The Marriage Recipe (7 page)

The second Rachel had them over her ears, the world became silent. Then she heard Colin's voice. “Can you hear me? Lower your mic in front of your mouth to talk.”

“You're loud and clear,” Rachel said. She adjusted the headset and soon felt the rumble as the plane's high-performance engine roared.

The cockpit screens flared to life, and with a little bump, the plane coasted forward and soon was out on the runway.

Rachel gripped her seat, her knuckles whitening. “What about a flight plan?”

“Relax,” Colin said. “We don't have to file one. We're flying under VFR—visual flight rules. I've checked the weather and it's a beautiful night, with practically no wind. Smooth skies.”

And with that, he sped up, eased back the yoke and they were airborne.

 

S
O HE'D SERIOUSLY
pursued his pilot's license. She caught Colin smiling as he listened to the air-traffic controller. As the ground faded beneath them, he programmed their destination into the autopilot. The computer spoke the word
altitude
as they hit eleven thousand feet and slowly Rachel loosened her grip.

“Pretty, isn't it?” he said.

The sunset off the wing was beautiful—a shimmer of yellow and orange on the horizon.

“You should have told me. I could have brought a camera.”

He laughed. “If I'd told you, you wouldn't have come. You'd have been too chicken.”

“Would not have,” she lied.

“Admit it. Only the fact that it was a long walk home and you haven't eaten in a New York-caliber restaurant in a while enticed you to climb aboard.”

“Okay, fine. I've been a little deprived lately,” she agreed.

“This place will soothe your taste buds. You'll like the River Club. It's one of my favorite places.”

Rachel wondered how many other dates he'd taken there, and then chided herself that she was
not
on a date with Colin. Maybe he simply needed the flying hours. She'd heard that pilots had to log so many per month in order to maintain their license.

She listened for a moment to the air-traffic chatter over her headphones. Colin answered some question Rachel didn't understand, and she lowered her microphone and turned her head to gaze out the window. She had some questions of her own, but she didn't want to interrupt his conversation.

There was something about the hum of the engine, and as the flight continued, Rachel relaxed. They were cruising at two hundred miles per hour. Until the sun had gone down, she'd been able to make out the geography below. Now she could only make out the lights. She saw a lone car on the two-lane road. The lights of a lamp on a lakeshore beamed upward. She closed her eyes, the music from the satellite-radio channel a lullaby to her ears. As a child she'd always fallen asleep in the back of her grandfather's big diesel pickup. This was like that and she let the motion soothe her.

She awoke a bit later.

“You were out for fifteen minutes,” Colin said.

“I'm sorry,” she replied, using her fingers to adjust her microphone. It was strange hearing her voice through the headphones, stranger still to think that she'd dozed off in the first place. She never slept on flights, and once, she'd been up twenty-four hours straight, unable to sleep on the red-eye she'd taken. She'd been the only one awake and reading, her overhead light a tiny beacon in a 767 awash in darkness. She'd never made the mistake of flying late at night again. She'd looked like a zombie for two days as she'd tried to recover.

“We're about twenty minutes from the outskirts of Chicago,” Colin announced. “We're approaching from the south. You probably can't see it, but Lake Michigan is underneath us.”

“Is that why the radio chatter has increased?” She'd been listening to all sorts of conversation, including one that Colin answered. Then he'd adjusted his altitude, dropping a thousand feet.

“We're on Chicago approach. Air-traffic control is watching everything, including us. We're a target on the screen.”

“It's fascinating.” The monitor in front of her was all lit. Colin explained how one screen showed her the horizon and how Colin's plane was in level flight. The other screen displayed the terrain, weather and other traffic around Colin's plane.

“It's sort of like boating, isn't it, only in three dimensions,” Rachel noted at the end of his explanation.

“Yep. We've got a 757 about two thousand feet above us.”

“It's fascinating,” she breathed. The terrain underneath them had gone from dark farmland or lake water to suburbia awash in twinkling lights.

“Not going to ignore you, but as I'm hungry, let's get this on the ground.”

For the next few minutes Colin routed the plane around Chicago, the turn showing as a fifteen-degree angle on the screen in front. Colin had several conversations with the control tower, and the plane descended. “Get ready. We're on final approach.”

Rachel gripped her seat, and amazingly the metal bird drifted down and landed with a light
thunk.
Unlike the heavier commercial planes, the touchdown was gentle and the braking swift. Colin made a right turn off the runway and began his taxi to an aviation hangar. Rachel watched as Colin followed the hand signals of the line guy, parked the plane and shut down the engine.

“Okay, you can remove your headphones. We're here at Chicago Midway.”

Rachel took them off and immediately ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to straighten the brown strands. Colin was already out of the plane and coming around to her side.

“The car's waiting,” he announced as he opened her door. He held his hand out to assist her, and she grasped it as she ventured out onto the step molded into the plane's side. She was so intent on the black Lincoln town car parked on the tarmac that she didn't remember there was a large wing overhead. She straightened and banged the top of her head on the underside of it.

“Careful.” Colin steadied her, his touch on her arm soft yet firm. “Are you okay?”

She had both feet on the ground, and her head throbbed from the thump. Mere inches separated their bodies and his free hand had moved up to feel her head, his fingers sliding through her hair, searching for a bump. They were friends. They'd yanked on each other's arms when someone was excited, tugged on each other's clothes to make someone change direction, reached for each other's hands when climbing trees and crawling through tunnels.

He'd never touched her like this that she could recall. Maybe he had, but only in sympathy. For the loss of her dog.

“I'm fine,” she managed to say. “Nothing some acetaminophen won't fix, and I've got some tablets in my purse.”

He still didn't move his hand, his fingertips massaging the sore spot. Two acetaminophen caplets would cut the pain, but nothing would put out the fire zinging in her veins.

The touch was too intimate. She ducked her head and took two steps toward the car. “Will you pass me my purse and coat?”

They didn't touch as he handed her both items. The limo driver climbed from the Lincoln, his posture anticipatory. Colin gestured. “Go ahead. I'll be right there. I have to lock up.”

Within a few minutes they were both seated in the back of the town car, and soon they were at the River Club, a three-year-old establishment located high above the Chicago River. The restaurant catered to a casual yet upscale clientele, and Rachel and Colin's table afforded them a fantastic view of the river, the downtown skyline and Lake Michigan.

“So, how is it?” Colin asked much later in the evening, a few minutes after their entrées arrived.

Rachel finished swallowing the delicious bite of salmon. “You did good,” she said, smiling. “I love Kim's, but this is why I left Morrisville. Real food. In fact, so far the entire night has been great. How'd you find this place?”

“Another pilot recommended it.”

“Your own culinary network,” she observed.

He grinned and ate some of his steak. “Exactly. We call it going out for the five-hundred-dollar hamburger.”

Understanding he meant the cost of fuel and plane rental for the trip, Rachel felt humbled. “You didn't have to fly me to dinner.”

He shrugged. “I wanted to. I love to fly, and try to be in the air at least six hours a week. It's my great escape.”

“I don't think I ever would have believed it,” Rachel admitted.

“Well, Bruce wanted to be a firefighter. I wanted to be a pilot. We each got what we wanted, sort of.”

“Morris and Lancaster boys are lawyers,” Rachel finished. “But didn't Bruce quit volunteering?”

“Only after he was injured and Christina came along. Although I doubt I'll have to stop flying. Anyway, I've often wondered if my children will feel that type of pressure. Should I ever have children,” Colin added quickly. “I mean, I really don't think about children much. Christina's pregnant, though, and Bruce is already over the top.”

He appeared flustered, and Rachel laughed and touched his arm. “I understand what you mean. I grew up an only child. Your place was a madhouse with all those siblings and their friends.”

“My mom liked having kids. She's thrilled to be a grandmother. My sisters have kept her in good supply, although she keeps saying she's ready for more. Twins run in my family so maybe she'll get her wish.”

“Why haven't you gotten married?”

“Same reason as you?” Colin said, his tone indicating he was uneasy with the question.

Rachel leaned back in her chair. “I hope your fiancée doesn't cheat on you.”

He shook his head, aghast at his blunder. “Sorry. Shouldn't have reminded you.”

Rachel put her fork on her plate, temporarily full. “No, it's okay. The thought's getting easier to deal with. The biggest blow was to my ego. I mean, I wasn't good enough. Do you know how hard that is?”

Colin bent his head to take a bite of steak. “Actually, yes,” he admitted.

Rachel didn't believe him. “Oh, I don't buy that. Women flocked to you. You had to fight them off.”

“Not everyone,” Colin said testily. He shoved a forkful of food into his mouth.

“Still,” Rachel said, watching him chew, “you're a local boy. A good catch. I'm surprised no one has snagged you.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Colin said after he swallowed. “As if I'm just an item on a grocery store shelf.”

“Well, I would have,” Rachel said. Might as well get started if she was going to clear the air once and for all.

He stared at her. “What?”

“I would have taken you home. Some girl is insane to have let you slip through her fingers.” She paused for a moment, contemplating her next line. “You didn't dump all of them, did you?”

Colin managed to smile. “No. Some of the dissolutions were mutual. Others, I have to admit,
I
broke off. They got too clingy. I want to marry for love, not because it's…well, whatever it's called. Biological clock? Do guys even have those?”

“Marco did, so it's probably wise you recognized you might have one,” Rachel said. “Love is the ideal, I think.”

“So how did you hook up with him?”

She frowned. “Marco? I worked at his restaurant. He's very Italian. That was part of the allure. That alpha-male dominance. Someone determined to provide for me. He's a throwback. I realize now it was all an act, but boy, his attention felt good. Here I was, Rachel Nobody, but when I was with Marco, everyone noticed. I didn't realize I was the perfect arm ornament, the ideal wife candidate. Love had nothing to do with it, I recognize that now.”

Colin said nothing, letting her finish.

“You asked me once what he saw in me. I've been contemplating that myself. I'm a bit Italian. I'm also a chef, with a diploma from a prestigious culinary school, but I'm not any type of high society. His mother came around a lot and she approved of me for some reason. Maybe Marco simply figured it was time to get married, and since his mother accepted me, I'd do. He actively pursued me. The chase was the fun part.”

“It shouldn't be,” Colin said. He took a long drink of his club soda. He'd forgone wine because he was the pilot, but had insisted Rachel have a glass. “I've always felt that when you get to the end of the race, you shouldn't find out you don't really want what you've won.”

“I guess that's what happened to me,” Rachel said. “On his part, at least. I was blissfully planning a wedding. I thought his lack of interest was simply—this sounds cheesy—that he was a guy. He always said weddings were women's work, that I could have whatever I wanted. I lost myself in the fantasy. Got caught up in the moment. Confused being busy with being in love. Thankfully I found out before the wedding. I can't—well, yes, I can—imagine what might have happened a few years down the road.”