“Jesus Christ, Jake, you can’t be serious. It’s like two-hundred-feet away!”
His hard stare tells me otherwise.
“Fine, just wait here.”
I storm off to retrieve my luggage, which is being piled haphazardly by an attendant named Mitch.
“Hey Mitch, I was hoping you could help get my bags into the back of that truck over there.” I point to the Ford.
He holds out his hand expectantly.
“Oh, I don’t carry cash.” Any other day I’d have an assistant to handle these matters. “You could call Ted, and he can handle any fees.”
Mitch goes back to work, ignoring me as he tosses my bags into the chaotic pile.
The infamous,“Do you know who I am?”line comes to mind, not that I’d ever use it. I’ve actually never been in a situation that would warrant it. Everyone knows who I am, and with that comes the risk that Mitch will run to the tabloids with stories of me being a diva.
Mitch sets the last of my bags in a pile, then turns to me and says, “You have twenty minutes to clear these from the tarmac.”
“Twenty minutes? By myself? Are you kidding me?”
“Look, lady, we have places to be and regulations to follow. If we don’t take off within the hour, we won’t land with enough time to get the pilot into a proper crew rest.”
“But-but—look at all this stuff.”
“You have twenty minutes.”
Without any recourse, I take the largest bag of the bunch and begin rolling it toward the truck.
Jake’s head is buried in his newspaper, not at all concerned with my plight, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to grovel to him.
You can do this, Ali Kat Carter.
It takes me ten minutes to move five bags, which might sound a little like I’m being lazy, but several of my bags are large, and it’s quite a trek from the private plane to the truck. I really don’t need Mitch running to the tabloids telling people I caused the pilot to break crew rest, so there’s only one thing I can do.
“Jake,” I say through the rolled-down window, “please.”
He glances askance in my direction, his jaw shifting ever so slightly, just as he used to do when he was frustrated as a teenager.
“Look, I know we have a lot of things to work through. I don’t want to just pretend like everything’s hunky-dory, but now’s not the time to try to prove some kind of a point. I know I’ve disappointed you. You’ll have two months to rub it in my face, but I really need you right now. My stuff needs to be off the tarmac. Can you just drive the car over to it?” I point towards my luggage.
“Goddammit,” Jake grumbles, turning the key in the truck’s ignition and putting it into gear.
The vehicle groans as it comes to life in dramatic fashion, finally settling into a rickety shake. Jake rolls it forward, coasting it to a stop next to my luggage, a trail of black smoke lies in its wake.
And this is why we are experiencing climate change.
I rush back to my luggage as Jake exits the vehicle and begins throwing my things in the back.
“Hey!” I cry out. “That’s a Bottega!”
Jake holds up a bag. “A what?”
“It’s a really expensive piece of luggage. Be careful.” I look again at the bed of the truck. “On second thought, there’s no way my bags can go back there.”
Jake’s face contorts into condescending frustration. “Well, what would you have me do, princess? Cart the bags over there one by one?” He points to the shack.
It’s not until after the words leave his mouth that I realize what a bitch I’m being. Not only has Jake had to drop everything to come get me, but he has to deal with an admittedly ungodly amount of luggage. The worst of the baggage being emotional, from our unexpected reunion.
