She was within spitting distance of spilling her guts to the nearest stranger.  She was as close to spouting off as a pot threatening to spew over the stovetop and down onto a freshly waxed kitchen floor the very second it’s left unattended.  Jane was habitually a mellow-minded workaholic who simmered in silence when need be and occasionally blew her stack. After forcing herself to take a couple of deep breaths, she was no longer on the threshold of doom. Making a scene would never do, especially not in an executive lounge at YVR where she was altogether too well known.  She felt her anger ebbing away.  Oh great, she muttered.  Now I’ve got the worries.  Greg will be fine.  He’s just forgotten me.  That’s all. 

When he wakes up to the realization that I’ve gone and he wasn’t there to say goodbye, he’s going to feel like a louse. If the shoe fits, she told herself. Her cell phone played Mazy Doats, Dozy Doats and little lambs-a-divey.  How embarrassing!  She hadn’t gotten around to changing that damned ringer to something a mite more professional sounding.  Greg and his pranks!

An elegantly dressed little old lady, sharing a snug corner of Cathay Pacific’s Business Class lounge, gave her the oddest look.  She was eighty if she were a day.  Fishing the insane object out of her handbag, Jane smiled and was granted a gracious. smile in exchange.  The elegantly dressed-one moved to the centre of the lounge, as if to say, “You’ll never catch me using one of those newfangled gizmos,” or was her behaviour merely an example of old-fashioned courtesy?

              “Jane McLean.”

              If that don’t beat all, she thought.  No longer fuming or anxious, she was now decidedly miffed.  She said  “Hello Greg,” in a monotone. 

“It’s only for six months and the money is fantastic.  Besides, it can’t be helped,” Greg said.  It’s too good an opportunity to miss.  It’s not as though we won’t see each other.  I’ll turn up when you least expect it.”

Greg was allowing that all too familiar whine into his voice again.  It somehow crept in whenever he didn’t get his own way instantly. The slightest hint of whine was enough to give her second thoughts. It wasn’t so much a whine as a wheedle. A single touch of it on her eardrum and his macho image vanished only to be replaced with one of a sloppily dressed Clark Kent. She felt like asking him if he’d like a bit of cheese to go with it, perhaps a Camembert or a Brie.

“What do you mean, it’s too good an opportunity to miss?”

“It just is,” he said.   “I can’t talk now.  This is no longer a secure line.”

“You’re going for six months?”  Her tone changed from mono to incredulous.  “To Iraq?”

Jane wanted to scream at him.  She wanted to rip his throat out.  She wanted to cry on his shoulder and feel the flex in his biceps as he wrapped his arms around her.

“It’ll be over before you know it.”

“We’ll be over before you know it,” she said softly and was about to click off.

“You can’t mean that, Baby.”

“See you when you get back.  Don’t forget to write.”

“Ciao for now, Baby,” he said.   “I’m likely to turn up when you least expect it.”

Good grief it annoyed her when he called her that.  She was about to place her cell phone in her bag when she remembered to apologize to the man who was quietly reading in the easy chair deserted by the little old lady. She couldn’t help but notice what he was reading.  He hardly looked the type.  He was conservatively dressed, had a medium tan and was fairly blond.  She wondered where he had learned Arabic not that it was any of her business or would ever likely become so.  It was just an idea on her part, something to take her mind off Greg and his latest shenanigans.