P.S. from Paris(56)

Mia put her credit card on the desk.

“What date would you like for the return flight?”

“I have no idea.”

“I need a return date.”

“In a week . . . no, ten days . . . or two weeks . . .”

“Which one?”

“Two weeks! Please hurry!”

The woman behind the desk began typing furiously on her computer keyboard.

“Oh no, your suitcase! It’s too late to check it . . .”

Mia knelt down to whip open her suitcase, took out her toiletry bag and a few other things, and jammed them into her purse.

“You can keep the rest!”

“I’m sorry, I really can’t,” the woman said, leaning over the desk.

“Yes, you can!”

“Which hotel are you staying at?”

“I have no idea.”

The woman, who was now beyond being surprised by anything, handed Mia her boarding pass.

“Now run. I’ll ask them to hold the doors for you.”

Mia grabbed her ticket, took off her heels, and ran toward security, shoes in hand.

She arrived at the walkway out of breath, spotted the gate, screamed at the staff to wait for her, and did not slow down until she was on the boarding bridge.

Before getting on the plane, she tried to regain some semblance of composure, then handed her boarding pass to the flight attendant, who welcomed her with a big smile.

“That was one close shave,” he said, pointing to an empty seat. “You’re in 2A.”

Mia walked straight past her seat and continued up the aisle.

The flight attendant called her back, but she pressed on until she found the row she was looking for, gave her boarding pass to the passenger, and told him he had been upgraded to first class. The man didn’t need to be told twice, and gave up his seat.

Mia opened the overhead luggage compartment, squeezed her purse between two cabin bags, and collapsed into her seat with a huge sigh.

Paul didn’t even look up from the magazine he was leafing through.

The flight attendant announced over the intercom that the doors were closing. Passengers were asked to fasten their seat belts and switch off all electronic devices.

Paul put his magazine in the seat-back pocket and closed his eyes.

“Can we talk or do you plan to sulk for eleven hours?” Mia asked.

“Right now, we keep our mouths shut and wait to die. A massive three-hundred-ton steel tube is about to attempt flight. And no matter what Bernoulli says, that is against the laws of nature. So, until we are up in the air, let’s just breathe, stay calm, and that’s it.”

“Right, then,” Mia replied.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any anesthetic, would you?”

“I thought we were strictly prohibited from conversing.”

“Valium?”

“Sorry.”

“A baseball bat? Any blunt object, really. If you’d be so kind as to knock me out cold, then not wake me until we’ve touched ground in Korea, that would be ideal.”

“Calm down. Everything will be fine.”

“So now you’re a pilot.”

“Give me your hand.”

“I’d rather not. It’s kind of clammy.”

Mia put her hand on Paul’s wrist.

“What did you make for the dinner I missed?”

“Hmph. I guess you’ll never know.”

“You’re not even going to ask why I’m here?”

“Nope. I will take some satisfaction from the fact that your ticket must have cost you the moon. Is that normal, that noise?”

“It’s the engines.”

“And so it’s normal they’re making so much noise?”

“If we intend to take off, then yes.”

“Okay. So are they making enough noise?”

“They’re making exactly as much noise as they’re supposed to.”

“What’s that constant boom-boom-boom I’m hearing?”

“That . . . would be your heart.”

The airplane soared into the air. Shortly after takeoff, it hit a patch of turbulence. Paul gritted his teeth. Sweat streamed down his forehead.

“Relax. There’s no reason to be afraid,” Mia soothed him.

“Fear doesn’t need a reason,” Paul replied.

He regretted not having tried the little gift that Cristoneli had offered him on the way to the airport: a homemade concoction that would, according to the editor, relieve him of all worries for several hours. Paul, who was such a hypochondriac that he was reluctant to take aspirin for headaches out of fear it would cause a brain hemorrhage, had decided not to give himself another reason to be anxious.

The plane reached cruising altitude and the cabin crew began moving through the aisles.

“Okay, now the flight attendants are up—that’s a good sign. If they’re moving around, everything must be fine, don’t you think?”

“Everything has been fine since takeoff and everything will be fine until we land. But Paul? If you keep gripping the armrest that tightly for the next eleven hours, we might have to use pliers to pry you free.”

Paul looked down at his white-knuckle grip and carefully relaxed his fingers.

A stewardess arrived with the drink cart. To Mia’s surprise, Paul asked only for a glass of water.