When he received no reply, he shrugged and made his way to the shower. Then he got dressed, made coffee, and paced around the apartment.
“What joke are you trying to pull on me?”
Thomas began to wonder about his mental health once more. With a frown, he studied the urn sticking out of his bag.
“Have you abandoned me again? Do you want me to go on this trip alone?” he asked, a little hopelessly. “Fine. Have it your way.” He carried his suitcase outside and closed his front door. “I’ll see to your last wishes and then we’ll be even.”
A taxi was parked outside, waiting for him. On the drive to the airport, Thomas turned around at least ten times to watch Paris fade into the distance through the back window.
At the check-in counter, the airline employee asked if he was traveling alone and Thomas answered, “Mostly.”
He stopped at a magazine shop and bought a copy of the monthly music magazineDiapason(that is, “tuning fork”), which he then flipped through as he enjoyed a macaron from the Ladurée counter—Ladurée macarons were one of his favorite treats.
When he’d finally worked up the courage, Thomas walked toward the security checkpoint. A dark mass appeared on the screen, and the agent frowned and confiscated his bag for a more detailed inspection.
“What is this?” asked the young security agent as she took hold of the urn.
“A jar of incense,” Thomas said. “I’m a concert pianist, and it helps to calm my nerves.”
“You must be really anxious to need this much. May I?” she asked as she opened the lid.
Thomas nodded and blinked in agreement. She bent closer and sniffed the contents. “It smells nice,” she said as she closed it.
She checked the urn for traces of explosives, then finally returned it to Thomas. He put it back in his bag, told the woman goodbye, and left. His anxiety grew as he looked around the gate area.
“I feel like a lost child in a crowd, desperately searching for his parents,” he mumbled. “This is all so ridiculous.”
Thomas briefly considered turning around and going home but then decided it would be silly to miss out on visiting San Francisco, since he’d already paid for his flight and come all the way to the airport. He hurried down the gangway and into the airplane cabin, where he stored his bag in the overhead bin.
His neighbor had already claimed the armrest between them and had unfolded her newspaper, taking up the entirety of her space and some of Thomas’s as well.
He glanced at the empty seat across the aisle, hoping he would be able to move to it once boarding was complete.
As soon as the head flight attendant announced that the doors were closing, his father appeared in the seat, a huge grin on his face.
“Admit it! You missed me a little.”
“You think this is funny? Is this some kind of game to you?”
“Do you really think it’s that easy to reincarnate? I was there in the room with you, but for some reason, you couldn’t see me. I guess it was some kind of glitch. Your cologne trick was brilliant, by the way.”
“A glitch?”
“A wonderfully American word, isn’t it?”
“You want to hear about a glitch? I was about to turn my back on this whole thing. How’s that for a glitch?”
“Oh, I heard you grumbling, but you wouldn’t have given up. What did you mean when you said we’d be even? Am I to understand that you’ve finally decided that the upbringing I gave you was good enough after all?”
Thomas’s neighbor folded up her paper with a compassionate smile. She reassured him that he had nothing to worry about since air travel was the safest means of transportation. In an apparent attempt to distract him, she asked him what he did for a living.
“I’m a pianist,” he replied.
“They have excellent musical channels on board. Nothing better to help you relax,” she said as she put on her headphones.
Thomas glared at his father, who seemed to be enjoying the situation.
“By the way, what an evening last night! Your friend Serge is terribly boring. I think his girlfriend had the right idea—I would have left him once and for all a long time ago.”
