Untitled Novel Beginnings

At the Airport

It was 3 p.m. on Thursday night; Andréa pulled the tickets out of the top drawer of her desk and looked for the departure time. The plane leaves at 7:20 p.m. She had to pack her suitcase being she is leaving that night. She went to the closet in the guest bedroom adjacent to the bedroom at the end of the hall. She rummaged around for a minute, pulling things out, finally spotted her suitcase and hauled it out along with a smaller bag for toiletries.

Went back to her bedroom put the suitcase on the bed and put the small bag in the bathroom. Opened a dresser drawer, began to pull out socks and throw them into the open suitcase, next her underwear, then she went to the closet and commenced the search for the appropriate attire for the trip. She pulled out a pair of pastel pink jeans and a striped sweater in pastel yellow and pink colors to match. Folded them neatly and put them in the suitcase. She did this until the suitcase was full with a week’s worth of clothes; then repeated this with a garment bag putting in the few business-type suits she had just bought.

Andréa had to be at the airport an hour early, so Vincent, a friend, who stayed over the night before, drove her to the airport. When they got there Vinny, as she liked to call him, pulled up to the curb and got a sky cap to help with the luggage. Vincent pulled her luggage out of the trunk of his black Pontiac Grand Prix and set it on the curb being she had more than the single item allowed as carry-on. The skycap tagged the luggage at the curb, loaded it onto a hand truck along with some other luggage waiting for transport to the check-in desk.

She left the sky cap to his chores and went inside to the check-in desk. There was a line of about ten people long, all traveling for business, she assumed from their attire. So she took a place at the end of the line and looked around to see what the hold up was about. She saw only one ticketing agent servicing this airport rush hour and she was jest standing around twiddling her thumbs. She began to get impatient as the line grew with no movement evident and still only the one ticketing agent.

The ticketing agent, a woman, put a passenger’s luggage on the conveyor directly behind her, from there it went to baggage sorting and they direct it to the correct gate and flight, then the terminal crew loads it into the cargo hold under the plane. Andréa wondered if she would see her bags when she arrived in New York, but thought nothing further on the matter. Andréa began to fume and wonder why she isn’t at least checking the bags in.

The phone rings, the woman picked it up and said, “Hello…………..”

She suddenly started to talk in hushed tones and turned her back to the growing number of patrons waiting to be checked in. Andréa could hear enough of the conversation, at least this woman’s comments, to know something was amiss. When the woman turned around her face looked drawn, haggard, tired, and not the least bit worried and made an announcement………………..

“Hi folks, I am sorry for the delay, please be patient. Security has been called away to attend to other matters. Someone is coming to assist us here. We will have you underway again soon. Thank you for your patience.”

7 o’clock pm comes……………… and goes as fast as it came, and still no security or replacement. As Andréa’s temper starts to boil, she stepped out of line, to the side, and into an alternate personality. Anya was only one alternate personality that often surfaced when Andréa was thrown in the midst of a particularly stressful situation. It was Anya who spoke up, saying what Andréa could not and expressing what she felt. She spoke loudly……………..

“What is the problem?”

“Excuse me?” the ticketing agent replies, politely.

“What is the problem? I have to catch the 7:20 flight to New York.”

“Please be patient a few more minutes?”

Andréa’s complaint was interrupted by the phone ringing again. The woman answered it, and spoke in muffled tones for what seemed like forever but was actually only a minute or so.

“Folks, we will have you underway here in a few minutes.”

Dripping with sarcasm, Anya blurts out. “Yeah………….Where we have heard that before?!”

The ticketing agent ignored the sarcastic comment and went on about her duties, seeming to ignore the growing line and flaring tempers of the annoyed patrons.

At that moment they all looked to the left, toward the concourse causeway where about ten uniforms had appeared and a few men in suits stood. The onlookers assumed it was the police and airport security. They walked in escort to a handcuffed man, presumably someone who committed a crime in the airport. Then things started moving fast. Before she knew it, Anya had checked in and Andréa was on her way to gate 46 on concourse C.

Andréa looked at her watch. Her eyes bugged, she had only five minutes to get to the gate and board. She ran all the way. By the time she got there she was out of breath and couldn’t talk because of a dry throat, but luckily the gate attendant knew she belonged on the flight and held the plane an extra minute so she need not worry about missing it.

“How did she know I was coming, but was late?” She wondered. “The ticketing agent called her when I left. Had to be.”

The gate attendant that took her ticket checked her into the computer there and handed her a boarding pass. “She looks like a baby.” She barely had time to take a breath and she was off again, running down the gateway ramp at full speed. The sound of her footsteps echoed through the extended boarding ramp…………………….

“It sounds like a herd of elephants in here.” She thought.

The tumult of reverberating commotion hurt her ears. Deafened her. She slowed down to a fast walk. With bells ringing in her ears and deaf to the flight attendant’s queries, she rounded the last corner of gateway ramp and was within sight of the plane. With the world seen through temporary deafness, unable to hear anything but the elephant stampede, Andréa yelled after the flight attendant who was closing the plane’s door…………….

“Wait! Wait!” she yelled as she began to run again.

The flight attendant, a woman about thirty years young, poked her head out of the half open hatch and seeing this tardy woman running and yelling, opened the hatch for her, holding the plane at the gate. Boarding pass presented Andréa took her seat in coach and immediately buckled herself in for the trip.