Chapter 6
The conference has come to an end and I am lining up to board on my plane.
Rob Neilson reverberates within me, and yet our night together could have happened centuries before. It feels like one of those old memories that are tattooed inside you and emerge at random moments with almost physical intensity.
I turn around absent mindedly, when I catch a glimpse of a name tag hanging on the woman beside me. The woman is labelled “Carlie Lester”. Carlie Lester notices me looking, and realizes she had forgotten to remove her badge. She slides it off her neck with a sight, a contained outburst of frustration after a day that has weighed on her.
I give Carlie a smile and she returns it, radiating a different self for a flashing instant. Carlie is intriguing when she frowns, and beautiful when she smiles.
Carlie and I have not been assigned neighbouring seats. Beside me is instead a heavy woman, who anxiously twists her head in all directions in the vain attempt to spot somebody. She grips the armrests, holding on to them as she swings her bulky torso towards the isle, and she collapses back with a sight, just to start all over again few seconds later. I am starting to get unnerved when a hostess comes to interrupt the woman’s routine by telling her the passenger next to her husband is willing to trade seats.
Carlie appears after a moment and when she sees me a smile of relief crossed her face.
“I couldn’t stand my neighbour”, she says
“I couldn’t stand your neighbour’s wife”, I reply, and we laugh
“Iris”, I introduce myself, and Carlie says, “I’m Carlie”
“I know”, I say, and Carlie looks lost for a moment
“You were sick of wherever you had been, you needed to get out of there so fast that you forgot about the badge hanging on your neck”, I smile
“Oh yeah…”, Carlie remembers, letting herself lie back, eyes closed
And without opening her eyes, she begins.
“I was always thrilled to be a scientist, a real scientist. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes”, I say
“You do? I was coming up with discoveries and solutions, I had good reasons to drive to work in the morning. But now things have changed”, Carlie says and pauses
“Why?”
“They’ve given me new tasks, and now I’m something in between a salesman and a manager”
“Well, find a new job then”
“I could”, she says
Carlie pauses again, a long pause floating on the background noise of the aircraft’s engines before takeoff. They roar and roar, and I wonder why we’re still stuck to the ground.
Overcoming their sound, Carlie speaks again.
“They pay me well, so it’s hard to let go, but there’s no thrill anymore. What’s worst is that every day that passes plunges me in a deeper state of torpor. I used to blow it all up when things didn’t work for me, I used to go for a fresh start without too many worries. But now…I don’t know”
“So you want the fun and the money, but it seems like you can’t get both at the same time. Is this it?”
“It is and it isn’t”
“They’ve gotten you bored to death and now you don’t know what you want anymore”, I say
Carlie opens her eyes when we finally get off the ground. The motors push the aircraft upwards, compressing us against our seats.
“I love this”, says Carlie
“I do too. I feel free only during transitions”, I tell her
“At this moment I believe anything is possible”, Carlie says
We are silent for a while.
“Anything is possible”, I say, my words reverberating Carlie’s
The trajectory of the aircraft plateaus, Carlie and I face each other.
On the background, beyond Carlie, there’s a man. The guy is hunched over a newspaper as he drinks, wrapped in a black trench coat. I sense we had met before, but I can’t place him. The man glances in my direction, before going back to his paper.
Seeing the man I think, Rob Neilson, but it is only a fraction of a second later that I realize why. He was at the bar the night before. Intriguing coincidence?, I wonder.
“What I want is the thrill”, Carlie tells me, oblivious of my momentary distraction
“What if you could have the thrill and the money?”, I ask smiling