The Zero

“I’m sorry,” Remy said. And he had a thought. “How much was the apartment?”

“It wasn’t an apartment. It was an option. Actually, it was more like an option on an option.” She paused. “On an option.”

“How much was it?”

“That’s the crazy thing. It was only six twenty. A steal.”

Remy closed his eyes. Six hundred twenty thousand dollars. Right. “Okay. Thanks.” He turned to walk away.

“Will you call me?” she asked.

“I hope not,” he said, without turning. He returned to Nicole’s office, the broken glass crunching beneath his feet. He knelt down and took April in his arms again. When he looked over the desk, he saw that Nicole had cleared the lobby. Remy helped April to her feet and led her out of the office, his arm around her, her head against his shoulder.

“We can go anywhere?” she asked.

“Anywhere.”

“How about-”

“Shhh,” Remy interrupted. “Don’t tell me. I’d rather be-”

WEDGED INTO the round window at the back of the plane, Remy saw what looked like toy ships on the bay below, their wakes like chalk scratches on a blackboard. The jet banked and Remy felt himself pressed against the door, and in a glance he could see where the water ended and then the rough line of shore and the city lay suddenly before him like a grid of transistors, gray and white rectangles and reflected bits of sun, rising in the center of the peninsula like a mound of sifted sand. San Francisco. He’d never been to San Francisco. At least, not that he knew. He’d always wanted to go to California.

The jet leveled. “Excuse me, sir.” A flight attendant took Remy’s arm and smiled at him. “The captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign. You’ll need to return to your seat. We’re about to land.”

Remy looked ahead at the full rows, a hundred heads bobbing above the cloth seats. He could hear low conversations but he couldn’t see a single pair of lips moving, and for a moment the roar of the jet and the murmur of people seemed like the same noise, as if this plane ran on empty talk. Should he just walk forward until he found an empty seat? Remy felt his back pants pockets hopefully, and was relieved to come up with a folded ticket. Seat 2A. First class. Well, that was good. But something seemed wrong. If he was in first class, why was he in the back of the plane?

As he walked forward, Remy’s shoulders slumped. Ten rows from the back, Markham was reclining in the aisle seat, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, and reading an airline magazine. How did he find out? As Remy approached, Markham stood and pretended to be looking in his overhead bin for something. Remy edged past and Markham turned and bumped him, pressing a cell phone into Remy’s hand.

Remy put the phone in his pocket and walked toward the front of the plane. He looked over his shoulder once, but Markham was hidden behind his magazine. At the bulkhead Remy stepped through the open curtains into first class, relieved to see April in 2B. She had a glass of red wine. Another mini-bottle of Syrah was waiting its turn on her seat tray. Remy eased in, latched his seat belt, and looked out the window. They were south of San Francisco, circling back toward the airport.

“You’re right,” she said, toasting him with the wine. “This does help. This helps a lot.” She filled her glass. “To more help.”

Remy looked back over his shoulder.

“So why’d you go to the back of the plane?” she asked.

“I guess to meet someone.”

“Really?” She laughed. “You a member of the mile-high club now?”

“No,” he said. “It was a guy I know. He gave me a phone.” He held up the flip phone for her to see.

“Someone gave you a phone?” She took his arm and nestled in. She laughed. “That makes absolutely no sense.” She laughed again. “I like being drunk.”

The new cell phone rang.

“Hey!” she said, delighted.

Remy stared at it before opening it. “Hello.”

“Hey, so here’s something fu

Remy looked over at April, who was nestled into her first-class seat, holding her wine and smiling at him.

“Who is it?” she mouthed.

Remy didn’t know what to say.

“Sir,” said a male flight attendant. “You are not allowed to use your cell phone while we’re in flight.”

“I gotta go,” Remy said into the phone.

“Oh yeah,” Markham said. “Sure. I just wanted to tell you how that thing about racing against time occurred to me. It just cracked me up, that’s all. And I knew you’d see the insanity in a phrase like that. Although, honestly, I don’t know what you’d substitute: A wrestling match against fate?” Markham laughed. “A game of cribbage against lethargy?”

“Sir,” the flight attendant said again.

Remy snapped the phone shut and the flight attendant moved on.

“Who was it?” April asked again.

Before he could answer, the plane shuddered against a wave of turbulence and April grabbed his hand and closed her eyes. “Oh, I hate this,” she said. She drained the last of her wine and the flight attendant cleared the glasses.

“It’s okay,” Remy said.

Sometimes Remy knew things without specifically remembering how he knew them, and in this way he knew that this was the first time that April had flown anywhere since that day. He looked back at the faces on the plane, sets of wide eyes glancing around, one woman holding a string of beads and mouthing prayers. The couple across the row from him rocked with shared anxiety.

Remy turned back. “Really. It’s going to be okay,” he said again as the plane banked and lurched.

“I just hate it,” she said. “I close my eyes and I see-”

“I know,” Remy said, and he patted her hand and looked back again at the rows of imploring eyes. “We all see it.”

The jet bore down, grinding and moaning, toward the runway, then seemed to hover a few feet above it, before it lurched and skipped, fell several feet, and leveled, the hydraulic landing gear spitting, spi

“Ooh,” she said, “we’re in a hurry.”

They made their way downstream and were outside baggage claim when Remy saw a flash of Hawaiian shirt behind him and suddenly pulled her toward the door and outside. “Come on.”

“What about our bags?” April asked.

“Leave them,” he said.

They stepped into the giant horseshoe of the airport turnaround, the air buzzing in the late afternoon with cars and vans like insects on a carcass. Remy could hear his new cell phone chirping as he hustled April toward a cab. He opened the door for her and she told the cabbie the address of their Union Square hotel. “Just a sec,” Remy said.