Page 8 of Never Marry the Best Man (Whatever It Takes #4)

Knitting class

Read The Light We Carry

Learn to make sushi

Buy bike, ride to work

Get a dog

Ranney

No.

Getting a dog was just a fantasy for someone who traveled for work as much as she did. Truffle, the brown standard poodle of Nessa’s childhood, had been the third member of their little family, and Ranney still missed him.

Someday, another dog, maybe.

Since her last birthday, Ranney had been keeping this list. Not exactly a bucket list–and what a depressing concept those were–this was intended to be a written brainstorm of life enhancements.

Not a resolution list, either, although it was coincidentally begun in mid-January.

Resolutions had to do with ferreting out problem areas.

This was supposed to be a more positive approach, adding rather than subtracting. Fresh and energizing rather than laboriously correcting.

Nessa’s comments last weekend had hit the mark, at least tangentially. In no way did Ranney think her life would be totally transformed by meeting a man, of course. She was too old for that.

But maybe she was stagnating a little bit, and that was never good.

A bike ride to work would mean fresh air and sunshine, much better than exercising in some sweaty indoor gym.

Her quads would thank her and her mood would improve.

At night, in front of the tv, she would knit herself a beautiful soft sweater, then get into bed with a book that expanded her horizons.

Becoming a home sushi chef? That might have to wait.

Baby steps.

The plane had begun its descent into Miami and the flight attendant was moving slowly down the aisle, collecting cups and napkins.

“Excuse me,” Ranney said when he finally reached her row. “I have a tight connection. Could you tell me the gate for flight 3367 to Los Angeles?”

“I’ll check for you. It’ll just take a minute.”

“Thank–” she started, but he had turned to the passengers on his other side, so she performed the landing ritual, raising her seat and stowing her phone and iPad.

The wheels went down, the runway got closer, but the flight attendant was nowhere in sight.

His co-worker appeared, charging past her from the rear of the plane, but she did not meet Ranney’s eye or notice her raised hand.

Message received. She was on her own here.

"Excuse me,” she said to her seatmate, “I have a really tight connection. Would it be a problem if I scooted in front of you when we deplane?”

Seeming to notice her for the first time, he removed an earbud. “What?”

Sighing, she repeated, “Tight connection–could I..?” and gave him what she hoped was an ingratiating smile. The possibility that he would say no did not occur to her.

“No,” he said. “My connection is in Concourse E. I have no time to waste.”

"Ah. Okay.” She rolled her eyes.

The era of gracious air travel was over.

There was the expected thud when they touched down, and she was pushed back into her seat as the pilot applied the brakes.

Adrenaline flooded her veins. When the plane finally reached the gate and came to a stop, the usual chaos ensued.

Every passenger with an aisle seat immediately leapt to their feet and began opening overhead bins, lifting down heavy bags and handing them to their companions.

Her seatmate unclipped his seatbelt and stood up, reaching up to the compartment just behind them.

Seizing her opportunity, she slipped out into the aisle ahead of him.

Step by step, she inched and edged and threaded her way forward, whispering, “sorry” and “pardon me” until, just short of first class, her path was finally blocked by a father with two toddlers and three backpacks.

Watching him struggle, backpacks slipping, little girls wiggling and sliding, guilt overcame her. No one who has ever traveled with a small child totally forgets.

“Can I take one of those for you?” she asked him, nodding toward the bags on his arm.

“Oh, thanks, no–I’ve got it.” His automatic reply indicated that he thought she was just being polite.

“No, really–how about just this little pink one? I don’t have a suitcase to carry and my child is all grown up.”

At that moment, with an eighteen-month-old’s total fearlessness, the child he was holding on his hip dove headfirst over his arm. Shifting his balance to compensate, he dropped the hand of the other one, who instantly lunged forward.

“On second thought,” he said sheepishly, “that would be great.”

Attention, moral universe, she thought, remembering her seatmate’s rude refusal. I am paying it forward. Or backward. One of those. Please credit my account.

When they emerged from the jetbridge into the terminal, Ranney handed over the small backpack, wiggled her fingers at the three of them, and took off.

“Thank you,” beleaguered dad called after her, but she was steaming toward the nearest flight status board.

Scanning the list, she found Southwest 3367–on time. Good news: She’d make her next connection. Bad news: She had to run like hell to make this one.

Before she had even finished the thought, she was moving, but the airport was mobbed and she was swimming upstream.

Like the fish in Idaho , she thought. Wait–do they really do that or is it just an expression? She was about to find out.

By the time her gate was visible in the distance, ‘ride a bike to work’ had moved up to the top of her to-do list. Thank goodness no one she knew was here to see her perspiring and gasping for breath as she chugged toward the ticket desk.

Especially Nessa.

On the other hand, she’d made it, and not on one of those senior-citizen golf cart things, either.

The carts had those high-pitched horns that the driver could beep to warn pedestrians who got in their way; Ranney had her cellphone, which had been beeping, buzzing, and ringing for most of her trek, but she couldn’t slow down to answer it.

The waiting area was mostly empty, just three remaining travelers watching the gate attendants closely.

“Standby passenger Phillips?” an attendant called.

A tall man wearing a beat-up Barbour jacket and soft moleskin trousers stepped forward.

Like her, he was obviously only passing through this tropical layover on his way to a cooler climate.

Along with a good-size carry-on, also beat up, he had a long green tube on a shoulder strap.

Another airline employee was cleaning up the desk area, and Ranney headed for her.

“Excuse me,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket, “I’m on this flight.”

“Oh, you just made it, we’re about to close the door.” The woman glanced at her co-worker, who was checking a paper ticket that the man had produced. “Wait a minute, Marla, our last passenger’s here.”

This was just business as usual for Marla but Standby Guy, who had been ten seconds away from getting on that plane, dropped his head in frustration.

“Sorry, sir,” Marla began, moving to the computer keyboard and beginning to tap. “Let me check for the next–”

“No, you don’t understand,” he said, urgency in his tone. He was evidently a Brit. “I’ve got to make this connection in L.A.! It’s, ah, a family situation, there’s going to be a private plane waiting and a lot of other people…”

Ranney had been busy swiping her phone screen across the scanner, only half listening to this small crisis that was not her problem to solve, but he was standing between her and the door. There was no avoiding him.

“Please–” he was addressing Ranney directly now, “–could I, if I reimbursed you for your time and trouble, would you consider letting me–”

Looking at his face for the first time, she had a bizarre sense of recognition, but no immediate connection came to mind. Maybe he’d been a guest at one of the weddings she’d managed?

No - elephants. Something about elephants. Why on earth did he remind her of elephants?

“Sir! That is strictly against TSA regulations! I will call an air marshal if–” Marla already had one hand on the desk phone.

Shrugging helplessly– sorry, but regulations are regulations, right? –Ranney stepped around him with a polite smile. Incredibly, it was only mid-afternoon. Normally, she would never consider ordering a glass of wine during the business day, but today was looking like it might be the exception.

When the drinks cart finally arrived at her row, Ranney was fast asleep.

The next thing she knew, the attendant was gently shaking her shoulder, the plane obviously in final descent. After the bump of landing and the g-forces of braking had passed, she automatically reached for her phone and turned it back on. There were three texts from the airline.

The first one informed her that her flight from LAX to Idaho was delayed half an hour.

The second one announced proudly that the departure time was now twenty minutes earlier than the original schedule–can they do that?

The most recent text stated confidently that the flight would leave at 11:00. 11:00 in the morning.

Tomorrow.

She needed Nilly.

Can you please find out what is going on with final leg of my flight? she typed. It’s delayed or canceled; I don’t know which.

Deep breath. Okay. On the positive side, she didn’t have to run for it, and that was indeed a very big positive. Also, she’d made it to the West Coast, which was probably more of a psychological advantage than a real one, but having overshot her final destination felt like some kind of achievement.

On it , Nilly answered immediately.

As the passengers shot to their feet around her, seatbelt buckles clicking open all around her in a metallic chorus, Ranney felt the adrenaline slowly ebb from her system.

It made absolutely no difference how quickly she got off this plane.

She could probably rent a car and drive to the Freestone Club faster than her connection would…

Oh, no. Oh, please don’t let that be an option.

But Nilly was on it, so Ranney meandered down the thoroughfare of the terminal, keeping to the side so as not to impede traffic.

With no suitcase to schlep and no half-marathon to run, air travel was looking almost civilized.

The Neverfull was overfull, though, bulky and uneven, so at times she lurched a bit.

For once, she could ride the moving sidewalk standing still as harried travelers strode past her on the left, elbows out.

Reaching the end, though, she was dumped off with the usual alarming jolt, her nightshirt nearly tumbling out.

Why could she never learn how to step off gracefully like everyone else? What was the trick to this?

Ahead of her, connecting two long corridors of conveyor belts, was a small, light-filled atrium.

A tiny bar was tucked into the space like an oasis.

An airport bar was the Kwik-E-Mart of cocktail establishments, but she could order a spritzer and check her messages.

Surely Nilly had figured something out for her by now.

So she veered off to the right, stepping through the low iron railing that delineated BarFly.

There was a couple seated at the bar itself, chatting with the bartender, but all the tables were open, so she chose one in a corner, where she could talk on the phone without driving anyone near her crazy.

Not that phone conversations were unacceptable in airports; every single person over the age of five was either talking, typing, or scrolling.

Correction: age two. A stroller had caught her eye, its very young occupant holding a smartphone in his chubby hands.

Would she have pacified Nessa with technology, if that had been an option at the time? Honestly, she couldn’t give that a categorical no. Parenting was not always a best-case scenario. But her daughter was grown, so screen time was a moral dilemma she would never have to navigate.

Grandmothers have a much freer hand, and although that role wasn’t right around the corner for her, when it arrived, she planned to err on the side of later bedtimes and more ice cream.

Her own mother had set the bar high on this.

Like much of her generation, Mame had been fairly hands-off with Ranney and her brother, busy with her bridge club and salon appointments or off on business trips with her husband. As a grandmother, though, she shone.

While these reflections were running through Ranney’s head, she was settling into her seat, plugging into the phone charger, debating what to order. All of it was just a whisper compared to the loud voice in her head reminding her that she was in traveler’s limbo here.

She wasn’t where she was supposed to be, she had no clear idea of how she was going to get there, and time was getting short.

The only factors in her favor were the company credit card in her wallet and the fact that her suitcase was being overnighted directly to the club, not loaded into the cargo hold of some plane that she might not end up aboard.

Frustratingly, there was nothing from Nilly.

Ranney was flying solo. Not literally, she thought as she looked around the crowded phone.

But this one would be a squeaker.