“Delayed?” I blurt. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me.”
The airline agent blinks back at me with a painted-on smile. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Domino effect. The previous flight was late.”
I swallow my disappointment. “How long will it be?”
“A few hours. I’ll make an announcement as soon as we know more. In the meantime, why don’t you take a seat?”
She might as well have said, Sit your annoying ass down—the dismissal is that obvious. I have no choice but to nod back. “Okay. Thank you.”
I slink away to the furthest row of seats facing the main terminal and check the time. We should have been boarding now. Instead, I’m settling into a hard plastic seat in a crowded airport and avoiding a stain on the armrest that looks suspiciously like vomit.
Needless to say, I’ve had better vacations.
My phone pings five times in a row, but I know who it is without having to check. Mom is technically the owner of a functioning cell phone, pays the bill and everything, but hell will freeze over before she figures out how to turn the dang thing on.
My brother Rob isn’t really the texting type. If he has anything to say, he just picks up his phone and calls.
Which means my dearest sister is the one blowing me up. I pull up her texts.
All I can see at first are a bunch of exuberant emojis. Smiling, I scroll down until I see actual words, written in actual English. Mia is ten years older than me, but she still types sometimes like she’s a twelve-year-old girl stuck in an early 2000s AOL chatroom version of purgatory. Lots of omgz and lulz and rolfcopters.
One thing hasn’t changed, however: in typical Mia fashion, her thoughts are split across half a dozen different messages. It’s a little peek into how her brain works. A hundred miles an hour in every direction.
MIA: hav u boarded yet?
MIA: ill be there to pick u up.
MIA: Tht way we can tlk abt Mom and Rob b4 we r all trapped in 1 house 2gether.
MIA: so excited to see you, munchkin!!!
MIA: cant wait to smush ur face.
Punctuation is a rare treat. She must be giddy. I can’t help laughing and feeling instantly better. I’d sit through a hundred delays if it meant I got to see my family at the end of it. Lord knows I need it.
Since moving to New York two years ago, I haven’t seen them as often as I’d like. Mia visited twice; Mom came once. Rob hasn’t made the trip yet.
His job keeps him busy, which is understandable. And then there’s the other thing…
I take a deep breath, worried about my headstrong brother and how he’s going to handle his first Christmas without Isabella.
I send Mia back a bunch of hearts and smiley faces before I start typing out an actual text.
OLIVIA: I’m excited to see you guys too!!! But my flight has been delayed. Don’t know for how long yet.
She texts back almost immediately. Noooooooooo!
I see that she’s typing something else, but then the three dots icon disappears. A second later, my phone starts ringing. I pick it up with a smile.
“Hey, hey, hey!” I say in a deep, albeit squeaky, but mostly just terrible impression of Fat Albert. It’s been our inside joke for years. Mia used to chase me around the house saying it over and over again, tickling me half to death whenever she caught up.
“Delayed?” she groans, not even bothering to do the return line. “What a load of crap. Well, you should have a snack and drink some water if you’re gonna be waiting a while.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I have one mother already, thank you very much. I don’t need another.”
Given how close we are, you’d think there was a smaller age difference. But Mia’s a full decade older than I am. When we were younger, she was like my second mother. Now, we’re friends first, sisters second. Unless Mia is tipsy, then she likes to tell everyone we’re “ballers first.” I’m honestly not even sure what that means.
“Okay, rude!” she scoffs.
“Anyway—yes, I’m hoping it’s not a huge delay.”
“It always is,” Mia says immediately.
“Don’t jinx it.”
She laughs. “You superstitious little weirdo.”
“Yeah, well, sue me. I am what I am. I’ll let you know when I know more. I don’t want you camped out at SFO waiting for me.”
“Honestly,” she says, lowering her voice, “I don’t mind…”
I cringe. “Oh no. Is it Rob?”
“No, but… well, it is his first Christmas without her,” she says. She doesn’t have to explain much more.
“Is he doing any better?” I ask tentatively. “Every time I call him, he seems so distracted.”
“Well, that might not be about Isabella. I think there’s something big going down at work,” she says.
“Ooh, drama at the Bureau,” I giggle. “Did he say what? Is it a serial killer? I bet it’s a serial killer. It’s always a serial killer.”
“No, you clown,” Mia says with an exasperated laugh. “He never talks about work. It’s freaking annoying. Especially because he’s the one with the cool job. It’s rude to work for the FBI and never talk about it!”
“Guess he’s burying himself in work then. Is that healthy?”
“I don’t blame him, honestly. I’d probably do the same.”
I nod, feeling that sharp pain in my chest whenever I think about Rob and everything he’s gone through in the last year. It’s changed him. There are moments when he feels like a different man altogether. Like the brother I loved is gone and he isn’t ever coming back.
“Wait—so if you weren’t talking about Rob, what did you mean?”
“Nothing,” she says, a little too quickly. “It’s just… Christmas is always hard on Mom.”
Immediately, the lump forms in my throat. Well, “forms” isn’t the right word, because it’s been there for so long now that it’s starting to feel like a part of me. More like it throbs with a pain I’ve tried so, so hard to forget.
Dad loved Christmas an unreasonable amount. We were the only house on the street that had their decorations up at the beginning of November, and the last house to take them down on the final day of January. If it weren’t for Mom, he would’ve left them up until summertime, probably.
“I can’t believe he’s been gone seven years,” I whisper.
“I know,” she says. “It’s weird. Feels like he’s been gone forever, honestly.”
“Really?” I ask. “For me, it feels like it happened just yesterday.”
We sit with our shared grief for a moment. There was a time when I avoided talking about Dad altogether. It was just too painful. But over the years, I’ve learned to open up to Mia. She is still the only one I feel comfortable crying around.
“You were so much younger,” she says.
“I was eighteen,” I point out. “I was old enough. Old enough to know better.”
“Oh, honey, let’s not go there, okay?” she says. “I thought you were done with the guilt.”
“I’m never done with it, Mimi. It just comes and goes.”
She pauses and breathes for a moment. Then: “Liv, maybe you should talk to someone?”
“I tried that,” I snap, a little more harshly than she deserves. “Twice, actually. But both shrinks I saw spoke in Bumper Sticker.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like, Coexist. Make peace with your demons. When life gives you lemons, throw them back and ask for tacos instead. That kind of eyeroll-worthy nonsense you see on the back of some soccer mom’s minivan.”
Mia bursts out laughing. “Okay, point taken. But finding a therapist is like dating. Plenty of fish in the sea; you just gotta find the right one. You know, I do have a friend who’s a therapist. I could refer—”
“No,” I say, cutting her off.
“Again, rude. Why not?”
“Because it’s too personal. The two of you are friends.”
“We’re not that close,” Mia protests. “We slept together twice and that was it. We were both young and busy. It was just about sex.”
“Lovely. Already way more than I need to know about my therapist.”
“Okay, fine. Point also taken.”
“Speaking of fish in the sea,” I say, changing the subject, “what’ve you hooked lately? Dating anyone noteworthy?”
She exhales dramatically. “I’m a surgeon, love. The men I meet are usually sprawled across my table with their insides staring me in the face.”
“Uh, ew.”
“Hard to find a man attractive after that,” she follows up.
“You haven’t dated anyone since William,” I tell her, as if she needs reminding.
“Yeah, well, I’ve been busy.”
“For three years?”
“Again, I’m a surgeon. I’m always busy.”
I laugh. “What about your fellow doctors? I’m sure there are a few hot nurses around, too.”
“Do you think I work in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy?”
“I mean, maybe? Are there really no McSteamys in sight?”
“None whatsoever,” she says. “Which is fine. You know I’m more of a McDreamy kinda gal.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Right. I forgot about your weird taste in the male gender.”
“Me?” she scoffs. “Says the lady who dates men as boring as unbuttered toast!”
“Now who’s being rude?”
“Don’t argue,” she replies. “I remember your dating history. You claim you’re into bad boys, but every single one of your previous boyfriends has been as vanilla as a cupcake.”
“Okay, okay,” I concede. “So maybe none of them have been—”
“Exciting? Sexy? Even remotely interesting?” she offers.
“Lionel wasn’t so bad!”
She barks out a laugh. “His name was Lionel. Beginning and end of story.”
Before I can start in on bashing all her ex-boyfriends, an announcement begins playing over the sound system.
“Oh, hold on,” I tell her. “This one’s for me.”
The voice is crisp and professional. “The following announcement is for passengers on flight UA523: your new boarding time is 1:15. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
“Oh, fuck me,” I groan.
“What’d they say?” Mia asks. “I didn’t quite catch it.”
“It’s a five-hour delay.”
“Nooo!” she says with more than her fair share of melodrama. “What are you going to do?”
“It’s okay,” I say hastily, trying to find the silver lining. “I’ll just hang around in the airport until I have to board.”
“For five hours?”
“It doesn’t make sense to go back home,” I say. “With traffic, it’s going to take me at least an hour and a half both ways. I might as well wait it out here.”
“Okay, fine. But at least make use of your damn delay and flirt with some cute stranger.”
I roll my eyes. “Right, I’ll be sure to do exactly that. You know me so well.”
“Stop rolling your eyes and live it up, Olivia,” Mia says.
“How did you—”
“I’m your big sister. I know everything,” she says. “Just like I know that you only pick men you’re not actually attracted to and can’t possibly fall in love with because it means you’re in no danger of having your heart broken.”
I reel like she just slapped me in the face. Not because she’s wrong. The exact opposite, actually.
“Well… shit.”
“See?” Mia deadpans. “I know you.”
“Maybe you should be my shrink.”
“You couldn’t afford me.”
“There’s no family discount?” I gasp in mock horror.
“A girl’s gotta eat. And my loft ain’t cheap.”
“I can’t wait to see you,” I say with a laugh.
“Same, kiddo. Same.”
We say goodbye with a promise for me to update her if the flight time changes again. Once I hang up, I take an aimless walk through the airport. Amongst the grab-and-dash options, I find a cute little bakery that overlooks the tarmac. The black-and-white tiled floors and metal cafe chairs lend an air of elegance—so long as I ignore the bedraggled woman in a dirty muumuu and no shoes huddled in the corner.
I turn away from her and choose a stool at the bar. The waiter brings me a coffee, and I sip on it as I watch every plane except for mine get ready to take off.
Everywhere I look outside is a beehive of activity. Men waving those glowsticks in every direction, chucking luggage into the underbelly of the planes with no regard for “Handle Carefully,” speeding around the grounds on those little motorized carts. It’s kind of Zen, in a weird sort of way.
I’m so involved in people watching that I jerk violently when someone takes the barstool next to me.
“Are you okay?” a deep voice asks in amusement. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Oh, no—I mean yeah, I’m—”
I stop short as I look at the man who has just sat down next to me.
He’s massive. A colossus of a man, at least six and a half feet tall and broad in the shoulders with an athlete’s narrow waist. He’s dressed casually in a long-sleeved henley and dark jeans, but the fit and fabric ooze wealth and importance. The watch on his wrist is probably worth more than Mom’s mortgage. And despite being in an airport where everyone looks unshowered and exhausted, this man is photoshoot ready. His hair is perfectly windblown, the natural light is doing wonders for the emerald flecks in his sea-blue eyes, and his jawline looks like it’s been carved with a laser ruler.
A bizarre non sequitur comes to mind: last year, I’d gotten my first big commission as an honest-to-goodness cartoonist, a freelance assignment for the New York Times. Part of the job was drawing—and I quote—“the most handsome man you can imagine.”
Being a hopeless Titanic fangirl, I modeled my piece off Leonardo DiCaprio. Can’t go wrong there, right? And sure, I’d been happy with the result at the time.
But, now, looking into the face of this man, I realize that I drew the wrong Adonis.
He’s still standing there, at least three feet away from me, and yet the heat coming off my body is mortifying. So is the fact that I’ve been staring at him silently for almost six seconds now without saying a word.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks.
I blink once. Twice. Speak, goddammit. What’s wrong with you, Olivia?
“Sorry,” I manage to choke out. “I… I’m fine. I just… I was…”
“Somewhere else?” he says, helping me out.
I smile. “Right. Yeah. Somewhere else.”
“You don’t mind if I sit here, do you?” It’s a question that answers itself, said with ease and years of obvious practice.
Something tells me this man knows how to get what he wants.
“No, it would be my pleasure. I mean, not that you’re asking to sit with me. What I mean is, it’s a free country, right? Uh…”
He smiles and heat pools low. Between my legs, to be more precise.
“I promise you: the pleasure is all mine.”
