Free Airplane Rides by Jake Alexander

member.”
    “Rebecca has said that.  My therapist.”
    “What does Rebecca think of your relationship with Brian?”
    “She doesn’t make predictions.”
    “What do you think about the fact that he cheated on his wife?”
    “Who am I to judge?”
    “Did he have affairs before you?”
    “Yes, but again...”
    “Fine, but knowing what you know, are you someone you would
want to date?”
    “Probably not.”
    “So what makes him any different?  It might be the case that
the two of you happened to be two of the very few who were justified in
cheating and by some miracle happened to find each other, but the greater
likelihood is that this has very little to do with your ex spouses and even
less to do with your relationship with each other.”
    “How can you say that? You don’t know anything about our
relationship.”
    “I know it sounds clouded by urgency.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means there is always a reason you have to be apart and
time is always running out when you’re together.  When you would secretly meet
in hotel rooms, you would both have to go home in the morning.  Now, when you
visit for the weekend, someone always needs to return home.  You have very
little idea about what it’s like to be together without circumstances pulling
you apart.”
    “So you think I am going down the wrong road with this?”
    “I think you are a walking red herring.  You look like a
thoroughbred who puts on a really good show, but really you’re an abused young
girl who has been pounded with reasons for insecurity.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    “I think the road you should be on is the one about yourself.”
    “That’s what Rebecca says.”
    “Perhaps you should start listening to her, but then where’s
the excitement in that?”
     
    She looked over with her brown eyes, asking if her feelings
should be hurt.
    “Please tell me you’re not making fun of me.”
    “I assure you I am not.”
    “I’m already feeling like an ass for telling you all this.”
    “You have my word.”
    “But still you think I’m horrible for ruining my family.”
    “I would never make that call, but I do think you get a rush
from the whole thing, maybe something you use to find in sports.”
    “Well, if I did, it’s past.”
    “I have a question.  You have two children, daughters no less. 
Why not stick it out long enough to get them into adulthood?  After all,
doesn’t their happiness take priority over yours?”
    “It’s a great question and I’ve thought a lot about it.  I
guess in a sense I was going down that road, but one day it slapped me in the
face when I heard my oldest talking to Dean in the same frustrated way I must
have.  It was a real heartbreaker to hear my tone in her voice and I knew I had
to end it.”
    “But yet you still wonder if you’re just being selfish?”
    “Wouldn’t you?”
    “I don’t know that I can say.”
    “Well, other people don’t seem to have that problem.”
    “You have bigger jobs than worrying about what other people
think of you – like making sure what happened to you doesn’t happen to your
daughters.”
    “I don’t think cheating is hereditary.”
    “No, but sometimes I think insecurity is.”
    “You think all these things have happened just because I was
more comfortable on a basketball court than in a prom dress?”
    “You’ll have to save that one for Rebecca.”
    “Do you think I’ll always be unfaithful, no matter who I’m
with?”
    “I hope not.”
    “You’re not giving me much here.  Tell me what you’re
thinking.”
    She waited, her eyes patiently pleading for anything that might
ease her guilt.
    “I’m thinking you never had a chance.”
     

The Contemporary
    I lived in Los Angeles at a time when there was still a
distinction between New Yorkers and Los Angelenos.  Today this cultural
divergence is less obvious, as is the case with each North American
megalopolis.  I liked Los Angeles back then, before it