State We're In (16 page)

‘The biggest.'

Dean looked meaningfully at this strange woman as he unfolded the broadsheet and effectively created a barrier between them. He wanted to be alone. Under other circumstances he could imagine himself chatting to her, seducing her, even making her fall in love with him, because that was what he did. He flirted and dated, seduced and left. This woman had pert tits and long legs and she was certainly worth noticing. She wasn't young, but she definitely still had something about her; not the flush of youth, it was more of a wash of experience, but that could be attractive. Yes, he might have, probably would have, under other circumstances. But not today. Today, he just wanted to be alone.

The woman popped her head around his paper and hiss- whispered, ‘Do we have to pay for the champagne?'

‘No,' he replied firmly.

‘Not even the ones I spilt?'

‘No.'

‘Wow. That's good, isn't it?' Dean shook his newspaper pointedly, but she carried on, ‘It's very different from back in cargo, isn't it? As I mentioned, I've never flown club. Even with my parents. On family holidays they used to put us kids in the back and sit up front themselves. I used to worry what would happen if the plane snapped in two, but they gave us a hundred quid spending money each, every hol, which eased any qualms I had. But it's another world, isn't it! Champagne on tap, none of that endless waiting for the drinks trolley to come creeping down the aisle. I promise you, no matter where I sit on a plane, I am
always
the last person to be served a drink. It's like some form of torture listening to the bottles and cans clinking merrily against one another, a siren's call, and having to patiently wait my turn.' She glanced at her full glass of champagne. ‘This is heaven.'

Dean remained mute. Finally, thankfully, she stopped talking for a few minutes as the plane slowly lumbered along the runway and then, quite suddenly, picked up speed and height. Their seats were in the centre of the cabin, but the woman strained to see past the aisle and out through a window. Dean didn't look up. He couldn't wait for the ground to disappear, for the plane to push through the clouds and get into the vast blue sky. He was more than ready to leave it all behind him.

The moment the plane levelled out, she started to talk again. ‘And the nuts?'

He understood her immediately. ‘They're free too.'

Encouraged, she thrust her hand around the newspaper and held it out for him to shake. ‘My name is Joanna Russell, but everyone other than my mum calls me Jo.'

Dean didn't accept her hand but felt he had no alternative but to nod. ‘Dean Taylor.'

‘Pleased to meet you.' She smiled, but he didn't reciprocate the joy; couldn't she tell? ‘It's a long flight, so I thought it would be more fun if we got to know each other a bit,' she added.

Dean sighed. He was going to have to spell it out. ‘Actually, the etiquette is no talking. There's a screen here, which will divide us, and now we're in the air I'm going to put it up. No offence. It's been a long couple of days. I just need some rest.' He pressed the button that made the dividing screen rise. The annoyingly gregarious woman instantly hit the button on her side and it dropped down again.

‘You don't sound American. Are you? A bit? You have a twang. Do you live in Chicago?'

Dean lowered his newspaper and considered. ‘Really, no, not a bit, really and yes,' he replied. He was careful not to season his voice with any intonation as he answered her questions.

She smiled at him, a broad beam that flooded into her eyes, which Dean respected as it was rare and candid, but he just didn't want to be social. Couldn't be, even if he tried. She obviously thought he was hoping to be funny, because she giggled. He honestly wasn't.

‘I've never been to Chicago.' She paused, clearly hoping for a murmur of ‘Fancy that!' or something. He gave her nothing. She ploughed on regardless. ‘I've been to New York once, a long time ago. I liked it. A lot. Are they similar places?'

‘A little.'

Silence. Then, ‘Really, in what way?'

‘They both have shops, clubs and restaurants. They're both full of busy,
private
people.'

This Jo woman had the hide of a rhino. The emphasis Dean had placed on the word
private
sailed way above her head
.
‘A bit like London in that respect,' she commented. She paused again, and Dean allowed the hiatus to stretch. He really did hope it was a full stop rather than a breather this time. It wasn't. ‘I desperately need to get away. I'm going through what's known as a rough time.' She used her fingers to draw speech marks around the words. ‘Wow, I honestly don't know why I've just done that strange inverted-commas-with-my-fingers thing. It isn't a gesture I've ever used before. Promise. And having done it once, I doubt I'll try it again. It isn't as though I'm a children's TV presenter,' she gabbled.

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' Dean said dutifully.

‘You're sorry I'm not a children's TV presenter?' She looked confused.

Dean was beginning to think she was unhinged. He glanced around to see if there were any spare seats that he might be able to swap into. There weren't. ‘I'm sorry you are going through a rough time,' he clarified. He didn't want to get into it. He had his own rough time to deal with, if dealing with problems was what he wanted to do, and he wasn't sure it was. His head hurt. His eyes stung. His belly felt hollow. He'd need some calm and quiet if he was to process all that had passed in the last few days. He wished this woman would just shut up.

‘Yesterday I discovered my boyfriend was married.'

Yup, certifiable. Must be. Otherwise why would she be so candid, and why had she chosen to be so candid with
him
? He wasn't the sort of person who invited familiarity. He was a good-time guy. Women told him what they knew he wanted to hear – that they were footloose and carefree (whether they were or not) – and blokes told him about business deals and the football results (but only if they were on winning streaks). Dean didn't do deep and meaningful. He didn't know what to make of this stranger who was prepared to pour out her misery for close inspection. Did it show she had guts, or just a masochistic streak? It was hard to know.

She shrugged. ‘Yeah, stuff happens. So, now I'm going to Chicago for my ex-boyfriend's wedding.'

‘But didn't you just say your boyfriend is
already
married. You mean yesterday you discovered he was
about
to get married?' Dean honestly didn't want to get involved, but he was confused, so against his better judgement he found he was being drawn into this conversation. She had a pretty mouth. Plump lips.

‘No. Yesterday's guy … well, he wasn't really a boyfriend,' she admitted. ‘Not really. More of a …' she paused, ‘an encounter.'

‘I see.'

‘Yeah, you probably do,' she said with a defeated sigh. ‘The ex whose wedding I'm going to was my fiancé a while back.'

Dean had been invited to a number of weddings of women he'd previously dated. He knew that these scorned and spurned women invited him to their big days to show him, the world and themselves that they were
absolutely
over him. Sometimes they were. Other times he knew they weren't; they just wanted him to see them looking good in a three-thousand-dollar dress. Either way, he never accepted the invites. He simply didn't do weddings. He didn't like them. He didn't believe in the whole marriage thing, his parents had seen to that. But even if he'd been the biggest romantic on earth, he doubted the sanity of going to an
ex's
wedding. It had to be awkward, didn't it? Dean thought back to the woman's reading matter that had fallen out of the locker and on to his shoulder and felt bad for her. He was pretty sure that she was too fragile for such a social occasion; then again, he was also
absolutely
sure it wasn't something he should worry about. He scrabbled around in his head for something to say that wouldn't be too cold or cutting but would draw the conversation to a polite close. He did pride himself on being polite, even charming – just as his father had suggested (it grated that his father could assess his character so accurately; surely nothing more than a lucky guess) – so he had no desire to be unnecessarily harsh, but he really, really wanted to be left in peace.

‘Wow, that's fun.' He meant brave or idiotic. ‘Good for you.' He was pretty sure he'd hit the right note. Once again he shook out his newspaper, raised it and pretended to read.

‘I'm not actually going to go to the wedding. There isn't going to be a wedding,' she added.

No, no, no, no. Dean fought his own curiosity but lost. He lowered the paper and folded it into neat quarters. ‘Now I'm really confused.'

‘I'm going to stop it.' The Jo woman strained her neck in an effort to catch the eye of a flight attendant. She waved her empty glass, which she wanted refilled with champagne, and then looked at Dean. ‘Will you join me?'

She had huge brown eyes. Despite her cheery chatter, he noticed that they hinted at another story. They looked like the eyes of a baby harp seal, the type you saw on animal rights posters; baby seals that were pleading not to be clubbed to death for their skins. She looked weary. That was something he recognised. What the hell.

‘I'll take a juice.'

They were swiftly furnished with their drinks and then Jo started to explain her situation in earnest. She told him about how she had once been very much in love with some guy called Martin; how this Martin guy had done all the things that women expected from a serious relationship: he'd been obsessed with his career, had duly been promoted and then had proposed with an impressive ring (Tiffany copy). She'd accepted. So far, so same. Then she gave details about the jitters that led to her calling off the marriage at the last minute. She told Dean that she now realised that this was ‘foolish'. He was amused at her word choice. It was either an understatement or a self-delusion; he found himself wondering which. She explained that despite focused attempts at dating numerous other men since, she'd never met anyone she liked as much as she'd liked Martin. Then she told Dean that three months ago Martin had sent her an invite to his wedding, which unbelievably she'd seen as a clear plea from her ex to be rescued and a cue for her to rekindle their relationship. So she'd decided to do this ‘brave and wonderful thing' of flying to Chicago to stop his wedding.

Dean did not interrupt Jo throughout the telling of her story. She was loquacious as she talked of her determination to win back this guy, and her certainty was enthralling. She was sure that this was the most romantic and idealistic gesture she'd ever made in her life. He thought it must be the champagne talking; there wasn't another reasonable explanation. ‘Don't get me wrong, I'm not some starry-eyed virgin; quite the opposite,' she assured him. Her eyes widened a fraction as she confessed this, as did those of the guy sitting behind her. Dean had a sudden image of this woman giving head; it wasn't a conscious fantasy, it was just something that happened to him, fairly often. He found it difficult to think about women without thinking about sex, unless they were particularly unattractive women. ‘You see, I've finally realised that I've been getting this whole romance thing topsy-turvy.'

Topsy-turvy? She said gosh
and
topsy-turvy. Dean wondered whether she might also say ‘whoops-a-daisy' or ‘goodness gracious me'; did she actually live in this century? Maybe it was a spoof, something for TV. Was there an elaborate hoax being played on him? He glanced around for cameras but couldn't spot any. Cameras in a business-class cabin were unlikely – no doubt that would be some sort of infringement of privacy rights – but were they any more unlikely than this woman's story?

‘You see, I thought romance was all about the big bang.'

‘Are we talking about the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the universe?'

‘Er, no, we're talking about chemistry.'

‘As I said.'

‘Sexual chemistry, not,' she waved her hand dismissively, ‘not GCSE horror chemistry.'

‘I see.'

‘I thought you had to be wildly attracted to one another. I thought there had to be dramatic moments, a quickening of the pulse, then – ultimately – knickers and sense being thrown to the wind. I thought love was like in the poems, songs and films. There was none of that with Martin, and so I panicked.'

‘What
was
there with Martin?'

‘He's tall, pleasant. We didn't row much.'

‘But you no longer consider the quickening of the pulse as vital?'

‘Not really. I mean, I've had that with other guys since, quite a few others actually, and it never, ever lasts. Take you, for example.'

‘Me?'

‘Normally I'd be all flirtatious and ridiculous with you because you're very much my usual type, you know, physically, but it wouldn't work out.'

‘Really?' Dean was used to being every woman's type and so was not as interested in the flattery as he was in the fact that she was serving it up with a rebuttal.

‘No, it wouldn't. I could write our story now, having known you for just half an hour.'

‘You could?'

‘Yup. If I hadn't seen the light and realised that Martin is my One, I'd have behaved very differently on meeting you.'

‘Is that so?'

‘I'd have got drunk and slutty, rather than drunk and chatty. We'd have had hot, irresponsible sex. You'd think it was fun, I'd think it was love, until I realised the number you'd given me was for the local pet store.'

Dean had never actually given out the pet store's number, but he'd once given his real estate agent's number in an attempt to shake a persistent woman who he'd considered to be a transient lay; he could not fault Jo's account.