Dinner is burnt, but I don’t think my mom actually realizes it. Despite the charred chicken and lumpy potatoes, all of the elements seem to click. No one really mentions Ryan. We make fun of Rachel. We ask about Bill. Charlie seems happy to be there. No one acknowledges how terrible the cooking is. To be honest, I don’t think any of us really care.
Mom made too much food. Or maybe we just couldn’t stand to eat very much of it. Either way, there are plenty of leftovers. By the time we have taken in all the dishes and put all the extras into Tupperware containers, it is time to head out.
“Well, who wants to take the chicken? Charlie? Will you eat it on the plane?”
“You want me to bring half a roasted bird carcass on a plane?”
Mom frowns at him and hands the chicken to Rachel. “You’ll eat it, right?”
“Sure,” she says. “Thanks, Mom.” Then she looks at Charlie and shakes her head. My mom pawns the green beans and carrots off on me and then thrusts the container of sweet potatoes at Charlie.
“You can take the potatoes, at least,” my mom says, but Charlie isn’t having it. He won’t relent. That’s part of what I’ve never understood about him, or what he’s never understood about life. Sometimes you should just take the potatoes and say thank you and then throw them in the trash when Mom’s not looking.
We say our good-byes and then head out on the road. Rachel has agreed to drive, because I’m still hungover from last night. I feel as if it will be days until I’m OK to operate heavy machinery. Charlie grabs the front seat, so I sit in the back.
I hate driving to the airport. LAX is a nightmare, but it’s more than that. The route is such an unattractive view of Los Angeles. You don’t see beaches and sunsets. You don’t see palm trees and bright lights. You see strip malls and strip clubs. You see parking garages and 7-Elevens. To ride to the airport is to see Los Angeles the way its enemies do: bleak, cultureless, boring, and fake.
So I don’t bother looking out the window and instead close my eyes and listen as Charlie and Rachel debate whether to take the freeway or La Cienega Boulevard. Rachel wins because she’s driving and because she’s right. The freeway will be clear at this time of night.
When we get to the terminal, Rachel turns left into the parking garage.
“Why are you parking the car? Just drop me off,” Charlie says. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but our family doesn’t really drop people off. We pay the money to park the car. We walk across the lanes of traffic. We see you off at the security checkpoint. I’m not sure why.
“Stop, Charlie,” Rachel says. “We’re walking you in.”
Charlie rolls his eyes and starts to bitch about it and then stops himself. “OK,” he says. “All right.” So maybe he has learned to take the potatoes sometimes.
We park and walk out. Truth be told, we don’t have much to talk about. But when Charlie checks in and walks to the gate, when it’s time to say good-bye, I’m suddenly sad to see my little brother go. He’s ornery, and he’s kind of a jerk. He doesn’t say the things you should say to people. He spikes punch with Everclear. But he’s a good guy, with a kind heart. And he’s my little brother.
“I’m going to miss you,” I say to him as I hug him.
“Me, too,” he says. “And I’m proud of you, or whatever. You know, for what it’s worth.”
I don’t press him on it, the way I want to. I don’t sit him down and say, What makes you say that? What do you really think of what I’m doing? Do you think I can fix this? Do you think Ryan will come back to me? Is my life over? I just say, “Thanks.”
Rachel hugs him, too, and then he takes off, up the escalator and back home to Chicago, where people have seasons and cold air. I’ve never understood it. People come from all over the country to experience our sunny winters and mild summers. Charlie got out as soon as he could, looking for snow and rain.
As Rachel and I are walking back to the car, we get lost and end up on the floor below at Arrivals. It occurs to me that Arrivals is a much nicer place to be than Departures. Departures is good-bye. Arrivals is hello.
I happen to look toward the revolving doors. I see dads coming home to their families. I see men and women in business suits finding their drivers. I see a young woman, probably a college student, run toward the young man waiting for her. I see her wrap her arms around him. I see him kiss her on the lips. I see, on their faces, that feeling I once knew so well. I see relief. I see joy. I see that look people get when the thing they have been dreaming of is finally in front of them, able to be touched with the tips of their fingers and the length of their arms. I think I stare for a second too long, because she turns to look at me. I smile shyly and look away. I think of when it was me, when I was the one waiting at Arrivals for that one person I ached for. Now I’m the lady looking.
For a moment, I think that if I saw him right now, if Ryan were here, I’d have the same look on my face as this couple has. I want him in my arms that badly. But how long would it last? How long before he said something that pissed me off?
When Rachel and I finally get headed in the right direction, we walk out onto the street level and wade our way through people hailing cabs and hopping into their friends’ cars. We are standing at the crosswalk, waiting to cross the street, when I see two people waiting for a shuttle. As quickly as I would recognize my own face in the mirror, I know what I am looking at. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I am looking at the back of Ryan’s head.
It doesn’t even register as weird at first; my brain simply processes it as a normal, everyday occurrence. Oh, here is that person who’s always around. Here he is. Except this time, he is holding the hand of a slim, tall brunette. And now he’s bending down to kiss her.
My heart drops. My jaw drops. Rachel starts crossing the street, but I just stand there, frozen. Rachel turns around to see me there, and her eyes catch mine. She follows my gaze, and she sees it, too. Ryan. Ryan at Arrivals. Ryan. At Arrivals. Kissing a woman. My heart starts beating so fast that I almost feel I can hear it. Is it possible to hear blood pulsing through you? Does it sound like a quiet, violent gong?
Rachel grabs my hand and doesn’t say anything. She is determined to get me out of this situation. She wants me to cross the street. She wants me to get into the car. But we have missed the walk signal, and we can’t just run through this steady stream of cars, as much as, right now, that feels like the only thing to do.
It’s good that she’s holding me. I fear that I lack the self-control not to go over there and knock him down. I want to pummel him to the ground and ask him why he would do this. Ask him how he looks at himself in the mirror. I swear to God, it’s as if I can physically feel the pain. It’s a physical pain. And it’s searing through me. And then the light turns, and the white walk sign is on, and I put one foot in front of the other, and I move forward, and I think of nothing but how much this hurts and which foot goes where. When we get to the other side of the street, when the walk sign turns into a red hand, I turn around and look at him. We are now separated by a sea of speeding cars.
When my eyes find him again, when they fixate on the front of his face, I can plainly see that I was wrong. It’s not him. It’s not Ryan.
I can spot Ryan in a crowd. I can recognize his scent from another room. Just a few months ago, we were separated at the grocery store, and I found him by recognizing his sneeze from a few aisles away. But at this airport, this time, I got it wrong. It’s not Ryan. All of that fear and jealousy and hurt and pain so sharp I thought it could cut me—it wasn’t real. It was entirely imaginary. It’s stunning, really, what I can do to myself with only a misunderstanding.
“It wasn’t him,” I say to Rachel.
She slows down and looks. “Wait, are you serious?” she says, squinting. “Oh, my God, you’re right.”
“It wasn’t him,” I say, stunned. My pulse slows, my heart relaxes. And yet I am still overstimulated and jumpy. I slow down my breathing.
Rachel puts her hand on her chest. “Oh, thank God,” she says. “I did not want to have to talk you down from that.”
We get into the car. I put on my seat belt. I roll down the window. It’s OK, I tell myself. It didn’t happen.
But it will someday.
He’s going to kiss someone else, if he hasn’t already. He’s going to touch her. He’s going to want her in a way that he no longer wants me. He’s going to tell her things he never told me. He’s going to lie there next to her, feeling satisfied and happy. She’s going to remind him of how good it can feel to be with a woman. And while all of this is happening, he’s not going to be thinking about me at all. And there’s not a thing I can do to stop it.