Second Honeymoon

Chapter 41

“OKAY, HERE WE go, good as new…one grande chai latte with double foam and one grande nonfat cappuccino, extra hot,” said the stranger, who had quickly and oh so smoothly morphed from clumsy to kind in the eyes of Scott and Annabelle. “But I have to ask—how do you drink it when it’s so hot?”

“I guess I have a high threshold for pain,” said Scott jokingly as the stranger handed him his new cappuccino. As if to prove his own assertion, he promptly took a sip and smiled.

Oh, the irony.

The stranger smiled back—wide, real wide—before turning to Annabelle. “How about yours? Is there enough foam for you?”

“Let’s see,” she said, lifting the lid of her chai latte and putting the cup to her lips. She quickly gave it a thumbs-up. “Plenty of foam.”

“Are you sure, honey?” Scott deadpanned.

Annabelle was sporting a cute little foam mustache. She looked like a model for the “Got Milk?” ad campaign.

“Excuse me for a second,” Scott told the stranger. He promptly leaned over and kissed the mustache off Annabelle’s upper lip. She blushed, he laughed.

The stranger nodded knowingly, pointing at them. “I thought so. You two are newlyweds, aren’t you? I had a feeling. Am I right?”

“Spot-on,” said Scott. “We were married last night.”

“And with any luck we’ll leave for our honeymoon before our first anniversary,” said Annabelle with a wry smile.

“Are you on this flight?” Scott asked the stranger. “You going to Rome?”

“Yes,” the stranger lied. “If it ever actually—”

“Wait,” said Annabelle, craning her neck to peek at the gate area. “I don’t believe it! I think we’re finally boarding.”

Sure enough, Delta flight 6589 to Rome was finally going to take off.

“I guess I’ll see you two on board,” said the stranger. “First I’ve got to buy some gum for my ears. They pop like crazy when I fly.”

“I know what you mean. Mine, too,” said Scott. “Hey, thanks again for the coffee.”

“My pleasure.” Really. All mine.

Scott and Annabelle grabbed their carry-on bags, then walked with their coffees to the back of the line to board the plane. After a few more sips, they turned to each other. Scott squinted. Annabelle scrunched her nose. They both stuck out their tongues.

“I know,” said Scott, looking down at his nonfat cappuccino, extra hot. “Yours tastes a little funny, too, right?”

“It didn’t at first. Maybe I couldn’t tell with the extra foam. But now…”

“Let’s just toss ’em.”

“We can’t.” Annabelle glanced over her shoulder. She was always keen on manners and etiquette, a Junior League version of Letitia Baldrige. “Not here.”

Scott understood. He turned to see the stranger standing outside the Hudson News stand, unwrapping a piece of gum.

“We’ll get rid of them on the plane,” he whispered.

“Good idea,” Annabelle whispered back.

“This is the final boarding call for flight 6589 to Rome,” came the announcement from the front of the gate.

Annabelle looped her arm around Scott’s. “What should we do first when we get there?” she asked.

“You mean after we christen the bed?”

She poked him playfully in the ribs. “Yes, after that.”

“I don’t know; maybe we could go christen the Colosseum.”

Annabelle was about to poke him again when she suddenly screamed. Scott was hunched over, vomit spewing from his mouth. It was like a scene from The Exorcist. Only the vomit wasn’t pea-soup green, it was bright red. He was throwing up his own blood, buckets of it.

“Honey, what’s—”

But that’s as far as Annabelle got before she collapsed to the ground, the knees of her white capris landing—splat!—in her own spew of vomit.

Helplessly, they looked at each other. They didn’t speak. They couldn’t speak. They were dying. So fast, too. Unbelievably so.

Gasping his final breath, Scott turned back and locked eyes with the stranger, who was crumpling up the foil wrapper from a stick of Juicy Fruit.

How’s that high threshold of pain working out for you now, buddy?

The stranger smiled—wide, real wide—and waved good-bye to the newlyweds of flight 6589.

Sogni d’oro! Arrivederci!