The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(17)

“Right,” she says, then makes a face. “I’m a bridesmaid.”

“That’s nice.”

“Not if I miss the ceremony.”

“Well, there’s always the reception.”

“True,” she says, yawning again. “I can’t wait to sit all by myself and watch my dad dance with a woman I’ve never met before.”

“You’ve never met her?” Oliver asks, his words tugged up at the end of the sentence by his accent.

“Nope.”

“Wow,” he says. “So I take it you aren’t all that close?”

“Me and my dad? We used to be.”

“And then?”

“And then your stupid country swallowed him whole.”

Oliver laughs a small, uncertain laugh.

“He went over to teach for a semester at Oxford,” Hadley explains. “And then he didn’t come back.”

“When?”

“Almost two years ago.”

“And that’s when he met this woman?”

“Bingo.”

Oliver shakes his head. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah,” Hadley says, a word far too insignificant to convey anything close to just how awful it was, just how awful it still is. But though she’s told a longer version of the story a thousand times before to a thousand different people, she gets the feeling that Oliver might understand better than anyone else. It’s something about the way he’s looking at her, his eyes punching a neat little hole in her heart. She’s knows it’s not real: It’s the illusion of closeness, the false confidence of a hushed and darkened plane, but she doesn’t mind. For the moment, at least, it feels real.

“You must’ve been shattered,” he says. “And your mum, too.”

“At first, yeah. She hardly got out of bed. But I think she bounced back quicker than I did.”

“How?” he asks. “How do you bounce back from that?”

“I don’t know,” Hadley says truthfully. “She really believes that they’re better off this way. That it was meant to work out like this. She has someone new and he has someone new and they’re both happier now. It’s just me who’s not thrilled. Especially about meeting his someone new.”

“Even though she’s not so new anymore.”

“Especially because she’s not so new anymore. It makes it ten times more intense and awkward, and that’s the last thing I want. I keep picturing walking into the reception all by myself and everyone staring at me. The melodramatic American daughter who refused to meet the new stepmother.” Hadley crinkles her nose. “Stepmother. God.”

Oliver frowns. “I think it’s brave.”

“What?”

“That you’re going. That you’re facing up to it. That you’re moving on. It’s brave.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

“That’s because you’re in the middle of it,” he says. “But you’ll see.”

She studies him carefully. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“I suppose you’re not dreading yours half as much as I’m dreading mine?”

“Don’t be too sure,” he says stiffly. He’d been sitting close, his body angled toward hers, but now he moves away again, just barely, but enough so that she notices.

Hadley leans forward as he leans back, as if the two of them are joined by some invisible force. It’s not as if her father’s wedding is a particularly cheery subject for her, and she told him about that, didn’t she? “So will you get to see your parents while you’re home?”

He nods.

“That’ll be nice,” she says. “Are you guys close?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it again when the beverage cart comes rolling down the aisle, the cans making bright noises as they clink against one another, the bottles rattling. The flight attendant steps on the brake once she’s past their row, locking it into place, then turns her back to them to begin taking orders.

It happens quickly, so quickly that Hadley almost doesn’t see it at all: Oliver reaches into the pocket of his jeans for a coin, which he thumbs into the aisle with a quick snap of his wrist. Then he reaches across the sleeping woman, grabbing the coin with his left hand and snaking his right one into the cart, emerging with two miniature bottles of Jack Daniel’s wrapped in his fist. He tucks them into his pocket, along with the coin, just seconds before the flight attendant twists back in their direction.

“Can I get you anything?” she asks, her eyes sweeping across Hadley’s stricken face, Oliver’s flushed cheeks, and the old woman still snoring with vigor at the end of the row.

“I’m okay,” Hadley manages.

“Me, too,” Oliver says. “Cheers, though.”

When the flight attendant is gone again, the cart moving safely away, Hadley stares at him openmouthed. He pulls the bottles out and hands one to her, then twists the cap off the other with a shrug.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just thought if we were going to do the whole ‘talking about our families’ thing, a bit of whiskey might be in order.”

Hadley blinks at the bottle in her hand. “You planning to work this off or something?”