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Before I can ask any follow up questions, she plucks the original boarding pass out of its bookmark-style position in my passport and slides the new one inside.
“The gate has changed, and the flight has been moved up by fifteen minutes.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Will I even make it through security that fast?” I cry.
“You will if you hurry! Look for gate one hundred eighteen!”
I clutch my passport and boarding pass and nod. “Thank you,” I say. Then I hitch my bag up higher on my shoulder and run.
Security takes longer than anticipated, part of the slowness being my own damn fault, because I had liquids loose in my bag that didn’t follow the 100 millilitre rule. By the time the security agents throw away my bottles of moisturizer and perfume, I’ve only got minutes to spare. Everything becomes a hot, harried blur as I sprint through the airport. The announcements – even the ones involving my own gate – pass through my head unrecognized and unheeded. I just keep looking for gate one hundred eighteen.
I can’t afford to miss this flight. It’s not just a financial thing, having used a good portion of my cash on the ticket. It’s also a time thing. If Mamma has tried to contact me and hasn’t gotten through, she might have alerted Elio. Already, he could have tracked my credit card usage to the ATM at this airport.
If I want to go, it has to be now.
But by some miracle, I make it. I flash my passport and boarding pass for the agent at the gate and rush onto the plane moments before they close everything up. A male flight attendant with a nice haircut and an even nicer smile checks my pass and directs me to where I should sit. Looks like I’ve managed to snag a window seat. I wince and apologize to the two people in the row who now have to stand up for me to sit there, one of whom is a lady who looks like she’s got to be at least eighty years old. But they’re both friendly about it. The lady has a lovely accent. I wonder if she’s from somewhere in Newfoundland. The guy who was sitting in the aisle seat even puts my carry-on bag in the storage compartment for me.
The kindness of these two other passengers in my row leaves me feeling strangely soothed. I squeeze over to my seat and flop down. Once I’ve done up my seatbelt, relief and exhaustion hit me, one after the other. A heavy one-two punch that has my eyelids sliding instantly down over my eyes. I cross my arms and lean against the window.
I’m asleep before we even leave the ground.
When I wake up again, there’s light pouring in from the window, and someone is trying to get my attention.
“Sorry?” I rasp groggily.
“They’re coming ‘round with the food. Your choice of pasta or chicken pot pie, love,” the older lady from the seat beside me says kindly.
My stomach grumbles.
“Chicken pot pie, please,” I say as the flight attendant reaches our row. Anything that doesn’t resemble food that might be served at an Italian wedding is aces with me. I struggle to sit up straighter, my neck and back aching after sleeping all hunched over to the side for… How long has it been? The sunlight doesn’t mean much when we’re flying into a timezone ahead of Montréal’s. And I’ve never flown economy like this.
“Are we almost there?” I ask as the flight attendant hands me the steaming tray.
“Yes,” he says. “We’ll be landing in Dublin in less than an hour.”
I nearly drop the tray onto my lap.
“Oh, let me help you with that,” the lady beside me says. Her knobby, wrinkled hands make surprisingly short work of undoing the latch and lowering the tray on the back of the seat ahead of me. “There, now.”
That accent.
It’s Irish.
I put the food down slowly. Some might even say calmly, though I’m anything but. Once the food is secure, I pull my passport out of my pocket. Prying the pages apart, I rapidly scan my boarding pass.
Seat: 23F
Gate: 118
Destination: Dublin
This makes no sense. This can’t be happening! I booked a flight to London. The agent at the desk assured me it was England! London, England!
The agent at the desk…
The same one who practically ran me down after I bought my ticket. Who shoved this new boarding pass into my passport and sent me sprinting for security before I could even have a chance to notice what had changed.