“That’s me!” I pushed through the back row, trying to worm my way closer. “I’m still here!”
Gloria Boyner, known for her big mouth and famous for getting suspended three times freshman year for smoking in the girls’ room, spotted me. “She’s right here! Allen! She’s right here!” she screamed in her hoarse, pack-a-day rasp, hopping up and down.
Chris Machetti, the star quarterback from our class, was also in the crowd with a group of friends. He handed off his full beer to the girl next to him and said, “I gotcha, Laney.” He hurled me up and over his head. Someone grabbed my legs to keep them from flailing, and I relaxed into the hands that began to pass me forward.
I could hear Gordon hollering my name, but then I couldn’t. The houselights hadn’t gone up yet, but I could see Allen’s hands reaching for me across our strange, undulating surface.
“Laney Jane, promise me you will always love me, no matter how big of a famous asshole I become?” That got a laugh out of the handful of people below us.
Ten years of missing him melted away as he opened his fist and revealed his class ring. It still had the string tied around the back. He had flung it down into the sand that long-gone day as I had fled. I had searched frantically for it the next morning, but it was gone; lost to the million grains of sand that rubbed my wounded heart.
The kind souls beneath us brought us close enough to wrap our arms around each other. It was an all-body experience, being groped by unseen hands everywhere, but as his lips locked and lingered on mine, an out-of-body experience as well.
We holed up, honeymoon-style, in my apartment for three days—encore, encore, encore. Skipping the tenth-year class reunion altogether, as we knew we would be the talk of the grapevine there anyway. His band had to practically drag him back onto the tour bus. “No, not without Laney Jane,” he told them. So the guys made room on the bus for me and I finished out the tour with them.
Finally. This was it. Our life together. Once the tour finished, I walked on cloud nine, packing my things, arranging for a transfer at work, and preparing to move.
But his cancer beat me to it.
Metastasis.
It’s in my bones, Laney Jane. It’s not going away this time.
• • •
Scary maneuvered his small Prius to the curb of O’Hare and hit the flashers. I let myself out and walked back to pop the trunk, giving Anita and Scary some privacy as they leaned over their daughter’s bobbing head, kissed, and said their soft good-byes. My eyes welled up again. So many good-byes in this world. Even the happiest ones were bittersweet.
Maybe it was perverse wishful thinking, but peering into the trunk, I almost expected the dress not to be there once more. I wished for that gift of object impermanence, wasted on the youth Amelia’s age. I wanted out of sight, out of mind where the dress was concerned. And definitely where Noah was concerned.
Anita joined me, giving my shoulder a squeeze before grabbing her own carry-on. She looked so put together, her blond hair swept back in a ponytail, her makeup perfectly applied. How was she not falling apart, walking away from her amazing family? Scary rolled down the backseat window. “’Bye, Mom!” he called, taking Amelia’s tiny hand in his and gently bending down her thumb, middle, and ring fingers against her pudgy palm to make the universal “rock horns” sign. “You rock!”
Anita laughed, shaking her head, and blew them both kisses.
“Knock ’em dead off their feet, Laney!” he called after me. It was a sweet sentiment, as well as a title of a Three on a Match song. I threw him the horns as well, letting him know I got the reference.
“I’ll see you on the other side,” Anita called over her shoulder, as she wound through the cordoned-off entry area for actively working airline personnel. I joined the ranks in gen pop, which was, thankfully, a fast-moving line. Every guy carrying a computer bag, every gray suit that caught my eye, set my pulse pounding. Chicago O’Hare International Airport was huge . . . but the fact that Noah was flying on the same day pressed down on me, making the terminal feel claustrophobic. I itched for boarding time. My heart just wouldn’t be safe until it was armed and cross-checked behind the plane’s plug door, and in its full, upright, and locked position. Until then, it was in danger of being hijacked by a guy in a matchy-match suit and loafers.
“How are you doing?” Anita asked, linking her arm through mine as we walked. We must’ve looked like quite the pair: me in my flip-flops, with my mother’s garment bag slapping against my thigh as I tried to keep pace with Anita, in her clickity-clackity heels, with her sexy hard-shell case rolling behind her.
Walking through the airport with Anita had a privileged thrill to it, like walking backstage with a musician. She moved like she owned every inch of that tiled floor. People nonchalantly turned their heads and snuck glances. Catching sight of that little bronze badge on her ample chest, they couldn’t help but stare and smile. Every coordinated detail, from her neck scarf to her blazer and down to her form-fitting pencil skirt, created an air of intrigue that made you want to swoon. I felt assured with her; I felt chosen. But most of all, I felt grateful that I didn’t have to do the walk of shame to my gate alone. Granted, she was going to have to board her aircraft an hour before departure to begin her workday. But right now, I had a friend next to me.
“Where do you lay over?” she asked.
“Um, this time . . .” I fumbled with my boarding pass. “I change planes in San Diego, then I have a two-hour layover in LAX and should be in Kauai by six o’clock. How about you? Your next flight isn’t to Las Vegas, is it?”
“Nope, back to LaGuardia.” She flicked a glance in the direction of the Windwest Airways frequent flyer lounge but didn’t slow her pace. Perhaps he was behind the darkened windows, throwing back more Jack and updating his Excel file. Excelling at moving forward with his bachelor party and impending marriage. Or maybe he was brooding again in one of the lounge’s chairs, surrounded by his force field of aftershave and power adapters. Rewiring the hard drive of his heart to forget all about Laney Hudson.
“What’s on your mind, Laney?” she asked, although I knew she was already reading it.
“Allen. Noah. Ghosts of one-night stands past.” I knew I had to exorcise them, and there was no time like the present. “But I am off on a grand adventure. Hawaii awaits.”
“Good mind-set.” We had arrived at her gate. “This is where we part ways. I still want you to send me pictures of the big day, you know. To let me know you arrived safe, and to see how pretty you look.”
I hugged her in thanks and promised I would. She gave a little wave before joining her fellow attendants at the boarding podium, and then she was gone. I grabbed a coffee and a muffin and trudged on to my own gate. It was fairly empty, and I had my pick of seating. I chose a bank of seats facing the window, deciding it was better to look at where I was going, rather than where I had been.
Noah
HELPLESSLY HOPING
Every cab carried Laney. I expected to see her face appear from every door that opened at the curb of the airport terminal. I expected to see that bridal dress bag when the trunk popped at O’Hare one final time. But it was just my own pathetic baggage waiting for me.
I slowly walked toward my gate, searching the faces. Looking for some sad panda hat, somewhere. And when I could no longer stand meeting people in the eye, I began to look at their feet. Looking for cheap flip-flops and toes painted like blue glass made smooth from the sea.
“We will begin boarding for Windwest Airways Flight 907 nonstop to Las Vegas in about five minutes. At that time, we ask anyone needing extra assistance . . .”
I saw myself as I was, settling into my first-class seat back on the tarmac of LaGuardia. Face after face passing by, bumping their bags against their knees as they made their way back to cattle class. And then, over the tops of the seats, I saw her coming toward me.
&
nbsp; I’d had no idea what was walking into my life forty-eight hours before. And now, I couldn’t believe I had let her walk away. It had all happened so quick, way too quick to get attached. So how come I felt like my heart was being ripped out from the roots?
All you’ve ever wanted were roots, Noah.
That’s why you rushed balls out into proposing to Sloane. That’s why you’ve stuck around a company you no longer believe in.
Trying to find roots. Trying to find home.
Casa è nel cuore.
I had found Laney.
And having her was just as pleasing, if not more, as wanting her. Blowing Mr. Spock’s theory out of the water.
I had had her.
And I had lost her.
Boarding was an automatic afterthought. I found myself sitting in my seat, but didn’t really remember the journey there. Leaning my head against the window, I stared out at the other planes on the runway. Was she still here?
All my texts and calls had gone unanswered.
She was gone. I felt it.
Another businessman took the seat next to me. We gave each other a curt nod of acknowledgment; monkey suit code. Was he heading to or from a meeting, some novelty that took him out of his office existence for a brief time? Or had he just met and had his heart broken by someone incredible? I couldn’t ask. I could barely even exchange pleasantries.
We buckled, we cross-checked, we prepared for departure, and we were up in the sky before I even had time to worry about engine failure. It didn’t matter. I had already crashed and burned.
I opened my tray table to accept the coffee I had requested and moved to stow my powered-down phone in my bag. Paper grazed my fingertips, and I pulled.
Laney’s first sketch of me. She had captured everything I thought I had admired about myself with a few sweeps of her pencil. Sitting rigid, unwilling to bend, when in reality, I was spineless. My fingers gripping the armrests, my eyes wide. Power-mad and single-minded. But she had caught the exact curve of my cheekbones, the slight jut of my jaw when I was deep in thought. The slant of my brow when I was trying to make sense out of the nonsensical. She had seen those details the moment she laid eyes on me.
I had shoved it into my bag along with everything else that morning, my eyes unseeing, my head dull, and my heart in disbelief. I hadn’t noticed there was writing along the top of the page where there hadn’t been anything before.
You have more power than you think, Noah.
There Goes Tokyo
I didn’t trust myself to check my phone until I was truly out of Chicago airspace and on Pacific Coast Time. I waited for the command.
“Local time on the ground is 10:25 A.M. and weather is clear with a light breeze, at sixty-seven degrees. You are allowed to use phones at this time, if they are safely in reach. Please keep your seat belt fastened until we come to a complete stop and the Fasten Seat Belt sign is turned off. Thank you.”
I could no longer restrain myself. I had to respond to Noah. He had flooded my phone with texts: long ones, short ones . . . never shoutie caps. He just wanted to know why.
And he had used an emoticon. Knowing Noah—and it was safe to admit I knew enough—he was not the kind of Tech-Boy who typically used emoticons. Certainly not the colon-open-paren combo to show they were sad.
Maybe he had run out of words. Run out of patience with me.
The second I hit “compose,” my heart began to thud, dull and frantic. It didn’t feel like it was still in my chest; it was that lower-in-the-pit nervous beating. Like Godzilla’s unstoppable heart on the sea floor. With shaking fingers, I wrote:
I’m sorry I made you feel : (
His reply was almost instantaneous, meaning he was on the ground somewhere, too.
No, you made me FEEL. Not weak, not powerless. Incredible. You’re my anti-kryptonite.
I typed and erased a dozen times before getting what I wanted to say right.
The good guys do win sometimes. I’m rooting for you from afar, but you don’t need me there to complicate things.
The truth was, I didn’t trust myself. I was three days late in delivering my mother’s dress, and after one mind-blowing night with Noah, I had been ready to run off to Vegas with him.
I’ve never been a game changer, Laney. But then again, I’ve never had someone like you on my team. You are incredible. I’ve never met anyone like you and I want to get to know you better. I want you in my system, and in my life.
I couldn’t bear to disappoint one more person. I needed to be responsible and get the dress delivered, but I didn’t want to be the one responsible for Noah losing his job and the investors for his app company.
Like Godzilla, I felt like I was being ripped from the inside out.
You need to get me out of your system and move on.
Down I went, disintegrating to dust.
• • •
“No . . . noooo. Daddy. No . . .” The pitiful plea repeated on loop and finally tore my eyes from my phone to seek out the source. The little girl in the San Diego gate area had bright copper curls springing high above her pale forehead. “No plane, Daddy. No . . .” The parents, not much older than me, sat in matching denim and Disneyland T-shirts, desperately attempting to reason with the unreasonable preschooler. The dad tried coaxing her to calm down with his phone, but the little girl refused to be appeased, those copper springs swinging wildly as she shook her head.
“Look, Daddy has the fart app,” the mom said, in one last-ditch effort to quiet her daughter.
The little girl reluctantly took the phone and blasted a button, still visibly upset. But the tears and carrying on had at least ceased momentarily. I noticed she had a Sesame Street character on her shirt, an unfamiliar one. The puppets of my youth were primary colors—yellow, blue, red—this one was an orangey tan of unknown ethnicity, with a tutu and some pearly bling around her neck. I flipped to a blank sheet in my book and quickly sketched a plane, adding the little character’s face in a window, waving a furry hand.
“What’s her name?” I whispered to the dad.
“Tallulah.”
“Come take a trip with me, Tallulah!” I read the words aloud as I wrote them, and I enclosed the words in a big cheery bubble above the window. Then I added a smiling pilot in the cockpit window, lest the girl think the plane was flying unmanned.
“What do you think of this?” I asked Tallulah.
The little girl’s eyes widened, and she dropped her dad’s phone into his hand in favor of grabbing the picture with both of her small, pudgy ones. “It’s Zoe! Daddy, she made Zoe!” The mom mouthed a “thank you” and gave me a weak smile, still embarrassed that her daughter had made such a scene. “Here, Tally, come eat your carrot sticks, like Cookie Monster. He loves his vegetables.”
I looked at the dad in alarm, and he just rolled his eyes in agreement. “I know. They had to get all politically correct and ruin Cookie Monster’s rep. Crazy, right?” He leaned forward, his smartphone balancing between the meaty digits of his hands.
“Hey, that wouldn’t happen to be the Fartrillion app, would it?” I asked, leaning a bit closer to take a look.
“Totally! Best dollar ninety-nine I ever spent,” the guy said, gesturing to the multitude of choices. “It entertains my kids, annoys the women in my office, cracks up my fishing buddies—other fart apps crap out, freeze up. If you want a quality joke app, this is the one.” He laughed, realizing he was giving me the hard sales pitch based on flatulence. “I know, sounds silly, right? But life’s too short to not loosen up and have some fun.”
I thought about the looks on the faces of Anita, the little girl Samantha in the diner, and now Tallulah when they saw the sketches I had made for them. And of Noah’s expression when he had realized I had drawn him. I wondered if he had found the sketch I left that morning.
My drawings made
people happy. Just as Noah’s app clearly made people happy.
Would we ever allow ourselves the same courtesy? The thought saddened me. I hoped someday we both learned to please ourselves, instead of always worrying about what others thought. I hoped, wherever he was, he was finding a way to be happy.
• • •
“Are you sitting down?”
“Dani, I’ve been sitting down, on and off, for the last five and a half hours.” I tucked the phone between my chin and shoulder and shifted the garment bag so I could grab the latest issue of People magazine from the airport newsstand. “And now I have an hour and forty-six minutes to kill in Los Angeles. Spit it out.”
“Your mom is making a photo collage to display at the reception. You know, one of those poster boards that show them before they met, while they were dating, et cetera?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, scouting out a snack on my way to the register. Something smothered in chocolate, preferably. “They’re both in their late fifties and they’ve only known each other a year. I can’t imagine it’s going to be that exciting of a collage.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a floor spinner rack with the familiar river and sun logo of Hudson Views displayed on top. Leave it to my mom to convince the airports of the world that greeting card Veraisms were impulse items just as necessary as Airborne, neck pillows, and personalized shot glasses. I swear she could sell sunscreen to the sinners in hell if she had to.
“Um, imagine again. Because I helped her sort the pictures, and remember that one we used to sneak out of the hope chest in your attic?”
“From the marriage to her first husband?”
It was a great picture, all seventies golden tones, with my mom and her ironed hair looking like a young Grace Slick. Dani and I had decided that the handsome hunk on her arm looked like Jordan Catalano with a porn ’stache, and we had giggled at the powder blue ruffles of his wedding attire.
Dictatorship of the Dress (9780698168305) Page 26