Truth in Advertising Page 0,126

brown boots and cashmere sweater her mother gave her for Christmas. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is down and she is wearing her glasses. How strange to see her differently. The eye doctor does the test and says, “Better or worse?” A slight alteration in the curve of the glass can change the acuity, change your vision. And in the flick of his wrist things come into view.

“You certainly do a good first date,” she says, smiling. I can smell her shampoo and it smells like grapefruit.

I take her by the shoulders and move her so that her back is to the large board with the long list of departure destinations.

I say, “Pick a number.”

Phoebe says, “One million nine.”

I say, “There are twenty lines on the departure board behind you. The number you pick is the place we’re flying to tonight.”

People say, if you could do anything, if money were no object, what would you do? I’ve never known the answer to that question. I’ve never had a passion, a hobby, a calling. Except now. Money no object. I want to be with her. I want to tell her everything. To tell her the truth.

Phoebe says, “Can I look?”

“No.”

“I think I saw Cape Town. I think I saw Rome. I think I saw Mumbai.”

“Pick a number.”

“Oh, God.” She’s grinning. “Nine. No. Wait. Yes. Nine.”

I look up at the board, count nine lines down. Marrakech.

Phoebe says, “Where is it?”

I have been waiting for my life to begin.

It takes me a while to find the words. I say, “I don’t know how to do this.”

She moves my hand from my face, from my scar.

She says, “You want to know how to do this?”

“Yes.”

“There are two steps. Give me your hands.”

I extend my arms and she takes hold of my hands.

She says, “You just learned the first step.”

“What’s the second?” I ask.

“Don’t let go.”

• • •

I remember the day I bought the tickets. I was going to get married and go on a honeymoon in Italy with my wife. People did this all the time. I used miles. First class. But they still cost more than I’d ever thought I’d spend on airplane tickets. Or a used car for that matter. The big trip. They were my fear-of-flying tickets. My fear-of-life tickets.

Phoebe and I walked to the ticketing window at JFK. Just after 2 P.M. I figured we’d get our tickets, have lunch, book a hotel online, sit in the Admirals Club until our flight.

The agent typed in the reservation number. You can sense a thing before you know it, in the details: a slight squint, a small tilt of the head, eyes blinking faster.

“Mr. Dolan,” she said. “I think there’s been a mistake. These tickets have expired, sir.”

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“I’m sorry, sir. Here, look.”

I looked, half listened. I’d waited a year for this. We have luggage. We have passports. Phoebe started laughing. “So what’s our second date?”

Which is how it came to be that instead of boarding the first-class cabin on an American Airlines Boeing 777-400 to Marrakech, we boarded the AirTrain from JFK to the A train at Howard Beach, transferring at Atlantic Avenue for the N train, making all local stops to Coney Island. And there, at Nathan’s, in a gray, misty, half-light of dusk, is where we dined on wrinkled frankfurters, soggy fries, and watery beer. It’s where, sitting on a stool looking out the window at the old wooden rollercoaster, with a homeless man asleep two tables away, I told Phoebe I loved her.

It wasn’t the big trip. But it was a trip. I took ten days off, slept in. We drank coffee, wandered the city like tourists. Skating at Bryant Park, an afternoon at the Frick, rode the Staten Island Ferry. I had never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. The weather was terrible. Cold and windy, freezing rain. It was perfect.

• • •

And then one day I went back.

Martin had told Frank and Dodge about my father, the ashes. I have to say they were very kind, considering how easy it would have been to fire me.

There is a part of me that would like to say that I did quit. It seems so much more heroic. But I do not think that’s how it works. Not today. Not in a good job, with high unemployment and real pain out there. I do not think we up and leave our lives. We don’t make huge changes for the most part. Subtle shifts, small