A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [104]
The remark was received by the table as a joke, though Agnes was quite sure that Julie hadn’t meant it as one.
“You’re all crazy,” Jerry said. “Me? I’m off that plane faster than a speeding bullet.”
“Why?” Harrison asked.
“Even if they’re all high-level executives at Schwab, six Arab men in first class three months after 9/11 puts me on red alert.”
“And the racial profiling?” Harrison asked.
“I could care less about racial profiling in that situation,” Jerry said. “Let’s see: if I stay on the plane, I might die. If I get off the plane, I don’t die. Sounds pretty simple to me.”
“That might be the case even without the six Arab men,” Harrison offered. “If you stay on the plane, you might die. If you get off, you won’t.”
“My point exactly,” said Bridget. “Which is why I’m not on the plane in the first place.”
“Actually,” said Rob, “you’re more likely to die in a car accident on the way home from the airport than you are to die on the plane.”
“What about you, Melissa?” Jerry asked. Agnes liked the way he had thought to include the girl. She looked to her father, a reflexive gesture, before answering.
“Well,” she said slowly. “Assuming I had some time, I’d observe the men before I made my decision. Do they act like people do on a plane? Getting settled, looking for something to read, slightly bored, remembering to turn off their cell phones, looking for a drink? Or do they seem too alert, too observant? Do they notice I’m observing them?” She paused. “But truthfully? If six Arab men got on the plane, I’m not sure I’d even notice.”
Bill laughed and Harrison chuckled.
“Do you like school?” Agnes asked the girl.
“I do,” she said.
“What are you studying?”
“I think I might major in psychology.”
“Do you live alone or do you have roommates?”
“I have two roommates,” Melissa said. “We have a three-bedroom apartment.”
“Whereabouts?”
“On Commonwealth Ave?”
“Oh, I just love Boston,” Agnes said, smiling at the girl.
“Where are you going for your honeymoon?” Julie asked Bill and Bridget, a question that not only silenced the table but seemed odd coming so hard on the heels of bringing Melissa out of her shell. Had Jerry not told Julie about Bridget?
Bill reached over and took Bridget’s hand. “Delayed honeymoon,” he explained. “We’re going to Europe in March. Paris, London, Florence.”
“You’ll have to get on a plane then,” Jerry said.
Bridget, with aplomb, asked Julie if she could borrow some of that Xanax she was talking about.
“I’m envious,” Nora said, smiling at Bridget.
“You could take some time off,” Jerry said, turning in Nora’s direction. “Your place here is doing a good business. I read that article in New York Magazine.”
“But I can’t really,” Nora said. “That’s one of the pitfalls of running an inn or a restaurant. You have to be there all the time. There are really no days off.”
“None?” Julie asked, and Agnes wondered if Julie of the furs and the pearls had ever worked a day in her life.
“Well, I’m exaggerating,” Nora said. “But not too many.”
“What do you do?” Agnes asked Julie, regretting the question as soon as it was out of her mouth.
“I’m with Credit Suisse,” Julie said.
“Not just with Credit Suisse,” Jerry corrected. “Julie is senior vice president for corporate finance.”
For a moment, no one at the table spoke, each guilty, Agnes guessed, of having formed the same set of assumptions she’d made.
“You must travel a lot,” Nora said.
“Hence the need for Xanax,” Josh said.
“Julie doesn’t toot her own horn,” Jerry said.
And you certainly don’t do it for her, Agnes thought.
“Evidently,” Rob said. “It’s quite refreshing, actually.”
Julie lost herself in a glass of wine. Three waiters arrived bearing large silver trays laden with the entrées. Agnes had ordered the Dover sole. She’d only dabbled at her soup and was now hungry. She attributed her hunger to the sheer work of all those tears, combined with a kind of emotional exhaustion. She noted that she was more than a little tipsy as well.
After the service, Harrison had walked her up to her room. He’d waited while