Cross Country Confusion

(To any readers still sticking with me - thank you, and welcome back!)

I have to admit, the last person I expected, or wanted, to see was Lauren Dawes. I liked Lauren. I really did. And that, of course, was the problem. I liked Lauren, and I had not done right by her. But I couldn’t afford to dwell on that now because Lauren was being her usual friendly self, and I had to try and act the same.

“I hope you don’t mind me tagging along to the airport, Francie,” Lauren said. “It’s ridiculously sappy of me, but I wanted to see Michael off.”

“It’s not sappy, “I countered. “It’s sweet.”

“Thanks. I thought so. But Michael seemed a bit weirded out by it.”

I looked sideways at Michael, who looked very uncomfortable. “Yeah,” I said. “Well, he doesn’t deserve you anyway.”

Lauren laughed, as I hoped she would, and we managed to maintain a relatively normal, light conversation for the rest of the ride. But, I have to say, when we finally got to the small commuter airport in White Plains, I was relieved. I didn’t know how much longer I could maintain the pretense. It was obvious the strain was taking its toll on Michael too - obvious to me at least.

When we got to the airport, I allowed the driver to help me with my bags as Lauren and Michael said their goodbyes. Of course, I watched out of the corner of my eye – how could I help it? By now I knew I had strong feelings for Michael. I had acted on them once, but I would not do so again. Still, I couldn’t help but spy a little bit.

Their parting was tender, but a bit hurried. They hugged, and Lauren kissed Michael, who still seemed a bit uncomfortable. She waved to me, and I waved back. Then I found myself hustled onto the private Finley Foundation jet.

As a mode of travel, I have to admit, private jets are the way to go. I didn’t have much experience with them personally. My family had been wealthy, but we had used commercial airlines when we traveled, since we only flew a couple of times a year for vacations. Keeping a jet was a needless expense, my mom had always said. Once or twice I’d had the chance to travel with a friend’s family on ski trips and Caribbean getaways. But it had been a very long time since I had traveled this way.

I settled into a swiveling leather chair and waited as Michael spoke with the pilot. He then sat down across from me, studiously avoiding my eyes, as he had done since I’d gotten in the car.

“Thanks for the lift,” I said. “I know it’s out of your way.”

“Not really,” he answered, finally looking at me. “I was going to the left coast anyway.”

“Yeah, but still. It’s an inconvenience. But Lila insisted.”

“Yes, well, that sounds like Grams. Don’t worry about it.”

And that was that. Beyond telling me to help myself to anything in the galley, we sat in total silence for the next two hours. Michael spread some piles of official-looking documents in front of him, and I watched a movie on my iPad. The entire time, though, I felt the specter of Labor Day weekend hovering between us.

“Look,” I said, when I finally couldn’t take it anymore. “This is ridiculous. We need to talk about what happened.”

“Francie—“ Michael began, but I wasn’t going to let him put me off.

“No. We’re not going to pretend it didn’t happen. I like Lauren, and I feel like crap over what we did.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t undo what we did, so what do you want? Besides, we didn’t do much. It was a kiss, that’s all.”

“It was a bit more than just a kiss.”  Wow. Was that really all he thought that was? If so, we had very different memories of Labor Day weekend.

“OK, yeah, it was. But we stopped it before it could go too far, so—“

“I stopped it,” I pointed out. “You were too drunk to stop it yourself.”

Michael winced a bit at that. “I was, and you’re right. I probably would have taken it further had you not stopped it. And I’m grateful for that. Because I would not have been able to forgive myself if it had gone any further.”

“Just out of curiosity, why?”

“Why?”

“Yes, why?  Why would you have not been able to forgive yourself?” It was a stupid thing to ask, because I knew the answer would hurt, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

“Because I would have hurt Lauren.” Yep, there it was. “And I would have hurt you.”

OK, I hadn’t expected that. He actually was thinking about me. I knew I couldn’t assign more meaning to that thought than it deserved, but it still felt good that Michael was considering me as well.

“Still,” I said. “What we did would hurt Lauren too.”

“Are you saying you want me to tell her? Clear the air?”

“God, no! That’s the point – it would hurt her. She never needs to know. It was a drunken mistake and won’t be repeated. But I think it’s probably best if we don’t spend too much time together in the future.”

“That’s going to be difficult, with you working with my grandmother,” Michael pointed out.

“Granted, but we should try to keep our meetings to a minimum. I think we both know that we’re attracted to each other. But nothing can come of it. You’re with Lauren.  You’re getting married. And she deserves better from you.”

“You’re right. And I . . . want to do right by Lauren. But, Francie, I have to admit, if what we did hadn’t been so wrong, it would have been really, really right.”

That threw me for a second, and all I could do was stutter, “I – it doesn’t matter. It’s just m-more reason we need to stay away from each other.”

That was pretty much the end of conversation for most of the rest of the long transcontinental flight. Michael buried himself in his work, and I tried to get into a couple of more movies. But I couldn’t concentrate, so I tried to nap. But the conversation kept buzzing through my head and sleep was impossible.  Los Angeles had never seemed so far from New York as it did that day.

A few hours later, I was awakened from a semi-dozing state by a rhythmic tapping sound. I opened my eyes and looked across to where Michael sat, staring out the window, his pen tapping on top of the pile of paperwork. I sat up, glanced at my watch, and realized we must be getting close to LA. I opened my mouth to ask how much longer we had, but closed it again as I noticed an odd expression on Michael’s face. As I watched, he stopped tapping the pen and instead gripped it so tight that his knuckles turned white. Something was wrong here.

“Michael?” I began, a bit hesitantly. Clearly Michael’s thoughts had been very far away because at the sound of my voice, he jumped and the pen snapped in half in his hand. I hurried over with some napkins to wipe up the spilled ink before it could get all over his suit. “I’m sorry!” I said. “I didn’t mean to startle you!”

Michael shook his head, as he tried to blot a puddle of ink off an official-looking document. He still seemed a bit distracted, but now he also seemed annoyed. But not at me. “It’s fine,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Everything OK?”

‘Yeah.” Michael’s sleeve hit the puddle of ink as he reached over it to grab another napkin. He cursed and threw the napkin and the papers to the floor. Then he sat back and closed his eyes. I returned to my seat and watched him, wondering what I should say. I decided that there was nothing I could really say, since I had no idea what was going on. So, I waited.

After a couple of minutes, Michael opened his eyes and looked over at me, a resigned and somewhat embarrassed expression on his face. “I’m sorry, Francie,” he said. “I’m being stupid.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something.” I could tell Michael was struggling with whether or not he should tell me more. “It never leaves this plane,” I offered.

Michael smiled a little at that and the tension in his body relaxed a bit. Another minute or so passed before he said, “You know that my grandmother raised me, don’t you?”

I was a little taken aback at the question, so I hesitated a moment before answering. “Um, yes, Lila told me.”

“Did she tell you why?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For your loss, I guess.” But I knew I was also apologizing for knowing something so personal about him. And he knew it too.

Michael shrugged. “It was a long time ago. But I still get uptight whenever I fly into the area.”

“I thought it happened up in San Francisco,” I said.

“The accident did, yeah. But they flew into LA first to spend a few days with some friends before Parents’ Weekend.” He shrugged again. “I guess it’s all interconnected in my head. I don’t know.”

Now I felt awful. It was my fault we were here, and these memories were surfacing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “If I had known, I would have never asked for the ride.”

Michael smiled again. “You didn’t ask for the ride. As I recall, Grams practically forced it on you.”

“But why would she if she knew—“

“She doesn’t know.”

“Oh.”

“No one does.”

“Oh. I see.” And I did. Not even Lauren knew about these particular hidden demons of Michael’s. And I was pretty sure I was the last person he wanted to expose them to. “Well, like I said. What happens on the plane, stays on the plane.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Michael stretched as if to shake off the tension enveloping him. “Anyway…”

I knew what that meant, and tactfully turned away. I picked up my iPad and pretended to watch another movie, leaving Michael to whatever thoughts were causing the faraway expression I saw when I snuck a look.

About thirty minutes later, we finally landed at the Burbank Airport. I assured Michael that I didn’t need a ride home, as I wasn’t sure how long I’d need to be in LA. I told him I didn’t want to inconvenience him, but we both knew that I just didn’t want him to have to come back to LA and revisit those difficult memories. After watching the Finley Foundation jet take off again, I grabbed a cab and headed to Felicity’s apartment, not knowing what awaited me when I got there.