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All this beaming was really getting on my nerves. My father was wearing an orange track suit with royal blue racing stripes. His red
cornicello
with the gold cap and thick gold chain really popped against it, and his black sneakers with the fluorescent green stripes added to the color burst.

“Wow,” I said. “Guess we won’t lose you two.” My parents kept licking their ice cream cones and looking at each other.

I squinted at them. “You two didn’t actually drive in together, did you?”

“That’s why they call it a personal life, honey,” my mother said.

“That’s not a dog in that backpack, is it?” my father asked.

“Okay, then,” I said. “I guess I’ll go find someplace to sit down.”

“Fine, dear,” they both said at pretty much the same time.

As soon as I found a seat out of earshot, I let Cannoli out so she could sit on my lap and called Mario’s cell phone.

He answered on the second ring. “Don’t tell me you missed your flight,” he said.

“Oh, ye of no faith,” I said. “I’m even early. How ’bout that?”

“Did you bring that dog?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Guess what? You’re never going to believe this. Mom and Dad are on the same flight.”

“Well, buffer it as much as you can, because they’re just going to have to deal.”

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“Oh, they’re dealing all right,” I said. “Believe me. It almost seems like they’re flirting with each other.”

“Well, I’m glad they’re at least being civil. Maybe Dad’s the date Mom was talking about bringing.”

“That’s hilarious.” I checked my watch. “So, how’s it going down there?”

Mario laughed. “Oh, it’s an adventure, all right. One of Amy’s uncles dragged us along for an impromptu bachelor party last night. At a big Atlanta strip club.”

“Gay or straight?” I asked.

“Ha,” Mario said.

I tried to read his voice. “Are they treating you and Todd okay?”

“Oh, they’re fine with gays down here. It’s northerners they hate.”

“Cut it out,” I said.

“I’m not kidding. Lots of tasteful little confederate flags flying everywhere. Apparently they’re still fighting the Civil War.”

“Who knew,” I said.

“Just wait. I hear they’re fixin’ to fix okra at the reception.”

“No,” I said. “Will we have to eat it, do you think?”

“Everybody down here calls Andrew
Bahs-tin
.”

“What do they call you and Todd?”

“Bahs-tin. Or girlfriend. Depends.”

“Oh, boy,” I said.

A voice blared over the loudspeaker. “At this time we will begin boarding Flight Six Seventy-five with service to Atlanta and continuing on to Paris. We invite our first-class passengers, and those passengers traveling with small children or requiring a few extra minutes, to board.”

“Listen,” I said. “I gotta go. They’re starting to board.” 180

C L A I R E C O O K

I hung up my phone, turned it off, and tucked it into my shoulder bag.

“Okay, Cannoli,” I said. “You’re going into the backpack again, and you’re just going to have to deal with it until I can find a way to sneak you out.”

I hooked the harness to her collar and zipped her in. I looked up. A handful of people, mostly wearing business suits and carrying briefcases, were working their way past the person taking the first-class boarding passes.

One of them turned around and waved.

It was Sean Ryan.

• 24 •

IF I COULD HAVE WALKED TO ATLANTA, I WOULD

have. I would even have climbed right onto the plane they used for filming
Snakes on a Plane
, if it could have kept me off this one. I would have seriously preferred to face all that venom wiggling down from the overhead compartments than Sean Ryan any day.

If only I could think of a way to get to coach without passing through first class. Whose idea was it to put it up at the front of the plane anyway? I could see the plane through the terminal windows, so I could tell it was one of the gigantic ones. There would probably be not one, but two aisles. That meant I had a fifty-fifty chance of picking the aisle that didn’t go by him.

“At this time we will begin boarding zone E,” the voice on the loudspeaker said so suddenly I jumped. “Please remove your boarding pass from the folder and have it ready as you approach.”

Cannoli and I surged forward and funneled into a line with the rest of our group. I handed my boarding pass to the attendant, who held it under the scanner and handed it back.

Halfway down the covered ramp to the plane, Cannoli started to whimper like crazy. I rolled her backpack over to the side.

A woman with shoe polish hair stopped beside us. “You better not be seated next to me,” she said. “I’m allergic to dogs.”

“She’s totally hypoallergenic,” I said.

The woman shook her head and started walking again.

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C L A I R E C O O K

I resisted the urge to tell her I was allergic to her hair color. I unzipped Cannoli and popped her into my shoulder bag. “Be cool,” I said.

“Hey there,” a pretty blond flight attendant said as I walked up the covered ramp to the plane.

“Hey there,” I whispered. I was trying to peek into the first-class cabin so I could figure out which was the safest aisle.

She took my boarding pass out of my hand, looked at it, then pointed to the far aisle. “This way, sugar.”

“Thanks, sugar,” I whispered.

I held my head high. I’d said what I said and that was it. Life goes on. I kept my eyes focused on the back of the plane. I had places to go, things to do, a seat to find.

People were taking forever to get their stuff up in the overhead bins, so the progress was painfully slow. We’d all take a step, wait some more, take another step. The guy in front of me was a real shedder. Short wisps of hair and huge flakes of dandruff drifted down the back of his black sports coat. I wondered if he’d tried Paul Mitchell Tea Tree Shampoo.

Adding B vitamins to his diet might help, too, especially vitamin B6. A healthy head starts from the inside.

Cannoli wiggled her way up until her front paws were braced on the edge of my shoulder bag.

“Easy,” I whispered. “We’re almost there.” Cannoli jumped.

A woman screamed. “What
was
that?” somebody said.

I looked down. Sean Ryan was holding Cannoli, who was deliriously licking his face.

The pretty blond flight attendant pushed her way past the line. “All animals must be confined to approved carriers for the duration of the flight, or you will be asked to deplane immediately,” she said.

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“Gee,” I said. “What happened to sugar?” The flaky guy cleared his throat and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Hello. I’d like to get there
today
,” somebody behind me said. I could feel people glaring at me from all directions.

My left arm, the one that was attached to the approved carrier, was twisted behind me. I gave it a yank. Cannoli’s backpack crashed into my hip and then bounced against Sean Ryan’s oversize first-class seat.

He grabbed it out of my hand and tucked it under the roomy seat in front of him.

The flight attendant flashed him a dazzling smile. “Oh, sir,” she said. “I didn’t realize the bitty critter was with you. Can you just do me a favor and tuck him back into his little case until we get off the ground, sugar? I’ll see if I can find him a cookie in just another minute.”

I couldn’t avoid it anymore, so I looked at Sean Ryan. He smiled.

“Lady,” somebody said behind me. “Let’s
go
.” I reached down and scratched Cannoli behind her ear.

“Traitor,” I whispered.

THERE WASN’T A LOT TO DO
once I got to my seat, and there certainly wasn’t much room to do it in. I was on the aisle, but the woman next to me already had her arm on my armrest, and there was no way she was giving it up. I leaned into her and tried to edge out an inch or two. No go.

So I closed my eyes and tried to pretend it was all a bad dream. Maybe Sean Ryan hadn’t even checked his messages.

Maybe he only used his cell phone and his home phone

184

C L A I R E C O O K

didn’t even work anymore, and they’d just forgotten to disconnect the voice mail. Not that I’d done anything wrong. So, okay, I’d left a few messages. Where was the crime in trying to get a little closure? And it’s not like I’d left that many of them. If the beep interrupts you, you don’t have to count the next call as a whole separate message. Everybody knows that.

And, bottom line, he was the one who should be embarrassed. What kind of guy tells a girl he’ll go to a wedding and then disappears on her?

I opened my eyes and looked around. The glow of my father’s scalp up ahead in coach caught my eye. He was tilted way over toward the seat next to him, where I could see a shock of gray hair. That was some great big coincidence that they’d ended up sitting together on the plane. I heard a burst of laughter that could only be my mother’s.

I closed my eyes again.

“
BELLA,” SOMEBODY WHISPERED.
I was in the middle of a dream. Craig was dressed like a plumber, with one of those big tool belts around his waist. His pants were hanging low, exposing an endless crack, and he was leaning over my toilet with a plunger.

“Sophia loves it when I wear this,” he was just saying when I woke up.

“She snores just like you,” Sean Ryan said. For a minute, I thought he was talking about Sophia. I wiped my hand across my mouth, in case I was drooling, and then rubbed my eyes, stalling for time.

Finally I looked up. Sean Ryan was holding Cannoli. It takes a lot of guts to walk around a plane with an uncrated dog, Summer Blowout

185

although he did have an airline blanket wrapped over his shoulders to conceal her.

“Is that what the other half wears in first class?” I asked.

He adjusted his blanket and raised a well-shaped eyebrow.

“Do I sense some hostility directed at business travelers with a surplus of frequent flyer miles?”

While I was sleeping, the woman next to me had let her elbow drift from my half of the armrest to take over some of my personal seat space. I stretched and leaned into it, hard. “No, not at all,” I said. “I’m happy for you and your miles. And once I can feel my toes again, I’m sure my disposition will improve.”

“Do you want to switch seats for a while?” he asked.

“That’s okay,” I said.

“I’ll take it,” the woman next to me said.

Sean Ryan and I looked at each other. I felt the same little jolt I’d felt back in the salon right before our almost kiss. He nodded his head toward the back of the plane.

“Save my seat,” I said to the woman next to me.

A couple of flight attendants were standing in the back of the plane chatting, so we stopped in the aisle just in front of the two bathrooms.

A man walked up and stood behind us. Sean Ryan gestured to the bathroom. “It’s all yours,” he said.

“Thanks, pal,” the man said.

“So,” I said when he disappeared.

“So,” Sean Ryan said.

We both waited.

“You never called me,” I said.

He put a hand on my arm, then took it away. “Listen, I’m sorry. I was traveling this week, an island off the coast of Ecuador. . . .”