I quickly pick her up and tug her onto my lap. “You alright?” But I can’t answer because my voice is swallowed in her scream. The plane nosedives. I throw my arms around her to keep her from hurtling about the plane. Another dip and the plane shakes with the effort of staying upright. The pilot’s voice comes over a speaker.
“Nothing to worry about, sir. We hit an unexpected pocket of turbulence. I’ll have us right back on course in no time.”
Back on course? How far have we drifted?
“Oh God, oh God,” Elise says, tears squeezing from beneath her eyelids.
“You’ll be okay,” I tell her, but when we hit another rough patch, she screams and flails like she’s possessed.
“Elise. Stop.” But it’s no use, she’s terrified and can’t stop herself from hyperventilating. Gasping for air, she claws at her throat.
I give her a hard smack to the side of her leg. She gasps for breath, her chest heaving.
“Stop,” I order. “We’ll be fine. Breathe, baby.” I grasp her cheeks hard between my fingers. She winces but looks a little more pink.
“Alright, babe. We’re okay now. You okay?”
I slide her into the seat next to me. My heart breaks for her when she puts her head back, still crying. Her lower lip wobbles like a small child on the verge of a breakdown.
“Shh, baby,” I whisper, gripping her knee. “We’re alright. You’re okay. I won’t take you on another plane anytime soon, okay?”
“Maybe,” she pants. Little beads of perspiration dot her forehead. “Maybe just, like, drug me or something. I do love Tuscany and would rather be there than America anyway, it’s just the to and fro that kill me.”
She’s so damn adorable. “I can easily drug you or something. Not a problem.”
“Of course,” she says with a little laugh. “Probably keep a little vial of sedative on your person or something, eh?”
Not quite, but I’m glad she can make light of it. I do have methods of sedation.
“Okay, alright.” She’s still panting, her eyes still closed.
I take her hand in mine as the Boston skyline comes into view through the window. “I’m guessing you don’t want to open your eyes, so I’ll just tell you. The Boston skyline’s magic tonight.”
“Oh yeah?” she whispers. She takes in another shuddering breath.
“Yeah,” I reply. “All twinkling lights like dots of fairy dust.”
“That sounds like something I’d say.”
“Perhaps.” I smile to myself. Maybe she’s affected me.
“So no budget on the dress?”
“Are you changing the subject?”
“I so fucking am.”
“I seriously do not care how much you spend on the dress. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event. My mother’s already spent thirty thousand dollars just on the goddamn chairs we sit our asses in.”
“Does she have money to burn or what?”
She absolutely does, probably my father’s investments she doesn’t want to touch.
“Elise,” I say in a bored tone, reading through the notes from Santo. I want all this bullshit behind us.
“Mmm?”
She’s flipping through a bridal magazine when we hit another pocket of turbulence. Her audible gasp concerns me.
“I—I hate flying,” she says, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Wish I knew that before we decided to take a few flights to Tuscany. This week, before the wedding, you’ll answer anything and everything I ask. Got it?”
“Sure, but will the same apply to you?”
“It will.”
She nods. “Good. Who starts?”
“Me.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
I flip through the pictures and make a mental note to have Santo talk with Elise under my supervision. It’s not that I don’t trust her. He’s the one I don’t trust.
“Do you like to read?”
“Lots, mhm. I do. You?”
“I do, but I read more when I was younger. Work and all that. My family always called me the little bookworm. Nonna approved, said a well-read man was a benefit to society. But my father…” It’s hard to keep the bitterness out of my tone when I talk about him.
“Let me guess,” she says. “Thought there were better uses of your time than in the pages of a book, right?”
“Yep.”
Her voice lowers. “Did he… get angry at you for it?”
I huff out a cold laugh. “My father got angry if you peed too loud in the toilet on the third floor of The Castle when he was in Tuscany.”
“Oh, ugh,” she says with a grimace. “Sounds familiar, though. My father once said I chewed too loud, and from then on I was banished to eat my meals in my bedroom with my nanny or tutor.”
“Jesus.”
She fiddles with a little silver ring on her finger, spinning it from side to side. It glints in the overhead light.
“For the record, you don’t chew loudly.”
“Well. Give me time,” she says with a wink.
“Your turn.”
“Oooh, I get a turn.” She wriggles in her chair when the flight attendant gives us a five minute warning. “What’s the best movie you ever watched?”
“Saving Private Ryan.”
“Yikes, Tavi, you don’t play around, do you?”