Page 21 of A Week Away
“They might not know they know anything. Or they think what they know doesn’t mean anything. Don’t you ever watchLaw & Orderor any of those shows?”
“I watch TV. I’m not stupid.”
He was getting annoyed at me. I waited then tried again, and didn’t do much better. “Your mom’s family is Italian?”
“How do you know that?”
“Di Stefano is an Italian name, isn’t it?”
“Nobody in our family is in the Mafia. Most Italian people aren’t, you know.”
“I know that.”
To be fair, I was told his father was killed by The Partnership, an idea planted by his mother. We did need to find out if her family had any connection. And it didn’t have to be a strong connection. Sometimes just knowing which coffee shop to go to was enough.
“Would anyone in her family know how to find someone in The Partnership?”
He didn’t answer that. I could tell he didn’t like the question. That ended our conversation for the moment. There were small TVs in the ceiling of the center aisle that popped down. They started showing an episode ofSeinfeld. One of the stewardesses came around and asked if we wanted to rent headphones for three dollars. I passed. I wouldn’t have taken one if they were free. I wasn’t a fan of the show. The few times I’d seen it I thought the characters were too mean to each other to be funny.
I think I fell asleep for a while, because all of a sudden the show was over and the TVs were folding back into the ceiling. We needed to put up our trays and make sure our seat belts were on.
Then the plane began bouncing around. A few people kind of squeaked—not actual screams, the sound right before that. The one coherent thought I had while it was happening was that Ronnie would be really angry if I died in a plane crash without him. Not to mention, I’d told him I was in one city a few hours ago so dying in another city would be kind of annoying.
Things seemed to calm down and the captain came on the intercom. “Sorry about that folks. The wind in Denver is kind of famous. Nothing to worry about. We’ll be on the ground in five minutes.”
Ten minutes later we taxied into our gate. A bell tinged and the noises of the plan operating stopped. It didn’t take us long to get off the plane. We walked passed the people waiting for friends and family; no one was there to meet us. We stopped and looked around.
This was a much bigger airport than Reno, but certainly not as big as LAX. I looked at our tickets and then the signage hanging above us. We were at gate B18 and we needed to go to B53. We had an hour and a half, so I figured we’d make it. I said as much to Cass and we started walking to our next gate.
In between the gates were different businesses, bars, snack bars. At a kind of intersection we found a newsstand. Since the kid was touchy, I decided I should really get some magazines for the next leg of our journey rather than question him anymore.
Madonna was on the cover ofVogue, which was about as much as I needed to know about that.Timehad an article about the World Wide Web; okay, I’d read that. I flipped throughGQwhich had Elizabeth Shue on the cover in just a sweater. It seemed aggressively heterosexual for a magazine often referred to asGenerally Queerand featuring an article by Gore Vidal. I decided I didn’t really need to know all about the tweed coats for fall.Ushad Julia Roberts on the cover, I took that. I looked through the paperbacks. At first I didn’t want one, we only had two more hours in the air. But then, at some point I’d have to go home. I put a Sue Grafton book on my pile,K Is for Killer. I also grabbed a Denver Bronco’s sweatshirt so I didn’t freeze to death. It was orange. The only one in my size.
When I got up to the counter, Cass was purchasing four different kinds of candy. I wondered if it might keep him awake but then decided it wouldn’t. And then, to add insult to injury, we stopped at a Mrs. Fields right before our gate. He got a chocolate chip cookie and I got two. I wasn’t going to; we were getting lunch on the next flight. But then I remembered breakfast and had little hope for lunch.
A few minutes later, we arrived at our gate. We were one of the first. We sat down. Cass ate two Three Musketeer bars and I readUs. Eventually, I said, “So why don’t you tell me about yourself. Just you and not your parents.”
“What for?”
“So I can get to know you.”
“Why do you want to get to know me?”
“Because I always like to be friendly with my kidnappers. It makes the whole experience more pleasant.”
“You’re not kidnapped.”
“Oh? You mean I can go home and nothing bad will happen to me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then I’m kidnapped.”
“Whatever.”
People started showing up. I could tell that this flight was going to be more crowded than the one from Reno. I got a couple of weird looks. Well, I was wearing an orange sweatshirt with a red turtleneck sticking out. Not to mention I was sitting next to a seventeen-year-old who radiated anger.
I flipped through my magazines for a while and then it was time to board. We were all the way at the back of the plane. Row 36. That meant we boarded last. Which, honestly, didn’t make that much sense. You’d have thought we’d get to board first since we wouldn’t have to struggle by anyone that way, but hey, I’m not in charge. When it was finally our turn, we made our way to the back of the plane. At our row, I saw that there was a woman in her forties sitting by the window. Her eyes were red and she held a pack of travel tissues in one hand. She was looking out the window, not as a way to see what was out there, but as a way to avoid our eyes.
