Page 14 of Beautiful Ugly

I’ve been traveling on planes since I was a child. My mother first sent me away on one—alone, because she said she could no longer stand to look at me—when I was ten years old. I was not a novice traveler and I knew I was in the right seat. But he didn’t move, just stood there staring at me, pulling the face of a person not used to being ignored.

“Sorry, you’re obviously reading something good...”

Trying to, I wanted to say but bit my tongue.

“My boarding pass says twenty-five A,” he blathered on, holding upthe whole queue of people trying to board the plane behind him. “And that’s where you’re sitting.”

Why do some men always think they are right, despite having so much previous experience of being wrong? I glanced up from my page, again, to look at the boarding pass he was holding irritatingly close to my face. I had a curious urge to grab it, tear it up, and throw the pieces in the air.

“You’re in twenty-five F. This is twenty-five A,” I replied and returned to my book.

So it was definitely not love at first sight.

There was no apology as he took his seat on the other side of the aisle. Other passengers continued to file past looking for their seats—hopefully the correct ones—but nobody sat down between us, and I couldfeelhim still looking at me.

“I’ve read that book, by the way,” he said from the other side of the plane. I ignored him and pretended to carry on reading. “It has a very disappointing ending.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” I replied, still not looking up.

“I could tell you if you like; save you some time?”

I deployed the look I reserve for people who irritate me more than is tolerable. A look I only use when Iwantsomeone to know that I hate them.

“No. Thank you,” I said, hoping he would get the message and that would be the end of it. Finally, someone sat in the seat next to mine, coming between us and blocking seat 25F’s view of me and my reading choices.

“Excuse me,” I heard him say to my new neighbor. “We’re actually traveling together.” To my surprise, and horror, he meant me. “Would you mind swapping so I can sit beside my friend?”

I was not hisfriend. I was not his anything.

“Of course,” said the man who had just sat down next to me, already unfastening his seat belt.

“Oh no,” I protested. “You really don’t have to do that—”

“It’s no bother; I don’t mind.”

Idid.

Myfriendstrapped himself into the seat next to mine and held out his hand, expecting me to shake it. I didn’t. Instead, I glared at his hand and then at his face as though I found them both offensive. “I think we may have got off on the wrong foot,” he said. “Can we start again? I always think traveling is a great way to meet new people.”

“I could agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”

“Ha! That’s funny. Are you a comedian?”

“No,” I said, staring back down at my book.

“Whatdoyou do?” he asked. When I didn’t reply, he said, “I’m a writer.”

And those were the words that changed everything because writers were my rock stars.

He instantly transformed from an irksome stain on the planet into a creature of wonder. We started chatting, and he was charming and witty and clever. The book I was reading went into the seat pocket and wasn’t opened again. I have always had a soft spot for storytellers. I fall in love with their words; then I fall in love with the people who wrote them. I sometimes wish I could crawl inside their heads, hear their innermost thoughts, and see the world through their eyes.

It isn’t as though I’d never met an author before. The woman who raised me—when my mother gave up trying to—worked in publishing. I spent my teenage years living in a home that was often filled with writers. She would host these amazing dinner parties in her London flat, and they would all sit around for hours talking, eating, drinking. I would sit on the top step of the staircase, secretly listening, wishing I was allowed to be down there having fun with them. Those “dinner parties” often went on until the sun came up and I had to get myself ready for school. I’d go to class exhausted but happy. It didn’t matter to me whether they were million-copy bestsellers or award-winning novelists—though many of them were—they were all magicians of words, and that was my favorite kind of magic.

We talked so much when we first met on the plane that I barely noticed when it took off. When the flight attendant arrived with a trolley full of drinks, he ordered three: a cup of tea, a whiskey, and some water. I don’t usually drink on flights, but I had some wine. I watched him pour a dash of cold water into his steaming cup of tea.

“I’ve never been a patient person,” he said, by way of explanation even though I hadn’t asked.

It was a night flight to New York, and before long the cabin was in darkness. Most of the other passengers seemed to be asleep already—travel cushions tucked under their heads, eye masks on—but we continued to whisper, like children excited to still be up long after bedtime. We spoke for hours, and I felt like I could talk to him forever about books, travel, life, anything. I wanted to know everything about him, what he thought and felt, to know if his view of the world was the same as mine. Have you ever met someone and just clicked? As though you had known them for years even though you had just met? That’s how it felt. So I confess I was a little disappointed when he yawned, tilted his seat back as far as it would go, and said he might try to get some sleep. I worried that maybe I had imagined the chemistry between us.