Amy pulled the Jeep into a space in short-term parking more than an hour before his flight was to arrive. She usually waited for him in the passenger pickup area outside. But with what she needed to tell him, she decided to greet him as soon as he cleared the security checkpoint on his way to baggage claim. She dropped the parking stub on the passenger seat and slung her purse over her shoulder. She didn’t think to notice which floor of the garage she was on. She crossed the garage in a few long strides, stepped into an open elevator, and absently pressed the button for the ground floor. The doors opened; down a breezy walkway and through a set of automated doors, she entered the noise and commotion of the terminal building.
She located the big board displaying the arrivals and departures for the next several hours. David’s flight was on time, arriving in 57 minutes at Gate A-23. She watched through several cycles as the board updated itself. Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Mexico City, Phoenix came and went. No changes to Flight 1017. She almost found herself caught in the current as a harried chaperone tried to shepherd a group of teenagers toward the ticket counters. She fought her way upstream and took up a position with her back against a cool concrete pillar from which she could continue to scan the board. Albuquerque, Charlotte, Miami, Philadelphia, Veracruz.
She thought about the weekend that had just ended. If anyone had asked her Friday whether she was content with her life, she would have answered yes without hesitation. Now she wasn’t sure any more. She searched the arrivals and departures board for an answer that wasn’t there. She thought how good it would be to see his familiar face and to feel the warmth of his comfortable embrace. She rehearsed her side of the conversation they would have after he stowed his carry-on and laptop bag in the back, paid for parking, and navigated the tangle of airport roads to get out onto the highway. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t imagine what he would say.
Her eye fell on a flight to Austin, leaving in 42 minutes from Gate A-22. She reminisced about waiting for him at the gate when he came back to school after holiday trips home. But these days, only ticketed passengers could get as far as the gates. She fingered the credit card in her purse and wondered how much a one-way ticket to Austin might cost. It couldn’t be that much for such a short flight. Anyway, the credit card charges weren’t her responsibility. The bill was in the name of the company where she would certainly not be working for much longer.
She raced to the American Airlines ticket counter and waited impatiently while the counter agent explained three times to an old Indian couple that there weren’t two seats together anywhere on their flight. When her turn came, she slapped her driver’s license and the credit card on the counter and said, “One ticket, one way, on the 3:25 flight to Austin.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Carlisle, but that flight it completely booked,” said the agent.
“It’s Mrs. Carlisle. You don’t have one seat? What about standby?” Amy said.
“There are already eight passengers listed for standby, so I could sell you a ticket, but there’s no way you’ll get on that flight. The next one is at 4:50, and I have six seats available.”
“No, that’s all right,” Amy said. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She started to walk away from the counter, but then turned back. “What time does the flight to Acapulco board?”
The counter agent gave Amy an incredulous look for a moment, then started clicking away on her keyboard. “It’s leaving in 40 minutes,” the agent said. “It’ll start boarding any minute now.”
“I’ll take one ticket, one way, to Acapulco.” She handed back the credit card and license. While the counter agent booked the flight, she dug for her passport at the bottom of her purse.
Fifteen minutes later, she was through security and jogging down the concourse toward Gate A-23. When she reached the cluster of gates at the end of the terminal, her husband’s plane was easing up to the jetway. Close behind her, an airline employee was announcing boarding calls for the Acapulco flight. She stood in the middle of the chaotic crowd and contemplated the ticket in her hand.
Note: The assignment was to write about a “moment of temptation.” I was thinking about my own temptation to skip town and ride out the rest of the Hurricane Ike reconstruction period somewhere far, far away, but I decided to tell a story about someone who has a lot more to escape from than I do.
© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick
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