James Collins - Love In The Air

Harper Perennial

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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This Harper Perennial edition published 2008

First published in Great Britain as Beginner’s Greek by Fourth Estate in 2008

Copyright © James Collins 2008

James Collins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

‘Beginner’s Greek’, from Collected Poems by James Merrill and J. D. McClatchy and Stephen Yenser, editors, copyright © 2001 by the Literary Estate of James Merrill at Washington University. Used by kind permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Quotations from The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann are taken from the Everyman’s Library edition, with a translation by John E. Woods.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007255825

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780007580699

Version: 2019-06-18

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To

VIRGINIA DANCE DONELSON

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

About the Author

About the Publisher

When Peter Russell boarded an airplane, he always wondered whether he would sit next to a beautiful young woman during the flight, and, if so, whether he and she would fall in love. This time was no different, except for his conviction that—this time—it really would happen. Of course, he always believed more than ever that this time it really would happen. But he knew. He knew. He was working his way down the aisle of a plane bound for Los Angeles from New York, and he figured, realistically, that the occurrence he envisioned would more likely take place on a long trip. He was pleased to discover that on his side of the plane the rows had only two seats, an arrangement that would promote intimacy and arriving at his assigned place he found that his row mate had not yet appeared, which would allow his mind to savor the possibilities for at least a few more minutes. He stowed his suit jacket, briefcase, and laptop, and settled into his seat by the window. He opened his paper and then looked to his right, regarding the pregnant emptiness beside him. The clasp and buckle of the seat belt lay there impassively, indifferent to whom they would soon embrace. He looked at the scratchy gray and red upholstery, with its abstract design that vaguely recalled clouds at sunset. Peter remembered being at dinner in college one time and listening to an incredibly pretentious jerk, his best friend, impress everyone with some stuff from the highly selective English seminar he was taking—something about how absence implies presence. (“So I guess I shouldn’t worry about cutting class so much.” General laughter. Jerk.) Well, Peter had to admit, the most prominent thing about the throne of absence beside him was the presence that it lacked.

A man wearing a beige shirt and jacket stopped at Peter’s row. He was short and Eastern European—looking and had a small mustache. He looked at the stub of his boarding pass and at the row number and back again and moved on. Peter was relieved. But who knew? Anyone who sat with him might transform his life in ways he would never expect. The man coming down the aisle, the one with the bulldog face and gold tie clasp, might be the owner of a smelting concern in Buffalo, and he might take a shine to Peter and ask him to become a vice president, and Peter might say yes, and move to Buffalo, where he would find the people more complicated than he expected and where, in an appealing way, the grime would climb like ivy up the walls of the old brick buildings. He would marry someone nice who had worked in New York for a couple of years but preferred Buffalo and being near her companionable, well-off parents, and he and she would live in a spacious Victorian house, with several old trees whose leaves in summer were as big as dinner plates. Or what about the ancient, bent-over gentleman in the three-piece suit? Couldn’t he be a great-uncle who had disappeared in Burma decades ago and about whom Peter had never heard but whose identity would be revealed when Peter noticed that his ring bore the same distinctive device as one owned by Peter’s grandfather? He would leave Peter his fortune.

The tie-clasp man walked past Peter; the ancient one sat before reaching him. Most passengers seemed to have boarded by now. Yet Peter felt a tingle. Something, he knew, was about to happen. Yes—definitely—a young woman was going sit down next to him, and not just a young woman, the young woman: a really pretty, really kind young woman, and they would get to talking, and they would become enclosed, in their pair of seats, in a kind of pod within a pod, suspended far above the earth, and by the time they landed it all would be settled and clear. More happy, happy love! Naturally, he had given this individual a lot of thought. He would add and subtract her attributes. She would be pretty and kind. Then pretty and kind and smart. Then pretty and kind and smart and funny, and, in a general way, perfect. Was that too much to hope? He very well knew that it was. He knew that real people with whom one really shared a real life in the real world had flaws. Aren’t the slubs and natural variations what give a fabric its special character? Yes, but he didn’t want to fall in love with a fabric. He wanted to fall in love with a young woman, a young woman who was pretty and kind and smart and funny and—well, pretty and kind would do, if only she would also fall in love with him.