The Flight Attendant(84)

Even across the Atlantic Cassie could hear the brief hesitation. “Most of the time I believe that. I really do. But your browbeating a strange woman in an airport doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence in your mental health.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you should just chill. What do you think? Don’t go out to dinner. Don’t go sightseeing. And for God’s sake, don’t have a drink. Pretend you’re under house arrest.”

It may have been the word arrest, but she thought of the two FBI agents back at Federal Plaza. Was there no ceiling to the trouble she caused? To the trouble she was in?

“And Cassie?”

She waited.

“Just in case, do yourself a favor: dead-bolt your door tonight.”



* * *



? ?

She didn’t sleep nearly as long as she expected. Her body clock was too well conditioned, too predictable, and so she awoke from her catnap around three in the afternoon. She climbed naked from the bed and opened the drapes to the summer sun, and then burrowed back under the sheets on the cool side of the bed. For a while she stared out the window at the blue sky, and then at the walls of her hotel room. At the large, framed black-and-white photograph of the Pietà at St. Peter’s. At the television. At the armoire. On the desk she had noticed a pencil cup with a single pen in it with the hotel’s name. The pen was crap, but she liked the container. It was designed to resemble an architectural ruin—a remnant of the sort of granite column that held the great portico of the Pantheon. (The columns were Corinthian, she recalled from one visit to Rome or another.) She thought she would steal the pencil cup, probably as a gift for her nephew, but maybe for her brother-in-law instead. It would probably look nice on his desk.

No, she wouldn’t take it. She would exert a little self-control. She had been in this hotel just last week and pilfered the bookend. Perhaps housekeeping had noticed it was gone right after she had checked out and her name was now on some sort of hotel watch list. It would be yet one more example of the cruel humor that marked the world if, after all she had drunk over the years, she ended up getting fired by the airline for stealing trinkets from a hotel room in Italy.

Of course, that was the one constant in her life: she drank. Alcohol gave her pleasure and it gave her courage and it gave her comfort. It didn’t precisely give her self-esteem (especially not the next morning), but it gave her the faith that whatever she was, was enough. She was no longer the daughter of the driver’s-ed drunk in Kentucky. She was no longer the girl alone at the college switchboard at the loneliest hours of the night. Yes, she went days without drinking, but those were mere intermissions between acts. Between acting up. Between the moments when she was most really herself.

And, she knew, those days were growing less and less frequent.

She checked her phone. Nothing from Ani. Nothing from Frank Hammond. Nothing from the airline. Nothing from anyone. That was probably good news.

Finally she swung her legs over the side of the bed and ran her hands through her hair. Fuck it. Perhaps Ani was right that she should dead-bolt the door and pretend she was under house arrest, but she was who she was. She knew as well as anyone that people didn’t change. Just look at her father. The lure of the Limoncello—the Negroni, the Bellini, the Rossini, the Cardinale—was irresistible. She would shower. She would put on the cheerful floral sundress she had packed. Then she would apply her makeup and the skin cream the airport nurse had given her and go for a walk. Find a bar where (and the theme from a sitcom from before her time came to her) nobody knew her name.



* * *



? ?

She saw the note under her door when she emerged from the bathroom. She had just toweled herself dry and was about to get dressed. It was from Enrico, the young bartender, and it was apparent that he spoke English better than he wrote it, and was probably dependent on Google Translate. He had indeed seen the other members of her airline’s flight crew at the hotel, and so he had asked a friend in guest services if she was among them. Then he had convinced his pal to look up her room number. He hoped she would view this as “enterprised,” not “stalker.” He had found someone to cover his shift and was “desirable” of taking her for a walk and to dinner. The note was adorable.

But she thought of Buckley back in New York. Arguably, her relationship with the actor had grown more involved in the last week. They’d slept together again, and it had been more of a date than a random hookup in a bar. Their relationship was, as her Drambuie friend Paula would say, Tinder Plus—the gray zone that was more than Tinder but not yet dating. She and Buckley might not yet be exclusive, but they had a connection that transcended libido and booze and an app for sex with strangers.

Moreover, was there even the remotest possibility of a future with Enrico, given the difference in their ages? Of course there wasn’t. But then again, did she have a future with anyone? Of course she didn’t. Her future, eventually, was in prison. She looked at the penmanship on the paper in her hands. It was hotel stationery. The ink was blue, and Enrico wrote with careful, thoughtful strokes. He had written that he would be waiting downstairs in the bar, and he could leave with her anytime and go anyplace she liked.

She had no idea where she’d be a year from now—or even a week or a month.

For all she knew, she hadn’t heard from Buckley because he had read the New York Post and was justifiably appalled. He wanted nothing to do with her. And why should he? God, most of the time she wanted nothing to do with herself. That, too, was one of the reasons why she took solace in the blotto zone. It was just so much easier to look at yourself in the mirror when it took that critical extra second for your eyes to focus and in the morning you wouldn’t remember just how awful you looked or how ridiculously you had behaved.