An Eight Hour Flight

You set your bag down at your gate for your flight back to New York. This is it: you finally got here. You didn’t think this week would ever end.

“Alright then,” Thomas says, his hands buried in his pockets as he stands awkwardly next to his girlfriend, Suzie, behind you. “I guess this is goodbye.”

“I guess so,” you reply, turning around to see two of your best friends there to bid you farewell. Thomas and Suzie came through security so they could go with you to your gate.

“Amy, I’m really sorry about everything,” Suzie tells you, resting an apologetic hand on your arm.

“This is the end of it: that’s all that matters,” you cut off anything more she can say, shaking your head. You don’t want to get emotional while you’re saying goodbye. “I’ll see you two back on Long Island?”

“We’ll come by as soon as we get back,” Thomas promises you and smiled. “We’ll bring Mocha over to see Bagel.” You can’t wait to get back home and see Bagel, your pet Yorkshire Terrier. 

“Don’t worry about Jack. We’ll think of a way to get him back,” Suzie promises.

“Alright,” you sigh, deciding to wrap up the goodbyes quickly before your eyes start to water. “Thank you two for bringing me: I’ll text you when I land.”

“Have a good flight,” Thomas tells you, putting an arm around Suzie to lead her away. You sit down in your seat and resist looking back at them as they walk away. You think about what Suzie said.

This has been a horrific week for you in France. It was your first time in a foreign country, and no, you do not speak French. You came with several of your good friends and Jack because two of your close friends, Matthew and Sabine, were getting married in Paris.

Jack is your ex-fiancé. The day after the wedding, you found out that Jack was cheating on you. When you confronted him about it, he dumped you so that he could date the girl he was cheating on you with. After that, the trip was miserable. You were stuck in a foreign country where everybody spoke a language you did not speak, and your fiancé just dumped you for the girl he was cheating on you with.

You cried the whole night in Suzie’s hotel suite since you hadn’t been able to share your suite with Jack any more. You should have seen the signs before, but you hadn’t paid attention. It seemed to make so much more sense now. There had been little things like when he’d never let you look at his phone, but he’d always said you were acting like a psycho girlfriend when you asked him about it.

The rest of the trip you’d felt like a terrible buzzkill to your friends, and it was almost a relief now that you were leaving a week before the rest of them. You were heading back to Long Island a week early so that you could get ready for your new job as a dog sitter.

At least your friends had been on your side after the whole cheating-breakup fiasco with Jack. They’d immediately stopped hanging out with him (to your knowledge) and stopped inviting him to dinner or lunch with them. The only time he’d showed up afterwards before he left on Wednesday was because one girl named Alyssa had invited him because she’d claimed you were just being dramatic and ‘a victim.’ The others had promptly stopped hanging out with her and her boyfriend Beau after that, and you’d felt even worse. You didn’t want to be tearing gaps between your friends. Hopefully now that you were going back to Long Island, they could have a good time.

Suzie seems to be out for blood far more than you are. Yes, Jack did you wrong and he’d cheated on you and dumped you, but you are too tired to deal with him any more. You don’t feel like giving him any more of your attention and finding a way to get back at him just feels like a waste of time. He’d made his choice, and you have to trust that you’re better off without him in your life.

But as you’re sitting there at your gate, waiting for the flight to arrive, you start to feel tears slipping out of your eyes. You wipe them away from your cheeks. No: you’ve already cried over him. You refuse to think of him any more.

If only it were so easy.

A lady says something to you in French, making you look up. A little old lady sitting across from you is watching you expectantly, holding a paper bag. She rattles something past you in French again.

“I’m sorry,” you saw, wiping your eyes. “I don’t speak French.”

“Ah, English,” she says in a heavy accent. “You are crying. Do you want fudge?”

You look at the paper bag she’s offering you and see inside there are a few pieces of fudge inside.

“I don’t want to take your fudge-” you start to say.

“No, no! My children bought me this fudge: I hate it. I don’t like fudge. You are crying, you should have it. Candy is the best thing to eat when crying over a man,” the old woman insists, handing you the paper bag.

“How did you know it was about a man?” you ask, accepting the candy.

“You were rubbing your ring finger where your ring should be,” the old lady tells you with a wave. “What happened? Did he ask for it back? Did you throw it at him?”

“He cheated on me,” you reply. “And then he broke up with me. He was my fiancé.” The woman huffs a psh sound, scowling to the side and shaking her head.

“Men are fools. All of them,” she tells you, an unimpressed look on her face.

“You have children don’t you?” you ask her, taking a bite of the fudge and starting to feel better as you are distracted from your thoughts about Jack. “Are you not married?”

“No, my dear husband has passed,” she sighs as she gets a misty look in her eyes.

“Surely he was not a fool to marry a lady like you.”

“No! He was entirely a fool,” she replies with a wave of her hand. “But he was my fool you see.” You sigh, regarding the fudge skeptically and questioning why are you continuing with this bizarre conversation.

“You said he cheated on you and then left you?” the old lady asks.

“Yes.”

“Why did you not leave him?” the old woman demands, looking peeved.

“I- I don’t know,” you reply uncertainly as you think back to the crying mess you were that night and the argument you shared with Jack. “I suppose I didn’t really have a chance. I confronted him about it and then he broke up with me and asked for his ring back.” The old woman strings together a series of rather impolite sounding words in French, making a few people look towards the two of you in alarm.

“You should have broken up with him the moment you found out,” the old lady tells you, stomping her foot for emphasis. “How are you planning to put him in his place?”

“I don’t think I will try to get back at him,” you reply with a sigh. “I am tired of dealing with him.”

“He will do the same thing to the girl after you,” the old woman warns you. “It’s best you teach him a lesson.”

“If there’s any kind of justice in this world hopefully he ends up with a woman just as shallow as he is,” you say, looking out the window of the airport at the plane that will carry you across the Atlantic soon.

“You are too kind,” the old lady huffs, leaning back in her chair. “You need more hate in you.”

“I’m going to assume you’re joking,” you reply with amusement. The lady gives a cavalier wave as she rolls her eyes.

“Perhaps I’m only an old woman looking to stir up trouble,” she admits. “You can never know though. This world is more just than it appears to be. Maybe fate will bless you with an opportunity to avenge yourself.”

“Maybe you are right,” you tell the old woman in an attempt to calm her down. She mutters something in French again, looking over your shoulder.

“Here comes my son to fuss over me. Goodbye dear,” she tells you and climbs to her feet and hobbles off with her bags. You look over her shoulder to see her approaching a young man who appears to be a captain of a plane.

You think about what the old woman has said as you sit there waiting for your plane. This is the second person telling you to try to get back at Jack. Is something wrong if everybody else seems more mad at your ex-fiancé than you? It’s not that you aren’t mad at him: you are mad and disappointed and lonely. But you just don’t feel like putting in the effort to try and get even. Your whole relationship with Jack he called you a crazy girlfriend, and you don’t want that be true now that he’s broken up with you.

You board your plane, which turns out to be a massive plane with two seats on the left row and right row and a massive row of three seats going down the center of the plane. You seat is an aisle seat on the left side of the plane. You sit down and prepare for the eight hour flight back to New York, hoping that nobody has the seat next to you so that you can lay down if you’d like later: you’ll be getting back at night.

To your disappointment, a rather nervous looking woman appears in the aisle and says,

“I’m so sorry, but is it alright if I have the aisle seat? It’s my first time flying.”

“Sure,” you say grudgingly and internally start berating yourself for why in God’s name you’re giving up your aisle seat.

“Thank you,” the young woman murmurs and starts getting her things ready for the flight. You look out the window as you put in your earbuds, thinking about the eight hour flight you have to look forward to while sitting next to this lady who is wearing far too much make up and has not only stolen your empty seat but legitimately your seat.

You shush the angry, complainy goblin voice in your head as you notice how stressed the woman appears to be. But you think nothing of it, eager to watch the plane take off, and you look out the window as the massive plane starts to roll away from the airport. You love to watch the world as the plane picks up speed to get off the runway.

As the plane start to role down the track to get in line for the runway, you look to your right and see the woman staring at the fold up table in front of her with her mouth pursed, a panicked look on her face.

“Did you say this was your first time flying?” you ask, pulling out one of your earbuds. 

“Yes,” the woman replies, her panic remaining.

“You don’t sound French?” you ask, then quickly wonder if maybe you should have said that.

“I’m originally from England,” she says, which explains her accent. “My family took a boat to France.”

“Hm,” you say thoughtfully. “And now you’re flying across the Atlantic?”

“My boyfriend,” she says, her panic still sincere. “He wants me to visit him in the U.S..”

“That’s not very kind of him: to ask you to fly to America by yourself for the first time,” you note. “This is an eight hour flight.”

“Eight hours,” she murmurs miserably, closing her eyes.

“Perhaps you can watch TV,” you suggest to her. “Sometimes after take off they play a movie on those small TVs.”

“I don’t know about that,” she says. “I get motion sick in cars. Is this anything like that?” You’re pretty sure it’s the same but you don’t know: you’ve never been carsick before.

Maybe it’s just a head game, you tell yourself. If she doesn’t think it is the same then maybe she won’t get motion sick.

“I don’t think so,” you say but add, “but I’ve never been carsick.”

“I don’t suppose they let you listen to music do they?” she asks.

“I mean, they’ll let you but you have to be in airplane mode. So if it requires data or an internet connection, probably not. But you could pay for their internet,” you tell the woman. She seems to have calmed down some since you’ve started talking to her.

“You only have to get past the take off,” you tell her. “And then you’re fine and then there’s the landing and then you’re done.”

“There’s a whole ocean we have to get across somewhere in between there, isn’t there?” she asks doubtfully.

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” you ask her as they start to approach the runway.

“Are you from the United States?” she asks instead.

“I am,” you reply. “I live in New York on Long Island.”

“My boyfriend lives there, as well,” she tells you. “I’ve never been to the U.S.. Would you tell me about it?”

“Of course,” you reply, and you go on to tell her about America and the culture there and the food. You tell her about New York City since you live there and her boyfriend also lives there. You tell her about the best places to go for food there since you also live in the same part of the city as her boyfriend.

As the flight goes on and after you’re off the ground, you learn that the woman’s name is Kate and you two introduce yourselves. You discover that Kate likes dogs just like you do, so you tell her about Bagel and how you’re going to have a job soon as a dog sitter. The topic comes around of your former fiancé and you tell her about how Jack cheated on you while you were in France for a friend’s wedding and how he broke up with you, without mentioning his name of course. Kate tells her a bit about her boyfriend in New York and how amazing he is. You try not to get irritated since it kind of feels like she’s flexing on you with her boyfriend.

“I hope I find a man like him one day,” you tell her instead after you’re in the air.

“Thank you so much for talking to me,” Kate tells you gratefully. “I was so scared to get on this plane.”

“No problem,” you tell her. “So have you ever gone anywhere else for like a vacation?”

“Well, one time my boyfriend took me to Spain,” Kate tells you. “You really should go sometime if you’re willing to get on a plane to cross the Atlantic again. The buildings there are beautiful. Let me find you a picture.”

“I have always wanted to go to Spain,” you agree. “I learned some Spanish in high school and college but I never really took it seriously.”

Kate shows you a couple pictures of some beautiful buildings and architecture in Spain. But you notice something in the pictures.

“That’s your boyfriend?” you ask, seeing one picture of Kate and her boyfriend in front of a cathedral.

“Yes, isn’t he handsome?” Kate asks with a smile.

“Yeah sure,” you say kind of absentmindedly as you lean back in your seat. You don’t really listen as Kate babbles on about how after that her boyfriend took her to some beautiful garden to eat dinner.

Kate’s perfect boyfriend? He’s your ex-fiance. You try to remember something, anything about the girl he cheated on you with. 

“Hey, out of curiosity: when’s the last time you saw your boyfriend?” you ask her.

“Oh I saw him just last week. He said he wouldn’t be able to see me much though because he was with some friends and he was flying back to New York that Wednesday,” Kate tells you. “He’s a very busy man.”

“Yeah sure.”

Wednesday.

This world is more just than it appears to be. Sometimes life grants small mercies, but just sometimes.

You peer out the window into the sky ahead of the plane.

“Oh my,” you say in a bit of a fretful voice.

“What is it?” Kate asks, sounding anxious already.

“It looks as if there’s a storm ahead.”