Richard Cox - House of the Rising Sun

“Well,” Thomas finally said. “Now we need to figure out where to pick up your luggage. Then we’ll get out of this airport and find some breakfast. Hungry?”

Sky was repositioning a backpack on her shoulders.

“Starving. But I have to run to the ladies’ room first. And anyway I have this form that tells me where to go for the luggage. So if you can wait a short minute, I’ll just run in here and do my thing, and then we’ll get my bags. And then some B. Man, I am starving. I never eat on planes unless it’s overseas, but now I wish I had nibbled on one of those bagels. Not smart.”

Sky disappeared into the bathroom along with her electric magnetism. If this was how she behaved with everyone, it was no wonder she was so goddamned famous. Even a blind person would be drawn to her.

To clear his head, Thomas pulled out his iPhone, reflexively clicked on Apple News, and scrolled through the list of stories.

Markets panic as Trump tweets gibberish again

Scientists concerned about supernova after neutrino detectors go haywire

Juan de Fuca could trigger “deadly tsunami”

Being connected to every facet of his electronic life had turned him into the same kind of over-dependent technology snob he’d poked fun at in Thomas World. Before smartphones, he could go hours, sometimes an entire weekend, without watching the news or reading email. Now even five minutes seemed too long to wait.

He switched to mail and saw this:

Dick McClaren

9:56 AM

Get BIGGER with PROMO

Overfat, M.D.

9:44 AM

Lose more weight with this ONE weird trick

Seth Black

9:39 AM

Time to pay up, wife-fucker

Thomas swiped the first two messages away and his thumb was on the third when he realized something was terribly wrong. Seth Black could be no one but Natalie Black’s husband. And “wife-fucker,” well, that made no sense at all.

Six weeks ago, Thomas had spoken to Natalie for the first time since high school, an encounter occasioned by their twenty-year reunion. Over the course of a surreal, drunken weekend, Natalie had unloaded a burden she clearly had been carrying far too long. Thomas listened to the story of Seth’s infidelity and offered as much support as he could, even via email in the weeks after the reunion. But there was little anyone could do until Natalie confronted the situation directly, which thus far she had been reluctant to do.

The accusation of adultery was mystifying and a little frightening. He nervously opened the message and saw this:

Dear Mr Phillips,

I don’t even know where to start. Thanks a lot for fucking my wife.

Even if she came onto you, you didn’t have to accept. She’s a married woman.

Thomas looked up to find bustling passengers and bored flight attendants and a smiling pilot who tipped his hat to Thomas as he rolled by with a pet suitcase. He didn’t want to look at the phone again. Any moment Skylar would step out of the bathroom and Natalie’s angry husband was the last thing he wanted on his mind.

Anyway, I need to ask you a favor and I expect you to honor it considering what you…

“All ready?” asked Sky, who had materialized next to him.

“Uh, sure. Let’s go get your bags.”

“Everything okay? You’re looking at your phone like it just bit you.”

Thomas shoved the phone into his pocket. It was obvious now he should never have corresponded with Natalie after the reunion. Even when your intentions were pure, it was always a bad idea to insert yourself into someone else’s marriage.

“Sorry,” he said. “Personal thing.”

Sky giggled and hooked her arm through his.

“I know this visit is totally last minute. Don’t feel like you have to babysit me. We’ve got all weekend to talk shop, right?”

Thomas looked over at Sky and was again struck by her eyes. He’d believed them at first to be green, but now he could see blue in them as well, which produced a color not unlike tropical ocean water. Under other circumstances he would not have been able to stop thinking about eyes like that. Skylar was by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in person, and she was looking at him as if he were the best thing that had happened to her in weeks.

“We do have all weekend,” he said. “By the time we’re done, the screenplay will have Oscar written all over it.”

“I can’t fucking wait, Tommy. Can I call you Tommy?”

“Not if you expect me to answer.”

“We’ll see about that. This is going to be a weekend to remember, Tommy. Mark my words.”

Thomas did mark them, so to speak, and often thought of them later. How prophetic they had seemed, even as she uttered them.

After all, those words were the kind of scene-ending dialogue he might have written himself.

In a nearby office they found Sky’s luggage, an expensive-looking black suitcase and a smaller pink bag embroidered with the Hello Kitty logo. Thomas knew he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about Seth’s email until he read the rest of it.

“Let me go get the car,” he said as they approached the exit. “I’ll pull up to the door and—”

“I’m not fragile cargo,” Sky replied. “I can walk, at least if you slow down a little. What’s the rush?”

“Sorry. If you want to wait here, I can just get the—”

“I’ll walk with you.”

“But people are going to recognize you.”

“It’s happened before, you know.”

“Right. Okay.”

She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. Thomas stood there feeling ridiculous.

“So let’s go!” Sky told him.

She pulled the sunglasses over her eyes and they strode toward the door. At first no one noticed them, but outside the terminal, on the sidewalk, a teenaged girl was waiting at the shuttle stop. Her jaw fell visibly open as the two of them approached.

“Oh my God! You’re Skylar Stover!”

Sky smiled and lifted her sunglasses. “I am! What’s your name?”

“My name? I’m Dillan Johnson. But you’re Skylar Stover! Holy shit, will you take a selfie with me?”

A nearby elderly couple, also waiting for a shuttle, pretended not to notice.

“Of course I will.” Sky stood her suitcase on the sidewalk and put her arm around the girl. “You’re going to be a hit on Instagram.”

The girl’s response was an unintelligible screech.

Eventually Thomas realized there was time during this transaction to retrieve his phone. He switched on the display, where Seth’s email still waited.

…I expect you to honor it considering what you did. I did some Googling and figured out your a rich screenwriter. Whoopdy fuckin do! Guess what I am? A million dollars in debt! Most of it is to my dad but $213 grand is to a bookie in Dallas. Which happens to be where you live, lucky me. My insurance policy should take care of all this but just in case they screw me over I want you to…

“Tommy?”

Sky was tugging on his arm.

“You ready?”

The look in her eyes was not impatience, as he might have imagined, but excitement. By now there was no way to take her manner with him as anything but flirtatious, which Thomas found in equal parts flattering and impossible to believe.

Still, his mind kept going back to Seth’s email, back to gambling debts and a bookie and an insurance policy. How did you redeem a large insurance policy other than—

Skylar tugged on the sleeve of his shirt.

“Which way is your car?”

“It’s, um, this way. Follow me.”

He directed her across the street and into the amber darkness of a parking garage.

“Is everything okay?” Sky asked.

“I think so. My car is down here at the end. But I’m going to check something real quick if you don’t mind.”