine tea than we were prepared for landing.
“Will we meet your group at the airport?” I asked as we organized our belongings.
“No, they’ll be at the hotel.”
“Do you think they’re asleep by now?” I looked at my watch.
“I doubt it, but who knows? I only communicated with the organizer of this trip by email. I don’t know any of them.”
“This should be interesting.”
“What’s interesting is how you are avoiding looking toward the front of the plane.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I sniffed.
“Well, I can see Eli Chamberlain from here, and I’m sure that we can catch up to him as we exit so that you can have the opportunity to set things right.”
I peered over the seat in front of me and could see Eli chatting with the flight attendant as he was waiting to exit. He smiled as he turned toward me, and I ducked my head rather than catch his eye.
Darn! What was wrong with me? All I needed to do was make a cursory apology for my behavior, and I would probably not need to talk with him again. We were landing here in Xi’an to sightsee, and I’m sure that he was here to make some sort of high-tech business deal, so this would be a natural parting. Maybe I’d catch him as we exited the Jetway. How hard could that be?
Oh. Right.
I completely forgot about the fact that we would encounter all sorts of red tape going through customs and collecting luggage. By the time the people from the front of the plane had scurried through the airport, and the rest of us managed to deplane, I lost track of Eli Chamberlain in a sea of dark-haired people.
Passports and Plum Blossoms Page 11