Road to Love

by Nicole Falls

  “Fine! Fuck it! You can go, but I swear Wendy if you don’t come back—”

  “Why would I not come back, Liam? You sound silly.”

  Liam rose from his chair to sit on the edge of his desk and lowered his voice, “Heather and I are worried about you, Wendy. We’ve noticed a decline in your mood lately. I was going to tell you to take a little time off—not a whole damned month though.”

  I looked over at Heather, and she nodded sympathetically. “We’ve noticed a marked decrease in your engagement in meetings, your short temper, and general lack of patience with the newbies we hired last quarter. Poor Jeremy came to me crying when you lambasted his pitch in front of the group a few weeks ago.”

  Shoot. Was I really that bad? I didn’t think my critique of Jeremy was that harsh. I mean, honestly, if you’re pitching to the group at large you should, at the bare minimum, know the difference between there and their. That’s just common sense. I guess I have been a bit…short with people at the job. I’ve just honestly had a low tolerance level for bullcrap, and it seemed as if everyone around me seemed to be shoveling all of it in my direction lately.

  “I’ll apologize to Jeremy,” I said to Heather, contrite.

  “Oh, please don’t do that. He came to me in confidence, but I decided to share with you on the strength of our bond. He’ll be all right. I’m sure he will never mess up another homophone again though. Did you really have to compare him to your twelve-year-old niece, Emerson?” Heather said, doubled over in laughter.

  I looked over at Liam who was trying to hold back laughter but failing. His shoulders shook despite maintaining a straight face.

  “Was I that bad, Liam?”

  “Worse,” he replied, deadpan.

  “Noted. I’ll make sure that Lance is up to speed on the Magellan account.”

  “You know that boy has been waiting for this moment.”

  “And I’ll make sure he doesn’t muck it up. Do you need anything else from me before I take off?”

  “Not at the moment, but make sure you keep your phone on while you’re gone in case things go to hell.”

  Rising from my seat, I laughed.

  “I’m serious, Wendy!”

  I walked out the door, waving my hand over my shoulder. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  Heather’s tinkling laughter followed me down the hallway as I made my way back to my office. As soon as I reached my office and Lance immediately popped up from his desk to plop down on the edge of mine. I knew it was killing him not to know why I was meeting with Liam this morning. He kept trying to ask what the meeting was about discreetly, but I refuse to give him any hints. Now he sat, peering at me with a curious expression. Our stare down continued for about three minutes straight before I broke, laughing loudly, drawing the attention of others in our work area.

  “Can I help you, Lancelot?” I smiled.

  “Who are you and what have you done with Emerson?” Lance replied, skeptically.

  “Have I really been that bad?”

  “Worse.”

  “Same thing Liam said, right after he approved a month of vacation for me. Hope you’re ready to deal with the Magellans for the next forty-five days, kid!”

  “Did you say forty-five days?” Lance gasped, with widened eyes, “How in the hell did you swing that?!”

  “By apparently being the biggest, unapproachable witch with a b this office has seen in quite a while?”

  “Well…”

  “Gee, thanks, Lance. You know you should have a healthy fear of your boss and lie to me every once in a while,” I teased, rolling my eyes.

  “Oh please, we both know that would never fly with you. So, a whole month, huh? Better be prepared to come back to pack up your boxes because I’m taking your spot! When do you leave?”

  “Wednesday, so you know tomorrow is going to be trash for you, right? I’m going to block out some time for us to go over all of the intricacies of the Magellan account. Until then, how about you do me a favor and proof those pending items in the inbox?”

  “I can take a hint,” Lance said, walking back to his desk.

  The rest of the day passed by relatively quickly as I worked to ensure that everything was set into place for Lance to handle during my absence. Few things were a high priority, but for those that were, I reached out to the clients directly informing them of my absence and selling them on the efficiency and hard work that they could expect from Lance.

  I awoke with a start on Wednesday, hours before my alarm was set to go off. The excitement of getting to see my sister and niece coupled with the nerves of stepping foot into my hometown had my stomach doing all kinds of somersaults. There was nothing for me to be that scared about…well besides eventually coming face to face with my parents. My dad more than my mom, really. Pops was three much. I’d been dealt enough drama with this BobbyJen situation and wasn’t looking forward to more with him. I knew that I would eventually have to cross that bridge but hoped that it could be on my own terms. Grace was terrible at keeping things to herself, so I texted her to be sure that she hadn’t spilled the beans to my parents about my trip home.

  If I land and your daddy is at the airport waiting to drive me home, we beefin’.

  My phone sounded minutes later with Grace’s response.

  LMBAO. Now you know if there’s one person in this family who hates driving to Detroit more than I do, it’s Pops. Get your tail on a plane already! – Amazing Grace

  Since I’d awakened well before I intended, I had a bit of time to waste, so I decided to finish watching the episode of Grownish that I fell asleep on last night. As an extra grown woman, I felt silly watching this show, but I’d be a liar if I said that this teenybopper show didn’t draw my thirtysomething behind all the way in. It was also a way for me to bond with my niece long distance. We usually had a Skype date once a week about the latest episode. Despite the frivolity of our analysis of this TV show, I reveled in these conversations because I loved the way Tamia’s mind worked. For a twelve-year-old, she had a very sophisticated and thorough critical thinking process. I was looking forward to hearing her thoughts on this week’s episode, which was a doozy.

  I showered and set about choosing the most comfortable, yet chic traveling outfit I could find. I wanted nothing more than to roll out in baggy joggers, a tee shirt, and trainers, but I always tried to dress to impress while traveling. As my mentor in undergrad told me, you never know whom you’ll meet along the way. I finally decided on a pair of dove grey cashmere slacks, paired with my favorite soft pink oversized tank, a chunky grey cardigan for the chill of the plane, and a pair of grey Tory Burch flats. Dawdling over what I was going to wear now put me on the running late end of the spectrum. I lived about forty minutes away from the airport sans traffic. Hopefully, there weren’t too many cars on the road because I only had an hour before check-in for my flight closes.

  I packed up the last of my things and headed out toward the airport. I usually drove myself, preferring to valet my car at the airport so that my commute home after traveling was simple and carefree. After being cramped on a plane for anywhere from two to ten hours, the last thing I wanted to do was stand in a taxi stand line. Since I did a fair amount of travel for work, I’d grown friendly with quite a few of the valets and received preferential treatment. One of the perks of being a nice person, I guess.

  This place is pretty hectic for an early Wednesday morning I thought to myself as I entered the airport. Stupidly, I booked a six am flight home and barely made it to the airport on time. Thanks to Clear, I would be able to bypass the long, winding TSA lines, so I wasn’t worried about missing my flight despite the copious amounts of people milling about.

  “Guess Wednesday is a hoppin’ travel day,” I said aloud, more to myself than anyone around me.

  The blonde in line ahead of me, turned and said, “You didn’t hear? None of us are getting out of here today. Flights are being canceled at a rapid rate, but no one is telling us why.”

 
; I looked up to the departures board, and my flight was still showing on time, but I noticed a significant number of other flights were straight up canceled. I then looked out to the window to see if I somehow missed weather delays on my ride in. Nope, the sky was as clear, dark and cloudless as it was when I entered the airport. I texted Grace to see if weather issues were happening further east.

  Is there bad weather there? Flights are being canceled by the boatload here.

  Impatiently, I tapped my foot awaiting her response. I suppose I could have just googled the weather, but since I was an idiot and didn’t charge my phone last night, I was trying to conserve the little bit of battery life I did have until I’d reached my destination.

  Mr. Google, not your friend anymore? ; ) No lousy weather here or anywhere else, really. Stormi Skye couldn’t stop bragging about how lovely a day it was going to be across the entire country. – Amazing Grace

  I smiled at my sister’s mention of Stormi Skye, a weatherwoman in my hometown metro area. That girl still loved watching our local ABC morning news affiliate. I remembered watching it with her every morning before we headed to school. I would wake up way earlier than I needed so that we could have that little bit of bonding time in the mornings. Our parents left for work at an ungodly hour each morning, so it would be Grace, Michael, and me at home by ourselves in the mornings. Grace was in charge of making sure Mikey and I got off to school all right since she started the latest of all of us. Every morning we sat on the couches in the family room wolfing down cereal or the occasional hot breakfast while watching the morning news.

  The flashing departures screen caught my eye. My flight was now canceled.

  Welp. It looks like you won’t see my lovely face today, sister dear. My flight was just canceled.

  WTF? Please tell me you’re lying. : ( - Amazing Grace

  I walked back toward the ticketing gate hoping one of the workers there could give me an update as to what was going on with all of the cancellations. I stood in line behind one of the most good-looking men I had seen in a while. Tall, handsome, well-dressed, and smelling right. The woman to the right of him was a lucky one if his appearance and that rock on her hand blinding me had anything to say about it. Seeing them together reminded me of running into Jen and Bobby yesterday, and my attitude shifted further into the annoyed zone.

  I’d been standing in the same spot for fifteen minutes when I heard someone loudly exclaim, “This is some bullshit!”

  I turned around to see what the commotion was about and noticed a guy gesturing to the television monitors above our heads. Apparently, some jerk, a disgruntled employee of the FAA, decided to set fire to our local FAA En Route Facility. This facility housed the people who monitored all incoming and outgoing flights within a fifty-mile radius to ensure no crashes. The reason flights were being canceled was because the air traffic controllers who normally guided planes in and out of our airport were unable to due to the fire. As of now, there was no timeline on when they would be able to get things up and running because of all the moving pieces involved. Fantastic! I called Grace to break the news

  “You better be calling me from 20,000 feet in the air. Otherwise, I am hanging up,” Grace said in place of a greeting.

  “I have good news and bad news, which one do you wanna hear first?”

  “You know I wanna hear the bad first.”

  “Ok…so my flight is canceled indefinitely,” I started, going on to tell her about the FAA idiot.

  Grace heaved a deep sigh into the phone. “So, what’s the good news? You’re gonna still come?”

  “Well…” I hedged

  “Well, what? There are trains and automobiles that are not impacted by this FAA nut. Hell, you’ve always said that you wanted to pull an Oprah and Gayle and drive cross-country. Here is the perfect chance!”

  “G, I am not driving over two thousand miles by myself. The purpose of me coming home was to alleviate my stress, not add more.”

  “C’mon, Emerson. You know you wanna. Hold on; I got someone who will make you change your mind.”

  I heard the phone shuffling, and indistinct murmuring as Grace passed it off to someone. If this was either one of my parents, I swear to God I would hang up this phone and Grace wouldn’t see me for another five years. I paced back and forth in anticipation of who would be on the other end with a grimace on my face.

  “Hi, Ti-ti,” my niece’s high-pitched voice chirped.

  I immediately softened and grinned.

  “Hey, Shug. What are you doing home?”

  “We didn’t have school today, and it’s parent-teacher conferences today and tomorrow. My mama says you aren’t coming to see us now?”

  “Some fool put a monkey wrench in Ti-ti’s plans. I can’t get a flight out.”

  “Can’t you take the train? Or drive? Ooh, that would be SO awesome, driving across all the states. You SO should drive!”

  “That’s a long way for me to drive by myself, Shug.”

  Tamia sighed into the phone sounding just like Grace.

  “Okay, so the next time I’ll see you I’ll be a grownup, huh? I know you don’t like to come around because of Mommom and Poppop, but I don’t get why you don’t come see us,” Tamia said matter-of-factly.

  I stopped pacing and rolled my carryon to a recently vacated seat.

  “It’s complicated…” I trailed off.

  “That’s a relationship status on Facebook, not an answer Ti-ti Emerson,” Tamia replied.

  “Girl what do you know about relationship statuses? You’re twelve. The only relationships you should be worried about are fictional.”

  “Ti, the only relationship I am worried about is ours. I neeeeever get to see you. Mama and Daddy keep saying that we’re gonna come to California to see you and go to Disneyland, but I don’t think we ever will,” Tamia whined.

  I usually hated when children whined, but my niece hit a weak spot. I always felt guilty because I knew that it cost way more for Grace and her family to travel to see me, but I still refused to come home and see them. I offered several times to foot the bills for them to all travel to see me, but Grace always swiftly refused. I was offended the first couple of times until Grace informed me that Ted wasn’t too keen on the idea of his wife’s baby sister flying his family out.

  “Put your mama back on the phone, Shug…”

  I knew the minute Tamia started going on about me not coming home what my decision was going to be. I was going home. And I would be driving. Grace was right, I had always wanted to take a cross-country road trip, and there was no time like the present, right? Maybe I'd find myself on the road, get to the root of my problems while gettin' my kicks on Route 66. My car was in good enough condition that it would definitely survive putting that many miles on it and it would be more convenient for me to have my own wheels whenever I wanted to move around once I got back home.

  “So?” Grace asked.

  “You know I can’t stand you, right?”

  “But I looooooove you. So when should I expect you?”

  “Putting Shug on the line was a low blow.”

  “I had to use all the weapons in my arsenal. When are you getting on the road?”

  Rolling my eyes, I laughed. “Why are you so certain that I’m coming?”

  “Because I know you can’t resist your Shuga Booga and won’t wanna let her down. So that Prius bout to get some miles on her or nah?”

  “I can’t stand you.”

  “But I love you,” Grace quipped.

  I left the airport with a spirit of productivity buoying me. Since I had a crack of dawn flight, there was still plenty of day left to begin driving today if I wanted. First, I needed to go back home, plot my driving course, grab some snacks and tunes for the road. If I was gonna make this road trip, I was going to make sure I did it right. I’d briefly looked into doing this a few years back, even going as far to chart my course, rest stops, and overnight stays. That plan was crafted at least six computers ago though,
so I doubted if the document was accessible on my current device. On my drive home, my phone rang. Looking over at the dash, I saw that it was Kellee calling.

  “Hey, Kells!”

  “You sound awfully chipper for someone who’s stuck at the airport indefinitely,” Kellee laughed.

  “Now girl you know your friend better than that. I got my tail outta dodge as soon as my flight got canceled,” I replied, giggling.

  “So, what are you gonna do? On the news, they were saying it could be a few days before they would be able to get the airport back up to normal operating status. Are you gonna ride it out?”

  “That would be the smart thing to do, but I got talked into driving home.”

  There was silence on the line, quickly followed by the boom of Kellee’s uproarious laughter.

  “Wait, I’m sorry. I know I didn’t hear that right? Is this the same woman who I have to talk out of ramming her car into the bumper of the car in front of her every third day? You’re going to drive 30+ hours?” Kellee burst into giggles again.

  Okay, she may have had a point. I did tend to have a slight bit of road rage during my morning commute. That was not entirely my fault though. People in this town drove like they got their license from 7-11. I was used to driving defensively, weaving through traffic, in a hurry to get to my destination—like I did back when I briefly interned in Chicago. Never mind the fact that I hadn’t lived there for over ten years. Once that spirit is ingrained, it doesn’t go away. This cross-country drive wouldn’t have the same vibe though. Honestly, I could take my sweet time and get home to Ragston on my terms.

  I needed to get away from Southern California more than anything just to clear my head, but I couldn’t deny some anxiety was associated with my homecoming. The second to last time I was home, I brought Bobby with me. We had been dating for a few years by then, and I thought it was time he met my family. I’d been met all of his family since he was a California boy—born and raised in NorCal.