Summer Blowout

by Claire Cook

  “Dean Martin was Italian?” I asked.

  “Born Dino Crocetti,” my mother said. My father beamed at her.

  “All the great romantics are Italian,” my father said. My mother beamed at him.

  All this beaming was really getting on my nerves. My father was wearing an orange track suit with royal blue racing stripes. His red cornicello with the gold cap and thick gold chain really popped against it, and his black sneakers with the fluorescent green stripes added to the color burst.

  “Wow,” I said. “Guess we won’t lose you two.”

  My parents kept licking their ice cream cones and looking at each other.

  I squinted at them. “You two didn’t actually drive in together, did you?”

  “That’s why they call it a personal life, honey,” my mother said.

  “That’s not a dog in that backpack, is it?” my father asked.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “I guess I’ll go find someplace to sit down.”

  “Fine, dear,” they both said at pretty much the same time.

  As soon as I found a seat out of earshot, I let Cannoli out so she could sit on my lap and called Mario’s cell phone.

  He answered on the second ring. “Don’t tell me you missed your flight,” he said.

  “Oh, ye of no faith,” I said. “I’m even early. How ’bout that?”

  “Did you bring that dog?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Guess what? You’re never going to believe this. Mom and Dad are on the same flight.”

  “Well, buffer it as much as you can, because they’re just going to have to deal.”

  “Oh, they’re dealing all right,” I said. “Believe me. It almost seems like they’re flirting with each other.”

  “Well, I’m glad they’re at least being civil. Maybe Dad’s the date Mom was talking about bringing.”

  “That’s hilarious.” I checked my watch. “So, how’s it going down there?”

  Mario laughed. “Oh, it’s an adventure, all right. One of Amy’s uncles dragged us along for an impromptu bachelor party last night. At a big Atlanta strip club.”

  “Gay or straight?” I asked.

  “Ha,” Mario said.

  I tried to read his voice. “Are they treating you and Todd okay?”

  “Oh, they’re fine with gays down here. It’s northerners they hate.”

  “Cut it out,” I said.

  “I’m not kidding. Lots of tasteful little confederate flags flying everywhere. Apparently they’re still fighting the Civil War.”

  “Who knew,” I said.

  “Just wait. I hear they’re fixin’ to fix okra at the reception.”

  “No,” I said. “Will we have to eat it, do you think?”

  “Everybody down here calls Andrew Bahs-tin.”

  “What do they call you and Todd?”

  “Bahs-tin. Or girlfriend. Depends.”

  “Oh, boy,” I said.

  A voice blared over the loudspeaker. “At this time we will begin boarding Flight Six Seventy-five with service to Atlanta and continuing on to Paris. We invite our first-class passengers, and those passengers traveling with small children or requiring a few extra minutes, to board.”

  “Listen,” I said. “I gotta go. They’re starting to board.”

  I hung up my phone, turned it off, and tucked it into my shoulder bag.

  “Okay, Cannoli,” I said. “You’re going into the backpack again, and you’re just going to have to deal with it until I can find a way to sneak you out.”

  I hooked the harness to her collar and zipped her in. I looked up. A handful of people, mostly wearing business suits and carrying briefcases, were working their way past the person taking the first-class boarding passes.

  One of them turned around and waved.

  It was Sean Ryan.

  24

  IF I COULD HAVE WALKED TO ATLANTA, I WOULD have. I would even have climbed right onto the plane they used for filming Snakes on a Plane, if it could have kept me off this one. I would have seriously preferred to face all that venom wiggling down from the overhead compartments than Sean Ryan any day.

  If only I could think of a way to get to coach without passing through first class. Whose idea was it to put it up at the front of the plane anyway? I could see the plane through the terminal windows, so I could tell it was one of the gigantic ones. There would probably be not one, but two aisles. That meant I had a fifty-fifty chance of picking the aisle that didn’t go by him.

  “At this time we will begin boarding zone E,” the voice on the loudspeaker said so suddenly I jumped. “Please remove your boarding pass from the folder and have it ready as you approach.”

  Cannoli and I surged forward and funneled into a line with the rest of our group. I handed my boarding pass to the attendant, who held it under the scanner and handed it back. Halfway down the covered ramp to the plane, Cannoli started to whimper like crazy. I rolled her backpack over to the side.

  A woman with shoe polish hair stopped beside us. “You better not be seated next to me,” she said. “I’m allergic to dogs.”

  “She’s totally hypoallergenic,” I said.

  The woman shook her head and started walking again. I resisted the urge to tell her I was allergic to her hair color. I unzipped Cannoli and popped her into my shoulder bag. “Be cool,” I said.

  “Hey there,” a pretty blond flight attendant said as I walked up the covered ramp to the plane.

  “Hey there,” I whispered. I was trying to peek into the first-class cabin so I could figure out which was the safest aisle.

  She took my boarding pass out of my hand, looked at it, then pointed to the far aisle. “This way, sugar.”

  “Thanks, sugar,” I whispered.

  I held my head high. I’d said what I said and that was it. Life goes on. I kept my eyes focused on the back of the plane. I had places to go, things to do, a seat to find.

  People were taking forever to get their stuff up in the overhead bins, so the progress was painfully slow. We’d all take a step, wait some more, take another step. The guy in front of me was a real shedder. Short wisps of hair and huge flakes of dandruff drifted down the back of his black sports coat. I wondered if he’d tried Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Shampoo. Adding B vitamins to his diet might help, too, especially vitamin B6. A healthy head starts from the inside.

  Cannoli wiggled her way up until her front paws were braced on the edge of my shoulder bag.

  “Easy,” I whispered. “We’re almost there.”

  Cannoli jumped.

  A woman screamed. “What was that?” somebody said.

  I looked down. Sean Ryan was holding Cannoli, who was deliriously licking his face.

  The pretty blond flight attendant pushed her way past the line. “All animals must be confined to approved carriers for the duration of the flight, or you will be asked to deplane immediately,” she said.

  “Gee,” I said. “What happened to sugar?”

  The flaky guy cleared his throat and let out an exasperated sigh.

  “Hello. I’d like to get there today,” somebody behind me said. I could feel people glaring at me from all directions.

  My left arm, the one that was attached to the approved carrier, was twisted behind me. I gave it a yank. Cannoli’s backpack crashed into my hip and then bounced against Sean Ryan’s oversize first-class seat.

  He grabbed it out of my hand and tucked it under the roomy seat in front of him.

  The flight attendant flashed him a dazzling smile. “Oh, sir,” she said. “I didn’t realize the bitty critter was with you. Can you just do me a favor and tuck him back into his little case until we get off the ground, sugar? I’ll see if I can find him a cookie in just another minute.”

  I couldn’t avoid it anymore, so I looked at Sean Ryan. He smiled.

  “Lady,” somebody said behind me. “Let’s go.”

  I reached down and scratched Cannoli behind her ear. “Traitor,” I whispered.

  THERE
WASN’T A LOT TO DO once I got to my seat, and there certainly wasn’t much room to do it in. I was on the aisle, but the woman next to me already had her arm on my armrest, and there was no way she was giving it up. I leaned into her and tried to edge out an inch or two. No go.

  So I closed my eyes and tried to pretend it was all a bad dream. Maybe Sean Ryan hadn’t even checked his messages. Maybe he only used his cell phone and his home phone didn’t even work anymore, and they’d just forgotten to disconnect the voice mail. Not that I’d done anything wrong. So, okay, I’d left a few messages. Where was the crime in trying to get a little closure? And it’s not like I’d left that many of them. If the beep interrupts you, you don’t have to count the next call as a whole separate message. Everybody knows that. And, bottom line, he was the one who should be embarrassed. What kind of guy tells a girl he’ll go to a wedding and then disappears on her?

  I opened my eyes and looked around. The glow of my father’s scalp up ahead in coach caught my eye. He was tilted way over toward the seat next to him, where I could see a shock of gray hair. That was some great big coincidence that they’d ended up sitting together on the plane. I heard a burst of laughter that could only be my mother’s.

  I closed my eyes again.

  “BELLA,” SOMEBODY WHISPERED. I was in the middle of a dream. Craig was dressed like a plumber, with one of those big tool belts around his waist. His pants were hanging low, exposing an endless crack, and he was leaning over my toilet with a plunger.

  “Sophia loves it when I wear this,” he was just saying when I woke up.

  “She snores just like you,” Sean Ryan said. For a minute, I thought he was talking about Sophia. I wiped my hand across my mouth, in case I was drooling, and then rubbed my eyes, stalling for time.

  Finally I looked up. Sean Ryan was holding Cannoli. It takes a lot of guts to walk around a plane with an uncrated dog, although he did have an airline blanket wrapped over his shoulders to conceal her.

  “Is that what the other half wears in first class?” I asked.

  He adjusted his blanket and raised a well-shaped eyebrow. “Do I sense some hostility directed at business travelers with a surplus of frequent flyer miles?”

  While I was sleeping, the woman next to me had let her elbow drift from my half of the armrest to take over some of my personal seat space. I stretched and leaned into it, hard. “No, not at all,” I said. “I’m happy for you and your miles. And once I can feel my toes again, I’m sure my disposition will improve.”

  “Do you want to switch seats for a while?” he asked.

  “That’s okay,” I said.

  “I’ll take it,” the woman next to me said.

  Sean Ryan and I looked at each other. I felt the same little jolt I’d felt back in the salon right before our almost kiss. He nodded his head toward the back of the plane.

  “Save my seat,” I said to the woman next to me.

  A couple of flight attendants were standing in the back of the plane chatting, so we stopped in the aisle just in front of the two bathrooms.

  A man walked up and stood behind us. Sean Ryan gestured to the bathroom. “It’s all yours,” he said.

  “Thanks, pal,” the man said.

  “So,” I said when he disappeared.

  “So,” Sean Ryan said.

  We both waited.

  “You never called me,” I said.

  He put a hand on my arm, then took it away. “Listen, I’m sorry. I was traveling this week, an island off the coast of Ecuador….”

  “Oh, puh-lease,” I said. “Like they don’t have phones in Ecuador.”

  He shrugged.

  “And your lights were on. I mean, I bet your lights were on.”

  “They’re on timers.” He blew out a puff of air. Cannoli licked his cheek. “Listen, here’s the thing. I have a business conflict. I didn’t want to have to explain it.”

  “Ohmigod, so you are a drug dealer.”

  He shifted Cannoli in his arms. “What are you talking about?”

  “What are you talking about?” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked right at him.

  He looked right back at me. His hazel eyes had flecks of gold in them. “Okay,” he said. “I should have called you. There really is a business conflict. I also have this bad habit of ending up as somebody’s rebound relationship. No way I’m going there again.”

  At this point, I was so confused I couldn’t quite remember whether I even wanted to go there anymore, or even where there was, for that matter. But the more he seemed to be rejecting me, the more I was convinced he might be wrong. I took a little step forward and tried to think of something brilliant to say. “But…” was all I could come up with.

  “Listen,” he said. “You hit the nail on the head. I think it was in your fourth message, although maybe it was the fifth.” He smiled.

  “Cute,” I said.

  “You were right about the stars. Timing is everything.”

  I shut my eyes.

  “I’m not denying the chemistry, Bella. You’re smart, you’re beautiful…”

  I opened my eyes again. I was really starting to like this guy.

  “…and somebody is going to be lucky to have you in his life someday. But, I’ve been there. You’ve still got some stages to go through. You probably haven’t even had hot sad sex with your ex yet.”

  My jaw dropped. The two people sitting on the aisle seats closest to us turned to look. I shut my mouth again. There was absolutely nothing I could say without incriminating myself.

  Cannoli started trying to wiggle her way out of Sean Ryan’s arms. He handed her over to me, then took the first-class blanket off and wrapped it around my shoulders.

  “Fine,” I said. “We’ll just be kit buddies. Is the left side of your table still open tomorrow?”

  Sean Ryan narrowed his eyes. “You brought your kits with you?”

  “Never leave home without them,” I said. He didn’t say anything, so I decided to push my luck. “And you’ve got to eat, so you might as well come to my nephew’s wedding.”

  Sean Ryan massaged his forehead with one hand. “Okay, you can come to the college fair,” he said. “But, for the record, this goes completely against my better judgment.”

  “Relax,” I said. “We’ll keep a table length between us at all times.”

  “But not the wedding,” Sean Ryan said. “I can’t go to your nephew’s wedding.”

  25

  SEAN RYAN HAD A BUSINESS DINNER THAT NIGHT, or at least he said he did. He offered to drop me off at my hotel, but I told him I had plans, which was a big fat lie.

  After we got off the plane, he held Cannoli while I used the bathroom, then I watched his carry-on while he did. I looked around for an indoor patch of grass for Cannoli, who had the tiniest bladder of us all, but no such luck.

  “Thanks,” he said when he came out. I noticed he’d washed his face and tidied up his hair in the men’s room. I wondered if he’d done it for me or for the person he was meeting for dinner.

  “Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” my mother’s voice said behind me. She and my father giggled like a couple of kids and kept walking right by us.

  “Do you know those people?” Sean Ryan asked. He grabbed his carry-on with one hand and Cannoli’s empty backpack with the other.

  I shook my head. “Apparently not,” I said. “But they used to be my parents.”

  We watched them for a moment. Somehow my father’s arm was around my mother’s shoulders. Sean Ryan cleared his throat and looked away. “Well, isn’t that nice to see,” he said. “How long have they been married?”

  “They’re not,” I said. “They hate each other. And I can’t believe they’re not worried about me. I mean, you could be anyone.”

  We started walking, my parents’ sweat suits like faraway fluorescent beacons in front of us. We took an escalator down and stepped onto a tram. The Atlanta airport must have been about a million miles long. I kept thinking we were going to be
in Texas by the time we got out, but it was only the baggage claim area.

  “Okay, then,” Sean Ryan said after we caught our luggage as it came by on the turnstile. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at your hotel at eleven.”

  “Don’t be late,” I said. I reached out my hand to shake his hand.

  He laughed.

  “Hey, you made the rules,” I said.

  He leaned over and gave me a little peck on my cheek, and I tried not to notice his Paul Mitchell Extra-Body Sculpting Foam. He reached over to pet Cannoli in my shoulder bag. “Take good care of her,” he said. I wasn’t sure which one of us he was talking to.

  Sean Ryan, Cannoli, and I all followed the signs out to the ground transportation area. He turned right, so we went left. There wasn’t even a hint of fall here. It was at least thirty degrees warmer than it had been back home in Marshbury.

  There also wasn’t one single bit of grass or dirt outside the airport. Even the median strip was a concrete sidewalk. Where did Atlanta’s pet travelers pee? Maybe city dogs just learned to use the sidewalk. We kept walking. It looked like if we crossed the road that all the cars used to get onto the highway, we might come to a planted-up area, but we also might get killed.

  Finally, I just lifted Cannoli up and plopped her down on a great big ashtray built into the top of a trash barrel. “Good thing you’re not a German shepherd,” I said.

  She looked up at me in disbelief. There were a couple of cigarette butts and the nasty-looking remnants of a cigar, but as far as ashtrays went, it was pretty clean.

  “Come on,” I said. “Cats do it all the time. Just try to think of it as a litter box.”

  Finally her Chihuahua-size bladder won out. I glanced away to give her some privacy. Two women looked over and whispered something to each other, too polite to say it to my face. Clearly, we weren’t in Boston anymore.

  We walked back to ground transportation. I was pretty sure I remembered Mario telling me something about shuttles being available, but I wasn’t sure if they would be pet friendly, so I decided to splurge and treat us to a cab.