Shifting her gaze to Ben, the stewardess asked, “And for you, sir?”
“A jack and Coke. A double.”
The seriousness of his order startled me. I hadn’t figured Ben was a drinker. He seemed more like someone who would frown on alcohol as unruly and unpredictable. Ben was absolutely known to be an ass, but he was also a staunch professional. Artists, even professional ones, are notoriously temperamental, always missing deadlines or showing up late. But Ben’s reputation was the opposite. There was no project he’d ever defaulted on, no appointment he’d canceled or didn’t show up for. He was never on page six with bloodshot eyes, making his way out of some raging club. So, it seemed odd that he was ordering a stiff drink at ten a.m.
When the stewardess walked away, I leaned toward him and asked, “Everything okay?”
He nodded and then leaned over to pull some papers from his bag.
“I have prepared a questionnaire for us to go over on the flight. I would like us to shore up the details of our relationship before we are in the thick of my family.”
He separated the papers into two piles and handed me one. I quickly scanned the page before me. It looked a lot like the Holidates profile page: Name, age, profession, likes, dislikes, etc. Having been in more than one relationship myself, I knew that this, quote, unquote, “factual” information did not chemistry or intimacy make.
Trying to gently explain that reality, I said, “Ben, I am happy to tell you all these details, but I think maybe we are better off concocting answers to questions like, how did you two meet? Or what is the sweetest thing you’ve done for her and vice versa. It’s those kinds of personal stories that will make our connection seem genuine.”
The stewardess returned to hand us drinks, and I watched his nose twitch, like a curious bunny rabbit. Then he rolled his teeth over his bottom lip. It was like it was physically painful for him to admit that I was right, even though he had little to no skin in the game.
“Fine,” he said finally. “That is a decent point, but obviously I must also know some basic details. What do you do for a living?”
“I go out with guys who need dates for their parents’ holiday parties,” I joked.
He didn’t laugh. He just stared at me before condescendingly saying, “Please try to be serious, Ms. Darling.”
Saluting, I quipped, “Aye, aye, Captain.” Again, he didn’t laugh, but I just rolled with it. I wasn’t going to let Ben Hoffman get me down. Answering honestly, I said, “I do a lot of odd jobs to support my art.”
As the plane taxied away from the Jetway, his eyes narrowed and the corners of his lips curled into a deep frown before he snarled, “You’re an artist?”
I nodded.
“Do you know who I am?”
I nodded again. “Of course.”
“Well, then you know I can’t date an artist. It’s…” he stuttered. “It would be like an abuse of power.”
I laughed to myself.The ego on this guy was enormous.
Further annoyed by my laughter, Ben spat, “This is not funny, not at all. If I come home with an artist, my mother will see right through this charade.”
He pronounced charade like it rhymed with cod, making me laugh harder for a second, but then the sparking fire of rage in his eyes begged for my composure.
Still smirking, I couldn’t completely drown out my disdain when I said, “Don’t worry. I’m a photographer. No one in their right mind will think anything untoward. The whole world knows you belittle my art form every chance you get.”
As soon as I stopped speaking, the pilot came over the loudspeaker. “Flight attendants, prepare for departure.”
Instantly distracted, Ben looked out the window. The rage that had consumed him mere seconds earlier vanished, replaced by a suddenly white pallor. He downed his drink, which he’d been calmly sipping up until that point, and then he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and wrapped his fingers so tightly around the ends of his armrests that his knuckles started to lose color.
He was scared.
Ben Hoffman, the most righteous, stuck-up, self-aggrandizing blowhard I had ever met was utterly terrified.
Ben
Ifucking hated planes. If human beings were supposed to fly, we would have evolved with wings, but we didn’t, did we? And yet for some godforsaken reason, we still take to the sky, wrapped in thousands of pounds of metal and electronics. It’s ludicrous. It’s also completely unavoidable in a modern world with a global economy. So, I fly but I don’t like it. And if the act of flying wasn’t horrible enough, my yearly Halloween visit to see my parents had me on a path to revisiting my partially digested breakfast.
I hated going home. Don’t get me wrong, my parents were good people—make love, not war, well-intentioned folks who saw the best in everyone and every situation. They were free-spirited liberals who like to smoke dope and have bonfires. They got rich by mistake, made a fortune importing Moroccan art, textiles, and rugs starting in the early seventies. They sold the business for a fortune in 2010, and they’d been living out their lives on their acres in Martha’s Vineyard as so-called “creatives” ever since. I still wasn’t exactly sure what they created, but whatever.
In general, I was a disappointment to them. They lamented my dedication to structure, hierarchy, and conformity. They felt I limited myself by being obsessed with rules and standards. I felt otherwise, and my global recognition as one of the greatest artists in my generation underscored the validity of my perspective. But it didn’t matter. There wasn’t a prestigious award or a museum placement in the world that would impress my mother as much as a dynamic Halloween costume or girlfriend. So, after a decade of the disappointment in her eyes and her attempts at blind dates, I made a decision. This year I wasn’t going to Marla Hoffman’s Halloween Howler alone, even if that meant hiring a date.