“Two?”
“I would like to come also.”
There was a long pause. “Aren’t you teaching?”
“My T.A.s can fill in for a couple of days.”
“This might take longer—”
“Or the whole week. They’ll be fine.”
Another pause. “Okay.”
He pressed on. “I see the flight you’re talking about. It looks like it has . . . eight free seats. Two are even together, in the last row. Why don’t I buy them?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You buy yours, I’ll buy mine.”
“Okay. Do you want 36B or 36C?”
“I don’t care.”
“I’ll take 36B. It’s 3:45 now, I can leave by 4:15, I’ll be at the airport by nine.”
“See you at the gate, I guess.” She ended the call.
Yes, it had sounded like she was hesitant to sit next to him. But perhaps he was overinterpreting. They were on good terms, weren’t they? Ten minutes later, in the middle of packing his bag, he went back online to check the seating map, saw that 36C was now taken, and noted that he felt relief. Which is why he thanked her here in the airport for letting him come along. But she thought he was being sarcastic. He wonders if he should try to explain his thinking. He hates misunderstandings. But it’s likely she’s way ahead of him. Best to drop it.
“How have you been?” he asks.
She gives him what he thinks might be an incredulous look. “Terrible, of course. How have you been?”
“I didn’t mean—I mean, this part is obvious—or I mean, I understand about this part—I meant, other than this, how have you been? Your work, and so on?”
“Fine.” She waves the word away to suggest that she doesn’t mean fine, or not fine, or anything evaluative. “I don’t have energy to talk about any of that.” She shifts in her chair, pulls her scarf higher around her neck. Mark remembers that she’s often cold in indoor public spaces. It’s clear she’s anxious, and now that he’s in her presence Mark begins to feel anxiety as well. He often has to take this sort of cue from other people. Physical proximity helps, suggesting the mechanism is pheromonal. He casts about for something to say.
“I’m trying to remember what you’ve told me about your father.”
“Probably not much. I try not to think about him.”
“He’s Danish.”
“Yep.”
“And, um . . . I think you told me he wasn’t around much.”
“Took off when I was four. I saw him briefly again when I was thirteen. He’s never been part of my life.”
Normally voluble, she has always been reticent on this subject. He has never wanted to pry, and he doesn’t want to pry now. Still, this mystery man has unaccountably become important. “Does Mette know him?”
“Thomas? No, they’ve never met. I wouldn’t have let him come within a mile of her.” Mark has no idea what she might be referring to. He wasn’t worried when Mette was off on her own, but everything Saskia is saying now, or not saying, is a little alarming. “Although of course maybe they’ve been communicating online. I’d be more worried about that except I’d be surprised if Thomas did any online stuff. On the other hand, he can be surprising. He loves to be surprising.”
She stops. Several seconds go by. Mark has never been in the position of trying to tease out personal information from anyone. “Um . . .” he says, his mind racing, but at the same time a blank. Or maybe it’s his heart that’s racing. “Is he . . . dangerous?”
“Physically? I doubt it.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
“He’s manipulative.”
Mark ponders that for a while. Obviously, he needs details, and just as obviously, Saskia doesn’t want to give him any. “Um . . .” he realizes he’s saying again. “Do you have any idea why—”
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen,” the PA system breaks in, “this is the pre-boarding announcement for Norwegian Air, Flight 187, nonstop to Copenhagen. We are inviting those passengers with small children to pre-board at this time—” Mark can’t organize his thoughts when he hears words being spoken, so he gives up for the moment. He’s also distracted by the physical impossibility of any person “pre-boarding” a plane. The main cabin is loaded by zone, and people start getting up and standing in line before their zone is called. As seems to be common now, the flight crew are loading the cabin from front to back, which is the less efficient way to do it. Mark’s theory is that airlines discovered if they load the cabin starting in the rear, as many of them rationally did ten or fifteen years ago, passengers will tend to fill the overhead compartments that they pass on the way to their seats. Mark and Saskia’s zone is called last, and Mark waves everyone else into the line in front of them. Saskia looks at him questioningly. “They’re loading the plane from front to back, and we’re in the last row,” he says.
She doesn’t say anything. They show their boarding passes and inch down the jetway.
Mark tries again: “Do you have any idea why Mette would be visiting him, what she’d be looking for?”
“Not a clue.”
They take a few more steps. The woman immediately in front of them is holding a baby. Mark wonders why she didn’t “pre-board.” He also wonders if the baby will be near them and how much it will cry during takeoff and landing, when the changing air pressure will make its ears hurt.
“It’s kind of a nightmare that he’s involved at all,” Saskia suddenly says.
“Your father?”
“I mean, I’m glad we know where she is, I’m glad we’re going to go there and find her. But there, of all places.” They pass into the plane cabin. A steward smiles and individually greets Mark. “I can’t get away from the feeling that he somehow orchestrated this, that he lured Mette to him in order to force me to come. Which is ridiculous, but thinking of him makes me paranoid.”
Mark doesn’t say anything. He wonders whether, if he doesn’t press, she might eventually tell him more. It feels sneaky to operate under this assumption, but
