Page 11 of Here for a Good Time
“I… wish you’d told me. Wouldn’t you have wanted to know if I was texting Vik?”
Zwe freezes mid-sip. “Are you?” he asks quietly. His gaze is locked on me, waiting to catch the slightest hint of dishonesty.
“No,” I say, and fidget, not because it’s a lie, but because of the intensity flashing in his eyes. “It was a hypothetical.” I force myself to meet his gaze, and he returns the smallest of nods.
I want to ask more about Julia, but perhaps (definitely) sensing just that, Zwe takes out his book from his backpack, a biography of some famous statistician. Taking the hint, I retrieve my own current read, an early proof of a debut novel that’s being edited by my editor. It’s calledNot Like This,and it’s a love story between a man and a woman who find themselves seated next to each other on a flight and hit it off, and when the plane goes down over the ocean mid-flight, they’re the only survivors and have to figure out how to get back to land.
I’m not amassiveromance reader, bar the Meg Cabot novels I read growing up, but I’d made an offhand comment to my editor, Tracey, that I was thinking of reading in a new genre to help me with my writer’s block. She’d suggested that the pace of the romance genre might help stimulate some ideas, and had insisted that I would love this particular book. She was right. I only started a couple of days ago, but on more than one occasion, I’ve found myself flipping through with one hand while stirring my coffee with the other. The language is precise, the humor unexpected and cutting, with characters that feel like real people on whose lives you’re eavesdropping. It’s the kind of book that makes me simultaneously thrilled to read it (especially before the majority of readers), and envious thatIdidn’t write it. It’s on the longer side for the genre, but I’m already wishing it was longer.
When the two protagonists have their first make-out session on their lifeboat that they built together from spare plane parts, I put a fist over my mouth to muffle my screech.
“You okay there?” I look up, and find Zwe staring at me in bemusement. “Do I need to find a doctor? Your face is so red, you look like you’re having trouble breathing.”
Only then does it register that my cheeksareburning, which makes me flush even harder. “It’s this book,” I say, gesturing down at the unassuming ring-bound copy in my hands. “I think this might be the best thing I’ve read all year.”
“It’s that romance book you were telling me about?” I nod. “Didn’t think you were such a big romance fan.”
“Me neither,” I say, already itching to finish the chapter. “But I’m obsessed. Okay, shush, I have to find out what happens next,” I get out in one breath, already mentally clocking out from this conversation. This rush to keep reading feels like when I was fifteen and readJane Eyre(my first-ever favorite book) for the first time, inhaling my dinner so I could excuse myself from the table and get back to where I’d left off. Like when I’d stayed up until 3A.M. with a flashlight and my copy ofBreaking Dawn,quickly shovingboth under the pillow whenever one of my parents came into my bedroom to check on me.
In my experience, a good book is one of the very few things in life that can be solidly relied upon to speed up time. Because even though it feels like it’s only been ten, maybe fifteen minutes, a lounge employee is tapping me on the shoulder to inform us that our flight is starting to board.
Zwe and I make one last bathroom pit stop before heading for our gate. There are a handful of other business-class passengers already in front of us, as well as an elderly couple, both in wheelchairs, in the priority boarding lane, and, seizing the opportunity, I take my book back out.
“You’re—” Zwe starts with a laugh.
I halt him with a quick “Ssshhh!,” holding up a finger with my free hand. “I have one and a half pages left in this chapter and I’ve got to know what happens.”
Silently, Zwe gives me a small nudge whenever we have to move forward. I finish the chapter right as it’s our turn to hand over our boarding passes.
“Have a safe flight!” the agent chirps at us as she scans our passes.
“Uh-huh,” I mumble, too stunned by that chapter ending to register her words.
Zwe takes both of our passes from her—I didn’t realize she’d been handing me mine and I was staring at it as though she was handing back a bag of dog poop—and says a polite “Thank you.”
As we make our way down the slight slope of the boarding bridge, Zwe gently shoulders me. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Worse,” I say to him, shaking my head. “Or better. I can’t tell.”
“Good chapter?”
“She’s anassassin. She was on that flight to assassinate someone!” Zwe’s cheery expression transforms into shock, and I fling my arms open. “I know!” I exclaim.
“Who was she going to assassinate?”
I wave the book in the air before putting it back into my bag. “We’re going to find out in the next chapter. I hope.” I clutch Zwe’s shoulder as an epiphany strikes me. “Oh my god, what if it’s—”
“Him!” Zwe says. Without meaning to, my hand curls into a fist and I punch him in the arm.
“Sorry, sorry,” I say when he gives me aWhat the fuckexpression. “That was an excited punch. Exactly! What if it’s him?”
We press pause on our conversation while we hand the smiling flight attendants our boarding passes and settle into seats 3A and 3C. As always, I take the aisle seat because I have a persistent fear that after takeoff, I’ll suddenly develop a medical condition in which my bladder shrinks to a quarter of its current size and I’ll have to pee every twenty minutes.
“That book sounds ridiculous,” Zwe says as I peruse the little free toiletry-packed pouches that were waiting for us at our seats (again, I could get used to this life). “In a good way, I mean. It sounds so… fun. I mean, a plane-crash romance with a trained assassin? It sounds like it wouldn’t work, but—”
“But it does!” I say with a loud, satisfied sigh. Despite my clear enthusiasm, I still feel like I’m not doing the book enough justice. If I could, I’d shove a copy into the hands of every single passenger on this plane, babies included. “You’re right that the plot is ridiculous, but it’ssofun, Zwe. I’m already sad about finishing! I wishI’dwritten this thing!”
“Huh,” he chuckles.
