“Huh? Uh, no thanks.” What the hell is this guy doing?
“I’m a terrible flier,” he said, hesitating. “Please, I need to be in the aisle, I’m sorry, do you mind? I’m Will, by the way…”
Moving to the window seat, I mumbled, “Yeah, fine, you can sit there. I’m Mia.” I stuck my hand up in a motionless wave, intentionally avoiding a handshake.
Don’t get me wrong, I love music; I live for it. I’m classically trained on the piano and I can hold my own on almost any instrument. Naturally, growing up in Ann Arbor, every kid played the freakin’ cello, but I had a knack for music in general, much of which I owed to my father. During the summers in New York, he exposed me to world music, rock and roll, blues, jazz, you name it, then I would go home and work on Rachmaninoff’s Opus 23 all winter long. Playing the piano the way I was taught, combined with the loose methods my father encouraged during those summers, always created this blend of discipline and revolution in my style. I tried to embrace the blend, but sometimes it felt like a conflict.
I believe my mother was drawn to my father’s love of music, his free spirit and beatnik ways, although she would never admit that. She refers to what she had with him as one wild week for a very naïve nineteen-year-old. It was the summer of 1982 and she had been in Cape Cod on a family vacation when she and a couple of friends decided to take a day trip to New York. One day turned into five, and my mother returned to Cape Cod knocked up. My father owned it from the beginning, but my grandparents wouldn’t allow their teenage daughter to move to New York, unmarried and pregnant. As I got older I wondered why my father hadn’t followed my mother to Ann Arbor. I knew he wanted to take responsibility for me and I knew he cared for mother, but I don’t think he was ever a one-woman kind of man. His lifestyle was so far removed from anything that resembled domesticity.
After I was born we lived with my grandparents while my mother attended the University of Michigan, eventually acquiring a law degree. That’s where she met David, and they’ve been inseparable ever since, even practicing law at the same firm. I think my stepdad provided my mother with the sense of stability that my father couldn’t… or wouldn’t. I admired David for that. He treated me like his own and even though sometimes I disagreed with him, especially as a teenager, I always felt loved by him.
In the beginning my father would come visit me for long weekends here and there until I was old enough to travel to New York for the summers. He and David had an enormous amount of respect for each other, even though they couldn’t have been more different. What they had in common was an unconditional love for my mother and me. After my father became aware of the fact that I called David “Dad,” he simply said, “He is your dad, luv, just like me, but to keep it straight why don’t you call me Pops?” And so I did.
My mother’s group of androgynous, pseudointellectual friends would have referred to me as the ultimate indiscretion if it weren’t for the fact that I was gifted musically, Valedictorian at my high school, and now an Ivy League graduate. Choosing a business major over the arts at Brown was a surprise to everyone, but I yearned for a more organic experience when it came to music. I didn’t want to spend one more minute trudging through a Bach piece while being hypnotized by the metronome. I wanted a degree I could use and I wanted music to be my hobby. I’m still wondering how I’m going to use that degree…
I had shut the window screen, my eyes and brain off to the world, when I was jolted by the weight of my own bag being tossed onto the seat next to me. My eyes darted open and up to Will, who was forcefully rearranging everything in the overhead bin.
“Sorry, baby, I’ve got to make room for her,” he said, grabbing his guitar and hoisting it up.
I rolled my eyes at the thought of him personifying his guitar. He grabbed my bag, shoved it in the bin, and collapsed into his seat. I shot him a slightly annoyed look. “Why didn’t you request an aisle seat?” I asked.
“Well, you see, sweetheart, I like to be right behind the emergency exit. I’ll hop over this seat, jump out the door, and be down that super slide in a split second,” he said with an arrogant smile.
“Then why not request the exit aisle?”
“I am not the person for that job, trust me.”
“Damn, chivalry is dead. It doesn’t matter anyway; our lives are in the hands of these hopefully sober pilots and this nine-hundred-thousand-pound hunk of metal, so…”
“Can we stop talking about this? I don’t think you understand.” He pulled a rosary out of his pocket and proceeded to put it around his neck.
“Something tells me you have no idea what that’s for,” I said, giggling. “Are you Catholic?” He was desperately trying to peel a tiny price tag label off one of the beads. “Oh my god, you bought that in the airport gift store, huh?”
Putting his finger to his mouth, he said, “Shhh! Woman, please!” He looked around as if he would be found out. “Of course I’m Catholic.”
A light chuckle escaped my mouth. “Well, God would know, so wearing that around your neck instead of chanting your Hail Marys is probably pissing the big guy off, and that’s not good for any of us.”
He let out a nervous laugh and then whispered, “Hey, little firecracker, you like taunting me, don’t you?” Waiting for my response, he looked directly into my eyes and smiled cutely.