Epilogue A Pair of Eavesdropping Willy Wonkas
Epilogue
A Pair of Eavesdropping Willy Wonkas
“I can’t believe you’re watching Gladiator with me,” Elliot told her giddily from the seat next to her as they waited in front of their gate.
Lainey couldn’t believe it either, but he’d beamed the moment she’d floated the idea of finally watching his favorite movie when they arrived at JFK wretchedly early in the morning, only to find that their flight to France had been delayed three whole hours.
“Now, the question is…” He adjusted his laptop on the roller bag at their feet and faced her, his body vibrating.
“Do we watch the original version or the extended director’s cut that shows the film as Ridley Scott originally intended it?
Because technically that’s my favorite movie. But it’s seventeen minutes longer.”
Dear god.
She swallowed. “In for a penny, in for a pound. If we’re gonna watch your favorite movie, we should watch your favorite movie. All seventeen extra minutes.”
Look at him. Look at how happy he is, she told herself.
If enduring the next 174 minutes of Russell Crowe sweaty and screaming would guarantee Elliot just a tiny shred of joy, she’d do it.
She’d do anything for him, and she trusted that if the roles were reversed, he’d do the very same.
After all, he was moving to France for her.
Though they weren’t ready to settle down just yet.
After spending a few months enjoying their home together for the last time, they sold the whole thing—the lakeside resort, Forest’s Bridge, all of it—to Bree, of all people.
With motherhood had come a renewed sense of self, and Bree’d found that she was ready to strike out on her own and put her fancy degrees to use.
Elliot had left his government job. With generic forms of Lainey’s medication finally available and Bree enthusiastically taking in Waffle for Elodie—no cloning necessary—it seemed as good a time as any to travel the world and get inspired by all the art and architecture they could find before planning their next steps.
“Do you have to go to the bathroom before we start?” Alarm must’ve showed on her face. He gave her leg a reassuring press. “I don’t mean it like that. Of course, we can pause the movie anytime you want to, but I know that sometimes when you lock in, you forget about things like eating and—”
She leveled him with a look. “You think I’m going to be so enthralled by Gladiator as Ridley Scott intended that I won’t notice I have to pee?”
“I can’t rule it out.” It was so earnest, she couldn’t take it. She loved him so much.
She swung her feet under her legs and curled into his side. His arm wrapped around her as they melted into their now-familiar movie-watching positions. “Okay, I’m prepared to be dazzled. Fire up this bad boy.”
With a gentle squeeze to her hip, he pressed play.
Text flashed across the screen. Lots of text.
A short novel, actually. She opted not to read it, turning her attention to Elliot instead.
He watched the screen with such focus. He saw things so deeply.
He didn’t peer out windows; he examined why they were there and the warmth they brought into the room.
He looked at her like memorizing her was his sole responsibility on this planet.
So she supposed it stood to reason that he wouldn’t passively double-screen his favorite movie the way she might. He’d be engrossed, time and time again.
“I got you so wrong and so right from the very start, didn’t I?” she said, her voice quiet, like a secret.
He tore his attention from the screen. “What do you mean?”
“My first impression of you, the very first one, was spot-on. I saw you exactly right. It was the next, like, ten impressions where I went wrong.”
His mouth curled into a smile that lit his eyes from within. “I’m hoping that’s a good thing?” he inquired, flushing.
She bit back the silly grin that wanted to burst onto her face. “It’s the best thing.”
He grabbed her cheeks and planted a gentle, airport-appropriate kiss on her lips.
“We’re missing your favorite movie,” she whispered.
“I’ve seen it,” he assured her.
Over the din of airport Muzak, Lainey heard her last name on the muffled speaker.
“Passengers with the name Davis-Hodges, please report to the gate podium. There’s been a change to your seat assignment.”
Lainey sat up straighter. “Why is it that when you hear your name on a loudspeaker it always feels like you’re being called to the principal’s office?”
Elliot closed the laptop and wrestled their wonky-wheeled roller bags out from under their legs. “No idea. I was an office aide in high school, so getting called to the principal’s office usually meant he was ordering us Subway sandwiches for lunch.”
“How did I marry such a nerd?”
Their bags knocked into their heels when the two of them bellied up to the podium.
“Is this Elaine?” the gate agent asked. She was a tall, older-looking woman with dark toned skin and dark hair tucked into a neat twist. She was smiling at Lainey. A lot.
Too much.
“Who’s asking?” Lainey answered defensively.
“Yes.” Elliot jumped in. “This is my wife.”
“Elliot tells me you’re on your honeymoon?
” Lainey bit back a wicked smile. This was a scheme Lainey pulled pretty much every time they left central Wisconsin.
Booked-up hotel in Chicago? Full flight out of the Minneapolis–St. Paul airport?
Hour-long wait time at a Green Bay Outback Steakhouse?
She hinted at a honeymoon gone wrong, and everyone from hotel ma?tre d’s to chain restaurant waitstaff were overjoyed to swoop in and save their night.
“Yes.” Lainey tipped her head onto Elliot’s shoulder. “We’re honeymooners. Young and in love. We met on a roller coaster!” She stopped speaking at Elliot’s gentle shove at her hips.
“I’m going to upgrade you two to first class.
I wouldn’t normally do this just for a honeymoon, but—” The woman’s lip quivered.
Lainey’s stomach tensed. Her attempts to yell into Elliot’s brain via telepathy, Why is her lip quivering?
! were met with silence. Moisture filled the woman’s eyes.
“But when he told me about your condition, it became clear this wasn’t an ordinary honeymoon. ”
Lainey turned slowly, the way a dying woman might, she supposed, to stare down her very sweet, very dumb husband. “He told you about my condition?” Lainey asked through a gritted smile.
“To think you both got married anyway. With all those odds stacked against you. It’s so special.
” She wiped her eye with her navy sleeve as the printer beside her chugged out two new boarding passes.
“I want you two to really enjoy your trip.” The gate agent handed Lainey a pair of tickets the way one might offer a treat to a dachshund they were about to euthanize.
They were silent all the way back to their seats, and then…
“What the hell, man?”
Elliot nodded violently. “Too far?”
“Way too far! Am I supposed to be dying?”
His knee shook so hard he knocked over one of their bags. “Honestly, I have no idea. I blacked out when I was talking to her. You know I’m not good at ethical gray areas. One step to the dark side, and I completely lose my bearings.”
“How about we leave the small-time scheming to me, and you just stand there and look pretty?” She pressed her hand on the top of his knee, stilling it.
Elliot’s head swiveled around the gate area, attempting nonchalance and failing miserably. “She’s still watching us. And crying. I knew I couldn’t do this. I have to come clean,” he announced.
“Absolutely not. You’re going to get us bumped from this flight.
That feeling in your stomach is your lesson.
Just kiss my forehead and watch Gladiator with me,” Lainey instructed, hooking her arm through his elbow.
He pressed his mouth to her temple and reset the laptop, nuzzling into her as Russell Crowe continued to drip with sweat.
They made it another ten minutes, until the anxiety radiating off his body was too much to bear.
She closed her eyes and exhaled out her dreams of a transatlantic flight in pampered luxury. Elliot’s guilt would have ruined it anyhow. Hell, her own guilt might’ve.
“Would it make you feel better if we spent the next two hours searching for a worthy pair of people to trade tickets with?” she asked. His shoulders instantly relaxed.
So for the rest of their layover, they didn’t watch Gladiator or fantasize about their first-class meal.
Instead, they wandered from row to row like a pair of eavesdropping Willy Wonkas until they met an older couple from Maryland, Dot and Gene, who were traveling to Paris for their fiftieth anniversary.
They’d had children young, gotten married young, and had never been on a plane before today.
“I’m finally taking Dot around the world, just like I promised her I would at our wedding,” he said.
They couldn’t have found a worthier pair.
They watched Dot and Gene board with the first-class passengers and then settled back into their seats.
Lainey stared down at her new seat assignment. “They better take full advantage of first class. Really honor our sacrifice.”
“I’m sure they’ll get champagne drunk in our honor.
” They called another boarding group over the crackly speaker.
“You know what I just realized?” Elliot asked, burying his mouth into her hair.
“You, Elaine Davis-Hodges, are officially no longer a resident of Wisconsin. Are you ready to go somewhere new?”
She turned her head so they were nose to nose.
“With you? More than ready.”