The flight map on the screens showed the plane leaving Europe behind, poised over Portugal, about to enter the Atlantic. But to them the large blue blotch was much more than an ocean. It was a zone of oblivion into which Charlie and Larry had each tossed their histories when they left Medellín years earlier. The pasts they dropped are still lying there on the seafloor, and there they’ll remain until the ocean dries up.
Charlie found him with his eyes closed, as if he were sleeping, though he denied it afterward. Standing in the aisle, she asked, “Did I wake you?”
“No,” he said.
“You had your mouth open,” she said.
“How long have you been there?” Larry asked her.
“A little while. I wanted to thank you.”
The passengers on either side of Larry grumbled in irritation.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said.
“Of course you did,” said Charlie, and fell quiet, as if she was still in shock from the news, or waiting for him to say something else. They looked at each other in silence, and then she said, “Come with me.”
“Where to?”
“Up there. Come on.”
Larry lifted his legs to climb over the woman dozing beside him. Charlie led him to the first-class galley and wordlessly poured two glasses of gin at the bar the flight attendants had set up. He asked about the flight attendants, more to say something than to find out where they were. “They’re probably napping,” Charlie said.
“As long as the pilot’s awake,” he said.
“Yeah, right. The only people awake on this thing are the two of us.”
Charlie smiled for the first time, though the smile was shot through with sadness. He took the opportunity to ask her name, and she looked at him in silence, thinking, or hesitating, and finally said, “María Carlota Teresa Valentina. But don’t worry,” she added, seeing Larry’s expression. “You can call me Charlie.”
He told her his name while she downed her drink. Larry wasn’t even halfway through his. She poured herself another and asked, “Why are you going to Colombia?”
“I’m going to my dad’s funeral.”
Charlie opened her eyes wide, very surprised, as if she couldn’t believe the coincidence. Larry explained: “He didn’t just die now. It was years ago, but they found his remains a few days back.”
Charlie cleared her throat awkwardly. She didn’t understand. A flight attendant suddenly appeared and asked to get by them so she could open a door and pull out a folder full of papers. Still smiling, she told them they were welcome to anything they wanted, but they needed to take their drinks to their seats. Larry knocked back the rest of his gin to prepare to return to coach, but when the flight attendant left, Charlie told him, “The seat next to me’s empty—come and sit with me.”
“But . . .”
“Come on, man,” Charlie insisted. “Everybody’s passed out.”
Larry couldn’t help smiling when he dropped into the puffy chair and felt the cool leather against his skin.
There are some things you don’t forget . . .
Charlie’s eyes were glittering from all her crying, or from the two gins she’d downed. She tucked the blanket around her legs, reclined her seat a little, grabbed the full glass she’d brought with her, and said to Larry, “All right, tell me the story.”