Up in the Air

“California tomorrow,” I say when she returns, rosy-cheeked and smelling of moist towelettes. “You know how, in magazine food surveys you read, it rivals New York now? I think that’s wrong.”

“How so?”

“I just think it’s wrong. Where you headed after Reno?”

“Back to Salt Lake City. I just moved there.”

“Are you a Mormon?”

“No. They’re trying, though. I like having people coming to the door.”

“They wear undergarments they claim are bulletproof. I swear it. They’ll tell you stories of stopping bullets.”

“I haven’t heard that one yet.”

“Just date a Mormon.”

“I thought they didn’t date.”

“They date like mad. And they’re ready with the engagement ring, first night.”

I stop. This is getting too interesting, too personal.

“You’re sure it was my cat you saw, not someone else’s? They lose them, I’ve heard. People’s pets wind up in Greece.”

“What’s that movie called, Amazing Journey? The one where the family relocates to a new town and their dog walks a thousand miles or something to find them? I think it fights a bear along the way.”

“There are more than one of those movies. It’s a genre.”

“I know that word, but I’ve never quite spit it out. Pronunciation anxiety.”

“I know. I’m like that with ‘cigarillo.’ Hard l?”

“For me.”

“I don’t think that’s right, though.”

“I’ll check sometime.”

It’s working: we’re barely looking at each other and there’s the Reno skyline. Ten more minutes. The only threat is our pride; mine smarts a little. Our agreement—the one I drew up for both of us—called for a tender, reluctant edging away, not total detachment. Can’t we reassess this? After all, this is Reno we’re visiting, a city whose whole economy is founded on errors in judgment and doomed trysts. Can’t we at least acknowledge the bitter tang of having grown so prudent with our bodies?

No, because now the drunk is acting up again, heckling the flight attendant for cutting him off. He flicks an ice cube at her, cackles, snorts, his face a chaotic red clown’s mask. Alex flinches. Given how much she flies, she should be used to this—these outbursts of entitled rage—but she cowers like a baby rabbit. My chance to put a fatherly arm around her? I’m considering it when the copilot strides up, cinematically handsome in his uniform and cutting such a capable male figure that any protective move on my part would only come off as puny and derivative. He threatens the drunk with arrest when we touch down. He raises one arm. The drunk sputters, then falls silent. The copilot orders the man to fetch the ice cube and stands there, hands on his hips, while he bends down.

The miniature drama has sealed us in our own skins. Alex retrieves her inhaler. She looks spent. She’s ready to pick up her kitten, hail a cab, and curl up in bed to the sound of Headline News. She’ll eat a room service salad with the curtains drawn, then sneak a Snickers from the mini-bar. She’ll jam in earplugs, don a blackout mask, and lay down with her clothes on for a dreamless nap.

In no time we’re at the gate and on our feet, shuffling out of the plane like day care toddlers holding one of those ropes with all the loops. I walk a step behind her. It’s goodbye.

“Good luck with that witch of a senator.”

“I’ll need it.”

“That Colonial checkout procedure? They’ve streamlined it. You might want to give them another shot.”

“I will.”

Where do they go when they leave me? The last I see of her, she’s standing by the baggage carousel, fluffing her hair and waiting for the pet crate. I’d be surprised if the kitten arrived alive, and I realize that I’ve been suppressing real anger at Alex for risking its health just to ease her loneliness. That was my job, her seatmate’s, but she let me go. And I let her go. We forgot that in Airworld each other is all we have.

four

i used to try to be interesting. That passed. Now I try to be pleasant and on time.

That will be impossible today. Behind the rental car counter a dull trainee labors to slip a key onto a ring and fold my contract to fit inside its envelope. He should be in college, judging by his age, but instead he’s already failing at his first job. After he runs my credit card—still frozen; I have to use my AmEx from ISM, which generates no miles—he manages to drop it and step on it, scratching and ruining the magnetic strip. The kid’s pathetic excuse is greasy hands; he just finished eating a box of chicken strips. I tell him he’d better evaluate his goals and he acts as though I’ve complimented him, thanking me and handing me a map.

“Excuse me, what’s your job?” I say.

“My job? Filling out rental agreements.”

“No it’s not. Your job is providing a service that meets a need.”

He stares at me.