Ask the Passengers

“Yeah,” I say. “Tell her not to be embarrassed.”

“But you really should just come out, you know? Beats lying. And sneaking around. I’m not sure I can do that anymore.”

Oh. She’s not sure she can do that anymore. Last week she was fine with it. I reach into my pocket and retrieve my list, and I add things to it.

ME: Pre-sharpened pencils, halibut fillets, highlighter markers.

ME: Stop blocking people out, Astrid.

ME: Used tissues, superhero figurines, jewelry.

ME: Come on. It’s Dee. You have to let your guard down somewhere, right?

Awkward silence for what feels like twenty whole seconds while I talk to myself inside my head.

ME: Why are you doing this to yourself?

ME: It’s protection.

ME: It’s only going to make you lonely.

ME: And I’m not lonely already?

“Astrid?” Dee asks. “We still good?”

“As far as I know,” I say.

YOU CAN IRON THE CURTAINS STRAIGHT.

MOM IS STILL IRONING when I get downstairs at 6:40 AM on Thursday. I can’t tell if she’s been here all night or if she got up early. I hear Ellis get into the shower and Dad flush the downstairs toilet soon after. This makes Ellis screech and Dad stand outside the main bathroom door and yell, “I’m sorry!”

As I pour a bowl of corn flakes, I count how many times someone in this house apologized to me for flushing while I was in the shower. That would be zero times.

Dad arrives and walks straight for the coffeemaker and makes a cup of very light, very sweet coffee and sits down at the table across from me. Mom continues to iron.

“Any answers today for us, Strid?”

“Huh?”

“About our conversation last night. We just want answers.”

“I thought I gave you answers,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. Then he leans over the table and whispers, so his coffee/morning breath bowls me over. “Can’t you just make something up?” He moves his eyes to the sides of their sockets to draw my attention to my ironing mother.

Poor guy. It must suck to get to thirty thousand feet and realize that your pilot is a control freak nutjob.

When I look at her, I see our house as a mini cave, and her fire as a mini fire that casts mini shadows for us mini shackled prisoners. We are a cave within a cave within a cave. Our little house on Main Street (with the immaculately pressed curtains) is part of the Unity Valley cave, which has its Unity Valley fire that casts Unity Valley shadows. And Unity Valley is just a cave inside the big American cave that is a huge fire that casts the biggest shadows of all.

“Strid?” Dad whispers again.

“Stop calling me that,” I say. Then I get up and rinse out my bowl and put it into the dishwasher.

When I get to my room and get dressed, I decide that I’m going to skip school for the first time ever.

I walk up the road toward school and then I double back to my car, which has been sitting in the same space since Sunday’s trip to the diner. I hop in, start her up and drive to the lake because who’d go to the lake on a cold day like this?

I park in the empty lot and lock my doors. I put my seat back and try to fall asleep, but I can’t get past the warning signals in my brain about some ex-convict finding me here and drowning me in the lake after doing unspeakable things. So I sit up and roll down my window.

ME: Maybe you can call that Kim girl from the party that night and go hang out there today.

ME: You’re a moron.

ME: No, really. She seemed into you. And you don’t have anywhere else to go, right?

I pull out my phone and scroll through the numbers until I get to Kim’s number, which I put into my phone under the name Pizza in case anyone found it. I look up into the clear sky over the lake, and I start to cry a little.

ME: That’s good. Get it off your chest.

ME: (sobs)

ME: You’ll figure it all out, I promise.

ME: What’s there to figure out? My best friend lied about me, and my girlfriend doesn’t like me anymore.

ME: Dude, Dee loves you.

ME: Dee has conditions. Kristina has conditions. Mom has conditions.

ME: Everyone has conditions if you look at it that way.

ME: No. Frank Socrates doesn’t have conditions, because he’s dead. He loves me unconditionally.

ME: Stop being difficult.

I get out of the car and go over to one of the five wooden tables in the grassy picnic area. Inferior-quality tables compared to mine and Dad’s. The wood is rotting in spots, not to mention covered in graffiti and gnawed away on the corners by forest animals. The surface needs a good sanding, and I don’t move much because I don’t feel like getting splinters in my ass. I think today is already sucky enough without splinters in my ass.

This sending-love-to-the-passengers thing is getting old, somehow. I mean, I still have to do it the minute I see a plane—it’s a reflex, like covering my mouth when I cough—but I don’t want to send my love away forever. I want it to be safe here. I want my life to be easier than this. I mean, I know I’m not some starving kid who has to wash clothes in the Ganges for a nickel, but today just sucks. My guts are all twisted up over Kristina and her stupid lie, and Dee and her pressuring me, and Mom and our lack of meaningful conversations.

The sky is amazing at lakeside. It’s huge. And it’s quiet here. There’s no traffic. No bikers because it’s ten o’clock on a school day. All I hear are birds.

When I see the first plane, I make a deal with its passengers. I say: Look, this is a loan. I don’t know if love is something I will run out of one day. I don’t know if I should be giving it all to you guys or not. Today, I feel like maybe I should have kept some for myself for days when no one else loves me. Not even my best friend.

My eyes well up with tears again, and I feel stupid and dramatic.

ME: You’re not being dramatic. This hurts.

And then I send the love up. It’s as easy as it always is, and it’s hard, too, because I really don’t know the answer to this mystery. Is love something that will always be available? Will it always be confined and untrustworthy like it feels today? Is there enough to go around? Am I wasting mine on strangers?

PASSENGER #980

JAMEY WIEDNER, SEAT 27E

FLIGHT #504

PHILADELPHIA TO CHICAGO

The problem with my job is that I fall in love too quickly. Men come to me for companionship. They pay me to be the good-looking young guy on their arm. They pay me for other stuff, too.

They don’t fall in love like I do, though. They have parents and siblings and people who love them already. Some of them have partners. Wives and kids. It’s not my business to know, but they tell me anyway. Some guys have a lot of love, and it’s still not enough.

o;Yeah,” I say. “Tell her not to be embarrassed.”