Airports, Exes, and Other Things I'm Over

by Shani Petroff

  “I like that option best,” I said. “Although too bad it didn’t do anything. This line is still at a crawl.”

  “Maybe one of those phone stations would be faster,” he said. There was one not too far from us. They were basically a cluster of phones that dialed straight to an airline rep. Ideally one that could help right away. But there was also a chance the person would leave you on hold for an eternity. At least here, you got to see how far off you were and look the agent in the eye.

  “I’m going to stick it out here,” I said.

  “How about this?” Fitz offered. “I’ll try the phone, you wait and see what happens here, and then we compare notes.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. I looked around the terminal. I saw Zev standing in a line similar to mine. He was about six people from the front—not any better than me. I accidentally caught his eye but looked away as he waved.

  The minutes dragged on. Fitz was still by the phones. He had it to his ear, but he wasn’t speaking. He was probably listening to hold music. Half an hour later, I finally made it to the agent.

  “What about the twelve o’clock flight?” I asked.

  “Booked and leaving soon.”

  “The three p.m.?”

  “Also booked,” he said.

  “How about standby?” I pleaded.

  “There’s too many in front of you; you won’t make it.”

  I was so frustrated. Flights before and after me were still taking off, but mine was canceled. There was no pilot. The one flying to Florida and then back to New York didn’t make it in due to the weather. I took a deep breath. “Isn’t there anything I can do?”

  “You can keep the flight to Michigan, and hope it leaves for New York before the storm gets worse, or we can put you on something for tomorrow.”

  I didn’t know what to do. Neither seemed workable. The chances that the tomorrow morning flights would make it out of here were slim. I’d just be stuck repeating this day over and over again, trying to get a flight home. “What about another airline? Can you work something out with them? Please.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do.”

  Nothing.

  I wasn’t going to make it back. I was going to be sitting here in terminal 2 for the rest of the weekend and someone else was going to get their chance at stardom because I missed my shot.

  I was so over the airport.

  EIGHTEEN

  Snap out of it, Sari. Not getting home was not an option. It just wasn’t.

  I marched over to one of the phone stations and dropped my guitar and backpack. I didn’t see Fitz anywhere. But I didn’t need him; this was on me. I was going to find my own way home. The in-person agent was no help, so I needed to get through to the one on the phone. They wouldn’t have dozens of people breathing down their neck. They could focus on me, and that’s what I needed.

  “Is it okay if I put you on hold for a minute and see if I can come up with anything?” the agent asked after I pleaded my case.

  “Sure, that would be great, Deena. Thank you.” I had heard using someone’s name made them more inclined to help you, and I’d take any advantage I could get. But I wasn’t going to let her be my last hope to get home. I needed a backup plan.

  I took out my cell and called Trina for help. She knew how important this performance was to me. “I will drive down there and get you myself, if I have to,” she said.

  I knew she meant it, but even if I had been willing to take her up on the offer (which I wasn’t), there wouldn’t be enough time. It was easily a forty-eight-hour-drive here and back. For the first time, I regretted not having a license of my own. Trina had been right on that one. I could have rented a car and been on my way home already. Twenty-four hours of straight driving would have gotten me there with a few hours to spare.

  “Can you check the other airlines for me?” I asked her. Just because my carrier was booked up, it didn’t mean all the others were, too. Trina pulled out her laptop and got to work searching for flights. I didn’t care what it cost. This was crisis time. If there was ever a time for me to use my emergency credit card, it was now. I’d pay my parents back. Even if I had to give guitar lessons to every kid in my neighborhood for the rest of my life to do it.

  I had a phone to each ear. I looked ridiculous, but it didn’t matter. Not if it got me home.

  “Anything?” I asked Trina.

  “Not yet,” she said.

  “How’s it looking?”

  There was a long pause.

  “That good, huh?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m still trying.”

  “I know. I appreciate it. Thank you.” My phone started to beep. I looked at the caller ID. Crap. “Trina, it’s my mom. I’m sorry, I have to take it. Text me if you see anything?”

  She promised, and I switched over to my mother.

  “I just saw your flight was canceled,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m trying to figure something out now.” I told her about the airline wanting to send me to Detroit.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want you stuck there. It’s already started raining here, and it’s supposed to get a lot worse. Why don’t you book a flight for Sunday? That way the storm will have passed, and you won’t have to go through this again. Your gram will come pick you up.”

  “I can’t. You know I have the show.”

  “Sari, they’ll understand. The weather isn’t your fault.”

  My fists tightened around both phones. I loved my mom, and she was generally pretty supportive, but she just didn’t get how important this gig was to me. There were no guarantees I’d get another chance. They were giving me a break, and excuses weren’t going to cut it. “It doesn’t work like that, Mom.”

  “Do you want me to call them?”

  “What? NO!” That would be a great way to be taken seriously—having my mommy call.

  “I can say I’m your manager.”

  If my hands hadn’t been filled with phones, I would have pulled my hair out. “Mom, I got this. Don’t worry.”

  “Sari—”

  “Miss Silver—”

  Both people on both phones started talking to me at once.

  “Mom, hang on,” I said. “I have the airline on. Deena, go ahead.”

  “I’m not seeing anything that goes into JFK tonight,” Deena said.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “What about LaGuardia or Newark? I’ll really take anything.”

  “Unfortunately, there’s nothing there, either. I even checked our partner airlines,” she said.

  “Can you check one more time? Please. I really need to get back. Put me in an overhead bin, baggage, anything. I don’t care as long as it gets me back.”

  “There’s nothing going back to the New York area.”

  “Just one more look, please?”

  She agreed, but she didn’t sound optimistic. She probably wasn’t even checking, just waiting a few minutes to come back and say there’s still nothing.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I said it mostly to myself, but my mom answered.

  “You’ll go back to your gram’s and we’ll sort this out later.”

  I didn’t answer, just half grumbled–half hissed.

  Fitz walked over just then. “Any luck?” he mouthed.

  “No. Still trying, but I doubt it. You?”

  “Sari,” my mom said. “Who are you talking to? Is that Zev?”

  She adored my ex-boyfriend. “No, it’s someone else. Hang on,” I pulled the phone away from my ear.

  “Sorry,” I told Fitz. “Did you wind up with a flight?”

  “Sort of. Going to Boston. I have a friend who’s driving back to NYU from there. He said he’d pick me up at Logan and take me with him.”

  “Lucky. I think I’m going to be stuck here.”

  “Maybe not. I asked my friend about you. If you can get on the three p.m. Boston flight, he said he’d give you a ride, too.”

&
nbsp; “Are you serious?!”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  I totally wanted to hug him.

  “Sari, Sari, who is that?” My mom’s voice was so loud, that it was crystal clear even though the phone was near my side. “What is going on? You are not taking a ride with a stranger, do you hear me?”

  I did, but I didn’t have any other choice.

  I covered the mouthpiece with my hand and smiled at Fitz. “I’d love a ride.”

  My mom would understand. Eventually.

  NINETEEN

  The agent got back on the line and gave me the expected news that there was no room on flights to New York.

  “Actually,” I said, “how about Boston. I hear there’s a three p.m. flight there.”

  She put me on hold again, and I cautiously lifted the other phone, the one with my mother freaking out on it, back to my ear.

  “Sari, Sari, are you listening to me? Where are you? Answer me this second!” she yelled.

  “I’m here, I’m here.”

  “Please tell me you are not serious about driving with two strange men from Boston to New York, in a storm no less,” she said.

  “They’re not strange.” At least Fitz wasn’t. I really didn’t know anything about his friend.

  “No,” she said. “Conversation over. The answer is no.”

  “Well…” She was going to kill me, but I had to say it. “It’s not really your call. I’m eighteen.”

  “Sari Eliza,” she said, pulling out the middle name. “You still live under my roof. You will be grounded through summer. Forget performances. You will not be leaving the apartment for anything but school. You are not doing this.”

  “Mom,” I said, “Please. This is so important to me. Fitz is a good guy.”

  “Yeah, just what do you know about him?”

  I smiled at Fitz. This conversation would be easier if he wasn’t stranding right there. “His grandpa lives in the same retirement community as Gram. He studies at NYU; he’s a junior; he’s nice, helpful.”

  “Sari, are you trying to give me and your father a heart attack?”

  I hated when she said things like that. “I’ll be fine. I’ll give you all of Fitz’s information. You can even talk to him if you want.” I really hoped she didn’t take me up on that part.

  “The answer is still no, you are not going. I do not want to hear about my daughter on the ten o’clock news.”

  “You won’t. I promise.”

  “I said no.”

  As if I didn’t have enough aggravation, Zev was walking toward me.

  “Mom, it’s no different than me getting in a cab,” I told her.

  But she didn’t agree. “You are not traveling alone with two men I don’t know.”

  Then I had an idea. A bad idea.

  “What if I wasn’t?” I asked her.

  “Wasn’t what?” she asked.

  “Alone.”

  “Sari, what are you talking about now?”

  I couldn’t believe I was going to say this, but as I watched my ex-boyfriend come closer, I knew it was my only shot. “What if Zev came with me?”

  TWENTY

  I put my mom on Mute, which she wasn’t thrilled about, as the agent reappeared on the phone.

  “Good news,” she said. “There are seats left on the Boston flight. The storm doesn’t hit there ’til a little later, so it’s not as busy yet.”

  “Did you say seats—plural?” I asked.

  “Yep.”

  “That’s perfect. I may need two.”

  The lady put me on hold again, and I turned my attention toward Zev.

  “You found a flight?” he asked, resting his arms on the little wall of the phone bank and leaning forward.

  “Maybe. I might go to Boston and get a ride back to the city with Fitz.”

  Zev straightened back up. “Oh.”

  I twisted the cord from the airport phone around my arm. “Anyway…” Just spit it out, Sari. It’s the only way to get what you want. “If there’s room in the car, do you want to come?”

  “We can make room,” Fitz interjected.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Sure, no problem,” he said.

  Only, I wasn’t so sure about that. Zev looked pretty skeptical. I had to convince him to come, and not with an audience. I didn’t want to scare Fitz off from riding with the two of us. “Fitz, can you give us a few minutes?”

  He nodded and went to grab a seat nearby, and I turned my attention back to Zev. “So will you come?”

  He picked at his nail. “I don’t get it. You want to travel with me? Why?”

  “I’m being nice, okay? Do you want to come or not?”

  He eyed me, trying to figure out what I was hiding. “You wouldn’t talk to me all week, told me to get away from you all day, and now you want me on your flight and to go on a road trip with you and the guy you’re who-knows-what with? What’s going on?”

  I didn’t have time to play coy. The agent would be back on the phone any second, and I couldn’t afford losing these seats. “My mom will only let me go if you come, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get back to the city.”

  “Even ride with me.”

  “Yes,” I conceded.

  “And will you be ignoring me the whole time?”

  Probably, but I was afraid if I told him that, he’d say no. My pause was answer enough.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. Then he took his own long dramatic pause. “But … I’ll go anyway.”

  “You will?”

  He shrugged. “You need to get to your show. I’m not going to be the reason you miss it.”

  No bribery, no bargains, no anything. Just a yes.

  “Thank you,” I said, quietly.

  He nodded.

  “One more thing,” I said, tapping the Mute button on my phone and taking my mother off Hold. “My mother wants to talk to you.”

  I finally got back on with the agent and booked the flight to Boston—for me and Zev—while simultaneously trying to listen to what my ex was saying to my mother.

  I caught snippets. There was “I’ll be there, Mrs. Silver.” “Yeah, right?” “Me too.” “It’s a big deal.” “I’m working on it.” “That’s why we love her.” And a bunch of laughter. I swear my mother could be the president of the We Love Zev Geller Fan Club. That might have been part of why I hadn’t told her the reason he and I broke up. It was too hard to talk about, and she liked him so much, that seeing or hearing her disappointment would just make it that much worse. Now she thinks I’m the one to blame. That he and I had a silly fight, and that I refused to hear him out about it.

  “Here,” he said, handing back my phone. “Your battery is dying.”

  I had a little power left, but I was going to need to charge it very soon. “Thanks.”

  We swapped places. I took my mom, and he got on with the agent to confirm he wanted the Boston trip.

  “I’m still not thrilled with this, Sari,” my mother said. “I want frequent check-ins.”

  “Okay, I promise. Don’t worry, it’s all going to work out.”

  And for a brief moment, I actually thought that was true.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I’d been at the airport so long, it felt like they should have named it after me. Sari Silver International had a nice ring to it … sort of.

  I was getting cabin fever. I needed some alone time. Especially since it was my last chance for a while. I was going to be stuck on the flight and then in a car with Zev and Fitz. I wasn’t in the mood to make any more small talk than I had to.

  I told both guys I was going to get lunch and go over my music. They seemed to understand that I needed space, which I was thankful for. I knew I should put my shoes back on. This was disgusting. I was going to wind up on someone’s GroupIt feed as an airport horror story. I would have bought some flip-flops, but the terminal wasn’t that big—there weren’t any to buy. I had to either suffer or be gross.

  I really want
ed to go with gross, but I decided to momentarily suffer as I headed to the food court. My stomach was growling. The only things I had put in it today were a sip of a smoothie and another of a Frappuccino, and I was starting to feel it. It was definitely time to eat; I didn’t need to add hangry to my list of frustrations.

  Unfortunately, my food options, if you could call them that, were not exactly enviable. A lot of airport terminals had a ton of decent places to eat. This was not one of them. There were only three vendors (if you didn’t count Starbucks and the concession stand). A pizza place, a smoothie shop, and a deli/burger restaurant. None of them looked appetizing.

  I went with the pizza. How badly could they mess that up? The answer was incredibly badly. I took one bite and flung it back on the paper plate. At least I was sitting alone. I’d managed to snag a little table by the checkout when a couple got up, right as I finished paying. It was a good time to call Trina back.

  “Wait, let me let me get this straight,” she said after I told her what went down, “you are going on a road trip with your ex, a hot NYU guy, and his possibly equally hot friend? Please, please, please live post as it happens. I’d pay to see this.”

  “I know, right? I could start my own reality show. The Silver Sagas.”

  “You could even play a few songs for the viewing public. Get your music out there.”

  That reminded me that I was so unprepared for tomorrow night. “I didn’t get to rehearse at all today.”

  “You’ll kill it anyway.”

  I picked at the pizza. “I’d feel better if I could just run through my set a few times.” I thought about doing it here, at the airport, but there were so many people feeling cooped up, someone was bound to say something, and I couldn’t take another fight. I was too drained.

  “You’ll have time tomorrow,” she assured me.

  “You’re right.” In the meantime, I’d keep running it in my head. “Zev thinks I should end with ‘Living, Loving, You.’”

  “It is one of your best.…”

  It really was. My phone beeped. Ugh. Not now. “Trina, my phone is about to die. I’m sorry to keep doing this to you, but I’ll call you back later, okay?”