The plane dips hard left, a wing catching a downdraft. The crying woman screams, but Harper just sighs and asks me for my phone number so she can text me, still balancing her cup precariously in her left hand. I’m a far cry from a fearful flyer, but this girl is unflappable.
The plane settles into a hard shudder, and now lots of people are making noise. Harper huffs, muttering, “Honestly, if we’re going to crash, let’s do it so we can all be done with the theatrics.”
I clutch my armrests, but grin.
Dear, God, if you can hear me, please let me grow up to be like Harper.
“Anyway, Jude graduates next year,” she says. “Music history, which is such a trust fund major, but he’s had great opportunities. You said you’re not loving Everglen—Wait, it was Everglen, right?”
I nod—that’s the name of my high school. It feels a little weird, letting her continue on this line.
“You probably just need something more robust. You’d love CalArts. Everybody there does.”
“Wait, you don’t go there?”
“No, I’m an international relations major at Pomona.”
I smirk. “Sounds like a light load.”
She sighs. “It would be if I weren’t also majoring in Asian Studies.”
The plane lists hard to the right, then pops up and left. Others are crying now, and truthfully, I can’t remember a worse descent in my long history of flying. But Harper is still chattering on with a distant look in her eye.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she muses. “I could drop it to a minor, but I like a challenge.”
“Sounds like it.”
She goes on and on, chirping about majors and internships, without a single glance at the window. It’s like she’s absolutely certain the plane will land without incident because she has things to do and places to be.
And she’s right.
We touch down with a squeak of tires and a smattering of applause. Something in my stomach unclenches so I can take a full breath. Guess I wasn’t quite as relaxed as I thought. The flight attendant crackles over the intercom while people throughout the cabin gather bags and laugh in relief. As we’re deplaning, I open my phone and check my messages. Six of them. Zari, Dad, and three from Mom.
I pull up Mom’s messages first, focusing on the last one.
Mom: Text when you land. Working, but weather has me worried.
I frown and run my thumb over the screen, imagining Mom obsessively checking the weather on her phone. Maybe I’m exaggerating. She wasn’t always like this, but after I moved… Well, after Phoebe, really. Everything was different after Phoebe.
“Boyfriend?” Harper guesses.
I shake my head. “Mom texts. The weather. You know.”
She laughs softly. “And I mom-talked all the way here with that transfer advice.”
I snort. “Trust me. You and my mother are polar opposites.”
Which is probably why I immediately liked Harper so much. Or at the least, why I want to be like her. Harper is like Aunt Phoebe with a style upgrade and a world-class travel log. My mom, by contrast, is quiet and cautious, a post-surgery nurse who’s afraid of infections and airplanes. And, for most of the last year, almost everything else.
Maybe she wouldn’t be so afraid if I’d stayed.
No. I can’t keep doing this. She wanted me to go. She wrote the check from Phoebe for half of my senior year, for Pete’s sake. And Dad jumped in to pay the rest, thrilled to have me on his side of the country a little longer. We all agreed this was best for me.
But was it best for her?
I step off the gangway into the airport and take a sharp breath. Every seat in sight is filled, phone cords strung from endless outlets, suitcases stacked in every corner. The walls are cluttered, too—lined with shopping bags and strollers and rumpled-looking travelers half-asleep or holding phones.
Something nudges my right arm. I turn to see Harper push past me, leather duffel rolling tidily beside her.
“Aren’t you going to talk to the desk?” I ask, nodding at the airline counter, where the entire population of Pennsylvania appears to be gathered.
“Spending Christmas Eve in an airport hotel? No thanks. I’m getting a car.”
I laugh a little, because I’m pretty sure she’s not old enough to get a car. And I doubt there will be cars available. Outside, I see the barest wisps of flurries. I’m going to go out on a limb and say canceling our flight isn’t necessary. Heck, delaying our flight seems over the top. Harper marches on, all steely determination and clicking patent leather pumps.
She pauses, turning back to me. “You should come. If you want. I can drop you in Pittsburgh.”
Yeah. I’m pretty sure optimism can only take you so far. I smile and shake my head. “I should probably take my chances in line. I’ve got to figure out what I’m doing.”
“Well…” Harper pauses like she might argue, and then shakes her head. “Text me about CalArts. And best of luck getting home!”
She heads down the escalator, followed by a broad-shouldered guy with dark hair and a family with three young children. Near me, several airport staff members are moving folding cots into the hallway. One of them is watching over the work, a walkie-talkie to her ear. The TVs overhead look similarly ominous, one weather forecast displaying the word Blizzurricane in shimmering type.
My heart sinks. I don’t need to talk to anyone to know what’s happening here. Weary travelers. Tangles of charging cables. Passengers sleeping under suit coats. Cots being moved into the waiting areas. I spot the Arrivals and Departures sign on a nearby wall but I don’t bother getting close. There’s no point in checking for Pittsburgh or possible alternate flights. Every flight has the same status. Canceled.
I can’t get home.
The thought is a needle of panic to the base of my throat. It’s not possible. I have to get home. She needs me. She needs me to make her laugh and get her to watch trashy TV. I can distract her from the fact that Phoebe died on Christmas. But not if I’m not home.
I start a dozen text messages that I delete just as fast. There’s no way to text her any of this. No careful framing is going to keep this news from reducing her to a nervous wreck.
Finally, I give up and call my stepfather, Daniel. Daniel, a soft-spoken, steady accountant who is the antithesis of my compact, high-energy father in every way, answers on the second ring. Because he always answers on the second ring.
“Mira,” he says after the slightest hesitation. “Merry Christmas.”
“Well, Christmas Eve,” I say. “And it’s less than merry. I need you to help me break the news to Mom that I’m stuck at the airport. Like overnight stuck.”