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Eva took a few moments to think about that before saying, “Do you think it’s possible for someone to disappear? Vanish without a trace?”
Claire didn’t answer. The two of them sat in silence, watching people make their way toward their gates or toward baggage claim. Hurried travelers, giving each other wide berth as they avoided eye contact with everyone around them, too absorbed in where they were headed to notice two women sitting side by side at the bar.
In the distance, a child’s wail grew louder as a frustrated mother passed them, pulling her sobbing daughter behind her, saying, “I’m not letting you watchParent Trapfor the hundredth time when you haven’t done your reading for Mrs. Hutchins.”
Eva watched Claire’s eyes track them up the concourse until they were gone. Then she said, “Nice to know a new generation is still appreciating the work of Lindsay Lohan.” She took a sip of her drink. “What was that other one she made? Where the mother and daughter trade bodies and live a day as each other. Do you know it?”
“Freaky Friday. My sister loved that movie,” Claire said, staring down into her drink.
Eva counted to ten inside her head. She’d reached the very edge of where she needed this conversation to go. Then she said, “Who would you trade with? Who would you want to be?”
Claire’s head turned slowly toward Eva and their eyes locked, but Claire didn’t answer.
“Freaky Fridaywould sure help me right now,” Eva continued, her voice growing distant. “Slipping into someone else’s skin, being able to inhabit a totally different life. I’d still be me, but no one would know it.”
Next to her, Claire lifted her glass to drink, and Eva noticed the slight tremor. “I’m supposed to go to Puerto Rico,” she said.
Eva felt the alcohol finally hit her bloodstream, warm and low in her belly, easing the knot that had been steadily growing for the past forty-eight hours. “Nice time of year for it.”
Claire shook her head. “I’d do anything to not be on that plane,” she said.
Eva let the words hang in the air, waiting to see if Claire would offer more details. Because what Eva had in mind was risky, and she needed to be sure Claire was desperate enough. She swirled the ice in her glass, vodka and tonic melting into a clear liquid, the lime crushed and wilted around the edges. “Sounds like we both need aFreaky Friday.”
Eva knew two things. First, Claire needed to believe this was her idea. And second, Eva didn’t want to be a person who lied and deceived anymore. This was the last time.
Claire lifted Eva’s boarding pass off the bar top and studied it. “What’s Oakland like?” she asked.
Eva shrugged. “Nothing special,” she said. “I live in Berkeley, though. People there are kind of nuts. If you rode down Telegraph Avenue on a unicycle blowing a trumpet, no one would look twice at you. It’s just that kind of place. Easy to blend in because everybody’s a little weirder than you are.”
Just then, the bartender approached and said, “Can I get you ladies anything else?”
For the first time, Claire smiled. “I think we’re good, thanks.” To Eva she said, “Follow me.”
* * *
They left the bar and walked shoulder to shoulder, forcing people to move around them, falling into a line of weary travelers in the women’s room without saying more. Several stalls opened up, and Claire let people behind them go ahead, until the handicapped stall was available. She pulled Eva in after her and locked the door behind them.
Claire kept her voice low. “What you said back there, about whether I thought it was possible to disappear. I think there’s a way to do it.”
Toilets flushed, water ran, flights were announced over the loudspeaker, as Claire dug around in her purse and fished out her phone, pulling up her e-ticket and handing it to Eva. “If we trade tickets, flight records will show each of us boarding our respective airplanes,” Claire said. “But in Puerto Rico, there will be no trace of me. And in Oakland, there will be no trace of you.”
Eva tried to look skeptical. It wouldn’t work if she agreed too quickly. “Are you crazy? Why would you want to do something like that for me?”
“You’d be doing it for me,” Claire said. “I can’t go home. And I’m a fool if I think I have the skills to disappear in Puerto Rico.”
Eva’s eyes shot up to Claire’s face. “What do you mean?”
Claire said, “You don’t need to worry.”
Eva shook her head. “If I’m going to do this, the least you can do is tell me what I’m stepping into.”
Claire looked toward the stall door and said, “I had a plan to leave my husband. It fell apart, and he found out about it. I have to disappear before…”
“Before what? Is he dangerous?”
“Only to me.”
Eva studied the e-ticket on Claire’s phone, as if she were thinking. “How can we trade tickets if we don’t even look alike?”