Flight Dreams

by Michael Craft

  Roxanne starts to tell him, “You’ve really opened a can of…” but she stops short, sensing an impending sneeze. She lifts a finger to her nose, and the threat passes. “Worms,” she says, finishing the thought. She raises her snifter to drink from it, and now the sneeze hits—right into the glass, spraying her face with grappa.

  The guys can’t help laughing. “Bless you,” blurts Neil. “Sorry,” says Manning, trying to compose a straight face.

  Roxanne dabs with her napkin, but needs a mirror and better light. “Excuse me,” she says, rising, purse in hand. Before leaving, she asks, “You’ll keep an eye on kitty?”

  “The lynx will be fine,” Neil assures her.

  And she’s off to the ladies’ room.

  Neil turns his head to face Manning. He grins. “I thought she’d never leave.” Under the table, he moves his leg so that his knee rests against Manning’s.

  The move is deliberate and unambiguous. While the situation reminds Manning of his recent encounter with Father Carey, there are no mind-games being played today. What’s happening under the table is natural and appropriate, not devious or coy. Manning responds by shifting his own leg closer to Neil’s; they touch from ankle to knee. Manning tells him, “I hope she’s not downing more antihistamines.”

  “Even as we speak, I’m sure.”

  “Neil …” Manning starts a sentence without knowing its course.

  “Yes?”

  Manning puts his hand on Neil’s knee. He tells him, “I wish you weren’t going back to Phoenix tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to go,” says Neil, putting his hand on Manning’s, “but the tension with Rox is just too much. For now, we need some serious distance between us.”

  Manning is tempted to say, Why don’t you stay with me? That would get you out of her hair. You could finish up your work here, as planned, and we’d have time to weigh more fully the issues we’ve already broached.

  He wants to say all that, but the words stick in his throat. Instead, he asks, “Can I give you a ride to the airport tomorrow?”

  “That’s such a hassle for you, Mark. I can take a cab.”

  Manning places his other hand, his free hand, on top of Neil’s under the table. He gives a squeeze. “It’s no trouble. I’d really like to do it.”

  “Fine, then. Great.”

  Roxanne returns from her self-ministrations and sits in the booth. Without speaking, she smiles at Manning and Neil, observing the angle of their arms, which disappear beneath the table. She touches the rim of her snifter and tips it toward her, peering inside to confirm that it is empty.

  “Prego!” she snaps at the nearest waiter, not Gino, but a waspy blond college kid named Spencer. “Where the hell’s our Chianti?”

  Sunday, October 25

  68 days till deadline

  WHEN MANNING DROPPED NEIL and Roxanne at her apartment Saturday night, he reiterated his intention to drive Neil to the airport the next morning. Roxanne scoffed at the offer, insisting that Neil could take a cab. But Manning was adamant: “I’ll be here at ten.”

  It’s a minute or two before ten when Manning pulls into the driveway of Roxanne’s building. He was almost late, dawdling at home, unsure of what to wear. His Sundays are typically laid-back, but he decided that Neil would dress smartly for travel, so Manning donned his best khaki gabardine suit.

  The morning, like yesterday’s, is crisp, but the autumn sun hangs low in a clear sky, brightening the day with an illusion of warmth. He can see his breath when he lowers the window to ask Roxanne’s doorman, “Could you please tell Miss Exner that Neil’s ride is here?”

  He relaxes in the car, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Waiting for Neil to appear, he is vexed by a single question, which is answered when Neil emerges from the lobby, accompanied by Roxanne. Manning hoped that the drive to O’Hare would be a chance to spend some time alone with Neil, to talk freely, to confirm feelings, to be left with some sense of direction. Roxanne’s presence nixes those plans—she is certainly aware of it—and he feels an unforgiving anger as he gets out of the car to put Neil’s bags into the trunk.

  They greet one another quietly, without enthusiasm. Roxanne is downright somber, suffering the aftereffects of an injudicious mix of antihistamines, stuffed pizza, and cheap Chianti. The lenses of her big sunglasses are a shade darker than the ones she wore yesterday. Neil is sheepish and soft-spoken, embarrassed by his inability to dissuade Roxanne from tagging along, by Manning’s obvious disappointment at her intrusion.

  Manning helps them into the car, announcing brightly but firmly that Neil, as the guest, will sit in front. Roxanne takes the backseat without comment, but Manning can feel her steely stare pricking his neck as he drives away from the building. Their conversation is terse and empty as they blend with the other expressway traffic leading to the airport.

  “You’ll write? Or call sometime?” Manning asks, as if speaking in code.

  “Of course,” says Neil. “You too?”

  “Sure.”

  Roxanne offers from the backseat, “You needn’t worry, Mark. Neil and I are in touch all the time. I’ll keep you informed.” Her words have a menacing ring that squelches further discussion until the car speeds down the ramp entering the airport grounds.

  Deciding which way to turn, Manning says, “I guess there’s no need to park. Is it okay to drop you at your terminal?”

  “Sure, Mark,” says Neil. “There’s no point in parking. Thanks for everything.” He squeezes Manning’s knee.

  “No point in parking,” Roxanne echoes in an odd tone.

  Manning turns onto the departure ramp and stops the car with its engine running at Neil’s terminal. Both men jump out and walk back to the trunk. Manning puts Neil’s bags on the pavement and tells him, “There’s so much I haven’t said to you. We’ll work this out, right?”

  “We will,” says Neil. “One way or the other.”

  They reach forward, each with both hands, and interlock them in a gesture that is deeply affectionate—and openly desperate. Neil picks up his bags. Then he is gone.

  Manning returns to the wheel to find Roxanne already planted on the front seat next to him. As he pulls away from the curb, she says, “I abhor long goodbyes. Was it teary?”

  “Stop it, Roxanne.”

  “It’s better that he’s gone, you know. Life will be simpler. Don’t you agree, Mark?”

  “Stop it!” He spits the words, venting the hostility he has come to feel toward her.

  “I understand,” she says with a flat sneer, proving that she does indeed understand, which only deepens Manning’s contempt. Long minutes pass in silence while Manning drives through the thickening traffic, his eyes never leaving the road, never once glancing in the direction of his passenger. Roxanne finally asks, “Mind if I smoke?”

  “Of course not,” says Manning, forcing a nonchalant manner as he opens the ashtray for her. He pulls his brass lighter from a pocket of his jacket and holds the dot of flame before her while she leans forward to inhale it.

  She sucks a long, deep drag, then leans back to exhale with a languid toss of her head. “Mark …” she says cautiously, “when we get back into town, could you come up to the apartment? There’s something I forgot to give you.”

  “Parking in your neighborhood’s a bitch. Can it wait?”

  “No, Mark. It’s important. You won’t be sorry,” she assures him. Then she adds, “You’ll find that a lot of things you haven’t understood will suddenly fall into place.”

  “Okay, fine,” he tells her, unwilling to pass up the possibility—however slim—that Roxanne has unearthed some new lead on his story. As they ride in silence, he wonders, What does she have for me, what scrap of paper, what tidbit of information that is suddenly so urgent? Or is it just a ruse? Is she hiding another motive? Manning knows exactly what her unspoken purpose might be.

  “This better be good,” he says, only half in jest, while opening the door for her to step from the car, whi
ch he has finally parked after a maddening search for a space.

  When she opens the door for him to step into her apartment, Manning is overcome by the certainty that he has been duped. There is no document, no enticing clue, no tidbit, he is sure. She has brought him here to offer him her body, to prove his manhood and her womanhood, to dance, as it were, on Neil’s grave. With his mind’s eye he reads a neatly typed scenario of the events that will follow—predictably, mechanically, as if rehearsed—and he feels a confused rush of both revulsion and longing.

  The door swings behind them and has not yet locked shut when Roxanne says, “I think we both need a drink. What’ll you have?”

  “The usual,” says Manning, reciting his line from the imagined script, though he has no appetite for a drink.

  Roxanne pours Manning’s vodka, then a stiff half-glassful of straight Scotch for herself. She hands him his glass. He raises it to his lips without offering a toast, sniffing the alcohol before letting it roll over his tongue. It’s the Japanese brand. He thinks of Neil.

  Roxanne asks, “Mind if I play a record?”

  “It’s your home,” he says pleasantly. But Manning does mind; when Roxanne speaks of “a record,” she invariably means one of her old esoteric jazz LPs. As expected, Roxanne doesn’t bother to browse through her collection. She throws a few switches and plays the album that already sits on the turntable. With an opening blast, some beat-generation combo—all of its members drugged to an early demise—lives again in Roxanne’s living room. The music plays so loudly that Manning feels the ice rattle in his glass.

  Roxanne strolls from the phonograph to the south wall of windows, sipping her Scotch. She basks in the October sun that angles through the plate glass in an oblique shaft, which is then refracted by the polished surface of a granite-topped coffee table. She turns to Manning, who still stands at the spot in the hall where they entered. “Well, come in, Mark,” she says with a schoolgirl laugh.

  As instructed, he steps into the living room, into the vortex of light and sound. The beat of the music pounds in his chest as he sits on the sofa and throws his feet up. Roxanne has eyed every nuance of his actions. “Make yourself at home,” she says as his feet land on the granite.

  Manning cannot tell whether her words are cordial or admonishing, nor does he care. He stretches his arms along the back of the sofa, a gesture announcing that he, not she, is now in control.

  She studies him curiously as she crosses from the window and sits across from him on the coffee table, the soles of his shoes almost touching her thigh. Minutes pass with nothing spoken. The pause is dictated not by sexual tension, but by the dynamics of the music, which make conversation impossible. When the recording finally drifts into quieter passages, Manning says, “Okay, Roxanne. What’s this important news of yours?”

  She lowers the glass from her mouth and holds it with both hands, between her knees. Her eyes drift away from him and wander about the room, then out the window, resting somewhere on the horizon. With an expressionless voice, she tells him, “There’s no news, Mark. It’s unfinished business.”

  As he hears her words, a trace of a smile turns the corners of his mouth, a smile rooted in the satisfaction of having foreknown her motives. Thinking aloud, he tells her, “You want to be fucked.”

  “I do.” She turns to face him directly. “I want what Neil couldn’t have.”

  “What makes you so sure he didn’t have it?”

  “He didn’t,” she says, aware that Manning is toying with her. “I know he didn’t.”

  A saxophone wails obscenely at an ear-piercing level. Manning tells her, “Take off your clothes,” a dull command without emotion, shouted just loudly enough to be heard over the music.

  She looks at him from across the table with a quizzical smile that asks, Here? Are you serious? His humorless stare confirms his bidding, so she rises, stepping backward out of her shoes and into the broad, glaring beam of sunlight. She stands before him, before the city, hesitates, then removes her clothing piece by piece—with purpose, not teasing—dropping it to the floor.

  Manning stands, revealing a lump in his slacks that stretches the gabardine. He steps over to Roxanne and grabs her wrist. She offers no resistance as he leads her, as if leashed, to her bedroom.

  Entering the room, he flings her onto the bed, where she sprawls atop its tailored spread of cold-gray silk. Manning stands at her feet and removes his jacket, his tie, all of his clothes with quick, efficient jerks, till he stands naked before her, legs spread, feet planted in the hard wool carpeting. She moans at the sight of his engorged penis. The music, more feverish still, clatters in the other room. Roxanne’s body ripples involuntarily to its beat.

  Manning crawls onto the bed and nudges into her without foreplay. He supports himself with both arms as he grinds against her. Half audibly she mumbles, “You’re not queer”—she waggles her head with abandon—“you’re not queer.” Manning thinks of Neil while pushing deeper within her. She begins to groan, licking her lips, craving his. But he will not kiss her. He thinks of Neil and pumps steadily harder, pumping like a machine that was designed for one purpose. Roxanne reaches an orgasm and screams an ecstatic noise as the music in the other room reaches a shrill climax of its own.

  But Manning isn’t through. He thinks of Neil and feels a pang of frustration that has mounted for two weeks to be released in this act, an act that carries no pretense of affection. He is servicing Roxanne, servicing himself. Basic missionary position. Nothing exotic, nothing special.

  He hears the needle skipping in the last groove of the record with a dull, amplified thud and realizes that he has captured its rhythm in the pounding motion of his hips. He is fucking Roxanne at the rate of thirty-three thrusts per minute—about two seconds each, he calculates. He wonders wryly if she has guessed the basis of his technique.

  Thirty-three beats per minute. He finds the frequency a bit slow. He thinks of Neil and pumps his hips faster. He thinks of Neil and feels a tingle in his groin that begins to cloud his senses. He thinks of Neil somewhere over the Great Plains at thirty-five thousand feet. He thinks of Neil without missing a beat. He thinks of Neil, and thinks of Neil, and his back arches in a spasm that drives him fully into Roxanne, releasing his frustration with a powerful surge that verges on pain. He hears a gasp, unsure if it sounded from himself or from the woman beneath him.

  Their purpose is accomplished. As abruptly as he entered her, he withdraws.

  He stands before her as he did before, dressing quickly, deftly. He turns to check the knot of his tie in a mirror, combs his fingers through his hair, picks up his jacket, and leaves the room.

  Roxanne lies sated and speechless, grating her shoulder blades on the silk. She hears the popping of the needle stop as Manning switches off the phonograph. Then she hears the lock of the front door as it closes behind him.

  PART TWO

  December

  7-YEAR DEADLINE NEARS

  Archdiocese preparing to claim Carter legacy within two weeks

  By Mark Manning

  Journal Investigative Reporter

  DECEMBER 21, CHICAGO IL—If the mystery of Helena Carter’s whereabouts is not solved within the next eleven days, the missing airline heiress will be declared legally dead on January 1, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago will lay claim to a fortune estimated in excess of one hundred million dollars.

  Monsignor Andrew Lerner, administrative aide to Archbishop Benedict, told the Journal last night that the legal-affairs department at archdiocese headquarters has been working overtime to ensure that all probate mechanisms are secure by New Year’s Day. He said, “We still pray for the safe return of Mrs. Carter, who was a faithful daughter of the church. Unfortunately, we now face the inescapable conclusion that Mrs. Carter has suffered an odious demise. Her memory will be best served by the expedient distribution of her estate so that the good works of the archdiocese may continue unfettered in her absence.”

  Helena Carter is
sole heir to the late Ridgely Carter, founder of CarterAir. She disappeared from her Bluff Shores estate nearly seven years ago, along with a pair of prize Abyssinian cats, of which she was an eminent breeder. The Federated Cat Clubs of America (FCCA) is also named as heir to a substantial sum under terms of her will. The case of the missing heiress has stymied police and journalists alike, who have been unable to produce any evidence of the woman’s whereabouts, whether dead or alive.

  ‘HOUSEMAN TRIAL’

  SLATED

  Arthur Mendel, longtime houseman to the Carter family, has been ordered to appear next week at an inquest beginning January 30 in Cook County Circuit Court before Judge Clement Ambrose. A Chicago newspaper has accused Mendel of complicity in the disappearance, and opinion polls show widespread belief in the charges against him, which have not yet been corroborated. This reporter has also been ordered to answer charges at the same hearing.□

  Monday, December 21

  11 days till deadline

  JINGLING BELLS INTERRUPT MANNING’S perusal of his story in the latest edition. Daryl, wearing a Santa hat, arrives with his mail cart. Manning asks him, “Any hot tips for a needy reporter today? I could sure use something to jump-start this dead-end story.” He tosses the newspaper aside.

  “’Fraid not,” Daryl tells him, handing over a bundle of envelopes. “Just a batch of Christmas cards from the usual bunch of flacks.” Shaking his bells, he strolls off down the aisle with his cart. “Ho ho ho,” he intones in a low voice unnatural to him.

  Manning shuffles through the envelopes and determines that Daryl is right—they are all greetings from press agents—so he places them unopened atop a stack that already teeters near the edge of his desk. Then, from the inside pocket of his jacket, he removes another envelope, not a Christmas card, that was received at home more than a month ago. He slides out the note, written in a clear, confident hand, and reads it again, hoping that this time it might say more than it did before. But it remains the same: