The trip back home was one of the longest flights that I’d ever taken. And I’d flown overseas to Europe several times. I didn’t even bother getting back into uniform. It just felt wrong.
It took everything to say goodbye to Maggie and her husband, but I didn’t want to leave without thanking them again. I pretended everything was fine between Kurt and me, and she’d squeezed my hand and said she was so glad the happy couple had a good time.
Now, I endured a couple of strange looks from James and his co-pilot, who didn’t understand the change. But, I thought, considering all that had happened, it would almost be a mockery for me to put that uniform back on.
It did raise some questions about our travel arrangements. Was I his employee? Was I a love interest? A friend?
Whatever the case, we had certainly surpassed the line between employer and employee a long time ago. And speaking of employment, it was still yet to be seen what would be the outcome of all of this in relation to me working for Kurt. I wished that I could just end the trip the way that I’d started it: as his flight attendant.
Either way, we sat close enough to each other in the small plane where we could have said something to each other, but neither of us said a word for the entire trip.
When I got up to use the bathroom, James called me over the cockpit.
“Hey, Dana. Everything okay? I noticed that you weren’t wearing your uniform.”
“Oh yeah, it’s okay. It’s just that with everything that’s going on, Kurt…I mean…Mr. Roberts said that it would be okay if we just got home safely and sorted things out later.”
In more ways than one, I thought.
“All right,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. Let me know if I can help in any way.”
I thanked him and quickly returned to my seat. Kurt had his gaze fixed out the window and didn’t even budge when I returned.
When the plane began to make it’s decent, my heart began to beat a little bit. I felt like I was at the crossroads between two worlds. Did I want to make the leap? I didn’t really have any choice.
As soon as the plane landed, I could see my family standing in the distance. My heart leapt in my throat as I became overwhelmed by emotion to see them. It hit me right at that moment just how much I had missed them. With all that had happened in the past few days, I hadn’t really given myself the opportunity to really think about how much I had missed them.
My mother came rushing to hug me, running and squealing like a child on Christmas morning, which it almost was. She landed kisses all over my face and hugged me so tightly, like she didn’t want to let me go. Then, she broke down in full sobs, spilling wet tears all over my neck and shoulders.
It was like a dam had broken and then overflowed. I had to choke down my own tears brought on by her display of emotions. My father was happy to see me, too. He smiled so big and gave me one of the bears hugs that he had been giving me since I was a little girl.
And then, there was my son, Scott. He held back, watching his grandparents embrace me happily. He was quiet, which was not unusual for him. His arms were crossed. When I moved toward him, he looked away. I could feel the coldness emanating from him and it hurt a little. He was definitely mad at me.
I ignored it and continued toward him anyway.
“Hey love! How are you? I’m so glad to see you!”
“I’m good,” was all that I got out of him.
My heart sunk, and I immediately became riddled with guilt. Maybe I should have just found the nearest bus or train station and came back home sooner. I told myself that I would just wait it out and see when the plane would get finished, thinking that it would take a day or two and reasoned that it would be good for my first job assignment to wait it out, but the truth was, it was really more of an excuse to stay locked away in a cabin with Kurt.
I started to get angry thinking that, at the end of all of that, he had been lying to me anyway. He had probably lied about everything. Either way, I felt like I had abandoned my job as a mom to my son and, from the looks of it, he felt the same way.
“Let’s all get ice cream!” said my dad, always the one to come up with a great idea right on time.
I could see a flicker of excitement cross my son’s face. He loved ice cream. But he tried to quickly stop the smile from fully spreading so that no one would see it. I had to hide my own smile so that he wouldn’t know that I had already seen it. It gave me a glimmer of hope that maybe things would smooth over sooner rather than later. If all it took was an ice cream cone to do it, I would be forever grateful.
Once we got to the ice cream parlor and sat down to enjoy our delicious frozen treat, my mind went back to the last time that I had had ice cream. It was just a few days ago with Kurt during our wild game of truth or dare. I laughed thinking about how silly we were being, but I loved being out there without a care in the world. Wearing the ice cream was another thing altogether. I could still feel the coldness of it running down the front of my shirt.
Then, my mind went back to what happened after that, how we made our way back to the cabin where Kurt had cleaned all the sticky dessert from my body with his tongue, lapping every crevice of it greedily. The way he did it with such care made me wonder. Was it all a game to him or could it have been more?
My thoughts must have been showing all over my face because my mother spoke up in her soft voice.
“What’s on your mind, honey? You know, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something very different about you now that I hadn’t noticed before you left. What happened out there?”
My father, son, and mother all sat, eyes wide and round, waiting for my answer. It was almost as if they all had been thinking the same thing, but it was my mother who asked first.
“Uh, it was just a lot of waiting around,” I lied. “My boss found us a cabin that doubled as an inn. The couple that owned it were very nice and hospitable. We got there in the middle of a festival, so there was a lot of activity going on. We went and saw a few things going on in the town. But, mostly, we just hung around the cabin waiting to hear news about the plane.”
I knew that I had painted a slightly different picture of the events that had happened, but there was no way that I was going to tell them that I had spent the better part of a week holed up in a room with my boss, letting him have his way with me in every way imaginable.
But, my mother always on the alert, had a knowing smile on her face when she asked, “We?”
“Yeah, uh, there was my boss, two pilots, and the limo driver. Not exactly the most entertaining bunch, but we got through it…”
My voice trailed off. I could feel myself squirming in my seat as my mother’s eyes lasered in on me as I rambled.
“Did you now?” she asked slowly, nodding and stroking her chin.
I wondered if she was on to me.
I quickly changed the subject and asked Scott about his new friend. He was so excited to tell me all about his new videogame partner, Tim. They connected in class over one of those videogame magazines that Scott always had his face buried in and a friendship grew from there. He said that they had been talking about playing together for months and then Scott just invited him over. He talked about it like it was the best thing that could have ever happened to him.
It made my heart happy to see him so happy, finally. And it made me even happier to see that he was opening up to me and not acting like he was mad anymore.
Ice cream for the win.
We finished our ice cream and went home. I told them that I needed to rest because the last few days had taken a lot out of me emotionally and physically. My parents understood, of course, and kept Scott company while I stayed in bed.
I napped on and off for a while and each time I dozed off, I would see Kurt’s face in my dreams. I would always be so happy to see him. It was like nothing bad had even happened between us. But, when I woke up, reality would set in and I would remember how he had lied to me. And I would get angry all over again. I cried a few times out of sheer frustration.
Then, I started to have another thought. I know that I had been secretly dreading the moment that we would get the news that the plane had been fixed and we would have to head back home. What if he had been feeling the same way and didn’t tell me because he wanted to have more time with me? With his busy schedule, there was no telling when we would have time to spend together again, especially so intimately. He had told me as much, but I had been too upset to listen.
I felt so stupid. Here was a wealthy man who possibly may have really liked me, and I was horrible to him. I yelled at him. I gave him the silent treatment. I probably made him feel like the scum of the earth.
And as if that weren’t bad enough, I was probably about to be unemployed because of how I’d acted. I pretty much made it clear that I didn’t want to be around Kurt. So why would he continue to want me around him and pay me for being around, a reminder of a trip gone wrong?
When the realization of all that had happened set in, I started to feel sick. I had to call him. I had to get some answers and try to set everything straight if possible.
I picked up the phone and began to dial his number It was then that I realized that he had never even given me his personal number. Maybe that was another sign. The only number that I had for him was to his assistant. And I certainly didn’t want to relay any messages through her.
I hung up the phone and tossed it to the other side of the bed.
I guess all I could do was wait to see how everything would play out.
Around ten o’clock that night, the house was still.
I heard a small knock on my door.
“Who is it?” I called out.
“It’s your mother, dear. Can I come in for a minute?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She pushed the door open and came and sat at the foot of my bed.
“I know that you’re tired, but I just wanted to catch up with you.”
She paused and looked at floor. She sighed deeply before continuing.
“You know, a mother always knows when something is up with her child…”
“Yeah, I know. I saw the way that Scott acted when we first saw each other, and I knew that something was off. Did something happen while I was away?”
Waving me off, she answered, “Oh, no, you know Scott, he’s a great kid. He just needs sometime to readjust to everything. Give him a couple of days and he will be fine. I think he was just afraid that you weren’t going to come home. He mentioned it a couple of times to your father and I and, even though we tried to reassure him that you would be back soon, he was starting to lose hope with each passing day.” She paused and moved even closer to me, resting her hand on mine. “I’m just glad you’re back here safe and sound. We all are.”
“Yeah, I’m glad to be back. As nice of a place as we were in, there really is no place like home. I can’t tell you how much I missed my bed.”
I hoped that that would be the end of the conversation, but her hesitation told me that there was more that she wanted to say.
“What really happened out there, Dana? You can try to tell me that nothing happened, but I am your mother. I love you. And I know you. You look like something is weighing heavy on your mind. Tell me so that you don’t have to carry the weight alone, honey. That’s what I’m here for.”
Her love and concern truly touched my heart. I had to fight back a river of tears. I wanted so badly to tell her about everything that had happened. But there were just too many unanswered questions. Plus, I didn’t want my mother to worry. So, I lied again and told her that nothing had happened. I told her that I was really tired and needed to get some sleep and that she should try to rest, too.
“Okay, honey. I’m going to take your word for it. But, I will say this: if there is anything going on and there is a chance of you making your own heart happy, go for it. Life is too short to waste it away just because you want to do the right thing. We love you and we are always here for both you and Scott. Always remember that.”
She kissed me on the forehead and tucked my blankets up around my neck and body like she had always done when I was a kid, the same way that she did with Scott every night. I truly loved that woman.
And her words gave me hope that maybe things would turn out okay after all.