I quickly ducked my head, and when I carefully peeked over the seat, his face was gone. His seat was farther up front. I leaned over my armrest into the aisle to see if I could see him, and was given a polite but firm tap by a flight attendant to lean back. We started to pull away from the gate almost immediately and were soon taxiing for takeoff.
“What on earth are you doing?” Auntie Lil asked. I had pulled my tablet back out as soon as we were given permission and was banging on the keyboard and mumbling.
“Nothing.” I hunched over my tablet and kept typing furiously.
“Hmm.” Auntie Lil was too sharp to be fooled. She leaned over my shoulder.
“Hey!” I nudged her. “I’m typing here.”
“You’re typing random characters. Unless you took a class in a language I’ve never heard of, or you’re becoming a court reporter, you are flustered. What gives? What did you see?”
By this time we were in the air, so she could unbuckle, and she pushed herself up on her seat to get a better view of the front of the plane. She sat back down with a puzzled look.
“All I see are the backs of heads, most of which have black hair. What shook you like that?”
I took a deep breath.
“Remember how you said I should just forget about the incident at breakfast because I probably wouldn’t see that person in an eon? Well, I guess they don’t make eons like they used to.”
“You’re not making sense.” Auntie Lil shook her head.
“Him. Eli Chamberlain. He’s on the plane.”
“No! How can you be sure?”
“He’s the latecomer. I saw him board.”
She leaned back and smiled.
“It’s not funny, Auntie!”
“I beg to differ! It’s very funny. Here you are, for all intents and purposes STUCK with the very person that you made a fool of yourself—”
“Hey! I thought you were on my side!”
“I am, dear, I am.” She patted my knee. “But this plane isn’t that large. Did he see you?”
“Unfortunately. When he boarded, my head shot up like a groundhog on February 2nd.”
“How delightful!”
“I’m not sure I’d use that adjective.”
“Well, Annalise, what are you going to do?”
“Do? Nothing. I’m going to sit here, and if I see him walk back here, I’m going to pretend to sleep or I’m going to—”
At that moment, I sensed a shadow over my shoulder.
“Mr. Chamberlain, is it?” my aunt’s voice dripped with tea party elegance as she offered her hand across me to the silhouette I could see out of the corner of my eye.
“How interesting to see you two ladies,” he replied.
I took a breath and looked up. I was prepared to match his garden party tones until I saw that he had a napkin.
Tucked.
Into his collar.
Was this some sort of joke? Was this some reference to the chili crab incident? I turned to Auntie Lil, who could barely suppress a grin.
As I turned back to him, I saw a hint of the flashing smile I’d seen at the airport in Denver that day, the smile that went all the way to his eyes.
I was speechless.
“Excuse me.” I pushed my way past him, moved quickly to the lavatory at the rear of the plane, and slammed myself into the tiny cubicle. Staring into the mirror, I could see the bright red spots that had developed on my cheeks.
Who was this, this ... PERSON, who could switch from charming one day to abrupt the next? Then to make fun of me? Who does that?
I must have been in the lavatory for a while because I heard a gentle tapping and an accented “Miss? Are you all right?” from the flight attendant. I smoothed down my hair, exited, smiling, and returned to my seat.
“Well,” Auntie Lil looked up over her reading glasses. “I thought you had taken up residence in there.”
“Not funny. Where’s your friend.”
“I suspect he’s in his seat. Why?”
“Why?”
The problem with having an elderly aunt who didn’t act her age was that she didn’t act her age. Well, she wasn’t pulling me in to a conversation. I yanked my earphones from my bag and ostentatiously inserted them in my ears, making a great show of selecting a tune and raising the volume.
I couldn’t resist making a comment for too long, however, and jerked my earbuds out.
“What did you think about that napkin stunt?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “I thought it was kind of cute.”
“Cute?”
“Sure. It was sweet.”
“Sweet?”
“Annalise, the fact that you are repeating the last word in every sentence I utter is very disturbing.”
“I’ll tell you what’s disturbing. That man’s behavior. Smiling one moment, an ogre the next. It’s like he’s two different people.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
I stared at her.
“Were you not at the restaurant?”
“I didn’t see an ogre. I saw a man who reacted to having dinner spilled in his lap.”
“Just how much wine did you have?”
“A bit more than both of you, since his landed on his shirt,” she grinned.
I refused to address that and replaced my earbuds in my ears.
A moment later, I yanked them out again.
“How did he even know we were on this flight?”
“He didn’t. When he got on, he saw you staring straight at him.”
“I wasn’t staring at him! I looked up to see who the latecomer was and—oh, why am I bothering to explain?”
I jammed my earbuds back in my ears.
A moment later, I pulled them out.
“What about this morning?”
“What about it? He apologized, and you were the one who got snippy.”
“What!”
She took off her glasses and folded them on her lap and turned to me.
“Dear, you are making so much of this. Yes, he had a few moments that were ... less than spectacular, let us say. But, all in all, he seems nice and we don’t really know that much about him, yet.”
“Yet? YET?”
“Now you’re repeating the last word in my sentence twice?”
“Because you are indicating that we’ll talk to him again.”
“Who knows?” she shrugged.
“What did you do while I was gone from my seat?”
“Nothing.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” my eyes turned to slits.
“Oh, Annalise, calm down. All I did was chat with him for a moment. And you do have to admit, we’re in an enclosed space for a finite amount of time, the end of which we will all exit the same path. It’s highly likely that we’ll run into each other again.”
I was silent for a moment.
“You are incredibly logical, Auntie. It’s annoying.”
“And you are making more of this than is necessary. Do yourself—and me, by the way—a favor. Let this go, or even stroll up to his seat and make an apology.” She replaced her reading glasses on her nose and returned to her book.
“I shall take that challenge to prove that I am a big person,” I sniffed. I stood, straightened my outfit, fluffed out my perky bobbed hair, and walked purposefully toward the front of the plane.
Well, I walked as purposefully as one can in a giant flying tube that is jostling back and forth, but you get the picture.
I reached Eli Chamberlain’s seat and was prepared to tap him on the shoulder, but he had on a large pair of Beats headphones with head leaned back and eyes closed.
I scooted back to my row.
“Well?” Auntie Lil said as I hastily buckled myself back into my seat.
“I think he was asleep. Bad form to wake someone up, don’t you think?”
Auntie Lil didn’t respond, but patted my knee and smiled. We both settled in to immerse ourselves in our respective books for the rest of the journey, pausing only when the flight attendant brought us our meal.
“This is really good,” I commented as I scooped up the last of my kung pao chicken and rice. Fruit and a small piece of cake awaited for dessert. “We’ve certainly been getting well fed on every flight.”
“Back in the old days, we used to get a full meal on every flight, no matter where we flew,” said Auntie Lil.
“I know. I’m spoiled now. How will I ever go back to being satisfied with that tiny bag of pretzels and a cup of soda when I fly?”
“Have your mother pack a meatball hoagie?” Auntie Lil suggested.
“I don’t know. I think I’d get mugged for it by my seatmate.”
No sooner had we finished our food and enjoyed a delicious cup of jasmine tea than we were prepared for landing.
“Will we meet your group at the airport?” I asked as we organized our belongings.
“No, they’ll be at the hotel.”
“Do you think they’re asleep by now?” I looked at my watch.
“I doubt it, but who knows? I only communicated with the organizer of this trip by email. I don’t know any of them.”
“This should be interesting.”
“What’s interesting is how you are avoiding looking toward the front of the plane.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” I sniffed.
“Well, I can see Eli Chamberlain from here, and I’m sure that we can catch up to him as we exit so that you can have the opportunity to set things right.”
I peered over the seat in front of me and could see Eli chatting with the flight attendant as he was waiting to exit. He smiled as he turned toward me, and I ducked my head rather than catch his eye.
Darn! What was wrong with me? All I needed to do was make a cursory apology for my behavior, and I would probably not need to talk with him again. We were landing here in Xi’an to sightsee, and I’m sure that he was here to make some sort of high-tech business deal, so this would be a natural parting. Maybe I’d catch him as we exited the Jetway. How hard could that be?
Oh. Right.
I completely forgot about the fact that we would encounter all sorts of red tape going through customs and collecting luggage. By the time the people from the front of the plane had scurried through the airport, and the rest of us managed to deplane, I lost track of Eli Chamberlain in a sea of dark-haired people.
At least I tried.
Besides, I was in China! I was ready for sightseeing and culture.