Strangers on a Plane

5/2/03, 8:13 p.m., America West flight 683, Phoenix to Newark, seat 9C

I’m a schmuck in some regards. I dream of sitting next to a beautiful woman on a plane. Now I am. With no foreseeable threat from the kindly ethnic middle-aged fellow on the other side. White t-shirt, glasses hanging from it, jeans. Noticed her at the airport. Stunning. Out of my league. I may be intellectually superior. But that’s cowardly bullshit. Why not try? Why not speak? She even said half a sentence to me early on. I’m a moron and a coward. Two hours left and it’s highly unlikely I’ll do anything. I can only hope there will be a guy eight times my size waiting for her at baggage claim.

Did I mention blonde? Hot but not trashy. She sleeps exquisitely. She eats vanilla creme cookies at a rapid clip but not sloppily. She reads Atonement by Ian McEwan which she picked up at the airport and has an Updike blurb on the cover. I want to write a little about Michael Caine in The Quiet American—fuck him, I am the Quiet American. A good movie. Not as great as About Schmidt but lightyears (sorry) better than Star Trek: Nemesis which I saw on the way out, and its shoddy dialogue was quite a distraction, and I dozed through a large chunk and and… but I can’t stop thinking about Sleeping Beauty. How many times can I reasonably look to my left? What if she awoke as I was staring? If it’s nearly 8:30 p.m., why is it light outside? This isn’t fucking Alaska, for christ’s sake.

Kinda Stephanie March-like. But no, hotter. And more West Coast seeming. Yes, that’s it, she’s from Arizona and I’d never see her again anyway! Aesop was a fucking genius. Why do I assume everyone on my return flight is going home? Maybe it’s 50%. Though, I suppose, day of the week could indicate… oh I’ll shut up. Maybe she’ll be charmed by my boyish composition book. Maybe she’ll see my now-revealed Yo La Tengo—oh god she stretched and arched her back—t-shirt and, uh, Hoboken and shared taxi and oh hell who am I kidding???

9:26 p.m.

I tried and… SHE HAS A FIANCÉ! I suck ass! Hooray!

11:05 p.m., Newark International Airport, Terminal A Station

Embarrassed by my own written words, I began to concoct half-hearted attempts to make some sort of contact with Sleeping Beauty. As you’ll see on the last page of this book, I wrote a clumsy note, mocking our seatmate while he slept. I was a nudge away from hilarity, but alas, he awoke suddenly from his highly comic “head leaning on the seat in from of him” position.

11:19 p.m., waiting room, Newark Airport train station

OK, so, guy woke up, I was thwarted, but, you know, now I was hungry. Not literally hungry—they had fed us a chicken parm sandwich. Except it was no sandwich, more of a deformed Hot Pocket, or microwave burrito with a slit cut in top. And very little actual chicken inside. And those vanilla creme cookies, which my darling ate with such panache.

They began a trivia contest on the video monitors. I used all my 18+ years of women-wooing know-how to devise the perfect ice-breaker. After the answer was revealed on the first question (“When did the Cardinals move to Phoenix?”), I snapped my fingers in the universal gesture for “Dang!” Which, believe it or not, actually began a conversation. With all my hyperoveranalysis, I was literally able to begin talking to a gorgeous woman at the snap of my fingers. It led perfectly into the all-imporant Are you from Phoenix question. Yes, she has lived there for a year. Used to live in New York.

11:41 p.m., New Jersey Transit North Jersey Coast Line train

And that’s when I found out about the fiancé. (See 9:26 entry.) She works for Octagon sports agency, representing baseball players: David Wells, B.J. Surhoff, recent signee Alfonso Soriano, etc.

11:47 p.m., PATH train

—She’s 25. (Oh, to be hot, blonde, and 25.)
—born in Chicago, raised in Seattle, went to University of Washington, moved to NYC to dance.
—was a dancer in Broadway’s Fosse.
—gave up dancing while still on top, and got a job with Octagon, which I kept calling The Octagon, not because of my usual annoying Letterman-esque way of adding an extraneous “the” before nouns, but because “the Octagon” is stuck in my head as the playing field from my brief obsession with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
—Wedding is scheduled for November 29, but the church just cancelled! She’s understandably upset.
—The date was important. She’s Catholic, he’s Baptist, and there are a lot of classes to attend, etc. (I REALLY didn’t have a shot here.) His only off-day is Monday.
Because he’s a ballplayer.
With the Oakland A’s.
Second baseman Mark Ellis, called up last season. (I mentioned that she was out of my league but I didn’t think it was the major leagues.) I will check on the Internet to see if he is actually eight times my size or, you know, merely twice my size.
—They’re building a house in Scottsdale. She has carpet samples, etc. in her bag, but had no trouble with airport security. (Oh, to be hot, blonde, and 25.)
—He has an apartment in Oakland.
—And so much else, and her life is perfect. (My analysis, anyway.)

In the YES Network Yankeeography of Paul O’Neill, they say no, no, wait, in the Sports Illustrated cover story on Kirby Puckett by Frank Deford, it is asserted that all ballplayers cheat on their wives. Even the religious ones. I’m talking to you, Mark Ellis. Yes, because the wheels never stop spinning. I was listening to her, thinking, hmmm, he’ll be away from home a lot and hmmm, she just touched my arm…. La lucha continua. La lucha continua.

[Note: As of September 5, 2010, Mark Ellis was still the starting second baseman for the Oakland A’s. He is currently batting .263 and is earning $5.5 million this year. In 2006, he set the American League single-season record for fielding percentage by a second baseman. He holds the major league record for most home runs by a player born in South Dakota. The Ellises are the proud parents of two children. Mark is 2 inches taller and 24 pounds heavier than Jack Silbert.]