He sat in that bar in London and watched her eyes, the corner of her mouth. He could feel her deliberately not looking at him, could feel the muscles in her back tensing whenever his voice got too loud at the bar, trading jokes with Gaston. She hated him, he thought, but isn’t hate just the thing we do to love when the pain becomes unbearable?
He could fix that, he thought, turn it back, explain the hate away with the right words, the right feelings. He would have one more drink and then he would go over. He would take her hand softly and ask her to come outside for a cigarette and they would talk. He could see every word in his head, every move, how first it would be just him. How he would lay it all out, the History of Charlie, and how she would have her arms folded across her chest in the beginning, defensive, but as he went deeper, as he told her about his father’s death, being raised by a single mom, and how somehow he ended up a ward of his uncle, how, unbeknownst to him, his uncle paved the way for Charlie to coast through life. But how it was never what he wanted. How all Charlie wanted was to be judged on his own merits, but how, as time went on, he got scared that his best wasn’t good enough. So he surrendered and let it happen. But that was all over now. Because Charlie Busch was ready to be his own man. And he wanted Emma to be his woman. And as he talked she would lower her arms. She would move closer. And in the end she would hold him tight and they would kiss.
He had another seven-and-seven, a beer back. And then, at some point when he was in the bathroom with Peter doing another line, Emma disappeared. He came out of the john wiping his nose and she was gone. Charlie made a beeline for the other girls, feeling jittery and spooked.
“Hey,” he said, “uh, so Emma, did she split?”
The girls laughed at him. They looked at him with their fucking haughty model eyes, and barked their disdain.
“Sweetie,” said Chelsea, “do you really think you’re in the same league?”
“Just, fucking, is she gone?”
“Whatever. She said she was tired. She went back to the flat.”
Charlie threw some cash on the bar, ran out onto the street. The booze and the drugs had him feeling turned around, which was why he walked ten blocks in the wrong direction before finally figuring it out. Fuck. Fuck. And by the time he got back to the apartment she was gone. Her stuff was gone.
She had vanished.
And the next day, when Peter groaned and said he had to get to New York for a job and that Emma would be on it, Charlie offered to take the gig. He lied and told Peter he would clear it with the company, but it wasn’t until he showed up at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey that anyone knew that Charlie was taking Peter’s place. And at that point it was too late to do anything.
Riding a jump seat in the cockpit of a 737 across the Atlantic, Charlie drank coffee after coffee, trying to sober up, to get his shit together. He’d startled Emma, showing up like that in London. He could see that now. He wanted to apologize, but she’d changed her phone number, had stopped responding to his emails. So what choice did he have? How else could he fix this, except to track her down once more, to plead his case, throw himself on her mercy?
Teterboro was a private airport twelve miles outside Manhattan. GullWing kept a hangar there, its corporate logo—two hands crossed at the thumb, fingers spread like wings—was emblazoned in gray on the flat tan siding. The hangar office was closed on Sunday, except for a skeleton crew. Charlie took a cab from JFK, bypassing the city to the north and coming in on the George Washington Bridge. He tried not to look at the meter as the fare rose. He had a Platinum Amex card, and besides, he told himself it didn’t matter what it cost. This was for love. Peter had given him the flight’s itinerary. Scheduled time of departure from New Jersey was six fifty p.m. The plane was an OSPRY 700SL. They’d take the short hop to the Vineyard sans passengers, board their charter, and head right back. They wouldn’t even need to refuel. Charlie figured that gave him at least five hours to find a private moment with Emma, to pull her aside and touch her cheek and talk the way they used to, to take her hand and say I am so sorry. To say I love you. I know that now. I was an idiot. Please forgive me.
And she would, because how could she not? What they’d had was special. The first time they’d made love she’d cried, for God’s sake. Cried at the beauty of it. And he’d fucked it up, but it wasn’t too late. Charlie had seen all the romantic comedies these chicks swooned over. He knew that perseverance was the key. Emma was testing him. That was all. Putting him through his paces. It was Female 101. She loved him, but he needed to prove himself. To show her he could be steady, reliable, to show her that this time it was storybook. She was the fairy princess and he was the knight on the horse. And he would. He was hers, now and forever, and he would never give up. And when she saw that she would fall into his arms and they’d be together again.