take it out on her if he had a bad day at the office, but it’s the boys’ admiration that he craves, not hers.”
“If you believe that, you’re crazy!”
Whatever this is, it is not the notorious English reticence.
Our fellow travelers are all on their way south or northeast, so the departure lounge in which we wait for our flight is only half-full and quiet. Giles, ambling along the window front, both hands dug deep into his pockets, bag slung over his shoulder, seems to contemplate the airfield bathed in the pinkish-gray light of the rising sun. Seeing him there, out of his natural habitat, my face softens, my whole body softens.
I know in my head that making love with him tonight would be a really stupid idea, but my heart and my belly know not from reason.
His seat is on the other side of the plane, a few rows behind mine, but when I look up after extracting gum, pen, and manuscript from my bag and stowing it under the seat in front of me, he is standing above me, elbows propped against the overhead locker.
“I hope you wouldn’t have preferred sitting next to that nice lady who changed seats with me.”
I raise myself to look across the rows of seats and see a middle-aged woman in colored knitwear wave at me. I wave back and mouth a thank you.
“What did you tell her?”
His grin deepens and he slumps into his seat, suddenly no more than a few inches away from me, closer even than in the car. So much for the nap I had hoped to take during the flight.
“Oh, never mind.” He pretends to be interested in my manuscript. “I can be very persuasive if I want to be.”
I decide to let that one pass and go for small talk. “Have you ever been to Notre Dame?”
“‘South Bend! That sounds like dancing, doesn’t it?’” he says in a falsetto voice.
“Katherine Hepburn. In The Philadelphia Story.”
“Well done.” He crosses his long legs and squirms in his seat so that his back is half turned toward the aisle and his body creates a little cocoon of privacy for us. “If you can tell me who she says it to, I’ll buy you a cocktail before dinner.” He leans the side of his head against the head rest and watches me expectantly.
“Gin and tonic, please. She says it to James Stewart’s character, the journalist. Mike. She asks Mike where he’s from, he says South Bend, Indiana, and she repeats it in that high, affected voice.”
I turn away from the window, ever so slightly, turn toward him, lean the side of my head against my headrest and smile. I am allowed to smile at him. The plane starts backing out of its berth, and suddenly the whole cabin is flooded with sunlight.
I am dancing on the edge of an abyss.
“Aren’t you a little too young for screwball comedy?” he teases me.
“Are you kidding me? I had a whole shelf full of MGMs from the thirties and forties. Cary Grant, mainly. But I’ve never seen Die Hard 17, or The Return of the Killer Terminator, or Saddles on Fire, or any of those.”
“You’re a nostalgic soul.”
“Yes, I know.” Nostalgic for a time when the world watched as six million of my people were murdered. We all have contradictions in our lives.
“James Stewart or Cary Grant?” he asks.
The moment the plane accelerates to take us out of our rigidly circumscribed social roles, we turn into teenagers, lying on a beach or hanging out in the park, comparing lists. Bands, films, actors, writers. I know what this is. We are curious about each other, and we are talking as if we were going to have sex tonight, as if we needed to find out whether we would work. We are getting personal with each other although we have decided that there is no point in getting personal, because we can’t get physical. This is like eating an irresistibly delicious piece of cake knowing that there is a bitter nut in there somewhere, so you go on eating but you chew very, very carefully.
“Cary Grant.” I sigh like a foolish teenager, and he laughs.
“Thought so! Top three Cary Grant films?”
“No, no, my turn! Which Hepburn?”
He takes his time gazing at my face and smiles when I blush.
“Audrey,” he says. “With Katherine’s mouth on her. Now you. Top three Cary Grant films.”
“Well, Philadelphia Story is high up there, and Holiday is a lovely movie. Most of the