The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(11)

“It’s top secret,” he tells her, his face utterly serious. “And you seem nice, so I don’t want to have to kill you.”

“Gee, thanks,” she says. “Can you at least tell me your major? Or is that classified, too?”

“Probably psychology,” he says. “Though I’m still sorting it out.”

“Ah,” Hadley says. “So that explains all the mind games.”

Oliver laughs. “You say mind games, I say research.”

“I guess I better watch what I say, then, if I’m being analyzed.”

“That’s true,” he says. “I’m keeping an eye on you.”

“And?”

He gives her a sideways smile. “Too soon to tell.”

Behind him, an elderly woman pauses at their row, squinting down at her ticket. She’s wearing a flowered dress and has white hair so delicate you can see right through to her scalp. Her hand trembles a bit as she points at the number posted above them.

“I think you’re in my seat,” she says, worrying the edges of her ticket with her thumb, and beside Hadley, Oliver stands up so fast he hits his head on the air-conditioning panel.

“Sorry,” he’s saying as he attempts to maneuver out of her way, his cramped overtures doing little to fix things in such a tight space. “I was just there for a moment.”

The woman looks at him carefully, then her gaze slides over to Hadley, and they can almost see the idea of it dawning on her, the corners of her watery eyes creasing.

“Oh,” she says, bringing her hands together with a soft clap. “I didn’t realize you were together.” She drops her purse on the end seat. “You two stay put. I’ll be just fine here.”

Oliver looks like he’s trying not to laugh, but Hadley’s busy worrying about the fact that he just lost his spot, because who wants to spend seven hours stuck in the middle seat? But as the woman lowers herself gingerly into the rough fabric of her seat, he smiles back at Hadley reassuringly, and she can’t help feeling a bit relieved. Because the truth is that now that he’s here, she can’t imagine it any other way. Now that he’s here, she worries that crossing an entire ocean with someone between them might be something like torture.

“So,” the woman asks, digging through her purse and emerging with a pair of foam earplugs, “how did you two meet?”

They exchange a quick glance.

“Believe it or not,” Oliver says, “it was in an airport.”

“How wonderful!” she exclaims, looking positively delighted. “And how did it happen?”

“Well,” he begins, sitting up a bit taller, “I was being quite gallant, actually, and offered to help with her suitcase. And then we started talking, and one thing led to another….”

Hadley grins. “And he’s been carrying my suitcase ever since.”

“It’s what any true gentleman would do,” Oliver says with exaggerated modesty.

“Especially the really gallant ones.”

The old woman seems pleased by this, her face folding into a map of tiny wrinkles. “And here you both are.”

Oliver smiles. “Here we are.”

Hadley’s surprised by the force of the wish that wells up inside of her just then: She wishes that it were true, all of it. That it were more than just a story. That it were their story.

But then he turns to face her again and the spell is broken. His eyes are practically shining with amusement as he checks to be sure she’s still sharing in the joke. Hadley manages a small smile before he swivels back to the woman, who has launched into a story about how she met her husband.

Things like this don’t just happen, Hadley thinks. Not really. Not to her.

“… and our youngest is forty-two,” the old woman is saying to Oliver. The skin of her neck hangs down in loose folds that quiver like Jell-O when she speaks, and Hadley brings a hand to her own neck reflexively, running her thumb and forefinger along her throat. “And in August it will be fifty-two years together.”

“Wow,” Oliver says. “That’s amazing.”

“I wouldn’t call it amazing,” the woman says, blinking. “It’s easy when you find the right person.”

The aisle is now clear except for the flight attendants, who are marching up and down on seat-belt patrol, and the woman pulls a water bottle out of her purse, then opens her wrinkled palm to reveal a sleeping pill.

“When you’re on the other side of it,” she says, “fifty-two years can seem like about fifty-two minutes.” She tips her head back and swallows the pill. “Just like when you’re young and in love, a seven-hour plane ride can seem like a lifetime.”

Oliver pats his knees, which are shoved up against the seat in front of him. “Hope not,” he jokes, but the woman only smiles.

“I have no doubt,” she says, stuffing a yellow earplug into one ear, and then repeating the gesture on the other side. “Enjoy the flight.”

“You, too,” Hadley says, but the woman’s head has already fallen to one side, and just like that, she begins to snore.

Beneath their feet, the plane vibrates as the engines rumble to life. One of the flight attendants reminds them over the speaker that there will be no smoking, and that everyone should stay seated until the captain has turned off the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign. Another demonstrates the safe use of flotation devices and air masks, her words like a chant, empty and automatic, as the vast majority of the passengers set about ignoring her, examining their newspapers or magazines, shutting off their cell phones and opening their books.