A Real Hoot | Mile High Scrub | 2

Salt and Pepper — Carrie

Dining with the Devil

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Carrielle Watson glared at the doorman. She was a regular here, but he still wanted to check her boarding pass. If she had been in a good mood, she would have taken it in her stride, but she was frazzled and furious. One small slight for a man, one giant resentment for a woman.

He smiled at her and waved her on, and she turned the corners of her mouth up for him. A little.

The first time she had seen the vertical garden that marked the entrance, she had been enraptured. Stood there and fired off a dozen shots from her best camera. Whether she would ever be able to sell them was beside the point; the living wall that led to the lounge was spectacular.

Now. Now she stomped past it and gave a wan grimace to the attendant on the desk, who smiled professionally back as she examined her boarding pass. Carrie took it, moved a few paces towards the bar — God, but she could use a G&T right now! — and then turned back.

“Oh, any chance of a massage?”

“Sorry, but all the slots are taken. I’ll put you on the stand-by list, shall I?”

Carrie nodded. Faint chance of that. Maybe if she hadn’t been delayed in security. First Class lounge time was too precious to be spent getting patted down by a goon who clearly didn’t get an ounce of pleasure from the task and wanted her target to be sure about that.

The dining area was moderately crowded. Most of the guests wouldn’t actually be flying First. Like Carrie, they would have a Platinum card from frequent flying, which gave entry here. A half dozen longhaul trips in Business was enough to gather the points for that. Platinum One required a serious commitment — with some serious spending — and the ultra-elite Private Lounge was invitation-only, pretty much reserved for captains of industry, cabinet ministers and the like.

Still, Platinum was pretty good. Carrie didn’t have to buy drinks, the meals here were legendary, there were comfortable chairs and attentive waiters, and perhaps best of all, she didn’t have to put up with all the noise and distractions of the travelling public. An A380 took a few hundred passengers in a gulp, and many of them would be crying babies, yelling toddlers, sour teenagers, grumpy pensioners, and everything in between. She might have to sit in Economy with them, but having Platinum status meant she usually got a good seat near the front of the cabin, and she certainly didn’t have to wait at the gate with the great unwashed.

After the trauma of the taxi, hauling her bags to check-in, and the horrors of passport control and especially that disaster at security, the lounge was a vital respite before the claustrophobic inconvenience of the flight itself.

No waiter to guide her to a table. They were all busy. Just her luck. But wait — a blessing! — there was an empty table by the window, where she could put her bag on the other chair and get comfortably numb in the two and a half hours before flying.

Which she did. The lounge menu was artfully placed on the table, and although she knew exactly what she wanted to start her meal with, the menu changed with the seasons and it had been a while since her last trip. What succulent delight would be her main?

Tamarind duck with lime pickle yoghurt was leaping out at her, but the other choices were looking good. Perhaps the venison. Braised venison with chestnuts.

She lowered her menu for a moment, lost in delicious thought, and there was a deer in her headlights. She felt a pang for the stricken expression on the face of the man at the next table looking at her with anguish in his eyes. He must have just suffered some terrible catastrophe — a missed flight, perhaps.

Something about him nudged at her. Tall, trim, black hair with a dash of silver at the temples, emotion in his blue eyes.

“Would you care for a drink before ordering?” The waiter had been attending the next table, and now he turned to her.

“Yes please,” Carrie said, loud enough to carry. “Could you take that champagne there and empty the bottle over that fellow’s head, and follow it up with the bucket of ice, please?”

She regarded the waiter with her best and most joyous smile. She had melted hearts from the far side of a busy street with that smile, And by God, the waiter responded! He twinkled at her.

“Yes, of course. It will be my pleasure,” he smiled. “My great pleasure. It will be the crowning glory of my career here. But this man, I know, will then ask me to do the same to you, and I am powerless to resist. Madam, you should consider your request carefully.”

The man at the next table had gotten over his fright — he shouldn’t, Carrie thought, because she was going to tear out his liver and ask the chef to sauté it with garlic and fava beans — and had risen, plucked the rose from the vase on his table, taken the bottle from the bucket, reached over to offer the flower to her, and to fill her wineglass with champagne. In one fluid motion.

“Can you give us a moment, Bruno?” he said. “And a flute. Please.”

“And a gin and tonic in a bloody big glass,” Carrie added. “Please.”

She ignored the rose. She wasn’t going to be won over with a stolen flower. Or a free drink, though she picked it up once he had poured it and held it poised.

He shrugged, set the rose beside its twin in the vase on her table, and looked at her.

“May I give you my most heartfelt apology?” he asked.

“Why? If I hadn’t yelled ’Stop Thief!’ at the top of my voice, you would have walked off with my cameras. As it is,” she regarded him with ice in her gaze, “you walked off anyway, without staying around to offer any heartfelt bloody apologies. While those idiot guards were groping and prodding me.”

“I thought you might have blamed me for the misunderstanding, and it was best to leave before any more disruption. Besides, our bags are identical, apart from whatever that thing is. Honest mistake.”

He reached for his own bag, sitting, like Carrie’s, on the second chair at his table. It was exactly the same brand and colour as hers, apart from a different name tag and the absence of a small toy cat named Kitbag.

Carrie regarded the two bags. Well, fair enough. It was a mistake she could have made herself if she had been through the checkpoint first.

“But you walked away. You’ve been sitting here quaffing bubbles while I’ve been hassling with nazis. So don’t give me that heartfelt apology bullcrap, mister.”

The man, the irritating man, looked at the glass of champagne Carrie was holding. “So what are you going to do now? Quaff some bubbles? Go on. It’s good stuff.”

Carrie took a sip. Not bad. But she wasn’t going to let her enjoyment show.

“I’m sorry you were delayed,” he went on. “I really am. But ask yourself, why were you upset over the delay? Surely you have plenty of time before your flight leaves? After all, here you are, enjoying a glass of excellent Pommery, rather than sprinting for the gate.”

Irritating man. Carrie took another sip. Yum.

“Because this is exactly what I wanted to be doing,” she said, “rather than waiting around while idiot guards asked me stupid questions. I don’t get into this place often enough, and when I do, I want to enjoy every moment. And by the time I got here, all the massage times were taken.”

She took another defiant taste. Goodness, the glass was almost empty!

“Precisely. So don’t go blaming me for wanting to be in here too. When the choice is between being in this delightful lounge,” and here he indicated with his champagne flute the sunset lighting up the distant towers of central Sydney while a Thai jumbo launched into the golden air, “or waiting around for a stranger who’s likely going to call you names at the top of their voice whilst removing your kneecaps with their combat boots. I ask, what would you do?”

The waiter’s return saved her from making any sort of concession. He held a tall glass adorned with a slice of lemon and full of ice, around which the gin and tonic spirits were frolicking happily, as well as a flute, which he deftly filled with the champagne and placed before her.

“And have you decided what you’d like to eat?” he said. “I can give you more time if you wish.”

“Salt and pepper squid,” Carrie replied, “and, um, the duck, I guess.”

The waiter removed her menu. “Very good. Let me know if you need more champagne.”

Carrie could have sworn that there was a flicker of a wink in his eye as he turned back.

The man was extending his hand now. “Brad Reid, no hard feelings, I trust?”

She took it, briefly. Or tried to, but his hand was warm and firm and held hers just a beat too long.

“Carrie,” she said, “Carrie Watson.”

“Charmed,” he replied, and looked directly at her. “May I ask a favour, Ms Watson? I have an errand to run, and I know this may seem forward of me, in view of the circumstances, but could you watch over my bag for a moment, please?”

She nodded, and he indicated his bag that he had set down beside hers. While she had been swilling bubbly, no doubt. “It’s in the best of company. Identical twins, even.”

With that he left. She set down her champagne and took a sip of the gin and tonic. Perfect.

Better slow down, Carrie, she warned herself. There will be plenty of booze on the plane, and it would be awful to be denied boarding for being drunk at the gate.

She looked more closely at his bag. Same colour, same degree of wear — he must travel as much as I do, she thought — just a different name tag. A black one. My goodness, surely not, not the deep charcoal black of the Private Lounge?

She glanced around. Brad was nowhere in sight. She leaned over and flipped the tag over. Yes, it was; there was the discreet and distinctive logo. “Braddon Reid,” the label read. No address details, just a number.

She was admiring the view out over the runway, the small vehicles shuttling around, the great international jets landing, the regional turboprops buzzing off to Canberra or Coffs Harbour, the lights twinkling into the distance, a pleasant alcoholic buzz creeping in, when Brad returned.

“May I join you,” he asked. “I have something I need to say.”

“That heartfelt apology you mentioned.”

“Precisely.” He swivelled a chair from the next table, sat down, picked up his wine and drained it in a gulp. “Oh, that is so good.”

Carrie raised an eyebrow.

“Ah yes. I am sorry for being the cause of not only your unhappy encounter with the security people and their unsophisticated but firm manners, but perhaps more importantly, your losing rare and valuable time in this lounge, and your chance at a sorely-needed massage after the ordeal. It was an accident, and I didn’t mean to cause any distress, but there’s no getting away from the fact that I did, and I am sorry. It will not happen again. I shall take care to be more thoughtful if our paths should ever cross.”

Carrie turned that over in her mind. Fair enough. She opened her mouth to accept, but he held up one finger.

“Please, let me finish. By way of making amends, I have been able to arrange a massage time for you in exactly forty-five minutes, if you wish. I have here a list of the treatments offered, and I promised the staff to let them know which you’d prefer, should you accept.”

“Of course I will!” Carrie burst out. “What a lovely thing to do. I’ve got hours before my flight.” She unleashed her smile at him.

“Well, there’s just one thing. I may have a certain amount of influence around here, but I can’t make massage slots appear out of thin air. I have a back massage booked, and they’ve agreed to let me have it in the couples room, if you want to share it.”

Not that Carrie, as a single, adult, and sexually active female was totally averse to removing her clothing in the company of a well-built, handsome, and presumably well-off man, but there were limits.

“Listen here, mister,” she began.

“No, no, it’s nothing like that. Separate massage tables, one masseur each, and you can have a facial or a foot rub or a scalp massage if you want to keep all of your clothes on. There’s no full body treatments. But I’m having a de-stress back treatment, because I bloody well need it.”

What the hell. Carrie could use one too.

“Okay. You’re on. But no funny business.”

She looked up as the waiter approached, bearing two plates of salt and pepper squid.

Dinner went pretty quickly after that. Braddon Reid, it emerged, was a barrister, early forties, divorced — “I was working late every night for ten years; she finally swapped me for a car salesman, can you believe that?” — and heading off for a two week tour holiday in the Middle East followed by a visit to his parents in Scotland.

His law practice involved a ridiculous amount of international travel, it seemed, and he had sampled every dish on the menu here. “Salt and pepper squid. Always. There’s nobody else can do it quite so good as these guys, and when you wash it down with free champagne, it’s my idea of the perfect start to a long flight.”

Carrie’s duck looked amazing, and tasted better. More champagne, perhaps a glass more than she really felt comfortable with, but hey, this was a special occasion.

By the time they got around to dessert and coffee, it was also time for the massage. “We’ll be back in about half an hour, Bruno,” Brad told the waiter. “I’ll have the pav, as usual.”

“Oooh, is that the famous deconstructed pavlova?” Carrie asked. “I heard they’d stopped serving that.”

“No fear!” Brad snorted. “There’d be a revolt amongst the regulars. Two pavs, please!”

Carrie didn’t mind having her chair pulled back for her, and her carry-on bag portered to the spa. The couples room featured walls covered in more of that vertical garden. It was like a rainforest clearing, with two massage tables side by side, and enough room for two masseuses to work between.

“Hello, Mr Reid,” said one. “I’m Linda, and I’ll be giving you a back de-stress treatment. Janet will be here in a moment to give your partner a back bliss massage. I’ll give you some privacy to get changed now. Tops off, face down on the table, please.”

Partner? Carrie shot Brad a look. He put a finger to his lips.

“I’ve got to use the ladies,” Carrie said, grabbing a robe. “Back in a tick.”

She actually did have to use the facilities to get rid of the several drinks that had lifted her spirits. She giggled a little at that, lifting spirits, hah!

She unbuttoned her khaki shirt, slipped it off, unhooked her bra and shrugged the fluffy white robe on, drawing it tight with the cord.

Back at the couples suite, she hung her clothes in the small wardrobe beside Brad’s shirt and jacket, slipped her boots off — oh the relief! — and looked at the man on the other couch, wearing just his chinos, and reclining on one elbow. He was impressively trim, a nice tight set of abs showing under a lightly furred chest.

He was regarding her with equally keen interest. “We need to talk, ‘partner’,” she said.

“I had to tell a little white lie,” Brad said with a smile. “Don’t worry, this place is totally discreet. Nothing leaks.”

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Avert your gaze, you!” Carrie commanded him, turning her back to him before she dropped the robe and lowered herself onto the cushioned massage table.

Chapter two of our mystery adventure. We might not be going anywhere, but we can dream, right? Enjoy the best way to begin a long flight with a stranger. What will our tipsy travellers get up to next?

Britni

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