Free Loose Diamonds by Amy Ephron Page A

again to see if he understood anything I said the second time, since apparently he found me incomprehensible on our first date. But I think it was the cassoulet. After he “researched” me, he came to a stereotypical conclusion, that I would order white wine and a salad, hold the dressing, fish, hold the sauce, that I was just that kind of girl. He took me to a French restaurant and while he had been right about the white wine (and the bottled water), he was totally startled when I ordered the cassoulet. And that was it. He looked at me with respect and I smiled back at him and neither one of us have any plans to do anything whatsoever that would cause the other one to weigh the reasons why they’re staying.

Nine
    Security Check
    I used to work for someone who had a pilot’s license who told me that the two most dangerous parts of flying are the 30 seconds of takeoff and the landing. Whenever I fly with anyone I know—whether it’s a friend, a child, or a husband—I hold their hand during takeoff and landing.
    I’m not really afraid of flying. I had a brief period when I was, but a psychiatrist told me that “fear of flying” isn’t really fear of flying, it’s fear of something else, i.e., misplaced anxiety. When I pressed the psychiatrist on whether that was true or not, he said, “I have no idea. Just go with it. It works.” And so I did. I have passed this theory on to other friends who are frightened of flying, not too successfully, but nonetheless it works for me.
    I’m not sure I believe that the most dangerous parts of flying are the 30 seconds of takeoff and the period of landing—it may be statistically true but I’m not sure it’s an absolute fact.
    For a brief time (between husbands), I had a boyfriend in San Francisco and three almost-teenage children in Los Angeles. In my defense, I will say that I had help but it was still a little complicated. The relationship was doomed and somewhat short-lived but in the few months that we were dating, I logged a lot of hours on the United Airlines flights between LAX and SFO. In itself, that was difficult because at the time, there was only one runway open at the San Francisco airport. A three-hour delay was par for the course. There were tricks: get to know the people at United; if your flight was canceled or delayed, try to get on another one; cut the line; flash your United Airlines Platinum card (part of which you’d earned from the number of hours you’d logged on the round-trip flights from LAX to SFO); beg; pray that the weather was good and that, at least, the one runway that was open wasn’t fogged in.
    It was a spring day in 1999 and I had a reservation on the 1 P.M. United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Miraculously, the flight was on time and boarding. I had a suitcase (carry-on) and my computer, both of which were a little heavy, so I sat and waited until the rest of the passengers had boarded so as not to get stuck in the walkway holding my luggage. By the time I started to board, the walkway was empty except for one other passenger, who was walking behind me: a Middle Eastern man wearing a sports jacket who appeared to be in his late 30s or early 40s, with a full ear-to-ear beard that was closely cropped. As I started to walk onto the plane, he stepped in front of me, stroked the side of the plane, gave me the strangest smile, and said in a heavy accent, “Going to explode.”
    I said, “Excuse me?” I didn’t think I’d heard him right.
    He stroked the side of the plane again and said, “Going to explode. You’ll see.” And he gave me another strange smile and boarded the plane.
    It was taunting, it was suggestive. I felt as if I’d had an encounter with pure evil, but I remember thinking to myself, “Okay, what am I supposed to do now ?” I resisted the impulse to turn around and just keep walking. I boarded the plane and pretended I was a first-class passenger. I handed my coat to a small Filipino