“Oh, good for me. What about you?”
Sue pretends not to hear. She sits back down and refastens her seat belt. The man behind her is digging his knees even harder into her lower back. She can hear him saying, “So, wait, she’s saying I’m living until I’m seventy-five? Is that what she said? Or was it seventy-nine?” As if he doesn’t want to miss any extra years he’s owed.
“You know she’s talking gibberish, right?” Max puts his hand on Sue’s thigh. “Don’t get your knickers in a knot.” His hand feels too heavy. “She does not have access to our health records. Unless she’s a cyber hacker, of course. Always a possibility these days.” He laughs hollowly.
“Well, she might be a psychic,” says Sue. “Or think she’s one.”
“You don’t believe in psychics.”
“How do you know?” says Sue, just to be difficult. Max often blissfully assumes their politics, memories, food and television preferences will align, and mostly they do, but not always! They’re different people!
“Have you ever been to one? No. You have not.”
“I have, actually,” says Sue. “I had my cards read. We all did it for Jane’s fiftieth.”
“Well, did those cards say anything about you getting…whatever she said?” asks Max. He doesn’t want to say the word “cancer.” Whenever he hears of a serious diagnosis, the first involuntary expression to cross his face is pure revulsion. Fear disguised as disgust.
“No,” says Sue. It was more than ten years ago. The tarot card reader sorrowfully predicted that Sue’s husband would have an affair with a short Italian woman in the next year. Sue never told Max. She didn’t want to put any ideas in his head. She just upped the sex, kept him busy. Just in case. He’d seemed pleased. She may well have changed their destinies.
“There you go then,” says Max.
“Well, I’m sure there are good and bad psychics,” says Sue. “It’s not an exact science.”
Max bangs his phone on his armrest. “It’s not a science at all!”
“Okay, keep your hat on.”
Suddenly she gets it: Max is trying to convince her not to be upset because he’s upset. Her husband is a self-employed plumber, the most practical of men. He can fix and build anything, from a cubbyhouse to a cake to a grandchild’s “working model of the digestive system” due the next day, but he cannot bear it when there is something to worry about but nothing to be done, no way to fix it.
He’s secretly worried the lady actually does know something about their future. Max’s feelings always manifest as something different, like the way pain in the neck, jaw, or shoulder can mean a heart attack. It’s been this way from the moment they met forty years ago, when a fair-haired, big-shouldered boy marched up to her at a church youth group and brusquely asked if she’d like to see a movie with him, please. To this day, she doesn’t know why she said yes, because it seemed like someone was holding a gun to his head, his expression was so unfriendly. It wasn’t until she said yes that his whole face transformed. “Really?” He smiled like a loon, revealing the famous O’Sullivan dimples he would pass on to all five of their sons and two of their grandchildren. “Really? I thought for sure you’d say no.” She was a goner from the moment she saw those dimples.
“No one can see the future,” frets Max.
Oncologists can, thinks Sue. Oncologists, neurologists, cardiologists, hematologists. All those damned “ologists.” They’re the fortune tellers. They don’t read your cards, they read your blood tests, your scans, your genetic tests, and see terrible things in your future.
“I’m not dying at sixty-six, darling.” She pulls the in-flight magazine from the seat pocket in front of her and points at the advertisement on the back page. “We’ll be swanning about Europe.”
“Exactly.” Max’s shoulders drop. “Poor old girl is unhinged.” He holds his phone over the magazine and snaps a photo of the river cruise ad. “One of those cruises might be fun. We could work that into the itinerary.”
He leans forward to address the man sitting next to Sue. “Not worried about your ‘workplace accident,’ I hope, mate? Don’t believe in psychics, do you?”
“Not really,” says the man. “But I guess I might take extra care at work next year. I turn forty-three in November.”
“Do you have a dangerous job?” asks Sue.
“Civil engineer.”
“Better keep that hard hat on then,” says Max.
“Oh, well, I’m mostly at my computer, but yeah, sure, might be a good idea to—” He cups his hands over his head and pretends to duck from a flying object.
“Sorry we haven’t introduced ourselves,” says Sue. “I’m Sue, and this is Max.”
“Leo.” The man leans across Sue to shake Max’s hand.
There is silence for a moment. Leo plucks at the fabric of his pants. Max clasps his hands over his stomach. A bit too much good eating and good wine in Tasmania. Lots of salads on the menu this week. Sue traces the letters of the alphabet in the air with her right foot. She tore a ligament in her ankle many years ago and tries to keep up her strengthening exercises whenever she remembers.
Now Leo turns sideways to face Sue formally, as if they’re at a fancy dinner party and he’s now addressing the guest to his left. He has lovely green eyes. Sue stops her ankle exercises and smiles. She feels maternal toward him as well as a mild attraction. It’s disconcerting how often that happens these days.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been good company,” he says. “I’ve missed my daughter’s school musical because of the delay.”
“Oh, no,” says Sue. “That’s bad luck.” She pats his arm. Forgets the attraction and goes full-on grandma. She’s had him all wrong. He’s not Mr. Important Man, he’s a stressed young dad. “How old is she?”
Before he can answer, a troubled youthful voice rises over the plane’s hum. “Wait, you expect what?”
“Okay, so I think we definitely need to—” begins Sue, but Max and Leo are already reaching for their call bells.
Chapter 7
Look, I can answer my own question. I don’t need to ask the bearded man.
You should always apologize for your actions. Whether you believe in free will or not.
Manners matter.
A sincere apology has the power to save a friendship, a marriage, even a life.
Just say sorry. That’s all you need to do.
