The audacity

Once again, I’m standing in yet another line. For a building designed to help people go to other places, the airport is mostly waiting around. Since AJ and I weren’t at our gates when the announcements came out, we ended up stuck in the back of our respective lines. I glance over at her line, and she signals to me with two peace sign hand gestures.

“Hehehe.”

I don’t need to be close enough to hear her to know what sound she’s making. She then mouths to me.

“It’ll be okay.”

I wave back uncomfortably. Satisfied with my response, she stops calling attention to me and returns to consulting her phone.

Unsurprisingly, she’s extremely optimistic. I’m not worried about my flight, but she should be worried about hers. International flights are a lot more complicated than domestic ones. Maybe she said that to me to console herself. Or maybe she was only worried about me. Or maybe she wanted me to say something nice to comfort her. Most likely, I’m wrong about all these things. There’s no point in even trying to understand the mind of someone like her.

I focus on the people in front of me to distract myself from AJ. The snot-nosed kid in a dinosaur hat and rain slicker won’t stop staring. I shoot him my most intimidating expression. He sticks out his tongue.

Quit staring, you little brat.

I almost say it out loud but catch myself. Spending time with AJ has made me less cautious.

After another compressed eternity, I confront the gate agent in a semi-living state. Every single word coming out of her mouth is strained politeness. She reeks of veiled hospitality over exhaustion and the unbearable anticipation of a long day. Stress lines leak through her carefully applied makeup. Like a zombie, I find myself answering her questions, presenting my paperwork, and explaining my situation. She goes on and on about the airline policies, catching my attention on and off.

“… The soonest I can get you on a flight is 7:00 AM tomorrow. Is that alright with you?”

“Uh-huh.”

She goes on with her spiel but I’m only half listening. The rain is pouring down so hard I can hear it even in the busy airport. The thunder booms like canon fire. Much to my satisfaction, the dinosaur jacket kid is bawling his eyes out. Serves him right.

“…Due to the scheduling, you’ll have to find lodging and meal accommodations…”

“Uh-huh.”

“…Bucuo Airlines does have a contract with the hotel…”

“Uh-huh.”

The kid is still crying. His mother tries to wipe his tears and snot with a tissue, but he jerks away. He was snotty earlier when he was giving me a complete visual inspection of his tongue. The kid must enjoy having a yellow crust across his lip.

“…However…”

“Uh-huh.”

The sobs have quieted as he buries his head into his mother’s lap. Tear stains smear like raindrops.

“Young man.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Excuse me…”

“Yep.”

“Excuse me, but are you listening to me?”

“Yes. I heard every word.”

I wasn’t exactly focused on her the entire conversation, but I got the gist of it. I summarize the needlessly lengthy drone back to her.

“My flight has been rescheduled for 7:00 AM tomorrow. Bucuo Airlines has a contract with a hotel here and will offer me lodging, but all meal accommodations are up to me.”

She prints off some papers and hands them to me.

“Well, that settles it. Thank you for choosing to fly with us.”

I accept the papers and my new flight ticket. The pages are hot, fresh off the printer. There’s a bright red blood stain from the agent’s paper cut. Probably from rescheduling all the passengers’ flights.

“Thank you. I didn’t expect that the airline would provide a hotel room.”

Her lips tighten with strain.

“Yes. You’re very lucky. I’ve rarely seen this happen before.”

“Thank you.”

I doubt empty sayings do much, especially after I wasn’t paying attention to her instructions. But I don’t have time to regret a small interaction as AJ comes bounding up to me. Even though our smoothie fiasco is over, she’s not done with me yet.

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“I’ve got good news! I was able to get my flight rescheduled to 7:30 tomorrow morning!”

“Great.”

What else does she want me to say? The way she keeps peering at me suggests she’s hoping for a longer response.

“So…” she trails.

“Ah. I have a flight tomorrow too. At seven in the morning.”

“That’s good.”

She sways back and forth a little, hands behind her back.

“It seems we’re both stuck around here until tomorrow morning.”

“Seems so.”

“It’s almost noon.”

I check my watch in disbelief.

“How’d that happen?”

“So do you want to go get lunch or something since, we both don’t have anything better to do?”

My stomach rumbles at the prospect. Did I eat breakfast? I can’t remember after all the chaos. I can’t even recall how I got to the airport. I think I took the bus or did a friend drive me? My stomach growls, betraying me again.

“It better not be a smoothie,” I decide.

“Tsk.”

AJ shakes her head and crosses her arms.

“Who do you think I am? I’m talking about real food.”

Thank goodness she isn’t one of those people who only eats out of a blender. Her dogged pursuit all the way to Terminal E made me suspicious.

“What do you want to eat?” I ask.

She bites her lip, deep in thought.

“I don’t know. What do you want to eat?”

Way to go and ruin the point of me asking you, AJ. Now if I pick something bad, the blame will be on me. Clever how you’re avoiding responsibility for any dining mistakes here.

“Whatever you want,” I insist.

“I’m not a picky eater. I’ll eat whatever as long as it tastes good.”

What a horribly vague opinion.

“If you’re not a picky eater, how come you didn’t get that green-fiber-whatever smoothie back there?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Do I really have to say this?”

“Say what?”

She huffs, annoyed. I might have been wrong about my initial assessment.

“I’m going to be stuck in a plane for thirteen hours all the way to Tokyo! I absolutely do not want to spend that time in the cramped cube of a bathroom because of some fiber smoothie. And the people sitting next to me do not need to see me getting up to go over and over. Okay?”

“Okay. Sorry.”

It’s a solid defense, but not completely airtight.

“Then why did you insist we go all the way to Terminal E for a smoothie place? We could’ve gotten drinks or snacks somewhere else.”

She sighs and holds her left elbow.

“Because the smoothie place had a buy one get one free sale. It’s cheaper than other places and I thought I could pay you back while getting a smoothie for myself.”

Is she saying that she wanted to pay me back but was being a cheapskate about it? And she has the audacity to admit the fact to my face?

“Pay me back?”

“I wanted to pay you back as a way to say thank you for returning my passport.”

Is she saying that she wanted to pay me back but was being a cheapskate about it? And she has the audacity to admit the fact to my face?

“You don’t have to repay me. I didn’t return your passport so you could repay me. I was only trying to help.”

The image of the man with hairy ankles from airport security flashes through my mind. Thunder rumbles, overlapping with her words.

“But I feel bad that I caused trouble for you.”

“Don’t try to repay me. I didn’t want a smoothie to begin with.”

Did she spend all that time with me out of some twisted debt-based obligation? She must really have been forcing herself, which explains why she wanted to save money through the buy one get one free sale.

“I’ll buy you lunch.”

AJ seems like a decent enough girl. I shouldn’t bother her any further.

“Thanks for the offer, but you’re not buying me lunch. Don’t make it into a transaction. I helped you out as one person to another. No strings attached.”

She beams one of her classic glowing smiles.

“If you say so. But I’m not offering to help pay for your meal again.”

I shrug.

“Fine by me.”

CLAP. AJ slams her hands together energetically.

“So, what should we do for lunch? I’m absolutely starving!”

“We’re still getting lunch?”

“Oh,” she laughs. “Regretting your decision to turn down my amazing offer?”

“Of course not.”

“Sure, you’re not. Let’s go.”

She trots ahead and I trail her increasingly familiar ponytail. Did she have a restaurant in mind the entire time? I’ll have to check.

“You’re not asking me where I want to eat anymore.”

“You didn’t seem like you didn’t know where you wanted to go, and I don’t know either. So, I thought we could maybe walk around and pick whatever.”

“Whatever?”

She pivots on her heels, spinning around to answer me.

“That’s all there is if you don’t know what you want.”

I suppose she isn’t wrong about that.