Layover

by Amy Andelson

  Then she turned to me. “Do you want to hear a dumb joke?”

  “Uh-oh. What?”

  “Why did the cow go in the spaceship?” she asked. I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “He wanted to see the mooooooon!” She smiled at me wholeheartedly.

  “That’s the dumbest joke I’ve ever heard.” I laughed despite myself. I don’t know if it was the orange light reflecting off the glass buildings, or standing next to her, but I was enamored. I always knew Flynn was pretty, but it wasn’t until that moment that I fully appreciated how beautiful she was. And once I saw it, I couldn’t un-see it. From then on, it distracted me every time I was with her. I looked at her, gazing thoughtfully up at the center of the solar system, and wondered if she was thinking about her mom.

  I know it sounds messed up, but as sad as I was for Flynn, I was also jealous. At least she could properly mourn the loss of her mom. I didn’t know how to process my ambivalent feelings about my dad. He’d disappeared, too. But even though he may have been a deadbeat, he wasn’t dead. So because I didn’t know how to think about Clay, for a long time I didn’t.

  But what I see now is that there’s no real way to sweep things under the rug. Eventually, all the dust that’s under there, and all the skeletons in the closet, come out to play. One way or another, you can’t run away from reality forever.

  It’s way too early, and Poppy, Amos, and I are piled in the back of a black town car on our way to JFK. Poppy’s perched in between Amos and me, tap-tap-tapping her fingers against her knee, the way she sometimes does when she’s nervous. I know she hates to fly, and I know I should say something to make her feel better, but I feel like crap myself—courtesy of a solid combination of drinking too much, coming home too late, and sleeping too little.

  I scroll through Instagram on my phone, and pause on a picture of Sabrina, Aisha, and me. I don’t know why I let Aisha post that stupid selfie from the cab ride home (#winterbreakbitches!—I mean, really?). I check to see who liked it, and hate that I’m legitimately pleased to see that we got 102 likes. There is something seriously wrong with me.

  I put my headphones in, and the exact song I need to hear comes on—Wilco’s “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.” I push play and close my eyes, and in one giant exhale I let the music wash over me. Of course, it was Amos who first introduced me to the album. It was a rainy Sunday last spring—gray days always make me moody for San Francisco—and I was half-heartedly attempting to distract myself from my homesickness with homework. I was sprawled out on the floor in Amos’s room, writing my history paper on “Why Some Civilizations Advance” while he sorted through his record collection. Amos is meticulous about his records—he inherited most of them from his dad, and the rest he’s acquired over the years, scavenging flea markets and record stores from Greenwich Village to Greenpoint.

  “You’ve never heard Yankee Hotel Foxtrot?” he asked me, knowing that my music library consisted mostly of Top 40 and classical. I’ve loved music my entire life. And up until recently, playing piano was my absolute favorite thing to do. But it wasn’t until Amos and I started hanging out that I realized I had been missing out on the good stuff. He introduced me to the greats.

  I quickly closed my computer and lay down on the floor as Amos carefully took the record out of its sleeve. Even though he has the album on iTunes, Amos prefers to listen to everything on vinyl. He slowly dropped the needle down, and I smiled at the sound of the record crackling. He lay down on the floor next to me.

  We listened to the whole record without saying a word. I felt hypnotized. I wasn’t stoned, but I felt like I could be. It was like the music communicated everything I was feeling.

  Amos started quietly singing along…and the thing was, it sounded like he was singing to me. I could feel his breath in my ear, and we were looking right at each other. Suddenly, he jumped up, and turned the record player off.

  “It stopped raining,” he said, looking out the window. The sun was shining for the first time that day. “Hungry?” he asked, grabbing his keys.

  We went out for Indian food, and as we walked home, the air smelled dewy and sweet. The lyrics from the album still echoed in my head—their honesty and their longing.

  The car stops suddenly, and I’m brought back to reality. We’ve arrived at JFK. I put my phone in my bag, and as I get out of the car, Amos hands me my suitcase. He barely looks at me as he takes Poppy’s hand and leads her into the airport.

  We’re somewhere over Ohio, my eyes fixed on that little airplane icon inching across the screen on the seat back in front of me. I hate flying. And I stopped getting my preflight Benadryl when the recommended one-tablespoon dose stopped knocking me out and I started asking for more. Normally, I get so anxious I just try to sleep to avoid every awful second waiting until the plane lands. But not this time. This time, I’m watching that screen, hoping that for some magical reason, or maybe just because I want it bad enough, the plane will actually start flying backward. Then we can go back to New York, and things can stay the way they’ve always been.

  I should be able to sleep right now, considering the fact that I never really fell asleep last night. Every time I closed my eyes, I had bad dreams—scared of what today would bring. My mind was spinning, trying to come up with some kind of way out, or at least around this disaster. If I could just delay it all for a few days. Or for forever.

  “Why don’t you turn that off?” Amos asks me for the fifth time. I know he’s annoyed with me, but I can’t help it. “Why don’t we play a game? Go Fish?” he suggests. I love my brother so much, but he doesn’t understand. No one does. Because they don’t know what I know.

  I turn and look out the window, even though I know I shouldn’t. My stomach jumps into my throat, and for a second I think maybe it would be better if we just went down now. Then I wouldn’t have to face what’s to come. But then Mom and Dad would have to go to Ohio to identify our bodies after the crash. Mom hates Ohio and Iowa and Indiana and Nebraska. “Flyover states,” she calls them. Places you fly over on your way to actual destinations, but would never want to go to. She got so mad when Dad wouldn’t visit Grandma on the farm in Fairfield with her this past summer. It’s something they’ve been fighting over lately. And by lately, I mean all the time.

  It’s weird how the things that my parents used to laugh about now blow up into humongo fights. Like, Dad used to joke around with Mom about how she has so many rules and opinions, like it was what made her special. And Mom used to always brag about how Dad worked so hard and was so important. But now it’s like those are the things I hear them yelling about when it’s late at night and they think I’m sleeping. I really hate it when anyone fights, but it’s especially the worst when it’s your very own parents. It feels so scary. How could two people who are supposed to love each other say such mean things?

  But I’d give anything right about now to be back home, eavesdropping on their fights. Anything so that I’m back on solid ground. I have to stop catastrophizing—that’s what Susan calls it when I tell her my fears in therapy. Mom just calls me “macabre.” Suddenly there’s a bump. I grab my brother’s wrist, digging my jagged nails into his arms. I really need to start listening to Mom when she tells me not to bite them. So when Amos asks me again to watch a movie together, I agree.

  Here we are, half an hour before we land in Los Angeles for our layover to Bora Bora, and we’re still barely talking. This flight has felt like forever. I’m stuck sitting alone, while Amos and Poppy are across the aisle, watching a movie.

  I can’t help but laugh when I think about our Christmas trip last year. We were invited to stay at the Texas ranch of one of Louisa’s top clients, Clint Holt. After two flights and a long, bumpy ride down a winding dirt road, we arrived—Louisa decked out in cowboy chic attire. The house was beautiful…that is, except for all the hunting trophies lining the walls. Everywhere you turned, there were sad deer eyes loo
king at you. Clint greeted us and introduced us to his wife, Christy, and their fifteen-year-old twins, Conner and Cody. “All Cs! Isn’t that the cutest?” Christy chirped as she clapped her hands together.

  Amos, Poppy, and I took one look at Conner and Cody with their mischievous grins and knew we were in trouble. When we went to bed that night, we found that they had short-sheeted our beds. From then on, the week was an all-out war of pranks between the Holts and the Abernathy-Barlows. At night, Poppy, Amos, and I would huddle together in my room and stay up planning how we’d get back at the Texas terrors. We’d barricade my door to ensure our safety, and all sleep together in the fort we built with every pillow and blanket we could find. That week ended up being the most fun we’ve ever had on a vacation. The way we all banded together, and how we’d laugh and laugh every night until we fell asleep.

  The flight attendant asks me to buckle my seat belt, as the captain announces that we’re preparing for our descent into the Los Angeles area. I look out my window at all the bright blue swimming pools below. I wonder which one belongs to Neel Khan. I haven’t replied to his last few texts, if for no other reason than I really didn’t know what else to say. I mean, he had a girlfriend all summer at camp who wasn’t me. A girlfriend who happened to be Meredith, my best and oldest friend since elementary school. And sure, I thought he was flirting with me sometimes, and maybe I flirted back. But nothing ever happened. Because nothing ever happens. I’m just not that kind of girl.

  Most of the junior counselors had been coming to camp since they were seven, including Meredith. Even though I’m not exactly the outdoorsy type, she convinced me that it would be fun to come back to California and spend the summer together. I hadn’t been back since Mom died, but Meredith assured me that this was destined to be the Very Best Summer of Our Lives.

  I spotted him on the first day. He was playing Ultimate Frisbee with a group of kids who looked like they were cut and pasted from a J.Crew catalog. But in the sea of sameness, Neel stood out. Not just because of his dark skin and deep brown eyes, thanks to his Indian roots, but because of his hipster style and infectious energy. I was sitting there with Meredith when I felt a thwack on my chest. It didn’t take me long to register what had happened—unfortunately, I’m all too familiar with the feeling of volleyballs and the like hitting me in the face during mandatory PE at Spence.

  The Frisbee in question was now lying at my feet, and all the players who I could already tell would be the “cool kids” of summer were standing there…watching me. Waiting for me to do something. Toss it back. Walk it over. Something. Anything. But I was paralyzed. Then I saw something kind in Neel’s eyes.

  “Sorry about that!” he called out. And in the warmth of his voice, I found the courage to reach down and throw the stupid Frisbee back. Somehow, it miraculously made it to him. “Nice pass,” he said, flashing what I thought must be a million-dollar smile. “Come on! We’re short a player!”

  “Go on.” Meredith nudged me, with a not-so-subtle wink. But I just continued to sit there, dumbstruck, my butt superglued to the ground. Neel had stalled the game, and now everyone was waiting for my response. After what felt like an eternity, Meredith hopped up and said, “All right. Then I’ll go.” And just like that, like it was happening in slow motion, I watched Meredith saunter onto the grass, with her short shorts and her blond hair swinging behind her. I couldn’t believe how much Meredith had changed since her last visit to New York. Not only because her boobs had grown almost two sizes, but because she suddenly seemed so comfortable—with boys and, like, everything. I don’t remember the rest of the game, but I do remember that Meredith and Neel made it to second base by midnight.

  Like I said, I’m just not that kind of girl. At least, I don’t think I am. But the thing is, recently, Neel and I have been texting all the time. We send each other funny memes, but we also just talk about our days. So even though last summer is long gone, I’m still replaying all the time I spent with him, feeling cursed by some lost chance. A chance that probably only existed in my imagination. Because, once again, I’m here—restless and unsettled—and I can’t keep my thoughts or my feelings straight.

  I’ve got to stop thinking about Neel. But I can’t help it. What if I had joined the game instead of Meredith? What if, for once, I had stopped being so precious and scared, and had just acted on impulse? As the wheels touch down in Los Angeles, I wonder how far Malibu is from LAX.

  I’m lingering outside the ladies’ room at LAX waiting for Flynn and Poppy. I swear, I feel like I could write the great American novel in the time I’ve spent waiting outside girls’ bathrooms in this family. But we’ve got two hours before our next flight, and this place is a shit show. In the Christmas travel chaos there is not an empty seat in sight, so I throw my bag down and get comfortable sitting against what little wall space I can claim. I look around the airport, and I realize that the last time I was here, I was fourteen years old. My dad mixed up the flight times, so I had a few hours to kill before I left to go back to the city. He didn’t bother to wait with me. Clay isn’t that kind of dad. He isn’t really much of a dad at all, which I guess is cool with me. It’s weird now to think about a time when he and my mom were married. But I guess that was a time when he was a little more together, and she was a little less uptight.

  That was when we were the Abernathys. We lived in the West Village, and things were…easier. Louisa had a job at a small gallery in Chelsea, and Clay was always not working on something or other—a song, a poem, a painting. We were living what seemed to be the ideal faux-bohemian life, thanks to Clay’s bottomless trust fund. Louisa and Clay were college sweethearts, or, rather, she studied at the University of Rhode Island while he was probably doing anything but studying at Brown. However different they were, however different the places they came from, I’d look at old pictures of them all young and artsy and think, This is love.

  But all of that changed when Louisa got the job at Christie’s. Suddenly, she cared that Clay never woke up before noon. Or that he’d started to paint a mural on their bedroom wall but never got around to finishing it. Or that he would fiddle around on his guitar until midnight. I don’t blame her for having an affair with Jack. He’s everything Clay’s not. Jack’s a self-made venture-capital gajillionaire from Silicon Valley. He’s sensible and practical. Having an affair and getting Louisa pregnant is probably the one unstrategic thing he’s ever done. But I know he felt like he was doing the most honorable thing under the circumstances by marrying her and moving to New York.

  And so up we went to the Upper East Side. Clay headed out to California shortly after. I’d visit him during my school vacations, but you know how that goes. Christmas and Easter turn into just Christmas. That turns into every other Christmas. And then you realize you haven’t seen your dad in years. The thing is, I hated going to see him anyway. At first it seemed cool—he was all hippied out, living in Venice Beach, letting me stay up super late and teaching me how to surf. But then it just got pathetic. Like how there was never any food in the fridge, or how there were always all these people just, like, hanging out at his house. He’d try to get all sentimental with me during those visits, but I’d just shrug when he asked me what my dreams were and shit. You want to know my dream, Clay? To turn out nothing like you.

  Flynn and Poppy finally emerge from the restroom, debating how we should kill time during our layover, and I’ve gotta say, I’m relieved to have the distraction.

  We don’t board our flight for Bora Bora for another two hours. Two hours! In two hours we could at least walk down Rodeo Drive, or cruise by the Hollywood sign to take a picture. In two hours we could do so many things. But instead we’re sitting here, at LAX. It’s so unfair—just out the window all of LA is waiting for me. It’s so close, but so very far.

  “We’d be back in time—I promise,” I plead with Amos.

  “No way. We’re not leaving the airport,” he say
s. And so I sigh, and get back to the Audrey Hepburn biography I’m reading. After all, I shouldn’t be too surprised. The truth is, I get “no” a lot. No, Poppy, you can’t sit with us at lunch today. No, Poppy, you can’t stay home from school and watch old movies. No. No. No.

  “Hey, look at those two,” I say, as I point to a pair of old women in matching tracksuits and ginormous sunglasses. “I bet the one on the right—” But before I can finish, Amos puts his headphones on.

  “Not now, Poppy.”

  I get up and sit next to Flynn. She’s so pretty. I want to take a photo of her, but she doesn’t look like she’s in the mood. She seems kinda mad about something. So I tickle her arm because I know that it always makes her feel better. If I were pretty like Flynn, I’d always want people to photograph me. Instead I’m chubby and awkward, with eyes too far apart and a crooked smile. Rosie tells me it’s what’s on the inside that matters, and promises me that I’ll have a growth spurt soon.

  “Wouldn’t it be fun to drive a bright red convertible up Pacific Coast Highway? We could have lunch in Malibu and pretend we’re movie stars.”

  “We’re close to Malibu?” Flynn perks up. She takes out her phone and looks like she’s about to send a text, but then changes her mind. I want to ask her who she was going to text, but I know she won’t tell me. When did we become a family with so many secrets?

  I think about the secret I know. The biggest and only secret I’ve ever known. I want to tell them, but I don’t think I’m supposed to. I look from Flynn to Amos and wonder what will happen to them—to us. And then my heart starts racing, and my thoughts are spinning around so fast it’s making me dizzy. Will I ever see them again? Will they still love me? I just can’t hold it in one minute, one second, longer.