Dear Edward(68)

“Of course.”

She turns to check on the old man and his nurse. The vibe in this row has been off-putting since the flight began. The man clearly has that kind of over-the-top wealth that’s led him to expect service from everyone he encounters. Veronica saw his nurse crying earlier and slipped her an extra bag of roasted nuts while he was in the bathroom.

There have been many occasions when Veronica’s been treated like a second-class citizen, so she understands the bad taste it puts in your mouth. She knows roasted nuts won’t erase that taste, but she hopes the gesture tells the woman that she’s not alone. Veronica has had her ass pinched and slapped too many times to count. The same goes for men telling her to smile, as if the arrangement of her features, or her mood, is any of their damn business. She’s had guys casually lean into her as they pass her in the aisle, so their hard penis presses against her hip. She’s regularly referred to as “sweetheart,” “darling,” and “baby.” She’s paid the same salary as Luis, even though she’s the chief flight attendant and he’s only been in the industry for six months. She’s been leered at by men floating in a sea of vodka tonics, and she’s had her work—which she excels at—criticized by men who seem to be simply looking for a sport to pass the time.

Veronica knows how to handle these situations, of course. Not allowing men to diminish her, shining her light straight at them, is perhaps her greatest gift. She feels for women who seem unskilled in this particular art. The nurse is clearly one of those women.

Veronica straightens her skirt as she returns to the galley kitchen. She’s a little off-balance—it’s not like her to dwell on the unpleasant aspects of her job. She needs to get back on her game. But when she closes her eyes to regroup, she sees Mark’s. They have the sheen of dark blue velvet, filled with shimmer and shine. His eyes startled her in the bathroom. Perhaps it’s that unexpected beauty that has her shaken. She’d thought she was offering her beauty to him; she hadn’t anticipated receiving any in return.

Crispin is filled with a sensation he can’t identify, one he hasn’t experienced in decades. Since childhood, perhaps. The feeling flickers through him, like candlelight bouncing off walls. The light travels down twisting dark hallways inside him.

Crispin grew up in a small house in Maine, the middle of thirteen children. There were no hallways in his childhood home. Two steps and you were in the kitchen; two more steps, the bathroom; two more steps, the main room. Crispin slept in a small bedroom with his five brothers. The oldest boy was a religious bully who regularly tackled Crispin to the floor, then perched on top of him and read the Bible aloud. Crispin, his cheek pressed against the rough floor, muttered swear words in return. He spoke quietly enough that his mother couldn’t hear but loudly enough to make his brother’s ears go red. That was the memory he returned to, in the rare moments when he thought of his own youth. Pinned against the wooden floor, spitting curses while his brother furiously preached.

Where are these hallways? They’re rough, dusty, belonging to a house inferior to any Crispin has inhabited as an adult. He had always hired decorators, and he married women with inherent style. Crispin had never been able to create anything beautiful himself, but he knew beauty when he saw it. His hallways had lush wallpaper and wainscoting. They were well lit with fancy sconces and chandeliers.

The candlelight and rough interior keep bringing him back to Maine, before his family had a television, when they all sat around the radio in the evening, listening to Jack Benny and the news. Crispin always scooted closest to the radio; the smooth voice vibrating through the speaker was the only hint he had of life outside his town, his neighborhood, his snowy state, and he wanted out. He’d wanted out from the moment he could string the words together. Most of his brothers and sisters would marry their high school sweethearts and work at the local factory. The brother who sat on him started a landscaping business. Crispin knew a trap when he saw it, though. He found, applied for, and won a scholarship to boarding school. He moved out of the house at the age of fourteen and never went back.

The light wavers; perhaps the person holding it is tired. The steps slow. The rush seems to be over. There is a crushing feeling, which puts Crispin back on the floor, his brother’s weight grinding him down.

Florida surveys the rows around her. People are settling down, clocking out. The airplane is humming at a deeper frequency, as if it too has moved into some kind of REM sleep. Florida feels herself expand into the quiet. Her attention spreads out, and she allows herself—her thoughts, her feelings—to unpack. She wonders if Bobby has figured out that she’s gone farther than a baby shower in New York City. She threw her cellphone into a garbage can at the airport. She’s not scared of him, but his intensity is formidable, and she’d rather not leave an easy trail. She’d married a man hot with potential, who made her scream with joy in bed, but she’d ended up living with a stranger, a man she couldn’t predict. It was her lack of judgment that disturbs her the most.

She had screwed up, not him. It made her sad that her vast experience, even her marathon dances with men, hadn’t left her any the wiser. She had long nursed a theory that she improved with every incarnation. She remained human, and flawed, but she was more evolved. She knew what was what. She knew what mattered. She knew, at a deeper level each time, that what mattered was love. But love was what she had misread, mistaken, and misplaced in this life. Florida glances at the sleeping women beside her. The woman with the blue scarf and the expensive shoes. Linda, her blond hair swept over her face, her mouth slightly open. She looks like a little girl. A little girl having a baby of her own.