I took my place in back of her and pulled out my course catalog to study for the long haul.
“I mean I hope so…” she added, less certain. I kept pretending to read and bobbed my head, eager to avoid a conversation. If we started talking now, we’d have to think up things to say for what looked to be hours.
“I’m pretty sure, at least.” And she seemed equipped for that. She was chipping merrily away at the precious, fragile barrier that kept us Strangers.
“Don’t you think?” Small talk is small in every way except when you try to get around it. Then it’s enormous. Defeated, I closed my catalog and really looked at her for the first time. She seemed completely out of place. Not just in this room, but perhaps in the entire state. She was dressed for, well, not for this, anyway. You don’t wear ankle-length white linen at this hour to jockey for position in a viper pit. Nor for such an occasion does one “do” one’s hair, though the only thing you could call her hair was Done. Her eyes gleamed bright with the fear that you Might Not Like Her, and her eyebrows met occasionally with the suspicion of the abandoned—maybe she thought she’d been left at the wrong school. She stood relatively still, but her spirit was paddling.
This book begins brilliantly. I had more laugh out loud moments reading this book in crowded airports and planes than I care to remember. That beginning then passes the baton over to a very interesting, very engaging middle. The end, well…dodgy.
It’s like when you’ve had an excellent flight, the weather was good, the food was excellent, the movies were engaging, the guy in front of you didn’t lean his chair back right into your nose and you actually managed a couple of hours of decent sleep. Then the pilot executes the kind of bumpy landing that has you sitting upright, clutching the end of your seat, talking to yourself and wondering what was the last thing you said to your (insert loved one here).
But in the end, you’re landed and ready to get on with life. And you will remember the flight fondly, for the most part.
Have I told you about that beginning? BRILLIANT. And the writing, excellent.
Do I recommend it. Heartily. Read it. Read it. Read it.
Seriously.
