Mile-High Touch

The air in Di Fara smelled like garlic and old money. I noticed her before I noticed anything else, which is saying something because the place was a circus of white tablecloths and waiters who moved like they were auditioning for a silent film. She sat alone at the corner table, the one everyone pretends they don't want because it's too close to the kitchen door. But she didn't look like she was pretending anything.

She was reading a book. Not scrolling, not glancing at her phone every thirty seconds like the rest of us addicts. Reading. Her thumb pressed into the spine, cracking it open like she was breaking bread. Dark hair fell across her face, and she tucked it behind her ear without looking up. The gesture was so casual it felt private, like I was watching something I shouldn't.

I ordered a Negroni because I didn't know what else to do with my hands. The bartender set it down and I drank half of it in one sip. The bitterness hit my throat and I coughed, which made me feel like an idiot. I was thirty-four years old. I'd been in restaurants before. But something about her made me forget how to be a person.

She turned a page and laughed. A small laugh, barely a breath, but I heard it. The sound cut through the clatter of plates and the hum of conversations like a knife through butter. I wanted to know what she was reading. I wanted to know what made her laugh like that, alone, in a room full of people who weren't paying attention.

I finished my drink and ordered another. This was pathetic. I was a grown man nursing a cocktail and staring at a stranger like she was a painting in a museum. But I couldn't stop. She had this way of holding herself, straight-backed but not stiff, like she knew exactly where her body ended and the world began. I'd never seen anyone so comfortable in their own skin.

The waiter brought her food. She set the book down face-open, which is a crime in my opinion, but she didn't seem to care. She ate with her fingers. Not in a messy way, but deliberately, like each bite was a decision. She tore a piece of bread, dragged it through olive oil, and closed her eyes when she chewed. I felt like a pervert for watching, but I couldn't look away.

She caught me.

Her eyes opened and found mine across the room. No surprise, no embarrassment. Just a calm, steady look that said, *I know you're watching, and I'm deciding if I care.* I should have looked away. That's what normal people do. But I'd left normal somewhere around the second Negroni.

I raised my glass. A small salute. A silent apology.

She smiled. Not a big smile, not an invitation. Just a curve at the corner of her mouth that said, *Interesting.*

I stood up. I didn't plan it. My legs just decided, and my body followed. I walked to her table and stood there like a delivery man who forgot the package.

"Sorry," I said. "I don't usually do this."

She tilted her head. "Do what?"

"This. Walk up to strangers. Interrupt their dinner."

"You haven't interrupted anything." She gestured to the empty chair across from her. "Sit."

I sat. The chair felt too small. The table felt too close. I could smell her perfume, something floral but not sweet, like rain on a garden.

"I'm Leo," I said.

"Maya."

"Maya." I said her name like I was testing it. "What are you reading?"

She held up the book. The cover was faded, the spine cracked in a dozen places. "A book about a woman who falls in love with a ghost."

"That sounds depressing."

"It's not." She set it down. "It's about wanting something you can't have. Which is different."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing. She didn't seem to mind. She ate another piece of bread, chewed, swallowed. I watched her hands. Long fingers, no rings. A small scar on her thumb, like she'd cut herself opening a can.

"Why were you watching me?" she asked.

"Because you were the only person in this room who looked like they were actually alive."

She laughed. That same small breath of a laugh. "That's a line."

"Is it working?"

"No." She smiled again. "But it's not not working."

We talked for an hour. I told her I flew planes for a living, cargo runs mostly, nothing glamorous. She told me she restored old furniture, found pieces at estate sales and brought them back to life. She said it was like archaeology, but with wood. She said she liked the smell of turpentine and the way varnish made her fingers stick together.

I told her I'd never met anyone who restored furniture.

She told me I'd never met anyone like her.

She was right.

The check came and I paid it before she could argue. She didn't argue. She just watched me hand over my card and said, "That's generous."

"It's dinner."

"It's a gesture."

"It's dinner," I said again, but I knew what she meant.

We walked out together. The air was cold and wet, the kind of cold that settles in your bones. She pulled her jacket tighter and I wanted to put my arm around her, but I didn't. We stood on the sidewalk and the city hummed around us, taxis and sirens and the distant wail of a train.

"I have a plane," I said.

She raised an eyebrow. "That's a line."

"It's not. I actually have a plane. It's at Teterboro."

"What are you doing with a plane at Teterboro?"

"I fly it."

"Where?"

"Wherever I want."

She looked at me for a long time. The streetlight caught her face and I saw the flecks of gold in her eyes, the way her lips parted slightly when she was thinking.

"Take me somewhere," she said.

"Where?"

"Surprise me."

We took a cab. She sat close to the window, watching the city blur past. I watched her reflection in the glass. She caught me looking again and didn't say anything. She just reached over and put her hand on my knee. Her fingers were cold. I covered them with mine.

The airport was quiet. A few lights in the terminal, a security guard who nodded at me like he knew my face. We walked across the tarmac and the wind whipped her hair around her face. She didn't try to fix it. She just let it fly.

The plane was a Cessna 172, small and white, nothing fancy. She ran her hand along the wing like she was touching a living thing.

"You actually have a plane," she said.

"I told you."

"I thought you were lying."

"I don't lie."

She climbed in without waiting for help. She knew how to move, how to fold herself into small spaces. I got in beside her and started the pre-flight check. She watched my hands move over the controls, asked questions about what each button did. I answered her. I liked the sound of my own voice explaining things to her.

The engine coughed and roared to life. I taxied to the runway, called the tower, got clearance. She didn't say anything. She just looked out the window at the lights of the city spreading out below us like a circuit board.

We lifted off. The ground fell away and the plane tilted and she let out a small gasp. Not fear. Wonder.

"Higher," she said.

I climbed. The city shrank to a glittering map, then to nothing but scattered light in the dark. The sky was clear, full of stars I couldn't see from the ground. She pressed her face to the window and I watched her watch the world disappear.

I leveled off and set the autopilot. She turned to me, her face half-lit by the glow of the instruments.

"What now?"

"Now I give you a massage," I said.

She laughed. "You're serious."

"I'm always serious."

I reached over and touched her shoulder. She didn't pull away. Her muscles were tight, knots like stones under her skin. I pressed my thumb into them and she let out a sound, half sigh, half groan.

"Your shoulders are a disaster," I said.

"I know."

I worked my way down her back, pressing and kneading. She leaned forward, resting her forehead on the dashboard. The plane hummed around us, the engine a steady heartbeat. Her breathing slowed. I could feel the tension leaving her body, melting under my hands like wax.

"You're good at this," she said, her voice muffled.

"I have my moments."

"Don't ruin it by being modest."

I laughed. I kept working, my hands moving across her back, her neck, her shoulders. She was warm under my fingers. Alive. I could feel her pulse, steady and slow.

She turned her head and looked at me. Her eyes were dark, unreadable.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm the guy who took you to a plane."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got."

She reached up and touched my face. Her fingers traced my jaw, my cheekbone, the corner of my mouth. I stopped breathing. The plane hummed. The stars kept spinning.

"I don't know what this is," she said.

"Neither do I."

"But you're not stopping."

"No," I said. "I'm not."

She smiled. That same small curve at the corner of her mouth. And then she leaned in, and her lips brushed mine, and I forgot every name I'd ever known.