Our Perfectly Pretend Plane Romance

I met someone mid-flight and we immediately hit it off. Rather than try to keep in touch, we imagined what our lives would have been like if we were together. It was almost as good.

Illustration by Corinne Mucha/Narratively archive

We’ve been publishing the winners of our True Romance Writing Prize collaboration with Belletrist and actress Emma Roberts these past few weeks. So far, we’ve shared the grand prize–winning essay in the shortread category, by Maggie Hart, and the longform winning story, by Olivia Shaffett. We’re elated to be bringing you the first shortread finalist this week, a banger of a piece from Katharine Coldiron. This is what Katharine had to say about how the piece came together: “This was the first piece I’d written on a prompt in years. I read the call for entries and thought immediately of this tale. I worked it through in the shower and put it down in a rush. I polished it a little, et voila.” A great reminder to follow a spark and go for it!

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I was 19 or 20, a smoker, on a plane from New England to New Orleans. Next to me sat a man, around 19 or 20, a smoker. We looked at each other and liked what we saw; we talked to each other and liked what we heard; we, simply, hit it off.

And not as friends. In that way that enlivens your whole body. Chemistry, pheromones, attraction. Whatever you call that, when the person is someone whose skin you badly want to touch from the first moments of meeting them.

As we talked, we realized there was no way we’d ever meet again. I was visiting my mother for the summer in a place I would never live permanently. He was laying over in New Orleans on the way back to Wyoming or Oklahoma or North Texas, I don’t remember. I don’t even remember his name. I know he came from a place I’d never been and seemed unlikely to visit: a landlocked place. All my experiences had been coastal, due to my Navy father — I never lived anywhere you couldn’t park a 40,000-ton ship near.

We told the truth. We made each other laugh.

There was no social media then, and we both had precisely the quantity of life experience that advised us not to persist or pursue this connection. A little less and our romantic sides would have tried to build faith in a long-distance something; a little more and we would have recognized that such an instant, holistic connection is too rare to waste.

Instead, we had the plane ride, and that was all.

How will I remember you? I asked, or something less obvious that posed the same question.

He dug in his pocket. I just bought this, he said. It was a rectangular Bic lighter with a picture of a cowboy on it, either at dusk or sunrise.

I unzipped the front pocket of my backpack and pulled out an oval Bic lighter. It was a paisley design with a lot of purple in it. I’d chosen it because it was eye-catching and pretty without any pink.

We traded.

As we taxied, he said to me, I wish I could kiss you.

Silence for a minute.

Let’s pretend to be together, I said. As we’re getting off the plane, let’s pretend that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. We’ll hold hands and talk about where to go for dinner. Then you’ll go to your gate and I’ll go to baggage claim.

Yeah, he said.

And you could kiss me then, I said. But not, like, really dramatically, like in the movies. Just like you do it all the time.

He nodded.

That was right. That was the right thing.

I tried not to be sad.

I still have that lighter. I find it in boxes of old stuff I go through from time to time, trying to discard what I no longer need. It’s been 15 years since I smoked, but I will not throw away that lighter.

As we shuffled down the aisle, holding hands, talking about where to go for dinner, I turned back and kissed him. As if I did it all the time.

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Katharine Coldiron is the author of Ceremonials, Junk Film, Wire Mothers and Out There in the Dark. She and her books have been profiled in three countries on radio and television. Find her at kcoldiron.com.