She was beginning to sound maudlin. People often get maudlin when they board airplanes and leave everything of importance behind them and can’t decide whether they’re afraid of crashing or hoping for it. When the drink finally came, Jane mixed together the tomato juice and the miniature bottle of vodka with the precision of a chemist, took a sip, and began rummaging through her enormous leather purse. “You know,” she said, “I truly cannot remember the last time I had a whole day in which I wasn’t responsible for doing a single thing.” She took out a small vial of prescription pills and popped one into her mouth. “Vitamins,” she explained. As she was about to put the bag under the seat, she reached into it and hauled out an appointment book, overstuffed with sheets of stationery, newspaper clippings, ragged slips of paper. She opened it up randomly and a few unevenly folded pieces of paper fell onto her lap. “This is what my week usually looks like,” she said. “Gerald’s doctor appointments, my shrink appointments, my shameful secrets. Not that I have any.” She handed the book to Desmond. “It’s perfect airplane reading.”

It wasn’t possible that the drink and the pill had taken effect already, but Jane seemed to be sinking more deeply into her seat. As long as he didn’t end up having to carry her off the plane, he didn’t mind. Once, many years earlier, he’d been involved with a pothead boyfriend who’d been so easily amused by lighting up a joint, he required blissfully little in the way of gifts, expensive entertainment, or conversation. If Jane had offered, he wouldn’t have turned down one of her little yellow pills. She fumbled with the seat until she was partly reclining, then let her head drop back and her eyes close. The book was a hodgepodge of notes, most of them typed or scribbled on loose paper; the pages of the memo book itself were practically untouched. There were reminders about bills and facials and dinner guests, notes about Dinner Conversation, shopping lists, and menus. It wasn’t possible that something this disorganized could help clarify anything for anyone; it wasn’t an appointment book but an admission of defeat; handing it to him was a cry for help.

“You have an awful lot going on,” he said.

“I do, don’t I? And that’s one book of many.” She turned her head toward Desmond, her face resting in a nest of her too-curly hair. “The lure of the fresh, naked page gets to me at least once a month, the hope that starting a new appointment book will be the same thing as starting a new life.”