Flight

“You have other brothers and sisters?”

He looked away but answered, “No.”

She was studying him, he knew, seeing the evasion. He pretended to be engaging in the cop’s habit he had already observed in her — the habit of staying aware of one’s surroundings, of the people who moved in and out of any room. But he knew she was watching only him.

He tried to impartially consider what she was seeing. That he was older, undoubtedly. She was about eight or ten years his junior — somewhere in her early thirties. She was probably deciding he was too old for her. While he was tall and slender — too thin, some would say — he was not at all handsome. His features were harsh. He was intelligent, but not a conversationalist, not a charmer. It occurred to him that most women would have liked a quieter place to dine, decorated with something other than airplane parts.

“It’s not a very fancy place—” he began.

“It’s comfortable.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “The food is plain here, but good. The steaks are the best in Las Piernas. I should have asked before — are you a vegetarian?”

She shook her head. He signaled to Marie, who quickly came to take their orders. They waited in silence until she brought their wine. Searching for another topic of conversation, he said, “Tell me about your family.”

“I have two brothers, one fifteen years older, the other, twelve years older — they refer to me as ‘the retirement package.’ My parents were both forty-five when I was born — they’re no longer living. I’m close to my brothers, though. They both live in Santa Barbara.”

He studied her, just as she had studied him, all the while wondering why he had no gift for flirtation. After years of spurning overtures, of letting subtle and not-so-subtle invitations go unanswered — he found himself curiously unwilling to waste this chance. There was something waiting to begin here, but how to make that beginning? He might compliment her on her green eyes and dark hair — tell her that he liked the way she wore her hair tonight, perhaps? Not pinned up, as usual, but falling in soft curls across her shoulders. But why should she care what he liked, after all? Did any woman really want a man to say such things? Certainly, no woman would want a man to tell her that her skin was the color of walnuts. Walnuts were wrinkly things — nuts, for God’s sake. What a poet you are, Lefebvre! A real smooth operator. Still, to his eye, her skin was just that lovely, creamy brown color—

He realized she had stopped talking and was looking at him with — impatience?

“You’re wondering what I am,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“I’m used to it.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh.” She blushed.

You see? he told himself. Walnuts do not blush. Of all the things—

“I saw you looking at my skin.”

Now he blushed.

She smiled. “You were thinking, let’s see…”

For an awful moment, he wondered if she would somehow guess.

“You wouldn’t put it like Hitch did,” she went on. “So you wouldn’t say, ‘What kind of goddamned mutt are you, anyway?’”

“Mutt?” he repeated blankly.

“I admired his directness, actually. So much better than being told I’m ‘exotic.’”

The look on his face must have made her realize that he hadn’t been thinking about her ethnicity at all, because she faltered, then said, “Oh,” again — this time, a sound of both pleasure and embarrassment.

“I wasn’t—”

“I know,” she said quickly. “I mean, I see that now.” She hesitated, then rapidly forged ahead. “You’re lucky to know both French and English. Even though your last name is French, when people read your ID card, they probably don’t expect you to speak the language—”

“They don’t even know how to say my last name,” he said, looking mildly amused. “And I know I cannot ever teach most of them to say it — the sounds aren’t found in English, so…” He shrugged. “I’m known as ‘Leyfeb,’ ‘Le- fever,’ ‘La-five,’ ‘Luh-fave.’ Usually I tell them it almost rhymes with ‘ever,’ and then they’re really confused.”

“Tell me how to say it.”

“The way my cousins in Maine say it? Or the way my father said it?”

“The way you say it.”

He smiled. “Phil.”

“No, come on.”

“Okay. ‘Luh-fevre.’ A short e, then a soft ‘vre’ sound.” He repeated it.

She tried it.

“Almost. You’re rolling the r — you’re making it Spanish.” He said his name a few more times.

She repeated it back until he said, “Yes, now you have it. Now — you were about to tell me more about your name. Rosario.”