My heart sinks to my feet. “What?” This cannot possibly be true.
“Fabulous,” Roger grumbles, shaking his head with disgust. “I thought you checked the lines, Amy.” He shoots me a glare.
I am immediately incensed. “I was a little busy keeping our children from falling off the edge of the earth or getting run over by SUVs!” I snap back.
“You said, oh look, a tram car!” Roger says in a high falsetto voice that I assume is supposed to be mine.
“Well, I thought you would have at least looked to make sure we were getting on the right tram!”
“Oh, over the piles of your luggage that I was hefting up the stairs?” Roger shoots back.
My blood is boiling now. “It’s not just my luggage, Roger! It’s everybody’s luggage!”
“Well you certainly brought more than everybody else! Do you really need ten pairs of shoes for a seven day trip? That doesn’t even make sense!”
“At least I pack more than two pairs of underwear when—”
“Helloooo!”
Our argument is interrupted by Allie frantically waving her hands in front of our faces.
“What?” I snap at her. “Can you see that Daddy and I are in the middle of something here?”
She glares at me while she points at the now open tram doors. “We have to get off. They said this is the end of the line.”
I stare out into the blackened night. There is a tiny platform raised about thirty feet above the ground, with a fence around the railing—I assume to keep nut jobs like my sons from sailing over the edge and plummeting to their deaths in the parking lot below.
Roger and I glance at each other. He’s thinking what I’m thinking, I’m sure. I rise to my feet and wander to the front of the tram car, narrowly missing being hit in the head by the purse of the “informative passenger” as she clamors off the tram and into the darkened night. It is now after 10:00 at night. Our flight is at 12:33 am and we need to check in at least an hour beforehand. I don’t know how long it will take the six of us to go through security, and we are cutting it close as it is.
I tap the gentleman who is manning the tram car on the shoulder. He is sitting on a folding chair and appears to be nine-hundred and seventy-two years old. His head is lolling to the side and he has drool collecting at his collar. I say a silent prayer, thankful that the tram actually runs on its own and doesn’t need any help from him. He’s just there to make sure no one gets rowdy...I guess. I have no idea what he would do in that case. Play dead?
He snorts as his neck snaps to attention. Staring at me with bleary, bloodshot eyes, he growls, “Whatya want?”
I take a step back, shocked at his demeanor. I was expecting someone a little more...congenial. “Um, I was wondering if we could possibly just stay on this tram as you head back to the main station. You see, we got on the wrong—”
“Nope! No chance!” the old curmudgeon announces as he rises unsteadily to his feet. He points to the door. “Everyone gets off here.”
Do not push him over, Amy, do not push him over…
I plaster a smile on my face and attempt to charm him again. My charm usually melts even the iciest of elderly gentleman hearts. “Yes, well you see, we are just going back in the direction we came from—”
“Nope!” he repeats, reaching for his cane stowed away in the corner. “Everybody off!”
I sigh as I quickly glance at the time on my cell phone. It’s 10:26. We are really playing fast and loose with the time now. There can be absolutely no further setbacks.
My entire family gathers their belongings and climbs grudgingly off the tram. We pile onto the otherwise deserted platform. The six of us huddle together as the wind whips around our bodies quite dramatically, sending chills up and down my spine. Feels like your sixth sense is tingling again, Amy. Maybe you should just get back in the car and forget about this little vacation.
We watch in earnest as the old man hobbles onto the tram platform and stands in the opposite corner. He reaches into the front pocket of his coat and feels around with his fingers. He mumbles to himself as he searches the entire pocket and come up empty handed. He sticks his hand in the other pocket and feels around in that one for a while. Finally, he extracts a packet of some sort and pulls it close to his chest. Flicking it open, he pulls out...a cigarette. He sticks it in his mouth and cups his long gnarled fingers around his face to shield it from the wind. After extracting a cigarette lighter from his other pocket, he attempts to light the cigarette several times before he is successful.
He shuffles around in a circle and bends his elbows, leaning his back against the railing. Staring me right in the eye, he takes a long drag of the cigarette before blowing perfect smoke rings in my direction. His eyes are twinkling, daring me to challenge him on his apparent cigarette break.
I look away and allow him to puff on the cigarette for a moment or two. Then, I agitatedly glance at my imaginary watch on my wrist. As he leisurely inhales and exhales on his cancer stick, my kids stare at him in disbelief. I’m not sure if they’re more shocked he’s smoking so openly, or that he can actually move without the help of a puppeteer. He reminds me of one of the old guys in the balcony of The Muppet Show. At least the kids are quiet and not trying to see who can spit the farthest off the platform.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the cankerous old man drops the butt to the ground and stamps it out with the tip of his cane. He then limps as slowly as humanly possible toward the tram car doors.
We wait with baited breath as he climbs on and stands in the open doorway. “Well, whatcha waiting for? An engraved invitation?”
Growling, I take a step forward, quite possibly to kick the cane out from underneath the guy, when Roger gently places his hand on my arm.
“Amy,” he says firmly. This is his “principal” voice. He knows I’m fired up, and may say or do something I will regret, further holding up our trip to the airport terminal.
“Fine,” I mumble, stepping onto the tram car and offering the man a fake smile.
He smiles back and then says, “Howdy folks! Welcome! Where ya all headed?” He grins at me in a way that I know he’s screwing with me.
“Terminal five,” I mutter as slump down into the seat. I lean my head against the back of the seat, ignoring the fact that Colt is crawling on the floor and Evan is licking his palms for some un-Godly reason. I need a vacation from my vacation already, and we haven’t even gotten into the airport.
~Three~
“Mrs. Maxwell! How lovely to see you!” The airline attendant at the ticket booth beams at me with her sparkly white teeth. For a second, I do a double-take, thinking that she is the lady from the Orbit gum commercial.
“Um, you too,” I manage to stammer, even though I have never seen this woman before in my life. I hand her my passport. Her teeth twinkle again as she flips it open, giving it a cursory glance.
Evan is jumping up and down behind me for absolutely no reason at all. He steps on Colt’s foot and Colt retaliates by punching him in the shoulder.
“Ouch!” my youngest child moans, scowling at his brother.
“That’s what you get for stepping on my foot,” Colt informs him. Evan kicks Colt square in the shin. Evan screams bloody murder, causing half the airport to cover their ears.
Mortified, I glance around for Roger’s assistance. I find him parked in a chair with his head tilted back, mouth wide open. Sleeping. Of course.
“I trust you’ve had an exhausting day thus far,” the attendant says when she hands my passport back to me.
“Yes,” I turn back to the counter, ignoring the blissful sounds of my sons. “It’s been quite a harrowing day.” I try to smile, but I find that I might cry if I move any of my face muscles.
The attendant beams at me again (I swear I hear that sparkling, “change the page in your book” noise from my childhood records). “Well that’s why we have a special spot on the plane just for you!”
My jaw drops as two
buff and handsome attendants swoop up alongside of me. They each take an arm and lead me toward the roped off section of the waiting area.
“Wait a minute!” I yell, straining my neck to see the members of my family staring after me with their mouths open. “What about them?”
The sparkle tooth attendant is magically by my side again as I enter a lounge area. “Ah, they’ll be fine. Your husband will have no choice but to deal with them.”
“But what is this?” I ask as I gaze around the lounge. A bartender is drying glasses behind a massive bar, while a second bartender serves up cocktails. There are quite a few extremely relaxed women reclining in the chairs and sitting in the bar stools. In the corner, I see one woman moaning with pleasure as another buff attendant gives her a neck massage.
“This is the Moms Only Waiting Area,” Sparkle Tooth tells me.
“Moms Only Waiting Area?” I repeat.
“Yes,” she nods. “Only mothers are allowed here. No fathers, no kids…”
“What?” My eyes open widely, intrigued at this novel concept. No fathers? No kids? Why that would mean…
“That’s right,” Sparkle Tooth reads my mind. “No STRESS.”
“How lovely,” I murmur as the bartender slips a mimosa into my waiting hand, and the massage babe runs his hands along my tense shoulders...
“Evan! You can’t climb on that! Amy, a little help here?” I hear Roger shouting in the distance. He has rudely woken me from my nap.
I groggily glance around and realize that we are on the plane. Somehow. The wait on the security line has been permanently blocked from my memory, probably as a defense mechanism.
I recall that Allie was flagged as a possible terrorist suspect, leading them to discover her belly button ring that Roger and I had no previous knowledge of. This, of course, caused a loud ruckus as Roger and Allie screamed at each other in the security line—Allie reminding us that she “didn't even want to be on this vacation to begin with” and asking “why can't I stay with Kaitlyn instead of being dragged against my will?”
Of course Roger called her an ungrateful little brat and told her she was grounded, causing her to storm off in a huff, which then caused the aforementioned security officers to tackle her to the ground as she had not been cleared to go yet. Roger, in turn, flipped out because they “dared to put a hand on his daughter” (the same daughter he had threatened to lock in her room until she was forty just two minutes prior). The line was stalled and, of course, people were staring at my circus of a family.
In the meantime, Lexie (who had already been through the security line) had wandered off because something shiny had caught her eye, and I nearly had a heart attack because she was supposed to be keeping an eye on her brothers while all of this went down. Both of them followed her, and I could not find three out of my four children when Allie was finally released to sulk off with Roger not far behind her. They resurfaced when I waved the snack bag in in the air.
It wasn’t until we were actually getting ready to board the plane that Colt realized that he had left his shoes on the security conveyor belt. Too late to go back and retrieve them, I shuffled him onto the plane with the promise that we would buy shoes as soon as we landed. I had no clue where we were going to buy shoes and how much they would cost, but I just needed to get on the fricking plane before I ran screaming and leaped off onto the end of the runway. My sixth sense was screaming at me to get the hell out of there immediately…but did I listen? No.
When we finally got on the plane (amidst the children realizing they had to actually sit still for several hours), and shoved all the carry-ons in the overhead bins (I was unable to help in that department being a midget and all, which caused Roger to sweat and swear even more than he already had been), I remembered that I get incredibly ill on an airplane, and I popped a Dramamine. Hence why I was in a cozy state of slumber and Roger was stuck watching all four kids—and apparently losing his ever-loving mind. What made matters worse is that they only had four seats together and two separate ones closer to the front. Somehow Allie and I ended up in the two separate seats, and Roger ended up in the back with Lexie and the two boys.
I’m staring at him with bleary eyes right now as he rants and raves.
“I was trapped with them on the plane alone while you took a nice nap. I worked all day and I just wanted to sleep, too! But could I even close my eyes? Ha! That’s a joke! Lexie climbed over my lap every twenty minutes to use the bathroom, and then Evan thought it’d be cool to go in there when Lexie told him there was blue water in the toilet bowl, and oh my God, she’s never seen BLUE water before. And then Colt told her that his friend Johnny had blue water in his toilet bowl at home, and then she wanted to know why we couldn’t have blue water in our toilet at home. I told them to shut up and go to sleep because they’re going to be cranky in the morning, but did they listen? Noooo. Amy, do you know they didn’t shut up for three hours straight? Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
I blink at him a few times, trying to rid myself of the drugged induced stupor that I am still in. “Uh, huh,” is all I can say.
He frowns at me. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying your vacation so far, Amy.” He reaches into the overhead compartment and yanks my bag out with such force that he ends up smacking himself in the lip with the handle.
“Ouch!” he mutters through clenched teeth, refusing to look my way. I can see his lip is already starting to swell. For a second, I feel a twinge of guilt. And then I recall several incidents where Evan would head butt me while breast-feeding if the milk wasn’t coming out fast enough. And the fact Colt was a biter. And pregnancy… and childbirth in general. Now I don’t feel so bad. In fact, I think Roger could be pelted with suitcases from everyone on the plane, in addition to being poked with barbed wire, and it wouldn’t even begin to cover the pain I have endured. Not that I’m tallying it up or anything juvenile like that.
“Here,” he grumbles, thrusting my luggage at me. He then proceeds to amble his way up the aisle with the rest of the throngs of people.
“Mom!” I hear a very familiar voice when I start to shuffle into the aisle behind him. I look back to where most of my family had been sitting on the plane. Lexie is at the back of the plane, jumping up and down on her own seat. I think it’s so that she can reach the overhead bin.
“Mom!” she calls out again when she sees me. “I can’t get my luggage! Daddy forgot mine!” I glance around to see if anyone teller can help her. Roger is now almost at the entrance of the plane, pushing Colt in front of him. I notice that Allie is not even next to me anymore. She is a few people behind Roger, her earbuds firmly planted in her ears. She won’t even hear me if I screamed that Beyoncé was on the plane. Bouncing up and down on the seat next to me is Evan. He has a lollipop in his mouth.
“Evan, stop jumping with that in your mouth,” I snarl and tuck him in a football hold under one arm, while carrying my luggage with the other hand. “Excuse me,” I apologize as I push into the line and head toward the back of the plane, bumping the shins and elbows of nearly every single person in my wake. “Excuse me, pardon me,” I mumble as a lady with a giant pink hat glowers at me from behind her enormous sunglasses. Does she think we’re going to the Kentucky Derby?
“You’re going the wrong way,” Pink Hat, aka. Captain Obvious, states.
“Yes, I know, I have to help my daughter out. Her suitcase is in the overhead compartment,” I explain as sweetly as possible. I also chose to leave out the part where my husband is a jerk who didn’t help her in the first place.
Despite my dilemma, she scoffs at me and I notice that she has a fake plastic bird nested in the brim of her hat. Evan notices it too, and before I can stop him, he reaches out and plucks it out of the hat. The woman recoils as if he has slapped her across the face.
“Evan! No!” I admonish, prying his fingers from the plastic bird. He squeezes it...hard. The bird crumples underneath his fist, Styrofoam flying everywhere. He laughs. I want to cry. P
ink Hat looks like she wants to punch me in the face.
“That was my favorite hat!” she gasps, clutching her chest. I notice she is wearing a matching pink skirt suit. Jackie O would be proud.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologize sheepishly. I glower at Evan, who is now trying to wriggle down the length of my body. “Evan! Stop it,” I growl through gritted teeth. I used to be able to just wrap my arms around him to hold him still, preventing him from grabbing things off the shelf in the supermarket, jumping off the teeter-totter, etc., etc. My upper arms were the most toned they had been since, well...birth. Sadly now, my four-year-old has proven that he is stronger than me. Because right now, he’s dashing down the airplane aisle. Toward the back of the plane.
“I’m really sorry,” I shout as I weave through the line of people that are shoving each other to get to the front of the plane and get off.
It is at that moment that the airplane crew decides to open the door at the back of the plane to alleviate the pressure the line is causing. And guess who is at the front of that line? Yup. Evan.
“Oh shit,” I curse, nearly knocking down an elderly man who is reaching into the overhead compartment. I feel a slight twinge of guilt when I see that he is trying to get his fold-up walker, but I don’t have time to apologize.
“Lexie!” I yell, pointing to the now open door at the back of the plane. “Grab your brother!”
Lexie cocks her head to the side. “What?”
“Your brother! Your brother!” I am frantically waving my hands in the air and I smack a toddler in the head.
“Watch what you’re doing!” his mother snaps as she draws him close to her body.
“Sorry!” I pant. “I gotta get my kid! He’s…” My face falls when I see my youngest child step out onto the movable staircase positioned by the door. I know Evan. He’s fast. He will be on the tarmac before I can even get to the door.
Desperate, I implore the woman standing closest to the door. “Ma’am! Can you grab my son?” She turns around and I discover that has a toddler under one arm, a baby in a papoose strapped across her chest, and is trying to gather up her diaper bag. The man with her (husband, boyfriend, useless nanny) is staring at his phone, cracking up.
Amy Maxwell's 6th Sense Page 3