Fly Me to the Moon (5 page)

“Propose?”
He laughed. “Where’d you get that from?”

Oh, great. Why did I say that? WHY?
“Um, I saw the Tiffany’s box,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes at myself now.

“Well, I hate to break it to ya, but I never had plans to propose. And while you were snooping through my stuff you should’ve just opened the box. You would’ve found a silver key chain I’d had engraved for your birthday,
not
an engagement ring.”

He got me a key chain?

For my birthday?

And I was going to marry this guy?

“I’m not even close to settling down,” he continued, in his “talking to the small child visiting the cockpit” voice. “But when I do, I assure you it’ll be with someone younger.”

“Excuse me?” I gasped, white knuckling the phone as my knees buckled and I collapsed onto the couch.
He did not just say that. Did he?

“Hailey, get real. By the time I’m ready for marriage, you’ll be pushing forty,” he scoffed.

“And you’ll be pushing
fifty!
” I shouted.

“Look, it’s just not gonna happen. I never promised you anything. Let’s just remember that, okay?”

I threw the phone onto the Persian rug, listening to the soft thud as it made contact and rolled over. I could not believe what I had just heard.
How could I have been so stupid?

“Hailey?” he yelled, over and over until I finally retrieved the phone and put it back to my ear.

“Are you finished?” I asked, my voice sounding clipped and tight.

“I’m sorry if you’re hurt. I’m just trying to give you the big picture, that’s all.”

“Oh, I got the picture,” I said, hoping I sounded strong, practical, and totally in control, despite all evidence to the contrary. “Listen, Michael, I need to stop by and pack up my things.”

“Done. Your stuff is with the front desk. You can get it anytime.”

I just sat there with the phone pressed to my ear. After four years he’d already packed me up and reclaimed his space. Just. Like. That.

“And Llailey, I’m serious about keeping this between us. These are private matters that should remain private.”

My face grew hot, and my hands began to shake as I gripped
the phone even tighter and used his words against him. “Listen, Michael, I never promised you anything. Let’s just rememher that, okay?” And then I hit END.

And then I called Clay.

“No wonder the passengers are so nasty when they come on board; it’s all her fault,” Clay said, pointing at the surly gate agent who just moments before had performed an exaggerated eye roll/head shake when he asked if there was an available first-class seat for me.

“Clay, I’ll be lucky just to get on. Never mind first class,” I said, eyes pinned to the overhead monitor, watching the passenger count rise as the number of empty seats diminished.

“Well, I’d just like to take this opportunity to point out what a good friend I am. Sitting here holding your hand while I should be working,” he said, crossing his long legs, and inspecting his cuticles.

“Yeah, and I bet your fellow crew members are just thrilled about it.” I shook my head and focused back on the screen. “Oh great! Did you see that? The numbers just canceled out! That’s it! It’s over! This chair is now my final destination,” I said, dropping my head in my hands.

It was like, now that I’d made the decision to go to San Juan, I couldn’t stand the idea of
not
going to San Juan. I mean, I was packed and ready for two long, hot, lazy days at the pool with a
mojito in one hand and my long-abandoned manuscript in the other. And now all I had to look forward to was a never-ending bus ride back to Manhattan, where I would dish out countless tins of Fancy Feast and pore through real estate ads for apartments I could never alford. “This free standby travel is a total scam,” I said, grabbing my bags and preparing to leave.

“Where you going?” Clay asked, pulling at a hangnail and refusing to budge.

“Uh, hello? Have you looked at the screen? Nothing but zeros, and that means no seat,
ami go.”
Jeez, his irrational optimism was so annoying.

“It ain’t over till the door closes.” He smiled lazily. “And it ain’t closing till I’m on board,” he said, patting the seat next to him.

And wouldn’t you know it, no sooner had I sat back down when an unruly passenger was escorted off the plane. And then over the FA we heard, “Hailey Fane and Clay Stevens, please report to the boarding door immediately.”

I was lounging in a blue leather first-class seat, footrest extended, pillow placed snugly behind my neck while I sipped champagne and flipped through the manuscript I’d started writing over six years ago but had barely glanced at in the last four. And I was thinking,
This is how it should be. Maybe my karma is starting to turn around. Maybe this moment will signal the start of an exciting, new, first-class life. I really should do this more often. I belong in this cabin. . . .

And then somebody said, “You need to move.”

I looked up to see that same surly gate agent glaring down at me. Well, obviously she was having a rough morning, so the least I could do was try to make it a little better. “Excuse me?” I said, smiling pleasantly.

“Don’t argue with me. Just get your belongings and move,” she said, her voice revealing years of nicotine abuse, as her square-cut,
French-manicured, acrylic nails clutched at her bony hips. “The passenger that booked this seat has arrived, and he’s making his way down the jetway as we speak.”

“I wasn’t arguing,” I said meekly, fully aware that as a nonrevenue standby passenger I was in no position to argue with anyone, especially her. “Um, where should I sit?” I tried to sound as accommodating as possible, while the surrounding passengers eyed me warily, like I was some kind of major security threat.

“Lucky for you there was a miscount. There should be an empty seat somewhere back in coach,” she said, just as a tall, dark-haired, slightly disheveled but really cute guy ran up behind her. “Oh, Mr. Richards, here you are. We’re so sorry for the mix-up. Your seat will be available as soon as Ms. Lane here gets her belongings and heads back to the coach cabin,” the agent said, pointing a thick, white-tipped nail at me while smiling flirtatiously at him.

“No bother. Take your time,” he said, smiling as he fought to catch his breath.

“Well, actually, she needs to hurry, since we’re not allowed to close the door and push back from the gate until she’s seated,” she said, in a voice that was loud enough for the entire first-class cabin to bear witness. “But why don’t we just put your bag right here on top of hers?”

I watched as my carefully laid out garment bag was smashed and flattened by his heavier, bulkier one. But again, due to company-mandated behavioral codes, there was nothing I could do. So grabbing my small carry-on, I strode through the first-class cabin in what had become my standard flight attendant gait: head up, legs moving swiftly, eyes fixed on a distant point lest I accidentally make eye contact with a passenger who might actually want something. But still, nearly everyone I passed shook their head, rolled their eyes, and “tsked” at me. Well, everyone except Clay, who was too busy reading
People
magazine in the galley to even notice my banishment.

And when I finally made it all the way to the very back, I took
the one and only empty seat in the middle of the very last row. Then I turned on my iPod, hunkered down with the latest edition of
Sky Mall
magazine, and waited for it to be over.

It was just as I was finishing my third mojito when it seemed like a really good idea to ask, “But do you think Michael
ever
loved me?” I took one last hearty sip and glanced at Clay, who was sunning on the lounge chair beside me. We were at the Intercontinental hotel just outside of old San Juan, and we’d been relaxing by the pool for the last two and a half hours.

He removed his black Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, sighed deeply, and with great patience said, “Hailey.”

“Oh God, never mind.” I sat up abruptly and folded my arms around my knees. “Don’t even answer that. I can see it in your eyes. I’ve now become the kind of boring, pathetic person we always try to avoid.” I gave him a cautious look, hoping he’d deny it and assure me I was just overreacting and wasn’t anywhere near that bad. But he just shrugged.

“Honestly Hailey, I never really liked Michael,” he confessed.

Oh great, now he tells me.
I felt like I’d just been voted off the island. I mean, first Kat and now Clay. Did all my friends secretly hate the guy I’d almost decided to marry?

“Et tu,
Clay?” I asked, followed by a small, weird sound that was meant to resemble laughter, but didn’t.

He took a sip of his drink and looked at me. “He just never seemed very real, you know? He was always so disingenuous, like he was reciting certain conversational lines just to be polite, when he didn’t really mean any of them.”

“Do you think that’s because he didn’t really like you?” I asked, realizing that on the surface it seemed like a really rude thing to say, but the fact was Clay and I both knew how Michael felt about him.

“Well, at first I thought that might be it. But as I spent more
time with you guys, I realized it was just how he was. I mean, come on, Hailey, what did you guys even talk about besides Atlas? What did you really have in common?” He looked at me with his eyebrows raised, waiting.

“Oh, well, that’s easy.” I nodded, knowing I could ace this one. “We both liked the same restaurants,” I said, using my fingers to list all of our commonalities. “We liked long European layovers; we both liked shopping at Banana Republic . . .” Okay, I had seven more fingers ready to go to work and I was already done. That was one shallow list.

“All first-date stuff,” Clay said. “Only you managed to coast four years on it.”

“Um, I think I need another drink,” I mumbled, sensing Clay was just getting started.

“And I never understood it,” he continued. “You read all the time, go to museums, enjoy theater, but it’s not like you could share that stuff with Michael.”

Yup, he was on a roll.

“But I have you for all that.” I smiled, desperately scraping my straw against the bottom of my plastic cup while my eyes searched for the waiter.

“And you wanna know the truth?”

No way. Uh-uh. I absolutely, positively, do not want to know the truth!

“I think you were totally selling out.”

I just stared at him, completely defeated.

“And I’m with Kat: It
was
for the best. You
can
do better,” he said, finishing his drink and placing his empty cup on the small plastic table between us. Then, shaking his head, he said, “I’m done discussing this, Hailey. And you need to stop obsessing.”

I just gazed at him, nodding obediently, knowing he was right. So from then on, I’d stop obsessing
out loud.

“Man, it’s hot,” he said, removing his glasses and heading for the pool. “Wanna go for a swim?”

I shook my head and watched as he waded into the shiny clear water, going all the way under until he was completely submerged. And when he finally resurfaced, his wet blond hair was all separated and glistening yellow, like a little baby duck. And I felt so grateful to have a friend like him, someone who would tell me the truth no matter how brutal. But I also wondered why he hadn’t bothered to point any of this out until now.

He swam over to the in-pool bar, where some fellow crew members were talking and laughing. And I considered getting up to join them, except that my drink had just arrived and I was beginning to realize that me + 4 drinks + a pool = a bad idea. So I reapplied my sunscreen, leaned back on my lounge chair, and mulled over what Clay had just said.

It was true that I’d sold out. Or at the very least entered into an extreme, one-sided compromise. And as much as I hated to admit it, I’d definitely forfeited shared interests and true companionship for the illusion of comfort and security. I mean, thinking back on all those expensive dinners, well, they pretty much consisted of Michael recanting yet another boring
Top Gun
wannabe story while I sneaked peeks at all the other tables and wondered if those women were as bored as I was. Then, after he’d exhausted all of his glory stories, there’d be complete and total silence—but not the kind that comes from years of comfortable familiarity.