The People You Meet
The First in a Series of True Stories
He settled in easily next to me, somehow free of the anxiety—the creased forehead, the pressed-together lips—that seemed to plague everyone else on the plane. At 19 years old, I was much the same as I am now, some 25+ years on: part introvert, part extrovert depending on the company, but always, always an observer. Because I was young, I saw the man as old. He was silver-haired and long-limbed. He had the deeply tanned skin and inexorable confidence of a well-traveled, white American. I was flying First Class because of my dad’s employee benefits; the man was flying First Class because, judging from appearances, he had plenty of money.
After a few moments of companionable silence he leaned towards me so that our shoulders almost touched, and he spoke while still facing forward. This is the way, isn’t it, that strangers converse when sitting beside each other on a plane? He said, “I saw you in the airport.”
If I asked you to come up with the creepiest 6-word statement that an older man could say to a young woman, would that be it?
Part of me recoiled, but part of me was curious. “Did you?” I said.
He nodded. “You and your mother were the most beautiful women there.”
I thought about this for a beat or two. It was the Honolulu Airport, where female beauty is never in short supply; it is plentiful and varied. I decided he was bullshitting about me, but not about my stunning mother. I said, “Thank you,” because that’s the way I was raised.
During the course of our 5+ hour flight to San Francisco, we assembled a string of intermittent exchanges. I can no longer recall all of them or exactly how they unspooled, but here are the ones that have stayed with me.
He says, “Show me your right hand.” I hold it out, and he leans in for a close look. He doesn’t touch me, thank God. “You’re going to fall in love twice.” He leans back in his seat and nods several times. I say, “Really?”
He asks, “Do you have a boyfriend?” I tell him yes. “Is he good to you?” I stammer a long, unwieldy answer filled with justifications and half-truths. When I’m finally done, he leans over in that conspiratorial way again. “You know that’s not good enough.”
I think I sleep for a while. I always sleep on planes.
He says, “I have three daughters. They’re about your age.” I ask to see pictures, and he pulls out a short stack. “We were just in Greece,” he explains. The first photo is a close-up shot of the three girls, unabashedly topless and smiling. I pretend not to be shocked. Their skin is gold, and their green eyes are seaglass. Their hair is wet, their breasts are glittered with sand. “Oh,” I say. “They’re so lovely.”
He says, “Where is the most interesting place you’ve ever made love?” I say, “I haven’t really technically ever done that.” He looks at me, disbelieving, and I shrug. “What about you?” I say. He tells me how he and his lover got carried away on a yacht anchored in Hong Kong harbor. When they were done, he says, they heard applause coming from the shore. We laugh, and I say, “Do you love her?” He tells me love is complicated, but he can’t wait to see her again.
He says, “Do you need a ride home from the airport? I have someone coming.” I tell him no, that’s okay, and he says, “If you ever need anything, you can just call me.” I take his card, and tuck it into my wallet. There will be times in the next three years when I am sad and unsure of myself, and I’ll think about calling him. I never do.
What happened to this man and his mermaid daughters and his lover in Hong Kong? I could make up a story—it’s one of my favorite things to do, after all—but there’s no point really because somewhere out there is a truth that I’m sure is much, much better.
The People You Meet — The Second In a Series
The People You Meet—The Third In a Series
Veronica Montes is a writer with a soft spot for fiction about the
Filipino-American experience + productive rants about…many things.
So many things. You should follow her.
