The Baggage Handler

by David Rawlings

  “Listen here—”

  “When did the stomach trouble start?”

  David reined in the answer before it shot out of his mouth. It was six months ago. When his suspicions had driven him to sneak a peek at Sharon’s phone while she was in the shower, and he found the photo.

  “Have you never wondered why?”

  No, he hadn’t.

  “And then you’ve got the situation at work. Have you been a good boss in the past few months?”

  The cinema of David’s memory now flashed with the faces of those members of his team who left after yet another one of his explosions—the good salespeople, the ones responsible for their record-breaking year. And the ones they’d left behind were the deadwood, the serial underperformers who knew they would never get a job anywhere else.

  The Baggage Handler leaned forward into a conspiratorial crouch with David. “This is all because you refuse to forgive her.”

  David stared hard at the floor, unable to look at this man who was staring into his soul with x-ray vision.

  “What do you mean? I didn’t even know all this was in here until thirty minutes ago.”

  “Well, now you do, and now you’ve got a decision to make.”

  David stared into the open suitcase. Jerry’s polo shirt. The photo. Somehow reassembled. He pursed his lips. “And what about her?”

  The Baggage Handler smiled. “You weren’t listening. She’s responsible for her behavior. There will be a time when Sharon and I have a conversation she won’t want to have, and she will face the way she hurt you. But that doesn’t let you off the hook for dealing with your baggage now.”

  A resolve hardened in David. Sharon wouldn’t get off scot-free. Good. “I can’t tear this up or throw it in the trash. What are my choices?”

  “It’s quite simple. You can choose to keep carrying your baggage, or you can leave it with me.”

  “I can’t leave my suitcase with you; it’s got all the financial reports—”

  The Baggage Handler shook his head with a soft chuckle. “Why are you not getting this? And stop calling it a suitcase. It’s baggage. You have a simple decision to make. Leave your baggage with me or keep carrying it.”

  Leaving behind the baggage would be so simple. This guy was right, and what David was doing wasn’t working. All he had to do was reach into the suitcase . . .

  He glanced down at the polo shirt and the photo. His wife, full of the joy of the moment, smiling and carefree. Happy. And with another man.

  Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  The Baggage Handler folded his arms, and his voice took on a harder edge. “What’s the real pain here, David? You’re angry, but why?”

  David’s thoughts raced. It should be obvious, but the words wouldn’t come. He was angry because . . . He was angry because . . .

  Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  The answer revealed itself in a moment of sheer clarity. The ticking of the alarm clock slowed, slowed, until it stopped. A single thought dropped unbidden into his head. He was angry because he knew he had contributed to their problem, even in a small way. In his drive to provide for his family, he had driven her away.

  The Baggage Handler smiled. “I’m not saying you need to move on as if nothing happened. But you have taken an important first step toward making this decision.”

  The bile of injustice again rose and swept away his thoughts. “It shouldn’t be my decision. She needs to pay for this. I’m the one who stayed faithful to my marriage vows.” His voice cracked as it grew louder, and his fingers fanned out the restaurant receipts. “I might need these when I get back home.”

  The Baggage Handler’s face darkened as his cell phone rang. “If you want to let your anger loose at someone responsible for all this, there’s a mirror over there. That’s where you need to start.” He gestured to the far wall. “I’ll give you another minute, and then I’ll be back.” He stood, smoothed his overalls, and whistled that maddeningly familiar tune as he left the waiting room.

  Pressure and guilt pressed in on David from every side, pinning him to the sofa, his muscles frozen in place. Then the tune the Baggage Handler had been whistling revealed itself. For a father of a six-year-old girl obsessed with the characters from Frozen, it should have been tattooed on his brain, based on the number of times it had blared from the car stereo, a tiny girl’s voice belting the lyrics from the backseat.

  The Baggage Handler had been whistling “Let It Go.”

  David dropped his head, and the tears came again.

  24

  Gillian froze. “We’re not done yet?”

  The Baggage Handler nodded his head at the open suitcase. “We’ve dealt with how you see the rest of the world, and now we need to do something about how you see yourself.”

  Nerves slowed Gillian’s faltering speech as she reached into the suitcase for the silver mirror. “O . . . kay.”

  It was gone. A mirror was there, but it wasn’t silver. This one had a chunky, heavy, black frame.

  “What happened to the silver mirror?”

  “The mirror was never silver, Gillian. Now you’re seeing the world for what it is. You’re seeing the mirror for what it is. It was always like that.”

  Gillian wrapped shaky fingers around the thick handle, careful to keep the reflective side away from her as she turned it over. It was now wavy and distorted, like a carnival mirror. Old habits kicked in as she avoided catching her own gaze. But this fantastical mirror that was once silver—but was never silver—drew her in. She snuck a peek. Her hair was everywhere, and black bags underlined her eyes. Then it dawned on her. This was what she looked like in this mirror, but it was distorted.

  Gillian held the mirror at arm’s length. “I look no different.”

  “But now you know it’s the mirror that’s distorted.” The Baggage Handler’s eyes sparkled with compassion. “Why is it so hard for you to see yourself as you are? You don’t think that’s the real you?”

  “How many people see themselves like this?”

  “You’re gear-shifting the subject, Gillian—a move you’ve perfected over the years. But the answer is, you’d be surprised. One of the big giveaways is when someone draws attention to themselves for the sole reason of eliciting praise from others for reassurance.”

  The air filled with heavy implication, and Gillian understood what he was talking about. Or, more specifically, about whom. “Becky.”

  “That’s the thing. You’ve spent your whole life measuring yourself against your sister, and you’ve never realized that, as much as you want to be Becky, most of the time she doesn’t even want to be Becky.”

  Gillian turned the mirror over in her hands. She looked again at her reflection, the scales falling from her eyes and her mind, inch by inch, realizing the mirror she used to see herself in was damaged. “Why do we do this to ourselves?”

  “I don’t think there’s an easy answer. Maybe it’s a primal drive of competition to survive. Maybe it’s the slick marketing of the twenty-first century delivered by advertising sharks with two-hundred-dollar haircuts and Gucci loafers. But so many of you avoid seeing the real you.”

  Gillian sat back on the sofa, the question she had buried for years now scratching its way to the surface. “Who is the real me?”

  The Baggage Handler pointed to the full-length, mahogany-framed mirror on the wall. “She’s in there.”

  Gillian stiffened as a primal terror reached up from deep within and grabbed her by the throat. “I don’t want to see the real me.”

  The Baggage Handler fixed a gaze on her with clouded blue eyes, a look approaching wistfulness. “Why not?”

  The shadow of an answer flitted across her mind. It comforted and defined her, but it had also shackled her and become the answer she lived by. Her voice came in a whisper. “Because I’m not worth looking at.”

  A tear trickled its way down each of the Baggage Handler’s cheeks. “You are worth looking at. You were made for a purpose; you have your mix of
skills, talents, and personality traits for a reason. Comparison ignores what makes you, you. You shouldn’t be someone else. You’re Gillian.” His voice rose with passion as he got to his feet. “Don’t you see? That’s your problem! You see others better than they are because of how you feel about yourself! It justifies this view.” The Baggage Handler’s voice dropped to an impassioned whisper. “But it’s also not true.”

  Gillian’s reflex was to brush him off, but the Baggage Handler wouldn’t be denied as he reached out to her, trembling fingers spread wide.

  “This has always been a problem for you—and it always will be—until you make a choice to change.”

  Defiance from decades of experience crept into Gillian’s voice as she tried everything to push this conversation away. “But everyone is better than me.”

  The Baggage Handler stared off into the distance. “Who says what they present to the world is real? They’re spending their lives wondering if they measure up to what everyone else is doing. Take Becky for example—”

  Gillian huffed. “My sister is perfect. I do wish I was like her.”

  “Why?” The Baggage Handler threw out frustrated hands as he snapped his response.

  Gillian jumped. Her inner monologue streamed out of her. “Well, she’s gorgeous. She’s rich because she’s married to a guy who earns a heap of money . . .” The more she spoke, the easier the words tumbled out. “Her daughter is getting married. She has a lot of rich friends—”

  The Baggage Handler cocked his head. “All stuff she wants you to see. Have you ever asked how she’s doing behind the mask?”

  Over the phone, she and Becky had had several false starts toward genuine sharing, but the conversations always veered to the shallows. Her sister was gifted in glossing over anything real and moving on to topics in which she was fluent. Which were safe. “I’ve tried, but she moves the discussion on to what she’s bought or what she’s done.”

  The Baggage Handler stroked his chin. “And why do you think that is?”

  The answer dawned on Gillian like the first crack of light at sunrise. She drifted back to the button her sister wore at the airport, the one about being the mother of the bride. Becky acted like she wasn’t interested in attention, but she spent her life in a desperate attempt to be noticed.

  The Baggage Handler knelt in front of Gillian. “May I give you an insight into your sister that might help?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “She’s terrified anyone will see the real her.”

  “But Becky is some kind of superwoman—”

  “That’s what she wants you to think, but I’ve seen so many people who wear the cape not because it will help them fly, but so they can be identified as a hero.”

  The pieces of Becky’s life fell into place like completing a jigsaw puzzle. Her constant talk of busyness. The car that had to be newer than everyone else’s. A husband spoken of only in terms of his achievements.

  “Plus,” he said, “the cape is ideal to help them hide what they’re carrying around.”

  That first crack of light now expanded into a wide beam. In an instant her sister made sense, and for the first time in a very long time, Gillian no longer looked up to her sister with awe.

  “Anyway, enough about Becky,” the young man said. “Back to you. What would Rick do if he was married to Becky?”

  Gillian laughed. She and Rick had joked about that for years, and his answer was always the same. “He would disappear into his shed and never come out.”

  The Baggage Handler’s piercing eyes sparkled.

  “Do you love Rick?”

  Tears welled in Gillian’s eyes. “With all my heart.”

  The Baggage Handler fixed a gaze on her with clouded blue eyes, a look approaching wistfulness. “So why do you want to be like someone who would chase away the man you love with all your heart?”

  This insight illuminated the whole picture of her life, her sister, and her family. Light shone into the corners of Gillian’s life she had kept dark for years. The iron grip of her self-esteem inched apart.

  “Your family wants you to see the real you. Rick wants you to see the real you. And I want you to see the real you.” He stood and held out his hand.

  Gillian stared past him at the full-length mirror on the wall. It was a few feet away, but it would require her to travel miles over emotional quicksand covered with thorns and bracken.

  “What do you say, Gillian?”

  Her self-loathing fought one last battle to convince her that a look in the mirror was the last thing she wanted to do, but she drew a deep breath and took the Baggage Handler’s outstretched hand. It was warm.

  He smiled at first, and then his face broke into a massive grin.

  Gillian’s jelly legs wobbled as she slowly took the few steps toward the mirror. She stood in front of it, her eyes glued to the carpet.

  The Baggage Handler stood to one side, a small squeal escaping his lips. He drummed his fingertips against each other, faster and faster, like a child on Christmas morning at the top of the stairs.

  With a deep breath, Gillian forced her eyes from the carpet up to the reflection of her feet. Her shoes were different, less scuffed. Her eyes made their way up until she caught her own gaze and was staring herself full in the face.

  “Oh.”

  25

  Michael’s eyes flicked left and right. Another way? To be an artist? His mind tumbled through the possibilities before they were swallowed by a familiar heaviness that settled on him like a thick blanket. What if I’m not up to it?

  The Baggage Handler gave a soft chuckle. “Why do you think you won’t be up to it? You don’t even know what that opportunity is.”

  Michael shot a look at this strange young man with the big grin. “How can you tell what I’m thinking?”

  He tipped his cap. “Because I’m the Baggage Handler.”

  “Okay, it looks like that’s your response for everything. What is this new opportunity?”

  The Baggage Handler fixed a gaze on Michael with clouded blue eyes, a look approaching wistfulness. “Before we get to that, I think it’s important to discuss why you don’t think you’ll be up to an opportunity you know nothing about.”

  Michael frowned and chewed his bottom lip. “Well . . . I guess it’s . . .” The words jostled in his mind to find the right order, but they stayed on the starting grid.

  The Baggage Handler leaned forward to encourage a response from Michael. “Don’t try to say the right words; just say it.”

  A pressure valve in Michael, stuck for years, popped, and an honest thought jumped unfiltered from his mouth. “Because I’ve heard my whole life how I’m not any good, so it must be true.”

  The phrase bounced around the room, its echo both assaulting and teasing Michael’s ears. His spine tingled with the elation of the release of something that had been trapped within him forever, yet a numbness spread as, for the first time, he heard it out loud. The voice was free, but it was still in the same room as him.

  The Baggage Handler fixed a piercing gaze on him, and then his eyes softened. “Wow, that’s pretty harsh. But if you don’t mind, I do need to say your artwork suggests otherwise.”

  The familiar reactions rushed forward as Michael went into autopilot and batted away the praise. “It’s just art. It’s not anything that’s useful or that I can base a career on.”

  “Now you sound like your dad.”

  He was right. In Michael’s head, those reactions always sneered at him in his dad’s voice.

  “May I ask you something, Michael? What does your father know about art?”

  A light chuckle escaped Michael’s lips. “Not much.” He dropped into a near-perfect voice impression of his father. “You won’t pay the bills with your pencils, son.”

  The Baggage Handler nodded and tapped a finger to his lips. “So he’s not the best judge of your talent, is he?”

  A single crack drove up the middle of the wall he had built around his self-belief to defend agai
nst his dad’s constant rejection.

  “You say your dad works in hardware.”

  “Yep.”

  “How long has he been working in that hardware store?”

  “Too long. His words.”

  The Baggage Handler stroked his chin. “So why would you take career advice from a man who’s so unhappy with the choices he’s made?”

  With that revelation, Michael sank into the sofa, stunned. This guy was right.

  The Baggage Handler gestured at the open suitcase. “You’ve got to understand, the way you see your true self is through your dad’s eyes. But that’s because of how he saw himself. Every day he saw himself as a disappointment, and then when you came along, that was all he knew, so he transferred that to you.”

  Michael’s voice crawled out of him in a whisper. “I always thought Dad didn’t believe I was ever good enough.”

  The Baggage Handler’s voice trembled as he pointed a quivering finger at Michael, his face reddening. “You mustn’t believe that. It’s because he never felt he was good enough, but now it’s holding you back.” He breathed deep and ragged.

  The fear that usually rose within Michael in the presence of anger didn’t come. Instead, he felt something else. A comfort. A sense of protection. Someone was standing up for him.

  In an instant, the Baggage Handler’s anger seemed to melt away, replaced by a gaze from clouded blue eyes, a look approaching wistfulness. “Do you still want to keep dragging that baggage everywhere, stopping you from taking the opportunities that come your way?”

  “Well, no, but what can I do about it? Do I give this stuff to you?”

  “Sure.” The Baggage Handler gave a broad smile.

  “And I don’t need to give it to my dad at all?”

  “No, I’ll handle that, although if you’re going to deal with this once and for all, you need to accept yourself for who you are.”

  Michael’s eyes followed the Baggage Handler’s lifted finger as he pointed to the poster on the wall. You are you. Embrace it.

  “Okay, I get it.” Michael nodded down at the open suitcase. “Take it.”