The Day Before Forever (24 page)

“I hope you don't mind,” she said as we sat down.

“Oh, no problem,” I said.

“I figured nursing Alex would be better than him starting a screaming fit in the middle of the terminal.”

Henley crossed his legs and started to jiggle his foot.

At first I thought he had some issue with the nursing mother, but then I saw his eyes were unfocused and aimed lazily at the floor twenty feet in front of him. He was simply bored.

“You want something to do?” I guessed.

“Well, yes. That would be nice.”

“Why don't you go walk around the terminal and look at all the stores, then?”

Henley looked as if I had said animals could talk. “They have shops in
airports
?” He was standing already.

“Yes, they do. You can even look at the magazines in the small kiosk over there.” I pointed to the compact setup across the walkway. “But stay close. We don't have
that
much time till we board. And be sure to use the restroom before we do.” I didn't know if I was talking to a child or someone more than fifty years my senior.

“Yes, ma'am.” And he was off.

The woman next to me had probably listened to the entire conversation, though she politely pretended she hadn't heard a thing. She must have thought we were a strange couple indeed.

I watched Henley first walk over to the magazine stand. He stared long and hard at the rows of bestselling books they had on the shelves. Knowing him, he's always looked at books the same way ever since he was little. Henley was the type of person to find the words in book titles to be constraining. He'd stare at the colorful covers and imagine his own worlds within the pages of the books.

He moved on to the magazines in the spinning cart and picked one up.

From where I was, I couldn't tell what he was looking at, but I hoped it was a motoring magazine. Henley would love to see how differently the cars of this time were made and run compared to the automobiles of his era. Or maybe it was a magazine like
National Geographic
, and he could see full-spread photos of national parks and landscapes he was familiar with.

Whatever the magazine was, Henley took his time flipping through it. It looked like he found an article he liked, because he spent several minutes on one page. Maybe it was a humorous article, because his lips twitched as if he was trying to keep from
laughing.

Henley was best when he thought no one was watching. He was genuine. Maybe naïve, compared to the people of this time, but so was I. Henley was real.

He put the magazine down and spent some time turning the cart. He was probably marveling at how it moved so smoothly. He even leaned down to look at the gears and wheels on the bottom. After briefly scanning the other magazines, Henley left that kiosk and moved to the one next to it.

It looked like an airport gift shop. They sold teddy bears, no doubt with some sort of London shirt, boxes of chocolate, probably with Big Ben on the lid, and of course the most obligatory tourist gift of them all: T-shirts emblazoned with the word “London” over and over. I wondered what Henley thought of them, as he stood still and gazed at the rack of T-shirts for far longer than I would have expected.

He moved on and out of sight, probably to look at more stores farther down the hall.

I sat for a while and studied the other people near me at the gate. They all seemed busy, glued to the tiny screens of their phones and tablets. It wasn't that interesting to watch.

I figured I would use the restroom while I waited.

I asked the woman next to me if she would mind saving our seats, since I was taking the backpack with me.

When I returned, she was still rocking her baby in her arms and murmuring to him.

“Thanks. Hope it wasn't too much trouble.”

“Not at all.”

I noticed they had started boarding our flight. But it was
still Groups One and Two. I looked at our tickets. We were Group Four.

Henley was walking toward the gate. No doubt he had heard the announcement that our flight was boarding.

“We're going on soon?” he asked. “Should we get in line?”

“Since it's almost our turn, why not?”

We stood toward the side so people who were in the previous groups could still get past us.

“We are now boarding Group Four,” a voice on the intercom said.

“That's us.” I pushed Henley forward.

There was a clamor as most of the people waiting at the gate got up and moved into line. There were a few people who inserted themselves farther ahead of us, so we were waiting for longer. We were all going to the same place at the same time anyway. I knew they wanted room for their bags. Thankfully, that wasn't going to be a problem for us.

We moved up farther in the line.

Henley was chewing on his lip. “This is where they check our passports?”

I pointed out the woman at the front who was scanning the passengers' boarding passes and checking passports.

Henley let out a long breath. He wasn't the only one who was nervous.

It was finally our turn. I went first.

I handed the woman my passport with my boarding pass. I could see her compare my face to my photo. She slapped the boarding pass onto the scanner machine. The light went off. It beeped.

I was all good. She handed everything back to me.

I waited to the side while Henley went next. He was trying to look casual, but I could tell he was holding his breath as the woman looked at his passport.

“Have a safe flight,” she said, handing him his passport and his boarding pass.

“T-thank you.”

Henley's eyes were wide as he joined me. I started walking down the covered ramp before he could say anything else to the attendant who had just checked us in.

“I can't believe that worked.”

“Flight attendants, please prepare for takeoff.”

I had spent the last five minutes watching Henley as he watched the flight attendants go through the safety features of the plane. Henley must have been the only passenger on the airplane who had pulled out the safety placard in front of him and had diligently followed along, just as the flight attendants had requested.

As the engine whirred to life, I looked down to see Henley's hand gripping the armrest between us. He had an aisle seat and was gripping the other armrest, which he had all to himself, on the other side as well.

When we started moving, Henley unglued his eyes from the headrest in front of him to momentarily glance out of the window.

The plane stopped, and Henley tapped me.

“Is that supposed to happen?”

“We're just getting into position,” I said. “We'll start moving
faster down the runway quite soon.”

Just as I said that, we heard the squeal of the gears getting in place. The engine was louder.

“This is it?” Henley looked at me.

I placed my hand on top of his. The plane started heading down the runway.

I hated planes. I hated taking off and landing most of all. But because I had Henley next to me, with his knuckles pale, I put on a smile as if I were an airplane pro and I knew exactly everything that was happening.

Henley calmed down once the plane got into a more horizontal position at cruising altitude.

“You don't even realize that you're flying once you're up here,” he said, craning his neck to see out of the window on the other side of me.

There was a woman on my right who had fallen asleep as soon as the plane started. She had a pink sleeping mask pulled over her eyes. I was glad she couldn't see Henley staring in her direction.

I handed Henley his sandwich so he could eat it whenever he got hungry. He put the paper bag in the pouch on the seat in front of him before falling asleep.

I took out the in-flight magazines from the pouch in front of me. The first one I looked at was a women's magazine, detailing fitness tips, healthy eating habits, and street style as seen on current celebrities. It didn't hold my attention for long, and I moved on to the other magazine.

This one was a catalog of the strangest things, all of which one could buy while in a plane. I could have a heated cat litter
box delivered to my house. I could get a wine cork carved into the shape of a friend's head. I could even get an apron that lit up in the dark.
Whose job was it to sit around and think of these things? Who cooks in the dark?

I must have spent hours poring through the contents of that magazine. I read every description and studied every picture. It was all very curious.

I fell asleep with the magazine still in my lap. I didn't know how long I was out for. When I woke I noticed that Henley's sandwich had been eaten, but he was asleep again, this time with his mouth slightly open. This hadn't been a touristy trip or a vacation, after all. I didn't blame Henley for being tired.

I ate my sandwich and got a cup of water from the cart that came around. I got another for Henley. And then I fell back asleep.

The second time I got up, Henley's cup was empty. I peeked over to my left; sure enough, he was back asleep. It was as if we were sleeping in shifts.

Not having anything else to do, I opened the backpack, which I had stored underneath the seat in front of me. There weren't many useful things that I could do while on the plane. I got out the box with the phone in it. The man at the store had already set it up for us, but maybe I could learn how to use it? Maybe it would have some special features that I didn't know about. That could be useful when we were on the ground.

“What do you think you're doing?”

It was the woman next to me. She obviously wasn't asleep anymore, and she was looking straight at me.

“Um . . . excuse me?”

Her sleeping mask was pushed up onto her forehead, and her curls stuck out from the band behind her head like little horns.

“What. Are you. Doing. With that phone?”

“Uh, I just wanted to learn how to use it,” I said.

I wished I could run, but we were stuck in our seats.

“You weren't thinking of calling anyone, were you?”

“Uh—”

“It's like you want to kill us all!” She grimaced. “You
do
realize that you can't call anyone from here because you'll cause the plane to go down?”

“Um . . . yes?” I just wanted her to stop talking. I also wanted to tell her I was well aware that there was no reception mid-Atlantic.

“You'd better not . . .” The woman pulled her eye mask down, as if she couldn't bear to look at me for another second, and turned her back to me.

How could something so small as this simple phone affect something as big as the plane we were on?
I didn't get the logic, but I put the phone away just in case.

I spent the rest of the seven-and-a-half-hour flight sleeping and flipping through the magazines again in turn.

When we landed, it was still light outside and that confused me.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the local time here in New York is 11:50 a.m. In just a few moments, the seat belt light will turn off and we will start disembarking. Until then, please remain seated with your seat belt fastened. I hope you have a great day, whether New York is just a stop or your final destination. On behalf of the entire crew of this flight, thank you for choosing
Virgin Atlantic. We hope you think of us for your next trip.”

Henley was awake. Our descent must have woken him, since that was when I felt his hand on mine again.

I turned to him. “Congratulations. You just survived your first flight.”

When the seat belt sign was turned off, everyone immediately stood—even the passengers with the window seats who couldn't possibly get off the plane right away. I made sure the backpack was in my hands as we lined up in the aisle.

“Careful, Henley.”

I pulled him out of the way of a man trying to lower his suitcase from the overhead bin.

“Let me help you with that,” Henley said, assisting the man in lowering it safely.

The line started to move, but I was impatient. It wasn't moving quickly enough.

It took ten minutes for us to get to the front of the plane.

“Thank you for flying with us!” a flight attendant said.

“You're welcome!” Henley responded.

I pulled him along toward the baggage claim. Though we didn't have bags to pick up, that was where the exit was. Everyone was heading over there, and I wanted to beat the rush to get a taxi.

“Come on.”

Henley pumped his arms to keep up with me.

The blazing New York summer heat hit us when we walked out through the doors.

“Now this was something I didn't miss,” Henley said.

“From your time, or from the last time I was here?”

“The last time you were here I didn't have a body and didn't have to feel all this.” Henley waved his arm around in the air.

The air felt heavy with humidity. I had forgotten what summer in New York felt like.

“We need to get a taxi before the other people start getting their bags and heading out here,” I said.

Just then, I saw a yellow cab heading toward us.

I stepped out to the edge of the sidewalk and put my hand up. I thought the driver saw me, but he drove past.

No matter, another taxi was coming.

When he was close, I put my hand up again. This time I waved it around a bit to ensure I got the driver's attention. But he passed me too.

What was wrong with these drivers?

I looked to Henley for help, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Rebecca!”

I looked toward the voice.

There was Henley, standing in a roped-off section of the sidewalk.

“The cabs are here. Are you coming?”

I jogged over. Henley was already near the front of the line to get a taxi.

“Excuse me,” I said, passing a handful of people who were in line after Henley. “I'm not cutting in; I'm just joining my . . . boyfriend.”