should elevate its owner. That puts me in the minority, but so be it. This isn’t well known, but I count among my clients the American Lutheran Church. That calls for standards.”
I’m inspired. I truly am. The man’s a giant. And to think that, just now, I have him to myself.
“I’ll tell you what I told the Lutheran bishops: load up on Chase Manhattan under sixty. Chase is your baby. A house upon a rock.”
The flight’s only stop is Elko, and knowing Elko, no one will get on or off when we set down. A curious city— Basque restaurants on every corner, a few small casinos, miles of trailer parks, and a Main Street boutique that sells candy panties to prostitutes. I once spent an evening there with a billionaire, 104th on the Forbes 400 list, whose family toy firm I’d been called in to downsize. The man was shopping for a hobby ranch and was eager to visit a brothel, but not alone. He had me hold his wallet in case of trouble and I found myself poking through it while he partied. I felt that a billionaire’s wallet might teach me something. Inside I found an expired driver’s license whose photo convinced me the man had had a face-lift. Also, a credit card. White. Not platinum, white. When I think of Elko I think of that pale card, of what it could buy. Whole states. The desert itself. After the billionaire finished with his girl, we returned to his jet, which had twin sleeping cabins. I heard him masturbating through the bulkhead, seducing himself in a made-up female voice that sounded like one of those singing-chipmunk records.
What you don’t want, I remember thinking that night, is to feature in such a man’s dreams. I’m scared of billionaires, though not for the same reasons my father was. If their goal was just world domination, we’d all be safer; the problems arise when they tamper with individuals.
I turn on my tape again, then click it off. Too many words in one day and I go fuzzy. The flight attendant leans close. I’m sure I know her.
“Sir?”
“You’re Denise. Chicago–Los Angeles.”
“Just reassigned last week.” She quiets her voice. “We’re having difficulties with a passenger. The man in the golf shirt”—she points—“beside the lady there?”
“Yes?”
“He’s intoxicated. He’s bothering her. I know you’re enjoying having your own row here . . .”
“Not at all. Bring her up. I’ll move my things.”
“She’s flying through to Reno.”
“Send her up.”
I form first impressions more quickly than other people. The woman’s sense of space is complicated; her every movement seems to be a choice between precisely two alternatives, one wholly right, the other completely wrong. She pauses, and in her pause she weighs decisions, rising halfway from her seat, then all the way, rotating her shoulders and then her neck, each action acute and separate, like an insect’s. It’s not unattractive, the way she stops and starts, but it speaks of a certain painful doubleness, as though she once suffered a paralyzing accident and had to retrain her muscles through therapy. I was in such an accident myself once, though the damage it caused is not for me to judge.
Instead of letting her past me to the window seat, I scoot over one space, my briefcase on my lap. After being trapped beside the drunk, the woman will want an open exit path.
“That jerk,” she says.
“They’re everywhere these days.”
“I’m afraid I attract them. I must send out some signal.”
“It’s the luck of the draw. We’re seated by computer.”
So here we are. It’s all decided now: in what tone of voice we’ll converse, how close we’ll sit, how far we’ll delve into each other’s stories. Such negotiations happen quickly—they’re over before you’re aware they’ve even begun, and everything that follows between two strangers just extends this instant contract. We’ve already faced a common foe, the drunk, and established our superior humanity, but that will be the sum of it, I’ll wager. Our vectors are fixed: ever onward, parallel, but fated not to touch or cross. Romance needs conflict, a collision course, but we’ve been doomed to agreement, to empathy.
She’s not the one. The list grows ever shorter. We’ll joke and kid, we’ll discover odd affinities, but it’s over between us, and I’m relieved.
“They shouldn’t have served him. He boarded stinking,” she says. “I thought the FAA had rules on that.”
“They’re only enforced in economy and coach. Welcome to the jungle.”
“I’m Alex.”
“Ryan.”
Alex, I’d guess, is an artist of some kind, though not the highbrow type that I dislike. She works on contract. She’s learned to sell herself. Her ugly glasses are the giveaway; their dark, chunky frames, which are just this side of dowdy, have an ironic, thrift-shop quality meant to convey independence and eclecticism. Before CTC, when I still did marketing, I worked with graphic designers from time to time; accessories meant everything to them. They’d wear a burlap sack for pants if they could find a cute belt to hold it up.
“Going to Reno for work or for the action?”
She frowns. “The action?”
“The gambling,” I say. I can see that Alex doesn’t bet, but I sense she regards herself as a free spirit. She’ll be flattered that I could mistake her for a player.
“No, but I’d love to learn. I like the craps tables. All the backchat, all the jabbering. I’m here on work—I coordinate events.”
