Finding Mr. Right on a plane

I was expecting an uneventful plane ride from Minneapolis to San Francisco- maybe take a little nap, do a little reading- it did not go as planned. My mother, also from Minnesota flew out two days before me. I would have flown with her but there was no way I was getting on a plane on the 4th of July. This would be the first Independence Day after the 9/11 tragedy. I was convinced that our enemies would try to prove a point by attacking us on such a patriotic day. Well they didn’t, which only proved to my friends that they were correct in telling me that I was neurotic.

I do have to admit that I may have been somewhat mentally unstable. My husband of seven years left me for another women and though this happened over a year ago, I was not handling the situation well. This little trip was supposed to be “good therapy” for me; at least that’s what my friends and family thought. I did not turn down my cousins offer to fly me out to stay with her. My cousin from Arizona and the other from New Mexico would also be joining us.

I knew that this trip would not stop me from obsessing about my failed marriage, it seemed as though that was all I ever thought about. There were days when I would start to feel better about life and even think about dating again, then BOOM my ex would reel me back in. It seemed as though he had a built in radar telling him “things are getting better in her world, you need to do something.” He knew how to turn the charm on, not that he really had to with me. Even the slightest gesture- a sideways smile, a touch on the shoulder- and I’d be planning our reunion. Planning our reunion was exactly what I was doing as I sat on the plane waiting for take-off. I was thinking about the day he would come to me and tell me what a fool he had been and profess his love to me.

I came back to reality when I felt my seat being kicked; I looked through the crack in the seat and saw the culprit, a little boy who looked to be about 4 or 5. He saw me look at him and giggled as he proceeded to kick box the back of my seat. There seemed to be children all around me. I had a window seat and next to me was a preteen girl, on the other side of her sat a young boy. My seat continued to shake and my patience began to wear. I spotted the boy’s mother putting her things in the overhead, once she was settled I was sure she would reprimand her son for kicking my seat. Wrong! She made eye contact with me and I gave her one of those smiles mothers give to each other when their kids are being brats (you know the one that says “its ok I understand.”) Well usually the other mother then attempts to control her unruly child, this mother did nothing of the sort. She told him to put his seatbelt on, she then settled in and opened her magazine. The boy on the end of my row was playing his Game Boy, apparently he wanted to share the sound effects with the rest of us. Guess where his mother was? You guessed it, in the row behind us, kicking boy’s mom was his mother as well. As it turns out all three of the kids were her’s and there was yet another one sleeping in a car seat next to her.

This would be a long flight I though looking around for other seating options, knowing full well the plane was booked to capacity. It was then that I noticed the man sitting across the aisle. I normally don’t take much notice in men with blond hair, I prefer the tall dark and Asshole type. This guy though, he was really something to look at, he was absolutely gorgeous. He had what I would call a “California tan” that golden tone, not like a leathery Minnesota tan. He reminded me of a life size Ken doll. He appeared to be deep in thought; I don’t think he would have noticed if he had kicking boy sitting behind him. At that point I thought of a brilliant idea: I asked the boy at the end in the aisle seat if he would like a window seat. He was too engrossed in his game and did not hear me, his sister elbowed him and said “she wants to know if you want to sit by the window?” He didn’t seem to be as excited as I thought he would be, he shrugged his shoulders and said “yeah I guess.”

I settled into my new seat across from Ken. It seemed to be taking forever for our plane to take off, everyone was getting restless. The seat kicking quit soon after I switched seats, all it took was the kid kicking his brother’s seat once. His brother got up and belted him a good one. I am not one for violence but at that point I had no problem with it. It wasn’t the mom that broke up the sibling spat, it was big sister, mom just sat there reading her magazine. The pilot got on the speaker and told us there would be a slight delay as they were having trouble with the compressor. That is when we made the connection, his name was Jeffery, I started the conversation by saying it felt like it was getting warmer on the plane (good opener… ok well I was out of practice.) He jumped right in though, he told me that if the compressor isn’t working then the air conditioning will not work either, we could get some air out of the little vents but very little, the longer we sat the hotter it got.

I found out that Jeffery graduated with his Master’s degree last fall and had only been living in Minneapolis for the past six months. Come to find out he graduated from Berkley, what a coincidence as my father graduated with his PHD. from Berkley, that must be some type of sign that we were meant to be together. Yes I do now realize that I was grasping at straws, the first letter of his name being only one letter away from mine would have been sign enough for me to believe he was my soul mate. As I mentioned earlier my mental stability was a bit questionable at the time. Jeffery seemed to be interested in learning about my life and was quite intrigued with the line of work I am in, psychiatric nursing (I know what you’re thinking but I was pretty stable when it came to my patients.) Jeffery said that his mother is also a nurse, I took that as another sign that we should be together. I told him that I am divorced which is not entirely true since the divorce was not final yet. Normally I would tell people that we were working on our marriage and planned on getting back together, I usually left out the part about him living with another woman. A wise friend of mine once told me that if I want a man to be interested in me it is best that I not give the details of my past relationship, so as hard as it was for me I did not get into any of that.

The extra hour we were on the ground as they fixed the compressor seemed to fly by as I learned more about the man that I was sure would be my next husband. Jeffery was modest in his description of his job but I took that being an Assistant VicePresident of a large company to mean that he does well. He explained to me what he did, something with international financing, I acted like I knew what he was talking about but in reality I had no clue. I assumed he had family in California that he was going to visit, then came the blow: he told me that the reason he is going back to San Francisco is to see if he could reconcile with “the love of my life” He went on to tell me that they had been in a relationship for five years, he said it was the best thing he ever had but he wanted his career. Apparently the company he had been working for promoted him but he would be in their Minnesota office. He said this was what he had been working so hard for “I left my best friend, the love of my life for this opportunity, the money is great but I am miserable.” This knocked me down a few notches but all was not lost, he did not say that his ex-wanted him back. “Do you think you have a chance?” I asked “Well I really don’t know, I may end up turning around and getting on a plane back to Minnesota.” He went on to say “I left a voice message and said that I made a huge mistake and would give this job up to have what we had together. I left the flight information and said if you will take me back be at the airport.” What a man, how sweet is that, I almost wanted it to work out for him, but if it did not I would be right there to support him as he put the pieces of his life back together, I would then become a piece of that life. Oh I had it all planned out in my head, I calculated the drive time from my town to his, an hour and a half. I would go see him the weekends that my kids were at their dads then he would come stay with me on the other weekends, we could even meet half way for supper one night a week. He told me earlier that he loved kids so I was sure he would be great with my kids. Now we just had to get through this little obstacle with his ex. I envisioned a life size Barbie to go along with his Ken looks; I knew she had to be drop dead gorgeous, this thought did not make me feel as confident.

“Mom…Mom…Mom…MOM!” screamed the little monster behind me; every other mother on the plane was looking at him as we instinctively do when we hear “Mom” except of course his mom, she just sat there picking invisible lint off of her baby’s blanket. “I want more pop” he wined. “They are all done serving, we are about to land, look out your window.” That shut him up and allowed me to get back to planning my future with Jeffery. Jeffery asked who was picking me up at the airport, I told him my mother and cousin and that if his plans did not work out he could join us for supper. I felt sure that I could help him through his rejection; after all that was something I had come to learn a lot about. I have a large collection of self-help books, “Rebuilding,” “Love on the Rocks,” “Starting Over” just to name a few. I can’t say that the books helped me all that much however I don’t think I was being all that open minded when I read them. I was sure that my situation was different than the ones the books discussed. In the books the person that left obviously didn’t want to be with the other person, it was different with my ex, he wanted to be with me he just didn’t know it yet, or so I thought.

We were over an hour late from our scheduled arrival time and once off the plane we were sent on a wild goose chase to get our bags, we eventually ended up where we were supposed to be. I was hoping that my cousin would be able to find me, though I knew that my prince charming would not leave me without a ride, even if his ex-showed up he would make sure I had my ride. Before meeting Jeffery I had thought there were no gentlemen left in the world, at least non under the age of fifty. Jeffery had been so kind and attentive to me, he never gave me the impression that he was hitting on me but he showed too much interest and sensitivity for me to think that he was not a little bit interested.

As we stood waiting for our bags to come off the conveyer belt he fumbled around with the change in his pocket just like my dad does this is something that actually really irritates me, that change jingling but it was so endearing to see him do it. He was looking around nervously, his eyes jetting in all directions, then all of the sudden his face lit up and the change jingling stopped. I looked in the direction that he was looking but I did not see any Barbie like woman, in fact I did not see any woman, only a man walking toward us with flowers. At first I thought the man was coming to me with the flowers, it all happened so fast. I watched as Jeffery and the man with the flowers embraced. It hit me like a ton of bricks, he was gay! Oh my God how could I be so stupid? As they were having their little reunion, I stood there thinking back to our conversation, Jeffery never did refer to his ex as a male or a female he only said “my ex” and “the love of my life” so how was I to know he was talking about a man. “Kelly, I want you to meet Gregory” he said gesturing toward the man standing with him. There was no mistaking the fact that Gregory was gay, or at least what many may stereo type as a gay man. Just to make it clear I have no problem with gay men and as I said Jeffery was the most attentive, sensitive man I had ever met (that right there should have told me something!) Jeffery told Gregory that I am a psychiatric nurse and that I had been so “supportive” to him on the plane. Just as I had thought, Jeffery did wait with me until my cousin arrived. We did introductions and small talk and Gregory told us about a little Irish bar that he said I “must” go to while I am in town. We said our goodbyes and they walked hand in hand into the San Francisco sunset.

For a long time after that experience I was sure that any decent man I met was gay, I was especially suspicious of men with long first names not shortened, you know, Matthew, Jonathan, Andrew kind of names. My flight home was uneventful and though my experience with Jeffery did not end up as I had hoped it would, it did prevent me from having a major melt down on the plane. Given my mental status at the time, I don’t think I would have done well sitting in that hot plane for an hour with a little boy kicking my seat and his mother doing nothing to stop him. The distraction Jeffery provided may have saved that mothers life!