by Liz Newman
At the last call to board, Skye peeled herself off the sink and made her way to the gate. The same surly ticket agent stood behind the podium.
“You almost didn’t make this one either,” the ticket agent said, shaking her head.
“Has Charlie Meyer checked in?”
“I already told you I can’t release that information.”
“Let’s assume that’s a no. Then I need to change his flight…” Skye said between breaths. “To a later flight this evening. What flight times do you have available?”
“Your traveling companion needs to change that flight on his own,” the ticket agent responded, tapping away on the computer, not looking up.
“I need to know what time he’s getting in. We’re going to a wedding.”
“That’s personal information I cannot release to you. He would have to do it himself. There are new regulations.” She glared at Skye, her nostrils flaring like a bull’s.
“I bought the ticket on my credit card. Surely I am entitled to flight information that’s readily available over any of those damned blue screens all over this terminal. If I could walk away and look, I would check the time myself, but since your co-workers over there are about to close the doors, it would be nice if you told me when the next flight to Montreal departs.”
“Ma’am, I’ve already told you I cannot release that information.” She looked over Skye’s head and waved someone over. Then she turned away from Skye and handed a boarding pass to a waiting passenger.
A burly air marshal appeared at Skye’s side. “Is there a problem here?” he asked the ticket agent.
“No. God, no,” Skye responded.
The ticket agent smirked and handed Skye a boarding pass. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. There are no first-class seats left.”
Skye made her way to a middle seat in coach and reached down to store her purse. A peculiar odor that smelled like a freshly opened package of cheese crackers permeated the air. Skye looked up in the direction from which the odor exuded and found a very stubbled, dirty face staring at her.
“Mah seat here,” his pointy jaw wriggled.
He settled in by the window and stared at Skye, while her eyes fell on a long spiky hair rising from a dark mole on his chin. Skye tried not to wrinkle her nose at the offensive scent of him. From the front of the aisle, a large woman dressed in a flowered tent made her way toward Skye’s group of seats. Skye closed her eyes, wishing she could somehow teleport to Montreal. She felt a soft, buttery arm brush hers. Flinching, Skye beheld the stoutest pair of calves she ever laid eyes on, covered with myriad dark blue veins and feet stuffed into a pair of black, open-toed shoes, which gave her feet the appearance of hooves.
“Mind if I have the aisle?” asked Skye, as she flashed a dazzling smile designed to prevent her from becoming a very thin slice of meat in a most unappealing airplane seat sandwich.
The woman shot her a cross look, and her bottom, a pink flowered avalanche, crushed Skye’s forearm as Skye leaned to the right as much as possible, unwittingly inhaling an aroma reminiscent of a pungent semisoft cheese. Skye gathered the plastic bag of hats protectively into her lap and looked around for an empty seat in another row.
She crawled into the aisle. “I need to be reseated,” she told a flight attendant. The attendant brushed past her. “I’ll take a box in the cargo bay,” Skye muttered. A teenage kid smirked at her, whispered to his friend, and they both laughed.
A fake pleasant voice echoed over the loudspeaker. “Due to inclement weather in other parts of the country, some passengers were redirected to this flight. We have a very full plane, so we would appreciate it if you’d take your seats immediately, so we can depart.”
Skye squashed herself into her assigned seat, contorting her legs as if she were a racing in the luge. Skye leaned back and closed her eyes. The searing pain knifed through her abdomen again, this time coiling up through her stomach, striking her with a wave of nausea. Emptying the pillbox hats from the plastic bag into her lap, she held the bag up to her lips and threw up. The man next to her, his cheesy aroma oozing from every pore, wrinkled his nose and gave a loud “Humph.” The woman in the flowered tent on her left snored loudly.
The plane climbed into the dark winter sky, and the carbonated gas seeping through popped cans of soda sounded like music to Skye’s ears. She craved something sugary, longing to bury her nose in fresh ice. Vainly, she struggled to breathe, her nose rolling into a cartoon hedgehog’s. She silently wished she could have curled into a ball and roll down the aisle, away from her row and its horrible smells.
“Something to drink, miss?” The stewardess leaned forward to inquire, then reeled back quickly.
“Water!” Skye gasped. The flight attendant’s lips flattened into a disgusted line of disapproval as she poured Skye’s drink. The smelly man on her right peered over at her plastic cup.
“Should be drinkin’ some ginger ale, lady. Seem like you’s a little sick,” he said.
Lucky for me, I’m sitting next to the fun guy. Get it, fungi? Smells like fungi, heh-heh. The beat of drums after a joke at a comedy club rang through her head. “A little,” she said.
The man on her right edged forward, leaning even closer. Skye unfolded her plastic bag, getting it ready for another vile explosion.
“Hey! You’re on that show…Stop Clock? Stopwatch?”
“Around The Clock,” Skye said, tears forming in her eyes.
“With Skye Evans!” He almost shouted. Skye stared at the gaping holes in his teeth as his breath hit her with a death smell. She opened the bag and threw up again.
“You sure are smaller than you are on TV. My sister used to diet that way, and she stayed the same weight. Just ate a lot; like it looks like you just did. Looks like its workin’ for you. Surprised to see someone like you sittin’ next to me. Why ain’t you in first class with the big wigs?”
“No upgrades,” Skye choked. “I think I have food poisoning.”
“That’s too bad. I reckon you just have to give me an autograph, seein’ that you’s trapped here next to me and all,” he chuckled. He held out a book. Skye held up a pen in his direction and signed the back of the book. She glanced at the title. How to Create Your Own Digital Pin-Ups. Skye closed her eyes and sought unconsciousness.
“Pee-yizzoo!” The man next to her plugged his nose. “Whole hour left to ride this stinkin’ bird.”
***
The Boeing 737 circled around the northeastern skyline for an extra forty minutes while the ground crew bulldozed thick, black slush from the runway. Behind Skye’s closed eyes, nightmares of lying face down in the gutter on Bourbon Street on the morning after Mardi Gras haunted her. The plane landed; a mechanical avian structure, its unsteady claws scrambling for purchase on the slippery tarmac. The flight attendants and the captain flashed toothy, apologetic smiles telepathing the imaginary message of You are now leaving the flight from hell. Please join us again soon.
Skye jumped into a cab waiting curbside outside the baggage claim area. Her cell phone buzzed a familiar ring, set for Kleinstiver. “Hi,” she said, her voice gravelly.
“I never pinned you for an early evening drunk,” he joked.
“I’m sick.”
“I’d suggest you come back and rest up, but there’ll be none of that around here. Alfred rescheduled meetings with BBN. All key personnel, including you, are asked to be there. When Alfred asks, he commands.” Kleinstiver went on to say that negotiation meetings were scheduled for the inevitable takeover.
A lump harbored itself in Skye’s throat. The rumors circulating around Teleworld were coming true. Conglomerate giant BBN and Timothy Reilly, the most feared media speculator, would now begin to determine whose heads would be placed on the block.
“So much for the bridal luncheon after the wedding. I’ll be there. Thanks.”
Skye called Tabitha. “How is the beautiful blushing bride?” she asked sweetly.
“What the hell is going on?” Tabitha demande
d. “You never sound this nice. Besides missing the rehearsal, what else do you have in store for me? Oh my god! You’re not coming to the wedding.”
“Of course, I’m coming. I’ll be there. I’ve got more bad news, though. I can’t come to the bridal luncheon on Monday. I have to be at work.”
“No, no, no!” Tabitha exclaimed. “This is the fifth call I’ve received about something going wrong. The photographer’s going to be late tomorrow. The caviar is spoiled. Forty boxes of champagne have gone missing. The roses won’t open. It’s fine that you can’t make the bridal luncheon. For a work thing. Really. It’s fine. Anything else?”
Skye examined the stained, odiferous pink pillbox hats. “Yes…umm. Do you know where there’s a dry cleaning shop around here? I need to get a skirt pressed.”
Chapter Nine
Exactly nine years and three months before, Skye had shown up for her campus tour of Columbia University ten minutes early. “If you’re not there ten minutes before your call time, you’re late,” Carolyn had always told her. A willowy beauty with a glorious head of wavy auburn hair, clad in a red polyester suit and a white button-down shirt, handed out nametags as students milled about in search of their guides. Skye felt a twinge of jealousy as she glanced at a pair of legs that made a hen out of Tina Turner. She flagged the redhead down and requested her nametag.
The woman with the shapely legs sifted through a note card box.
“Let’s see. Here we are. Skye Evans.” She smiled her trademark winning glow, a grin so honest and friendly Skye smiled back in reflex. “Great name. I could totally see it on a marquee. I’m glad I’m guiding your group today. My name is Tabitha. Tabitha Simon.”
After the tour, over chef salads sprinkled with vinaigrette, Skye and Tabitha shared details about their families. Skye’s parents lived very comfortably, although apart. Unfortunately for Skye and her sky-high tuition bill and living expenses, they believed in instilling the values of hard work early on by not paying her school expenses.
“I can’t believe you’re the daughter of Carolyn Chase and Talon Evans,” Tabitha said. “It’s a crime for them not to pay for Columbia. If it weren’t for this hokey Hope for a Dream college scholarship, I’d be working my way through community college. My parents couldn’t even afford that. My mother launders hotel sheets and pillowcases at a cheap hotel. Oh, the stories I could tell of what she finds on those sheets. Ugh. My dad owns a gas station. If I weren’t here, I’d be working at the family mini mart, off the New Jersey turnpike. Wearing black bras with tight white T-shirts and going out for a nice dinner every Friday at O’Charley’s.”
Through the window of the cafeteria, Skye and Tabitha watched the spoiled offspring of multiple generations of Ivy League alumni zip by on their titanium bikes, European motorcycles, and flashy sports cars.
“My mother refuses to pay for my living expenses or tuition. My father said nothing about it,” Skye said.
“He and I have talked briefly on the phone until my mother wrestles the phone away. Just hi, bye, how are you doing, happy birthday. He has no interest in seeing me since the divorce.”
Skye swallowed the lump in her throat. “Although my mother says he wants me to make it on my own. Thank God for scholarships and student loans. If I had any musical aptitude, I’d quit all this and become a punk rocker.”
“Let’s do it.” Tabitha’s eyes were wide with good-humored excitement. “We’ll call ourselves Low Budget High IQs. Or just Low Budget High. I see a lot of that in our future.”
Skye giggled.
The check came, and Skye pulled out her wallet. “Let me get it,” she said.
Tabitha thanked her. “Every so often my dad sends me a five-dollar bill for a little something extra and asks me not to tell my mother. I’ll treat you to some freeze-dried noodles in the quad for dinner.” From then on, the girls were inseparable throughout college.
They moved into a seedy apartment in Harlem, a one-bedroom hovel with a gated door a block away from the campus. Some nights when she couldn’t sleep, Tabitha crawled into Skye’s bed, situated behind a heavy curtain in their tiny living room, and they talked until they got hungry. They’d pool together all the loose change wedged into the furniture and in their wallets, bundle up and walk to the nearest corner store to buy graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars. Using a TV tray in their tiny kitchen for a table, they would light some candles, melt the marshmallows, and eat s’mores.
As the school year went on and tours ended, they waited tables at Moe’s Pizza across from the university, and whoever made the most in tips would foot the bill for the pizza they purchased at half price. Empty diet root beer cans and a pizza box littered the floor nightly as a popular show flickered on the television.
“What are we going to do after we graduate?” Tabitha asked one night, staring up at the ceiling.
“Work as slaves. Intern. Like all graduates.” Skye turned onto her stomach, flipped the pillow over and rested her cheek on the cold side.
“A writer finding an internship is about as easy as…a tourist finding their way on the subway.”
“How about Simple Home?”
“Never called.” Tabitha sighed. The May rain pattered outside on the thin window pane. “Which one are you going to choose? Teleworld or Central?”
Skye propped her head up on one elbow, the blue light of a street lamp lighting up her face with a soft fluorescent glow. Her dark hair framed her face, parted to one side and cascading down to the bed sheets. “I thought about it. A lot. Part of me says I should go with Central because they would be lucky to have me.”
“Of course. Who doesn’t love and respect Carolyn Chase?”
Skye paused for a moment. She took a deep breath and continued. “I chose Teleworld. Not because of my mother. You know I don’t want to piggyback on her fame. But because there are…better opportunities for my career. Future expansion. A more global outlook. The world is coming together in ways people never dreamed. Technology is exploding. Did you know that soon people will have telephones with working computer keypads in their pockets?”
Tabitha pulled on a length of her auburn hair, searching for split ends. “Must be nice to have a friend in the biz.”
“Teleworld is investing in the technology necessary to stay on top of the market. Satellites, broadband. If I make it as a broadcaster, it won’t be because of my mother.”
“Hundreds of resumes like mine sit in the wastebasket at the local boutique agencies while yours gets placed on top. Because you have connections, and I don’t.” Tabitha tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “I’m not angry at you for it. But that’s the way it is.”
“Forget the fact that I’m soon to be a summa cum laude graduate of an Ivy League School and my reel earned a mention as the best my professor ever viewed in thirty years of teaching. No. Talent has nothing to do with it.”
Tabitha shoved the sheets down, turned on a lamp, and sat up. “What are you trying to say, Skye? That I’m not talented?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, not this again! You just accused me of having connections…and using them…what are we fighting about? Of course, you’re talented. I love your stories. You know that. We sound like an old married couple.” Skye turned over and closed her eyes.
Tabitha remained silent. Something moved behind Skye’s closed lids, which peeked open. A framed picture of herself and Tabitha in uniform at Moe’s, holding two extra-large pepperoni pies, swayed before her. “Sometimes I think we won’t remember all these times,” Tabitha sang. “When we held body and soul together on a dime. Sometimes I tell myself to forget all those days. But I’m so afraid the memories of you will slip away. Slip awa-a-a-y. Slip away.”
She crooned as Skye covered her ears and laughed. “Don’t quit your waitressing job.”
“Only if you stop being mad,” Tabitha said. Skye refused to speak. Tabitha sang again. “Slip away. Slip awa-a-ay…”
“Okay. I’m happy now. Can you go to sleep?”<
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Tabitha turned the light off and turned over on her side away from Skye. The sheets rustled as she turned and talked to Skye’s back. “I know of some graduation parties. House parties. I’m so sick of house parties. What should we do? Why don’t we get our families together and have dinner after the ceremony?”
Skye turned over and faced her. “Maybe we should go on a trip or something.”
“Right now, I have enough money to get me to Hoboken. Meals not included.”
The thought of Carolyn’s probing questions and the Darlene Simons’ anxiety around anything citified brought a feeling of dread to the pit of Skye’s stomach. “Sure,” she said glumly.
***
A sea of graduates threw their caps over their heads and cheered. Countless faces waved and clapped as the capped crowd made their way from the great expanse of lawn to greet their families. Carolyn glided toward her daughter, her walk ever graceful, even on grass. She took Skye’s hands, and touched the red tassel that symbolized her summa cum laude status.
“I expected nothing less,” she purred, “and as always, you delivered. Hello, Tabitha. Darlene.” Carolyn simply nodded at Tabitha’s father, who stood two steps behind his wife, hovering meekly. “Skye suggested a more…economical venue for our little celebration, so I made reservations at The Rainbow Room. I hope that’s all right.”
Tabitha’s eyes opened wide, her mouth opening and closing.
“That would be fine,” Bobby Simon said. “Anything for our little girl.”
***
In the back of her mother’s sleek Mercedes, Skye plucked a wilting petal from her corsage. “The Rainbow Room? He owns a gas station, Mom! The dinner check will be the same as his mortgage payment.”
“I’ll pick up the check. What’s the harm? They look like they could use a free meal.” Carolyn nudged her boyfriend, a handsome, well-dressed young man in a black suit as starched and chiseled as his features. He didn’t speak much and introduced himself as Stoker. He laughed, as if on cue.