Tom Rachman - The Imperfectionists

But this is ridiculous-why should she be uncomfortable for eleven hours because of this idiot? She launches another pointed-elbow assault on the armrest, ratcheting up the pressure on his bone.

"Here," he says, pulling away. "Let me give you some space."

"Oh, thanks," she responds, ears blushing, crimson rising from lobes upward, and she hates him more.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm bad about hogging. Do it without realizing. Just holler if you don't get enough space. I'm kinda gangly." He jiggles his arms to make the point. "Least we got the emergency exits. You can always tell the smart people by who asks for them. Emergency exits are practically first-class-not that I sat there before, but I figure it's the same-and all for the price of cattle class."

"Listen, would you mind doing me a big favor and waking me when they serve lunch? If you're awake, obviously. Thanks." She says this with her attention fixed on the seat-back in front of her, then returns to the window and pulls down the shade. She has done something stupid, though. She doesn't want to sleep. She wants to work. Now she'll be forced to fake it. She despises him.

Seven minutes pass-all the pretend sleep she can bear. She half rises from her seat, jaw compressed in cordial smile, and reaches for the overhead bin. "Just need to grab something."

He jumps up, drops his book on his seat, and makes way.

With difficulty, she squeezes out into the aisle.

"Can I help you get something?"

It happens in two stages. First, he looks familiar. Second, she realizes that she knows him. Dear Lord. What a nightmare. "Oh my God," she says. "Hi, hi. I totally didn't recognize you." Indeed, she still can't place him.

"You didn't know it was me?"

"I'm so sorry. I was completely spaced. I get in my own little world when I fly."

"No problem at all. Can I get something down for you?"

Her brain clicks: it's Dave Belling.

She wants to die. This is copydesk Dave. Newly fired Dave. Dave, who was laid off to cut costs. Dave, whom she ordered fired. Eleven hours beside him. Worse still, she has been caught in travel mode, in sweatpants, hair in pigtails. (At the paper, she's all suits and boots, eyes cold as coins.) As Henry would say, Che figura di merda.

"I think I can reach it," she says. "Thanks, though." But she can't quite get it. Her ears boil. "It's that blue bag. No, dark blue. Yup. Yeah. That's it. Great. Thanks. Thanks so much."

He steps aside gallantly to let her retake her seat.

She does so with a light smile and lead in her stomach. "I'm sorry if I seemed rude before. I really had no idea it was you." Stop babbling. "Anyway, how are you? What's going on? Where you headed?" Where is he headed? He's on a plane to Atlanta. And how's he doing? He just got fired.

"Good, real good," he replies.

"Great, that's great."

"You?"

"Good, good. Heading to Atlanta -obviously. I have this meeting with the Ott board. Our annual reckoning."

"You're the one who has to do that?"

"Afraid so. Our benighted publisher refuses."

"So the mud pie lands on your plate."

"Yup, yup. That's my plate all right. Though I must admit," she says, "it is interesting going to headquarters. We all have this tendency in Rome to think we're the center of the Ott world. Then when I go to Atlanta it really puts everything in perspective. Just how small we are."

"Not 'we' anymore," he says good-naturedly. "Not for me, anyhow."

"Yes, yes, right. Sorry."

"There was no movement at the paper, so I figured it was time to leave."

He must not realize that she knows the truth. More important, he must not realize her role in his dismissal. "That sounds wise," she says, filling the silence. "What's that you're reading?"

He retrieves the paperback from under his behind and shows the cover.

"Oh wow," she says. "I'm a huge Jane Austen fan."

"Oh yeah?"

"I haven't read Persuasion," she says. "But Pride and Prejudice is probably-no, definitely-my favorite book of all time. I'm trying to get my girls to read it, but I think they're a bit young still."

"What age?"

"Ten and eleven."

"I hadn't read anything by her till a couple of months ago," he says. "But now I'm on, like, a kind of mission to read everything she ever did. Which is not all that much. This is the last on my list." He studies the cover. "This wasn't her title for it-she died before it came out. The publisher called it Persuasion."

"Great title, though."

"It is, isn't it."

"What's your favorite of hers?" she asks.

" Mansfield Park, maybe. Maybe Pride. The only one that didn't do it for me was Sense and Sensibility."

"I've actually only read Pride and Prejudice."

"I thought she was your favorite writer."

"I know, I know. But I'm a terrible reader. Three kids. The job."

"Three kids?" He makes a face.

"What's that mean?"

"No, I'm impressed. You seem young to have three."

"I guess. Though I'm not that young. Anyway. Sorry, I should let you get back to your book."

"No prob, seriously-it's good getting a chance to talk. Nobody talks at that office. You notice that? Weirdest thing when I started there-I was, like, is there some kind of clique out here or do I have a real bad odor or something? It's like a veil of silence in there."

"That's the paper all right."

"You practically feel like everybody hates you."

"That's how I feel all the time there." Her colleagues don't even have the respect to use her name, referring to her as "Accounts Payable." She hates the nickname. They can't accept that she's young and a woman and above them in the food chain. But she's the one keeping them employed. Those guys-glorified stenographers, pontificating about prerogatives of the press-as if the paper were anything more than a business. Not when we're losing this kind of money. And that champion of pontificators, the insufferable Herman Cohen, constantly forwarding her articles like "How Bean Counters Are Ruining the Media." As if she were running the place into the ground. It's he who blocked the paper from starting a website. In this day and age, we still have no Web presence! But those who call her Accounts Payable don't think about this stuff. They don't think about how much money the paper drops each time they're late in closing the edition (forty-three thousand euros so far this annum). Or how much she battled against layoffs. (She got the Ott board down from sixteen to nine, with just one coming from editorial.) Without her, the staff would be on the streets in a month. And they slag her off.

"That is so sad," she continues. "It takes an intercontinental flight to actually exchange words with someone in the office."

"Although we did talk once, when I started."

"Right, my welcome-aboard chat. Was I a total cow?"

"Not a total one."

"Oh no! Really?"

"I'm kidding. No, you just seemed real busy."

"I am. So, so busy. The board won't pay for an assistant. And why would they, quite frankly? They're getting three employees' work out of me. It's my own fault. Sorry, I shouldn't vent. And a retroactive sorry if I was a bit of a you-know-what back at work. Just a strange atmosphere at the paper sometimes, as you know." She angles herself toward him. "So you like to read?"

He ruffles the pages of his book. "When I can." He rests the paperback facedown on his thigh.

"You shouldn't spread it out like that."

"Like what?"

"Bending your book. You're gonna break the spine."

"I don't mind."

"Sorry. I'm being bossy. I should let you read."

"Don't worry about it."

"I should probably do some work myself." She opens the tray table but hesitates. Is there anything in her files that mentions Dave? Anything he shouldn't see? She opens her binder a crack and extracts a few innocuous pages but is furtively studying him. He turns a page of his book. He seems engrossed and not remotely curious to peek at her tedious charts. What page is he on? Eighty-three. She makes a fake shuffle of her papers, a meaningless check mark, but in fact she is reading Persuasion over his shoulder. He turns the page. He goes faster than she does. That's sort of annoying. But it's to be expected-he already knows what's going on in the story. She makes a few more spurious shifts of her papers. He turns another page and, after perceptibly holding his breath, spreads the book wider, for both of them to see. She has been caught again. Ears burning, she turns back to her work.