Black Lies

The damn woman called back within ten minutes, at the inconvenient moment when Brant stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, an apple in hand. He stepped forward, flipping the phone over. “Hey L.”

His eyes caught mine and he pulled the phone away from his ear, pressed a button and the speakerphone came on, Jillian’s reedy voice filling the kitchen.

“…maintenance crew has it now. They might need to order a part; they’re running diagnostic tests now. But there’s no way it is flight-worthy.”

Bullshit. My eyes flicked to Brant’s. He said nothing, rubbed his neck as he stared at the phone.

Her sigh crackled through the phone. “I’m sorry, Brant. I hate that this ruins your trip. The plane should be back in order in a few weeks. Maybe you guys can reschedule after Vision 5’s launch.”

“It’s fine. Nothing you can do about it. I’m glad you caught us before we headed to the airport.” He reached forward, took the phone off speakerphone, and ended the call with a few short words. Then he tossed the phone on the counter, glancing at me with a wry look. “Sorry babe.”

I shrugged, squatting down to unzip my bag and unpack any liquid contents in excess of three ounces. “No big deal. I’ll grab my laptop. See what flights are open.”

He frowned, squinted his eyes. “Flights?”

I straightened. “Yeah. Commercial flights.”

“I… don’t fly commercial.”

I laughed, rising to my feet and staring at him. “What do you mean you don’t fly commercial? Your body doesn’t physically have the capabilities?”

His eyes hardened. “We’ll just go another time.”

“No.” I stared him down. “You’ll push it off and we’ll never go. I’ve already set everything up for this trip. You and I have never gone away together. Something always comes up. We’re going.”

“Commercial.” He said the word like it physically tasted bad on its way out of his mouth.

“Yes. First class. Toughen up.” This was interesting. Five minutes earlier, I would have said Brant didn’t have a snobby bone in his body. Didn’t need any of the trappings of wealth and luxury that he spent all day ignoring. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he gripped all of this as tightly as I did. Maybe he’d also be lost in a world that didn’t include massages and concierges and enough money to last the rest of our lives. I opened my laptop and turned my back to Brant. Brought up flights to Belize while cursing Jillian’s hand in this. It takes a meddler to know a meddler, and I’d bet ten thousand bucks that there was nothing wrong with the BSX jet.

“This is bullshit.”

“This is normal. Welcome to life.” I stared at the back of a Hawaiian shirt, the tourist before us having misunderstood San Francisco weather when making his travel plans, anticipating a sunny climate in which sandals and short sleeves would be appropriate in April. I knew this information from his wife, a scrawny woman with sharp elbows and a voice that carried, a voice that had lectured him on his packing choices for the last twenty minutes. Twenty minutes in which we had moved approximately halfway to the point in which our first class tickets would make a difference in our security clearance wait time. Twenty more minutes behind this couple. The flare of Brant’s nostrils warned me he wasn’t gonna make it.

He wasn’t handling this well. Had balked at the long-term lot we left his Aston in, not liking the looks of the parking attendants. Had been less crazy about wheeling his bag the half-mile stretch to the terminal. Didn’t understand, upon our arrival at the Delta counter, that the line of bodies stretching through the space all belonged to people ahead of us in line.

I was sick of his bitching. Hell, maybe this was the reason Jillian didn’t expect us to last. Maybe this was the deep, dark secret I had anticipated for the last nine months.

Brant was a public transportation pu**y.

My brain winced at the crudeness of my inner thoughts, glancing around casually to make sure my obscenity wasn’t telegraphed.

Nope, all clear. The line ahead of us shifted and we stepped one beautiful step forward. I glanced at my watch, worried about the time. Too late, I yanked my wrist down. Tried to hide the motion with an elaborate yawn.

“We late?”

Brant had become obsessed with the time. He was certain we were going to miss the flight. Had checked his watch and calculated our rate of airport progression so many times that I took away his watch. Stuffed it into one of the nine zippered compartments of my Michael Kors bag.

“Nope,” I lied. “We’re good.”

“I don’t think we are. There are 121 people between the first security checkpoint and us. They seem to be processing individuals at a rate of fifteen to twenty seconds per interaction. If you take an average of eighteen seconds per person, then we are looking at almost twenty-two hundred seconds. Thirty-six minutes. Given that I can’t see the next stage of the process, we can only guess at the duration of that wait. But our tickets indicate that boarding ends fifteen minutes before departure. So unless your clock has a time of ten twelve or later, which would allow us a tight window of twenty minutes for the next stage of the security process, we will miss the plane.” He stared at my wrist as if the power of his stare alone could force the bones in my wrist to turn. I tucked my hands in my pockets out of pure stubbornness. Why couldn’t he be normal? The type of boyfriend who glanced at a watch and stated some unfounded prediction that we might miss our plane? I didn’t need intelligent foundations for my worries. I just wanted to move obliviously toward my demise. I noticed that the chatterbox in front of us had stopped talking about clothes and had moved into our space, gawking at Brant like he was an informational display, her pokey elbows jabbing into the girth of her husband. She stepped toward Brant, her head cocked, and I stifled a laugh at the alarm that crossed his face.

“Looks like you’ll have to recalculate,” I whispered, nodding my head toward a new line that opened to the right, the action catching the attention of our entire section, heads snapping, feet scurrying, as everyone did a jerky dance where they tried to decide to embark on a new path or stay in the soon-to-be-shorter current location. “Do we move?”

He watched the traffic, his eyes bouncing, then shook his head. “No.”

I stayed in place, stepping forward as our line thinned considerably. “I’m not sure you were right,” I said shortly, watching the speedy pace of the new line.