Author: Titania
Rating: PG-13
I am watching people hurrying to the check-in, hectically searching their bags for their tickets. Women look back in concern. Have they turned off the stove before they left or will the forgotten teapot start to whistle and alert the neighbours? Have they watered the flowers and closed the windows? I don't look back. I don't have green thumbs, my flowers wither, no matter if I water them or not. I always turn off the stove and close the windows before I leave. There wouldn't be much to steal from my apartment anyway. My best friend keeps joking that, seeing how I lived, a burglar would take pity on me and bring some of his stuff instead of stealing mine, either that, or I would find new carpeting when I got back. Businessmen are shouting into their cell phones, anxious to give final instructions to their employees before they have to turn the annoying little devices off on board the plane.
I
left my cell phone on the kitchen table. On purpose. I do not want to be
disturbed.
A
man who just checked in his baggage turns around to head for the gates. He is
in his fifties, tall, but not too tall, dark-haired, with salt and pepper beard
and lively eyes. He slowly turns around and whispers: "Are you ready for
this?" Only when he smiles at me do I realize that I have been staring at
him. For a moment, I thought he was someone else. I was lost in my usual
daydreaming. Of course he never said anything to me. Another thing they have in
common. I smile back at him apologetically, he nods, a bit embarrassed and a
bit flattered because I could easily be his daughter, and leaves, holding on to
his briefcase. I feel foolish. How could I even confuse him with someone else
when I know that someone else is a 8 hour flight away?
Am I
ready for this? How could I not? I have been waiting for this
for fifteen years of my life. Of course I am ready. He is playing one of the
three ghosts in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I keep forgetting
which one, but it doesn't matter because he'll be wonderful in any of those roles.
Of course it is not just the display of dramaturgic bravura that gives him such a hold
on me.
I see myself in the twenty-second row, with a heartbeat so fast it will break my chest if I don't calm down. I am breathing the same air, I am in the same room. That alone is worth the trouble. I watch the play, I clap my hands, but I don't hear the words because I know I will be waiting at the side exit of the theatre after the performance, to see him, to talk to him. It could happen. Tonight or tomorrow night.
But I still have time. My flight has not been called yet.
So I
walk up the stairs - I do not take the elevator. I do not want to get stuck in
that elevator when I have such an important place to be. Then again, that was
just a scene from my favourite soap opera. A character got stuck in an elevator
when he was supposed to meet the love of his life for a romantic dinner on the
beach, wedding proposal included. No, I'll walk.
The stairs extend endlessly. I walk slowly, pondering my plans. This is stupid, and I know it. I have not packed a single bag, all I got is my handbag, with an overdrawn credit card and the little cash still left at the end of the month. What do I think I'd say when I finally meet him? Hi, nice to meet you, and, by the way, I love you? And what would he say if I really did say something that stupid? Would he say something likewise stupid, such as "That's nice", or "Thank you"? Truth be told, I never even thought of that. I don't know what I would say. Take one step at a time. I'm still at step one. I'm still at the airport. I checked out the details a year ago. The cheapest way to get there was the Dutch airline, which I only used once - no, twice, the first and the final time, after I missed my connection, was delayed for four hours, craving a styrofoam cup of steaming hot coffee in a country in which I had no idea about the language nor had any of its currency on me - and they broke my suitcase. I had sworn never to book any flights with that airline any more, but they were about three hundred US dollars cheaper than any other. When I found that out on the web that summer, I decided I did not care about delays, coffee or broken suitcases any more. I would travel around half the world just for this one man, and as long as the Dutch got me there, I loved the Dutch. Even though they kicked out my team at the last soccer cup.
I have reached the terrace. I pass through the heavy glass door (I have to push against it twice before I succeed) and breathe in the cool winter air. No snow yet. No white Christmas either. They say there will be snow on New Year's Eve, which is too late for me.
I am one of the few people on the terrace who are not smoking. Of course. What other reason could there be to go out to the terrace on a cold and cloudy day like this? I watch the planes.
I spot a boy, a late teenager or in his early twenties, I can't tell, in the far corner. He puts out his cigarette and notes something, his eyes fixed on a particular plane that takes off. I have seen trainspotters before, people who jot down meticulously the arrivals and departures of planes, and they do it for fun. The boy might be a planespotter.
I search the grey sky for a sign of an arrival, but there is none. The wind tousles my hair.
Are his sons the same age as the boy? For all I know, the boy could be his son. He notices me and nods at me in recognition. I have seen him here before. We both come here often, but we never talk. Today he raises his hand, waves at me, and shouts, "Hey, d'you think you're ready for this?"
Of course he does not really raise his hand or shout. I imagined that. It is the little nagging voice in my head. Do I think I am ready for this? Was I ready to fall, hard, for someone who only existed in my imagination? But he is very real, I insist. I know a lot about him. Yeah. From magazine cuttings, from the internet, from a chat in which I asked him one single question, and that one question was enough to make my hands tremble and my knees go weak because the answer had been exactly the way I had imagined. It scares me. I have never been more ready for this in my life. The plane leaves at 8.27 in the morning, has a stop at Amsterdam and will arrive 10 hours 4 minutes later. But of course it will not be 6.31 p.m. there, only for me. Time zones are weird. If I go there and never return, does that make me 10 hours 4 minutes younger or doesn't it matter because I wasted that amount of time sitting in a plane seat too narrow for all my revery? I know he'll never love me. I'm not even sure I love him, how can I? I know I probably won't get a chance to speak with him, no more than a few words, and I still think it will be worth all the trouble? I must be going crazy. Even if... the word holds such promise and bittersweet self-deception. Just going there for a minute. How would I tell my family and friends? How would I get on with my life... IF? I chuckle a bit at the thought. I'm an English teacher. How would I earn a living in a country in which every five-year old speaks the language better than I do? It's not like me to depend on someone else, not even the man of my dreams. How would I tell my parents? Hey, mom, I'm getting married, oh, and my fiancé is just a year older... than you are? That would be fun... I imagine calling my old friend from high school, who at the age of thirteen wrote passionate love letters he never sent and swore he would never love any other woman than Robin Wright. Although the love letters are old now and he has probably discarded them, in a way he's kept the promise to the present day,. He didn't say anything about another man, did he? Hi, it's me, how have you been? I need you to be at my wedding, Robin's coming, too.
In my dream all my friends and family are there. Of course, we could always elope and get to a chapel in Las Vegas. But that's probably not the best case scenario. I don't know if I've already mentioned that I watch too much TV, but in Las Vegas, I would always go search the lobby for my fiancé in a cowboy hat singing country songs to a bunch of entranced girls. So better rewind to the last scenario. "And I vow never to floss in the bedroom." We would have a house, with a picket fence, and a dog, a Golden Retriever.
I'm laughing out loud now. It feels good although people are looking at me oddly. I mutter an apology, but no one can hear me. The noise from the air field becomes unbearable now, engines are roaring nearby as the plane gets ready to take off.
The planespotter saves the details for posterity.
It is 8:28. One minute late.
I stand and watch the plane take off, rise above the clouds and out of sight. As always, I haven't bought a ticket, I have been standing there and watching the plane take off. I've made my escape from my own life for a few moments while my mother is decorating the whole house for Christmas. I've stolen a few moments for myself, a few moments that get me through the day.
One day, I'll catch that plane. I'll wait outside the theatre, in the cold and the rain, and he'll be there, all of a sudden. And it'll take a moment until I realize I'm staring at him. And he'll look at me and nod, grinning, not embarrassed, not flattered at all (well, a little, I hope), and I'll smile back at him.
And then I'll go home.