Chapter 33
It’s Complicated
WINONA
ONE WEEK LATER
The airport announcement voice was a human this time. For the past hour, I’d been listening to robotic, prerecorded voice deliver canned messages to watch my bags and don’t forget to get a massage in the executive lounge.
The voice made me miss Anita.
Ice cubes clinked in a glass next to me.
I sensed the man who’d just sat down, but I didn’t look up. That was dangerous in a bar, especially an airplane bar, where people tended to feel lonely. Ask me how I knew. I still had an hour to kill before my flight, too.
“Don’t look now,” a male voice said, “but I think that guy’s working up the nerve to buy you a drink.”
I looked up from my book. I’d been trying to immerse myself in a fantasy world, which was better than being immersed in the depression I’d been floundering in for the past week since Mitchell left. A woman lost at sea.
The man who’d sat a full stool away from me was good-looking. Tall and lean with a tan despite the time of year, bracelets and a slutty little necklace, as Cher would call it. With a leaf on it, I noticed. Young though. I’d put him at maybe twenty-four or five.
“That sounds like a line,” I said, looking back at my book.
“I promise it’s not.” He pointed his chin to the opposite end of the bar, where a pink-necked businessman sat nursing a cocktail. He turned pinker as I looked at him and raised his glass. Even from here I could see the white line on his finger where his ring should have been.
“Ugh,” I said. “Guess I should thank you.” I gave the guy my full attention for a brief moment. That wasn’t a crime. I wasn’t cheating on Mitchell.
My stomach lurched. I couldn’t even think his name without a physical reaction like that.
The guy inspected me a minute, then chuckled and looked away, taking a sip of the drink he’d brought over.
“Okay, so full disclosure. I was going to hit on you. Regardless of Philip the Philanderer over there. I mean, I was playing interference on him too. And I was going to be polite about it.” He let out a weary sigh. “But I see now you’re taken.”
I frowned. “How do you see that?” I looked at my fingers as if there was a ring I’d missed.
That only made my stomach clench harder. I was a little worried about throwing up.
The guy—more of a boy, honestly—laughed again. He had a nice laugh. A sweet smile, too. But looking at him only made me miss a more serious face. One that when it smiled, felt like a precious gift, just for me.
“It’s obvious,” he said. “You’re totally absorbed with someone. But there’s a problem. What is it, is he married?”
“No!”
“Dead?”
I pinched my eyes shut and opened them again. “Aren’t you a little young to be psychoanalyzing strangers?”
He shrugged. “I like older women.”
He wasn’t smarmy. Just honest and kind of sweet. He’d make someone very happy someday.
I pulled my book closer to me. “It’s complicated.”
“You know, people tend to say that when they’re justifying something they know isn’t right.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like that. It’s just… our lives are… unaligned right now. In a big way.”
“That’s it?”
I frowned, irritated I was actually talking about this to a stranger, let alone this one. “Life’s not all bongs and beach parties, you know.”
That made him laugh. He swirled the last of his drink in his glass. “You’re right. Life is very serious.” He flagged the bartender. “I’ll get both of ours.”
“That’s not necessary,” I said.
“It’s all good. You look like you need a little cheering up. Also, you look just like Dolly Parton. I grew up listening to her. A class act. But listen, I wasn’t finished with my words of wisdom.”
That got him a world class eye-roll, which he laughed good-spiritedly at. “I know, I know. But listen, life is serious, but not if you choose for it not to be.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means why not live a life guided by happiness, instead of fear? Why not treat each problem like an adventure? Why say no to happiness because it might lead to future pain?”
I glared at the guy.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m in grad school. Philosophy.”
“You don’t say.”
But inside, this boy had tweaked something in me.
A memory of Mama and me, skipping down the streets of St. John’s, looking in the windows of the shops, pretending we could buy anything we wanted, but the fine things weren’t good enough for us.
We picked apart each one we passed, waving our hands airily, saying things like what shoddy craftsmanship, and that’ll never do in our front parlor.
Then we’d go home to our cold apartment, with a can of noodles for supper and a pit in our chests over the beautiful cozy displays in those stores.
But we’d had each other. And we’d had fun.
I’d forgotten about that, right up until Mr. Pollyanna here had said the words.
The guy was standing up, hooking his bag over his shoulder. “Good luck with everything, Dolly,” he winked, then walked jauntily out of the bar.
I couldn’t help laugh. When I looked forward again though, I startled. In the mirror behind the bar, Phil the Philanderer was settling down on the seat next to me. “Can you believe that guy?” he said.
I stood up. “No. But maybe I should.”
I texted Mitchell as I walked to my gate.
WINONA: I just met someone at the airport bar.
I had no idea what time it was in Zurich, but three dots popped up almost right away.
MITCHELL: What do you mean someone? A man? Was he good looking? Local?
I laughed.
WINONA: He was a philosopher.
MITCHELL: What did he say?
WINONA: He said something like, maybe don’t close the door completely on things that make you happy. Sometimes life can surprise you if you look for lightness. On the breath of a dragon’s wing.
MITCHELL: Okay, first of all, he did not say that last line. The line is, “On the breath of wind from a dragon’s wing.”
I readjusted Felled by a Scaled Wing under my arm, smiling.
WINONA: You didn’t tell me it was 1500 pages.
MITCHELL: Each one a masterpiece.
MITCHELL: But tell me more about this guy and what he said. I promise I didn’t pay him to be there.
We hadn’t talked since the day after Mitchell had left. I’d told him it would be too hard. But now, going back and forth with the man I loved, it was like we weren’t on opposite sides of the globe and a week of agony hadn’t just passed. And I realized how right that boy had been.