Say Never Read Online Free

my row mate and blowing him kisses. She appears to be at least half his age. And likely has about half his I.Q.
    “We thought it would be safer to sit separately.”
    “Oh, yeah, well, she’s very subtle,” I quip. “No one would ever suspect a thing.”
    A mischievous smile spreads across his face. “She just can’t contain herself, the little minx.”
    I feel my gag reflex vibrate as he not-so-covertly blows her a kiss, then motions for her to calm down. I shake my head with disgust, then twist off the cap of my second Stoli. I pour the vodka over what’s left of my ice.
    “I can tell you disapprove,” the man says, sipping at his gin.
    “It’s none of my business,” I reply, then drain the plastic cup in one swallow.
    But, because I’m me, Meg Monroe, she of the big-mouth-for-a-living radio talk show host, I find myself asking, “Why did you even bother getting married in the first place?”
    My row mate sighs so dramatically, it sounds like a soliloquy. “You’re single, aren’t you?”
    I nod my head. I was married once, but it was such a long time ago and it lasted for such a short time, that I almost have myself convinced it never happened.
    “Then you won’t understand.”
    “I understand cheaters,” I say. “They suck, no matter what their excuse happens to be.” I turn in my seat and face him straight on, then regard him as though he’s a guest on my show, defending some lame-ass position that I feel the need to shred apart.
    “You probably live in a thirty-five hundred square-foot house on the border of Forest Hills with an acre of land, a membership to the tennis club, and a wife who hangs on your every word and brings you coffee and your paper in bed every Sunday morning. Even after twenty-five long years of marriage. Am I right? And still, you blame the institution for your affair. Like it’s not you . It’s the being married. When, in fact, it is you.”
    The man looks at me with a combination of horror and disdain. Horror because I’m clearly right about him on every count, and disdain because he hates the fact that I’m right and wants to pretend I’m not. I get this look a lot in my line of work.
    “What are you,” he asks, “some preserve-the-sanctity-of-marriage activist or something?”
    I laugh harshly. “I think anyone who gets married is completely off their rocker. And you, my friend, are proof that I’m one hundred percent right.”
    “You’re not married,” he says stiffly. “You’ll never understand.”
    Boo-freaking-hoo.
    I feel the plane lurch, but hardly flinch this time. Thank you, Stoli. I take a deep breath and push my seat to the reclining position, then close my eyes. Just as the first wisps of sleep begin to shroud my mind, a baby starts to wail a few rows behind me.
    Sweet mother of God!
    I crane my neck and cast my most scathing glare at the young mother in row 26. She looks at me apologetically as she tries to re-position her bleating child.
    “Why do they even allow babies on airplanes?” I ask. And although my question was directed at no one in particular, my row mate responds with a knowing snicker.
    “I’m guessing you don’t have children either,” he says.
    I bite back a scathing comment, then sit forward and scan the cabin for Sherry. She stands in the galley restocking napkins on her cart. When she glances in my direction, I waggle my fingers at her, then hold up one of the empty Stoli bottles. Behind me, the baby goes on hollering as if he’s in a contest for loudest infantile scream, a contest I might have a chance at winning if I don’t get another vodka, and quick.
    Give him a bottle, for Christ’s sake. Preferably with a little booze in it!
    “Babies cry, you know,” the man says. “It’s what they do.”
    “Uh, yeah. And they poop and yak and drool and get into all kinds of shit before they can even walk…and then they learn to talk and they keep growing, and their vocabulary grows right along with them, until finally