Scissor Link by Georgette Kaplan (novels to improve english .txt) 📗

certainly the most hygienic thing that’s ever happened to me while I was bent over a sink not wearing panties.”

Janet kept a stiff lip. “Sorry I didn’t bring conditioner. Short notice.”

Once they boarded, the plane couldn’t take off. They were grounded.

An hour into the wait and Wendy was too awake to sleep, too tired to do anything else. She made a good-faith effort, asking for a blanket from the flight attendant and snuggling under it when it arrived. Maybe it was suddenly having senior prom modesty over her legs, but she felt more at ease. She tilted her seat back, eased down with it, and turned on her side to look at Janet.

In profile, the woman was stunning. Her keen intelligence focused on a paperback, a manicured thumb turning the pages like some Roman emperor might accept a grape popped between his lips. In the darkened cabin, her glasses shone with the light reflected in them.

“Good book?” Wendy asked.

“Good book. Great subject matter,” Janet replied.

Wendy adjusted her position, staring at Janet meaningfully.

Janet turned another page. “It’s about a B-29 Superfortress that crashed in Greenland after WW2. It was abandoned for decades, but perfectly preserved. Some men went to repair it and fly it back. Nova did an episode about it.”

“You think I watch Nova?” Wendy asked. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“You callin’ me a liar, city slicker?” Wendy said, putting on a Yosemite Sam voice.

“I think people must say sweet things to you very often,” Janet said. “Because I’m not a very affectionate person and it’s all I can do not to say sweet things to you all the time.”

“And I think you are a very affectionate person.” Wendy grinned. “You’re just not having a particularly affectionate week.” Her hand wandered between the seats, dropped down, tickling the stream of warm air that ran under the seats, keeping the plane from being as cold as the condensation that formed outside the windows. “Read to me?”

Janet blinked. “Why? I could just let you have it when I’m done?”

“Because I like hearing your voice,” Wendy said. “And I like watching your lips. But I would love for you to let me have it.”

Janet glanced sidelong at her. Then returned her attention to her book. She cleared her throat.

“Bob cooked and helped wherever needed, as did the Nova crew, as the normal distinction between journalists and their subjects dissolved in the all-consuming fight to stay alive and get the job done. The task was so overwhelming, the life so hard, there was no place for anyone who failed to contribute.”

 

As she read, Janet shifted the book to one hand and dropped her right arm between the seats, behind the armrest. Wendy felt her open palm and stroked it. Traced her fingertips over Janet’s palm and the back of her hand and the sides of her fingers and the hardness of her knuckles and the chill of her fingernails. Thinking of the tiny hairs she felt, the capillaries carrying blood, the sinew that tightened and loosened for each and every motion. All the things that went into Janet Lace’s hand. All the things that made it fit around hers.

“And, in addition to survival, they had a shared interest. Without an airplane to fly, there wouldn’t be much of a film or a story, and without six more useful bodies turning wrenches or cleaning or lifting, the airplane would never fly.”

By the time they took off, Wendy had long since fallen asleep, her grip limp on Janet’s hand. Janet didn’t know why she kept reading aloud, her voice low, barely a whisper. And she didn’t know why she liked the thought of Wendy falling asleep a little closer, resting her head on Janet’s shoulder. It wasn’t as if Wendy would care where her head was while she slept.

Janet tucked her finished book into the pocket of the seat in front of her, then called the flight attendant for her own blanket. She slept the six hours left in the flight, waking up with the gentle, golf-commentator tones the captain used to announce their approach. Somehow, it was always more of an alarm clock to her than announcements about the in-flight meal or turbulence; some trigger word about descent always jogged the air traveler in her awake. She took a moment to watch Wendy sleep, the girl looking as peaceful as ever, then gave a light tug on one lock of her hair.

Wendy squeezed her eyes shut tighter, groaned, then yawned and woke. “I cannot believe I slept with you on the first date.”

“It’s amazing the jokes you can come up with on a full night’s rest.”

“That’s nothing. I’m still tired as…I’m still very tired.” Wendy yawned again, pointing a finger at her mouth in demonstration. She checked her phone. “And cold! The low is thirty degrees? We’re in Arizona! I thought this was a desert.”

“Cold front. El Nino. Climate change. Take your pick.”

“I didn’t even bring a coat.”

“You can have one of mine. Yes, I brought a spare.”

“You bring spare coats on business trips?”

“Needed it, didn’t I?”

As they disembarked and went to claim their luggage, sluggish and sedated with jet lag and the hours of confinement, Janet nevertheless felt a palpable excitement. It was the crush of the responsibility placed on her, the trust she’d been given, the opportunity that she’d doggedly pursued until this moment, when it was hers. And it didn’t hurt to have Wendy sharing that.

She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew it meant something. And she was growing more comfortable with not knowing.

She had traveled light, only two bags on the carousal for her, and only one for Wendy, although Janet suspected that had more to do with Wendy planning to buy what she needed here rather than having thought through everything she needed. No one knew how to save money in their twenties.

She unzipped one of her bags, found a gray wool and cashmere coat. It