Leaving a relationship, especially one mid-proposal, is a lot like quitting a job with medical and a pension plan. Once you take the plunge, everyone you bump into is lamenting their own leap from security and offering wisdom that is too little too late.
I discover this phenomenon at every stop along the trip.
The ticket counter: “I thought your license photo was bad, but this is worse,” Clarissa points to my face. “When the heart breaks, it shows in the lines around the mouth. Don’t you lose faith in love, you hear?”
“Too late.” I reach across the tall counter and grab my ticket.
The security gate: “If we searched your emotional baggage today, I suspect we’d find disappointment. Am I right?”
“Geez. What is it with you people?” I put my shoes back on and shake my head with indignation.
And now in row 24 of the 747: “You’ve got the look. She’s got the look, doesn’t she, Sammi?”
Sammi, who sits on the aisle, leans across her apparent twin and eyes me without discretion. “You are right, Sally. If Sally spots it, you’ve got it.”
They both stare at me expectantly, dying for me to ask, to enter into dialogue with them. I refuse to. I don’t want to know what Sally sees in me.
I smile and reach for my book, opening it to a random page and begin reading as though I cannot get enough of the words.
They laugh. Sally nudges Sammi. “That’s a sure sign.” More laughter.
The flight attendant approaches our row with the beverage cart.
“What do you want, love?” Sally asks me.
“Diet Coke.”
“We’ll take two club sodas with lime and Miss Lonely Hearts will have a diet Coke. She needs something stronger, but she’s asking for a diet Coke.”
The flight attendant looks at me apologetically and hands me the can and a plastic cup with four ice cubes.
“Must be fresh,” Sammi says with an overdrawn frown.
“Your heartbreak is recent, is it?” Sally translates. “He just broke up with you.”
“There is nothing as sad as a woman flying solo.” Sammi sticks her lower lip out and sucks in her breath as though she might cry.
Before my rational, private self can stop the prideful self, I set the record straight. “I broke it off with him, if you must know.”
“Oh, sure you did, hon.” Sammi reaches over and pats my arm.
“Really. He proposed and I broke it off.”
The twins wink and nod at one another, their matching turquoise elephant earrings swinging in unison. While their clothes would make them ringers for the retiree set, Sammi and Sally don’t appear to be more than forty. Neither of them has a wedding ring on.
“If he proposed, where’s the ring?” Sally prods, seemingly reading my mind.
I put the book down in my lap and turn my body toward them. “We didn’t get that far because I broke it off.”
Sammi waves her hand. “That was a big mistake. Believe us.” She draws a line in the air between her and Sally. “The benefit of a breakup when you are that far along in a relationship is to have an addition to your jewelry collection. See this?” Sammi unbuttons her royal blue blouse down to her cleavage to show me a diamond pendant necklace. “This was from a broken engagement. I got word he was breaking up with me, so I handed the ring to Sally for safekeeping before our dinner date, and when he ended things before the appetizer came, I told him I had lost the ring that very morning. I swear I did.”
“She did. She did.” Sally slaps Sammi and they laugh in harmony.
“You’ll know better next time.” Sally adds her wisdom in place of a rich story about deceiving a former love.
Sammi playfully slaps her sister’s hand. “There won’t be a next time. She won’t make the same mistake twice. Girls these days have learned from our generation—they are getting married, settling down, and having families well before they turn thirty. You have a couple years left, I’ll bet, but don’t lose too much time crying over the one that got away.”
“I am thirty. And it wasn’t a mistake. The mistake would have been to go through with something that wasn’t right or good for either one of us.”
They nod to one another again and turn to me with wide, sorry eyes. “It’s fresh. You’re still in the denial stage of your grief.”
“Beau—flaws and all—is still funny, handsome, sweet, smart, and all those things we think will be a part of our personal version of Mr. Right.”
“We hear you.”
“And then he wrote some dumb report—using my information, mind you—to change everything. He wanted to make his mark in his professional field, and he sure did. He marked me off the employee roster.” I mime the heinous act of crossing my name off a clipboard master list.
“That is awful.”
“However,” I raise my hand to add drama for my jury of two, “I am guilty of skewing the statistics in favor of what I wanted all these months. I didn’t allow myself to see what the data and the results were really pointing out about my boyfriend—or about us as a couple. I was in denial then, but not now.”
“Statistics?”
“Figure of speech.”
In another ten years, will I be cornering some unsuspecting, younger woman and telling her about my big mistake at age thirty? Will I twist the situation in my memory so many times that Beau becomes “the one that got away?” instead of a good man—but not the right man—whom I dated during an important year in my life?
From my bag I pull out a box containing a beautiful, gold-edged Bible I bought for Marcus while in Tucson. When I saw that he carried the one I gave him in high school, I knew I would choose a special one to give him for his graduate studies graduation gift. I gently rub the etching of his name on the front cover with my finger and turn to the front page where there is a space for a dedication. I have put this part off, unsure what to write. I am digging for my pen when Sally jerks off her headphones and hits my arm with her elbow.
“We saw this movie last week on our flight to the single twin convention. Sam and I had a double date with this ferociously handsome set from Bosnia.”
“I’ve never heard ferociously used quite that way,” I respond.
“They were amazing. And very polite.”
“So what happened?” I cannot believe I am encouraging this conversation.
“Religious differences.” Sammie winks and points to my Bible.
Sally finishes the bit. “They wouldn’t worship us!” Lots of laughter.
“That’s a good one. I think I need to use the restroom. Will you excuse me?”
My face is hot and my clothes are sticking to me as I wander up the aisle. If I saw an emergency parachute, I swear I would strap it on and head for the exit.
A flight attendant is walking down the aisle and crooks her finger, motioning for me to approach her. Her name tag reads “Allegra.”
“I couldn’t help but overhear some of your conversation,” she says in a loud whisper.
Great. Here we go again. Another person with advice and warnings about my future as an old maid.
“Are you with those ladies or are you flying alone?”
“I am traveling by myself. And I don’t find that sad at all.” I puff out my chest and the guy seated next to where we stand in the aisle gives me a curious look.
“I have an extra seat in first class. You are welcome to have it. I thought you might need some…space.”
I nod yes emphatically.
From my luxurious, reclining chair in first class it becomes crystal clear to me—a woman flying solo does not need advice, warnings, or fear-inducing stories. Nor does she need guilt. All she really needs is a comfortable chair, a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, a couple wafer cookies to melt in her mouth, and some glorious space to recover.