The Book of Lies

39

Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned off the Fasten Seat Belt sign—you may now move freely about the cabin,” the flight attendant announces as I stare through the egg-shaped window and watch Florida disappear beneath the cotton candy clouds.

All around me, seats are empty. Still, all three of us sit separately, just to keep it safe.

Checking over my shoulder, I peer ten rows back at my dad, who’s fast asleep with his head sagging forward. After everything we’ve been through, he needs some rest. So do I. Across from him, I look for Serena, but her seat’s empty. I glance back at my dad. Don’t tell me she snuck over to—

“Calvin,” a female voice interrupts, “would you mind if I joined you?”

In the aisle, Serena stands over me, her back leaning on the edge of the seat behind her, as if she’s trying to steer clear of my personal space. I’m tempted to keep her there, but I can’t risk letting anyone overhear.

She slides into the aisle seat, with the empty middle seat between us, then crosses her legs Indian style. It’s then that I see she’s barefoot. “I appreciate the kindness,” she says.

“I didn’t offer any.”

“You were about to, Calvin. Your eyes said so.”

I’m ready to vomit right there. “Listen, Serena—I don’t know you very well, and I don’t know Lloyd much better. But when I look at his expensive silk shirts . . . or his unscuffed shoes—I know my dad has a big need to impress. And as I know from my clients, desperate men are the most easily mesmerized by new-agey, yoga-filled nonsense—especially when it comes from younger, sexed-up women who lock pinkies with them in hopes of getting whatever it is they think those men can get for them. Now I realize this isn’t a complex analogy, so to stay with that theme: Go flap your lashes somewhere else.”

She looks at me in silence for what seems like a full minute. “I’m sorry I made you angry.”

“No, angry’s what you get when someone dings your car. This is the cold bitter rage that comes when someone kicks around in your personal crisis.”

“Calvin—”

“Cal,” I growl at her.

She’s still unfazed. “Cal, I’m not sleeping with your father.”

“Then what’s with the pinkies and the hand-holding?”

“He was shaking, Cal. In all your anger, did you not see that? I was trying to calm him—refocus his energy.”

“His energy? Oh, Lord. Listen, even as a stranger, I can tell he’s clearly in love with you.”

“And I love him, but as I’ve told him, it’s solely as a teacher. When we first started doing meditation—”

“Whoa ho ho—my father couldn’t meditate if—”

“He’s doing it right now,” she says, calm as ever.

I turn back to my dad, whose head is still down. His eyes are closed. I thought he was sleeping, but the way he’s swaying forward and back . . .

“The key is breathing through your nose,” Serena adds. “Each breath needs to reach down to your diaphragm.”

I stare at her across the empty middle seat. She nods and smiles.

“Serena, why’re you really here? And please don’t insult me by saying you came all the way to the airport and potentially risked your life just to wave good-bye and teach my dad how to breathe and realign his energy.”

Most people turn away when you ask them a hard question. Serena continues to look straight at me, and her yellow blue eyes . . . I hate to say it . . . there’s a real depth to her stare.

“He helped my brother. Andrew,” she finally says.

“Who? My dad?”

“You almost had it right before, Cal. Your dad—he’s Andrew’s sponsor,” she explains. “And my brother—been in AA for years—always relapsing. A few months ago, the judge sent him back, and your dad—it wasn’t anything heroic—but your dad was nice to him. They connected. Really connected. Whatever they had in common, Andrew was Andrew again.”

“So all this—coming to help my dad—it’s just a thank-you?”

“Oh, no. I’m not just helping your dad. I’m helping myself,” she says as easily as if she’s telling me her shoe size. Reading my confusion, she adds, “Two weeks ago, they found Andrew’s body in the sea grapes grove—near Holiday Park. But it was your dad who helped us locate him—he knew Andrew’s old hiding spots. He knew my brother. And even though I think you have a hard time with things like this—being near your dad . . . somehow I’m still connected with Andrew.”

“Can I offer you a snack?” a flight attendant interrupts, approaching just behind Serena and holding out a tiny bag of pretzels.

“No peanuts?” Serena asks.

“Sorry, just pretzels,” the attendant says.

“Then I’m meant to have pretzels,” Serena decides, smiling as she pops open the little bag and turns back to me. “Your dad tried to save my brother, Cal. And by helping Andrew—with that strength your dad shows, like in the airport—your father helped me. He’s still helping me. And I’m helping him. Do you not see that? That’s what being family is—that’s the best part—it’s not tit for tat or who owes more, it’s simply—when one hurts, so does the other; when one finds good, you share in that, too. That’s family.” But as Serena continues to stare my way . . . “This is making you uncomfortable, isn’t it?” she asks.

I shake my head, trying to convince her she’s wrong.

She goes silent, her stare digging even deeper. She’s not upset. She’s excited. “I was wrong before. This is why I’m here, isn’t it?” she blurts, not the least bit concerned that we brought her on this plane to save her life. “Not just for what your father and I share . . . the lessons are for you, too, for all three of us. Oh, I didn’t see it before. I mean, until you showed up, I didn’t even think he had family.”

“He did have family! He just—” I catch myself, clenching the fuse that’s lit in my chest and digging my feet into the airplane’s thin carpet. “He has a family,” I say quietly. “He just chose to ignore me.”

“You sure about that?” She tugs on her ankles, tightening her Indian-style position and reaching for a pretzel.

“What’re you talking about?”

“You were, what, sixteen years old when he was released? Just taking the SATs, starting to wonder about going to college. You really think having a convicted murderer enter your life was the best thing for you?”

“You don’t know that. You met him, what, four months ago?”

“Six months,” she says. “How’d you know that, anyway?”

“I was bluffing. But that’s my point: You barely know him. I heard you at the hospital, asking if he got the shipment. So answer my question, Serena: Why’d you really come to the airport?”

I wait for her yellow blue eyes to narrow, but they just get wider. She’s not insulted. She’s hurt. “I came for the same reason you did,” she tells me.

“Let me guarantee right now that’s not true.”

“Do you really think you’re the only one whose life didn’t turn out the way they dreamed, Cal? When I was eleven years old, my mother remarried a man who . . . well, shouldn’t’ve been living around eleven-year-old girls. Or their younger brothers. I still pay for those years. But when I was seventeen—when I finally told my mom, and she threw me out because she couldn’t handle that it might actually be true—I remember sitting in this filthy McDonald’s. It was pouring, one of those thick Florida rains, and I had this feeling to go outside. When I did, I saw this puddle—shaped like a mitten—that reminded me of this great puddle we used to jump in back when we could afford camp. And reliving that moment . . . that was blissful. Real bliss. All because I listened to that feeling to go outside.”

“Okay—so to find true meaning in life, I need to go stand out in some sentient downpour. Very Shawshank Redemption.”

“Let me ask you something, Cal: Why’d you come on this trip?”

“I almost got killed this morning.”

“Before that. When you saw your dad lying there in the rain . . . You had your own feeling, right? You listened to something inside yourself and suddenly your life was reignited. Like in Don Juan, where he says that sometimes you need to lace your belt the opposite way. We get so comfortable in our lives, things get so mundane, we spiritually fall asleep. But you don’t have to go to an ashram in India to reignite your life. If we just follow those feelings, like my feeling to go talk to your dad at the airport—”

“Serena, the only reason I got on this plane was to save my own rear.”

She undoes her Indian-style position, stands up from her seat, and never abandons the soft, knowing smile that lifts her cheeks. “Your father told me where you work, Cal. If you really were as tough as you think, you wouldn’t be there. And if you really didn’t want to connect with him, you wouldn’t be here. It’s no different than taking me along with you. In that act, you did one of the most beautiful things anyone can do. You said yes to me. And with your father, just getting on this plane, you did the same. You buckled your belt the other way.”

As she walks back to her seat, I look down at my unfastened seat belt. “Airline buckles only go one way,” I call out.

“Not when you share them with the person next to you,” she calls back.