The flight attendant looked a bit put off by the duo as she was forced to back up her drink cart to allow them back to their seats. She held her words and offered them an obviously well rehearsed plastic smile, but no drinks.
Paige resumed her position by the window that now offered only a view of white fluffy clouds, which did not match her mood.
Nathan did his best to ignore the stares from the other passengers around them as he took his seat. He glanced at Paige, who continued to stare out the window. He opened his mouth, but quickly closed it. He didn't know what to say. He didn't want to send Paige running back to the lavatory and feared anything he said would do exactly that, so he remained silent.
"The pictures," she whispered after a few moments.
Nathan pulled his wallet from is jacket pocket and handed the entire thing over to her, noting that she still refused to look at him. She held it in her hands, feeling the well-worn leather for a moment, then lowered her tray table and placed the wallet on it. There it sat for the next fifteen minutes. Paige reached for it a number of times, even touched it twice, but didn't open it.
Nathan did his best to maintain control of himself. He wanted to reach over and open the wallet, remove the pictures and talk about each of them, share the memories he had of each. He fidgeted in his seat, like a little boy getting his first haircut. Finally he rose and headed down the aisle, leaving Paige alone, knowing it was his only choice.
Paige turned and watched him walk away. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Her hands trembled slightly and she rubbed at the goosebumps that had suddenly taken up residence on her arms. She gave one more glance back, ensuring that he wasn't returning, then turned her attention to the wallet. She flipped it open and pulled out the sleeve of pictures and set them aside. She pulled out his license and looked it over.
"Good picture," she muttered to herself and then shook her head at the foolishness of the statement.
Paige continued her inventory of the wallet. She found four different credit cards. In another section she found a few cards with his name on them as well as half a dozen business cards, all for people whose names meant nothing to her. Tucked behind the area where his license had been she found a discount card for a bookstore, an expired CPR certification card and a library card. She flipped the main body of the wallet open and while not actually counting, noted that he was carrying more then a little bit of cash.
Paige closed the wallet and placed it back on the tray table. Her hands had stopped trembling for the moment and she took that to be a good sign. She turned her attention to the pictures, pulling them free from the plastic. She reached up and turned on the overhead light, which didn't seem to add anything to the light already streaming through the window.
She quickly flipped through them all. In all but two of the pictures, they showed Nathan with the woman who looked like her. The other two pictures were only of her lookalike. She stared at the two solo shots, held them close to her face and then up to the light. She did not know what she was looking for, but was hoping for something that would scream obvious fake to her. They looked like any other picture she had ever seen of herself, except for the fact that she knew for certain that she had never posed for these pictures. There was no way the woman in these photographs was her, of that she was certain.
Paige felt her lip trembling and bit down on it, harder then she'd intended to. She winced at the shock of the pain, but was glad for it since it gave her something else to focus on.
The pictures of Nathan and the woman looked legit. Both of them seemed very happy in each of the photographs. She went picture to picture, studying the faces. First Nathan's and then the woman's. She could not deny the resemblance was uncanny.
She lingered on the last picture, the one of the two of them standing by the lake in the full splendor of Fall. They looked so happy, so in love. Paige actually felt something run through her but could not identify exactly what it was. She glanced away from the picture and turned to look down the aisle to see if he was returning. In the aisle a little boy was running back and forth with a green action figure in his hands. Nathan was nowhere to be seen. She sat back in her seat and glanced out the window and caught her reflection looking back at her, a frown upon her face.
She looked again at the lake picture and let out a soft laugh. Jealousy she realized, that was what she was feeling.
"That is crazy," she told herself.
Crazy or not, Paige realized it was true. She was actually feeling jealousy. She stopped looking at her double and focused on Nathan. She remembered how she had smiled when he had first approached her at the airport. The sudden electricity that had run through her, which hadn't been the least bit unpleasant. He was definitely a handsome man. She flipped to the picture of the beach and blushed when she realized she thought he looked even better with less clothing on.