by Lucy Lambert
A 747 roared by over us, seemingly so close that I thought I could reach out and touch the un-retracted landing gear if I wanted to.
"She is beautiful, no?" the driver said.
I didn't know whether he meant the shiny metal underbelly of the jet or the ribbon of the ocean in front of us, but I answered "Yes," anyway.
A numb sensation had started at the base of my spine as soon as I'd climbed into the cab, and throughout the ride it had progressed through the rest of me.
I kept telling myself that this was the right thing. Not only for me but for Liam. I thought that if I just kept repeating that, I could make myself believe it and be okay with it.
The driver took the exit to the airport, and soon its tall concrete terminals came into view. A small private jet screamed down its runway and launched into the air, one of its larger Boeing cousins lumbering down a spur to taxi into its position.
I could still remember the takeoff and landing involved with my trip to Rome. The takeoff, a sudden dislocation from the earth that left your stomach several feet below your seat. The landing, a jerk that rattled the whole plane and the concurrent screech of the wheels as they scrambled for purchase on the tarmac.
Nothing at all like the gentle floating of the hot air balloon.
"Which terminal?"
"Sorry?" I said, coming back to reality and seeing that the driver had slowed the cab to a crawl as we passed the first terminal.
"The terminal. Which airline?"
"Oh. Alitalia, please."
The driver pulled up beneath the green and white logo of the airline in question and he helped me pull my luggage out of the cab's trunk.
Then I was alone among all the other travelers, waiting my turn as the velvet ropes corralled us through the line.
The place smelled of the sharp disinfectant used to clean all the surfaces everyone touched, with a hint of sweat below that. Everything had been polished to a high shine, it seemed: the handrails, the scaffolding holding all the light fixtures in the vaulted ceiling.
And there was glass everywhere. Massive windows that let you look out onto the tarmac and the gangways.
I bought the ticket, wincing at the cost and wondering if my Visa would clear the charge. It did, and the smiling woman handed back my passport along with my ticket and credit card.
"Terminal 13," she said, leaning over the desk a little so that she could point down one of the mammoth halls.
One of the wheels of my rolling luggage kept squeaking, the sharpness of it cutting through the din of the announcer on the PA and the conversations around me.
I passed a long row of flat screen TVs, each displaying a different channel, stock quotes and quick infobytes scrolling by beneath the talking heads.
I had to hurry to get over to my terminal. That taxi ride had cost me a lot of time. I thought I had barely enough time to clear security and board.
I shuffled into the line to pass through the metal detector, putting my keys and wallet and phone and shoes and luggage into the provided bin.
The security guard had just grabbed my bin to pass it through the X-Ray machine when my phone started ringing.
My heart leapt. It had to be Liam.
I got cold feet then. I mean they were literally cold, my thin socks letting all my body heat out through my souls into the thin rubber mat beneath me. But also metaphoric cold feet about leaving.
I'd known he'd try to call. However, I'd thought I could deal with it. Except I'd forgotten to put the phone on silent so that I could ignore it.
And it wouldn't be ignored. It blared and blared, even while the guard picked through my belongings and then passed them through the machine.
"Miss, step forward, please," the guard on the other side of the metal detector said. He had a wand in one gloved hand. The other waved me through.
I didn't move, though. It felt like as soon as I stepped through that freestanding doorway, I'd be well and truly done with my trip to Rome and on my way home.
"Miss," he said more insistently, his hand waving becoming more vigorous. I'd begun to attract the attention of a few other guards who'd been watching the lines. The people behind me began to grumble about being held up in a multitude of languages.
My phone quieted, but only momentarily. It started blaring again.
"Come through or go back," the guard said, "But you can't stand here." He gave another look to the guard who'd looked at my stuff, and he shook his head to indicate that I hadn't been trying to slip anything by them.
Then I happened to glance over to one of those big bay windows, my attention dragged there by the unmistakable roar of jet engines. The big airliner took wing as I watched.
The bottom of my stomach fell out. This is wrong, I thought. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be doing this.
The thing was, I didn't know what else I could possibly do.
However, I also knew that I didn't want to be locked in a tiny, windowless room at the airport, detained for suspicious behavior.
"I'd like my things back, please," I said.
The guards conferred for a while. Long enough that I thought that I'd definitely be asked to accompany them to answer a few questions.
One of them even looked at me while he tugged the radio handset on his shoulder closer to his mouth and spoke into it. I imagined that all the cameras in the area had turned on me, that someone in a back room filled with computer monitors was going over my travel records, checking my passport.
They could have been calling my mom to ask about my fifth grade report cards for all I knew.
"Come with me, please," the guard who'd been conferring on the radio said. I stepped out of line and he handed me my things over the barricade.
I'd just started wheeling my way back towards the terminal entrance when the announcer came on. "Alitalia Flight 713 to St. Louis final boarding call."
Instead of going to get a taxi right away, I went over to the waiting area and stood by the window. The glass kept misting with my breath.
I watched Flight 713 take off.
My stomach twisted, and I didn't know whether it was from relief or fear.
I did know that I probably would have been on that plane at that moment if I'd remembered to put my phone on silent, if I hadn't heard Liam's calls.
The phone chirped again. A text, not a call.
I pulled it out of my pocket.
Please tell me you weren't on that.
He was here, at the airport. I looked around, my heart pounding against my ribs. However, it had seemed a few inbound flights had begun disembarking and the terminal had flooded with passengers and I could see nothing but a steady flow of people.
Suddenly I needed to see him. The impulse came on so strong that I almost left my luggage by the window.
I'm here still, I texted back, joining the surge of people through the terminal, almost running into a slow-moving older gentleman with a cane in front of me.
My stomach tightened up as I cast my eyes about, searching for his familiar features. I wanted to see him so badly, but I also felt embarrassment, too. Would he be disappointed in me? Would he tell me that I'd been foolish to try and leave?
Then the flow of people began parting around something ahead of me, like water around a rock in the middle of a river.
It turned out to be Liam. As soon as I saw him, I knew it had been right to stay, to not run away.
And there was nothing on his face but relief. I let go of my luggage and ran to him. He caught me up in his arms and lifted me off the polished floor.
People must have thought we were lovers reunited after a long parting. I didn't care what people thought.
"I thought you'd left me," Liam said, his breath hot against my cheek, his stubble tickling and prickling me.
"I'm sorry," I said. It was all I could say.
"I came here thinking I'd be able to stop you at security, but there was so much traffic on the A91. Then I checked the flight list and saw yours taking off and I
thought..."
"I know, I'm sorry," I said as he set me down. The crowd still parted around us. Just another happy reunion. Nothing to see here.
"I was about to go charter a private flight and come after you," he said. He had his arms wrapped around my waist, hands clasped tightly at the small of back as though to keep me from trying to escape again.
"I told you not to come after me," I said. My heartbeat hadn't slowed, and warmth flushed my cheeks. My eyes felt wet, making me blink more. Don't cry. Please don't cry.
I held the tears back, somehow. This was the right thing, I could feel it. That I'd been just about to leave now seemed like a dream. A nightmare, more like. All the reasons I'd given myself looked hollow and overblown.
"You couldn't have seriously believed I would have let you get away that easily," Liam said. He squeezed me harder for an instant. He kissed me again, his relief palpable. It was a vigorous kiss, a wanton kiss, a Thank-God-I-Found-You kiss.
"Now what?" I asked.
"Now I'm going to take you away from here before you can change your mind again." He grabbed my luggage with one hand and draped his other arm over my shoulders and then started leading me towards the exit.
We passed by the roped lines where I'd stood not so long ago, waiting to buy my ticket out of here. My steps grew more hesitant the closer we came to those sliding doors.
"What is it?" Liam said, pulling us to a halt beside a pillar festooned with TVs.
"Are you sure this is the right thing? You're certain you're not making a mistake? That I'm not a mistake?"
"Emma, I've made my fair share of mistakes in my life. But you're not one of them. I've never felt more right about anything in my life. I know because I'm scared. More scared than I've ever been."
"Scared?" I said. That was an emotion I thought Liam could never feel.
"Yes, of what I've been feeling for you. Scared of how much I need you, scared of the pain I felt when I read your note and I thought that I'd lost you. Scared of what might happen if I give myself over totally to what I'm feeling for you."
"What do you feel?" I said. I noticed then that I'd begun to tremble. I could see in his eyes what he meant. Those eyes of his that never lied. Those eyes of his that had fascinated and beguiled me from the first moment they'd met mine.
"Not here," Liam said, glancing at the emotionless, warehouse-like stylings of the airport terminal, "Not like this."
That frustrated me, but I also understood it. I managed to get a grip on myself. "Okay."
"Now, no more interruptions from you. I don't want to see this place in anything but my rearview mirror while I take you back where we both know you belong."
"Stop," I said, brushing the pad of my thumb beneath my eyes.
"Stop what?"
"Being so good to me. I don't think I can take much more of it."
He started wheeling my luggage forward again. "I'd get used to it if I were you. If I want something, I don't stop until it's mine. No matter what's blocking my way."
Then I couldn't wait to sit beside him in that BMW, to see the hills of Rome appear as we crested the hills.
Except when we got outside his BMW wasn't there. No, it had been towed. We watched the truck wheel the sleek coupe away, the beams of sunlight running like liquid over its panels.
"I guess I deserve that for double parking it. Don't look at me like that! I was in a hurry."
We both laughed, me harder than I should have. It was just that I thought there wasn't anything in my life worth laughing about anymore. No one in my life to share a laugh with.
But of course I was wrong on both counts. And glad to be.
So instead the billionaire CEO waved down a cab as it dropped off its fare. And he even held the door for me as I clambered in. He piled in beside me, our thighs touching. His hand found mine and he clutched it tightly.
"Dove?" (Where?) the driver asked, looking over his shoulder at us. He didn't blink an eye at young couple sharing the back seat, and I liked that. To him, we looked normal, we looked like we belonged together.
Liam gave him the intersection nearest my flat. My pulse started pounding again when I wondered if Mrs. Rosselini had found the letter to her that I'd taped to the outside of my door.
I'd have a lot of explaining I didn't look forward to if she had. Though I suppose I deserved it.
"Lots of traffic on the highway, yeah?" the driver said, "It will take longer. Multo."
Liam waved the driver's concern away. The man put the cab into gear, the transmission shifting much more roughly than the BMW, and we lurched away from the curb.
He was right, though. Traffic had snarled on the A91, turning it into a parking lot. The reflection of the sun off so many roofs and windshields made the road look like a glittering river.
"So that was some goodbye kiss," Liam said.
My cheeks heated. "I thought I'd never see you again."
"There was something about it I couldn't figure it. At first I thought that maybe you were a little drunker than you let on."
"Hey! I can hold my alcohol," I said, nudging him with my elbow, "I resent your implication."
"But if you really hadn't wanted me to follow you, you shouldn't have kissed me like that. You've got me hooked."
"Well now I just have to kiss you," I said, grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him close. We both couldn't stop smiling, though, so it was something of a funny kiss. Still nice, though. I still couldn't quite believe I was here in a cab with him rather than sat beside some stranger on a plane somewhere over the Mediterranean by now.
I ignored the way the driver adjusted his mirror.
Liam pulled something out of his pocket after leaning back. It was my letter, I saw. The envelope had been sliced neatly along the top. "Now you're going to tell me about this."
I did. I told him about seeing him at the gelato shop, about my conversation with Abigail and about what had really happened in that lecture that had set off the whole chain of events. I told him how I didn't think I belonged with him. I even told him about my leaving the letter with the concierge.
Liam stayed quiet for a while. Long enough that I took notice of the slight forward movement in traffic, like ice on a warming river breaking up.
"I haven't told you anything about who I was before I started Mass Systems, have I?" he said finally.
I shook my head.
"I've never been a good storyteller, so I'll keep it short. Ten years ago I didn't know who I was. I'd never owned a jacket worth more than $50, never drove a car worth more than a couple grand. I drifted. Delivering pizza. Jockeying a cash register. I knew things could be better, I wanted them to be better. I just didn't know how to get there.
"I know now that I was afraid. To try, to put myself out there. Afraid of what people might say, afraid of what might happen if I failed. It kept me up at night. There was the guilt, too. Knowing I could be better but always putting it off or dismissing the possibility..."
I tried to imagine Liam as anything but the high achieving man who sat beside me and failed. "What happened?"
He nodded, giving himself permission to continue. "My mom got sick. So sick she couldn't work anymore, and since the last time I saw my dad was when I was five and he'd gone on a smoke and beer run, she had no one to take care of her.
"I certainly couldn't do it on delivery tips. So I quit my jobs."
"Quit?" I said.
He shrugged. "I knew it was time to man up, and I also knew that as long as I could feel even somewhat comfortable doing what I'd been doing, I wouldn't be able to stop. So I quit. And it was tough, at first, working out of the old garage in the house where I'd grown up. So hard that sometimes it seemed like I could have been making more money picking up empty beer cans off the lawns of frat houses."
"Weren't you still afraid?" I said. I'd hardly noticed that traffic had begun moving faster and faster, or the way the trees and grass along the median had turned into a green blur.
"Almost as
afraid as when I thought I'd lost you," he smiled, his fingers tightening around mine for a second before he continued, "I wanted to quit. I even told myself it was okay to quit, that I'd tried. But I didn't. I realized that true success comes from being willing to put in the work, to fail and to get back up and try again. I realized that you can only truly be brave when you're afraid. Anything else is just pride. So when the world pushed, I pushed back. And then I noticed how it began to give.
"And then Mass Systems really started taking off. Any time I feel like I want to give in and give up, I remember where I came from and what it took to get me from there to here."
"That was beautiful," the cab driver said, glancing at us in the mirror.
"Thanks," Liam replied, one corner of his mouth crooking up in a smile.
"He took the words right out of my head," I added. I leaned over and tried to plant a sweet kiss on his cheek, but he turned his head at the last moment so that it landed on his lips instead.
"But do you understand what I'm trying to say? Like I said, my storytelling hat doesn't fit very well."
"I do," I said. I meant it.
"Well, I believe you, but if you want something a bit shorter so that can remember it better, let me put it this way: Don't quit. Don't quit on me and don't quit on yourself."
"Got it." I slipped my hand through the crook of his elbow and pulled his arm against my body, resting my head against his shoulder.
"Oh, I'm going to have to sneak you back into my hotel. The concierge who gave me your letter, he looked, well, the best way I can put it is vexed. I felt like it had something to do with a copy of a painting that used to hang behind his desk. The Mona Lisa, I think."
I sucked in a breath through my teeth. "I may have had something to do with that..."
He grinned, but his phone started ringing before he could drag the details out of me. He shifted to pull it from his pocket. "Yes?"
My head so close to his, I recognized Abigail's voice on the other end. Before I could help it, I tightened my grip on his arm as a hot and cold mix of anxiety and anger bubbled inside of me.