~~I must have the sort of face where mere strangers feel at ease telling me stuff, you know, confessing indiscretions, airing dirty laundry, family skeletons, that kind of thing.  I must have the type of demeanor and body language where people look at me and think, “Hell, I can’t make it to confession this week so I might as well reveal my sins to this chick. She seems nice.”

So I’m on the plane flying to Houston, and of course, I get stuck in another seat away from my girls, who probably planned it that way, cause I’m scared shitless to fly…I’m sorry, but I just don’t get how a piece of tin that colossal stays in the air, and I’m wondering if it will have enough gasoline, and I’m thinkin’ there might be terrorists sitting in coach, cause they sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting in first class, or the flight attendants wouldn’t be giving them real knives,  real forks, or glass glasses. Ya know? They give the peasants in coach recycled plastic and left over napkins, and we’re damn lucky to get a fricken package of salted peanuts.

Anyway, I get to sit next to this woman about thirty years old who appears really glad to see me.  “Hey, where are you heading?” she asks me just as I insert my headset of Plath’s “The Bell Jar.”  I take off my headset.  I predict this is going to be a very long flight.

Her name is Scarlett—as in Scarlett Letter.  Yes, she is quite nice, but I hear Sylvia Plath calling my name.  Scarlett tells me EVERYTHING. And I mean EVERYTHING.  After the flight I know more about her than I know about my own damn sister. She talks mostly about her bad marriage and how she’s been with the same man her entire life.  Actually, he sounds alright, but boring as a rock, and she admits she never loved him.  “I just wanted to get out of my dysfunctional house,” she exclaims. “And he just happened to be there at that time.”

The stewardess, a Susan Boyle lookalike, is coming down the isle with sodas, M&Ms, and wine ($8.00 for a lousy bottle the size of my baby finger) I buy one. I might as well enjoy the journey.  Scarlett goes on to tell me that her first trip was when she was about twenty five years old.  “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life.  I was coming back from the Bahamas after visiting my friend and the turbulence was so bad that some of the luggage was actually falling from the tops of the compartments.  I swear to God, the wings were rocking back and forth like metal waves… and some people were even screaming.  I started praying ‘my father who art in heaven…’ 

“The weather was so horrible that we were forced to land in Miami and I had to catch another plane home.  I went directly into the bar and ordered a Long Island Tea.   My next flight was in two hours, and I drank the entire time.  All of these guys kept buying me drinks, kept talking to me, and one guy, especially, was flirting unbelievably.”

As you probably already realized, I didn’t put my headset back on, but listened to Scarlett’s story.  I mean, what the hell was I going to do, tell her to shut up, get up and walk to the lounge?  I had no place to go, except maybe grab a parachute and fly out the window.

“So by the time my connecting flight left I was shit faced.” Scarlett admits.  “To this day, I don’t know how I made it on that airplane, how I walked to the gate. And who do I end up sitting by on the plane; the guy who was flirting with me in the bar.  He was a beautiful man, ebony black hair and sapphire eyes.”  She hesitated.  “As soon as he sat down, we started making out.  We made out fiercely from Miami to Wisconsin.”

I ask her what the stewardess did.  I mean, didn’t she ask you to stop making out, or ask if you wanted a coke or something?

“I don’t remember,” Scarlett utters.  “All I remember is that we kissed without stopping for the entire flight. He told me I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid his eyes on.  When the plane landed, he asked me if I could go ahead of him so his wife didn’t see us getting off together.  He told me he’d never forget this encounter.”

I sat dumbfounded. Encounter?  I’d call it adultery, dear.  “But you both were married, right?” I ask. 

“Yeah, I know.” She confesses sadly.  “He must have been in a bad relationship, too. Anyhow, when I got off the plane, my husband was standing there smiling.  I was sober by then, and I felt so much guilt that my insides were hurting.  Even so, I waited until he (I never knew his name) exited the plane and watched him stride over to his wife.”

But on a serious note: ever since Houston, I’ve been thinking about this confession, this admission of guilt, this heartbreaking marriage, and I pondered why Scarlett felt the need to tell me about it. Who am I, Dr. Fricken Phil?   Of course, Scarlett was not her real name, but it seemed quite fitting to call her this.   And the man she made out with….I wondered how he could behave in such a way, how he could even sleep next to his wife that night.

I thought about all the lonely people out there who are just settling because they have no place else to go, who accept unhappiness as a way of life, who feel they have no other options or direction.  I thought about those women who are crying out for love and something more, something more…

…and I thanked God.