Honeymoon

Chapter 39

“WHAT CAN I GET for you?” she asked.

I looked up at the flight attendant—tired, bored to tears, trying to be nice anyway. She and her drink cart had finally made it back to me. “I’ll have a Diet Coke,” I said.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I ran out of those about ten rows ago.”

“How about ginger ale?”

Her eyes darted around the open cans on top of the cart. “Hmmm,” she muttered. She bent down and began pulling out one drawer after another. “I’m sorry, no ginger ale, either.”

“Why don’t we try this the other way around,” I said with a forced smile. “What do you have left?”

“Do you like tomato juice?”

Only with a lot of vodka and a celery stalk sticking out of it. “Anything else?”

“I’ve got one Sprite.”

“Not anymore, you don’t.”

It took her a second to realize that was my way of saying “yes, please.”

She poured about half of the Sprite and handed it over with a small bag of pretzels. As she wheeled the cart off I held up my plastic cup. If I squinted enough at the bubbles, it almost looked like the champagne Nora was probably drinking up in first class.

I popped a minipretzel into my mouth and tried to move my legs. Wishful thinking. With my tray table down, they were wedged in from every angle. Complete loss of circulation to all lower extremities was only a matter of time.

Yes, indeed. It was right about then that I realized what the common thread of this assignment was so far. In a word, cramped.

Cramped office, cramped apartment, cramped seat in the last row of coach that had me breathing in the odors of the cramped bathroom directly over my shoulder.

Not that all was lost.

The one good thing about tailing people on an airplane is that you never have to worry about losing them during the flight. At 35,000 feet, no one is about to slip out the side door.

I glanced up at the royal blue curtain way, way, way down the aisle. While the odds fell somewhere between slim and none that Nora would have any reason to venture back and mingle with us poor slobs in coach, I still had to stay on my toes.

Not that I could feel them anymore.

Earlier at the Westchester airport, I was sure Nora hadn’t spotted me before the flight. Well, she might have seen me, but for sure, she didn’t recognize me. Besides my Red Sox baseball cap, dark glasses, jogging suit, and gold chain, I’d broken out the fake mustache. Throw in a Daily News that was never farther away than twelve inches from my face and I’d pretty much cornered the market on incognito.

No, Nora had no idea she had company on the flight. That much I knew. Of course, what I didn’t know was the question of the day.

What’s in Boston?