She calls us up one at a time, and I pay close attention to the names of the students I’ll be spending this next week with. I wonder if I’ll make friends. Most of my friends are teammates. I’m not sure if I can consider Eddy a friend. We’re roommates. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, I suppose.
There’s Sarabeth, Anna, Mercy. Then Corwin, Samuel, and I. Xile, Jerome, Philomena, and Wendy. We tag our checked bags and then get in the line to drop them off while I mentally chant their names to remember them.
On our way to security, Wendy falls in line beside me. She doesn’t look at me more than to offer a smile. We don’t speak or anything. Still, I like that she’s beside me.
Security takes a while. What they say about the long lines really is true. It takes a hot minute for our group to get through before trekking through the terminal until we reach our gate, and Byndley faces us.
“Okay. You’re free to do whatever for the next hour. Be back here at eight. Boarding begins at eight-twenty. No need to eat dinner unless you’re starving. There will be a full complimentary meal on board.”
This is one of the busiest airports I’ve been to. I usually fly closer to the RDU campus, Redding Regional. It’s small and kind of expensive since it’s so small, but it’s close and RDU provides shuttle services during usual breaks and ends/beginnings of term. That means I don’t have to navigate trying to make an eight-hour trip from LAX up to Glensdale.
“You can load your bags here,” Katai says. “Keep your backpacks on you, but one of us will be here to watch over them.”
I add my bag to the pile and, for a minute, I stare out the window at the planes. Our gate is empty, but there’s an enormous one parked at the gate beside ours. It looks almost as if there are two floors of seating. That must be one of those luxury planes that basically have apartment rooms in them, like I’ve seen on ShareIt.
As I turn to wander back toward the shops and restaurants, Jerome falls into step beside me. “Hey. Brevan, right?”
I nod.
“Cool. I’m Jerome.”
“Hi,” I greet in return.
“Where you headed?”
I shake my head. “Nowhere. Just want to keep on my feet while we’re here since we’ll be sitting for a while. Thought I’d check out the shops.”
“Cool. Mind some company?”
“Sure.”
“I’m so excited about this trip,” he says. “I’ve never been out of the country.”
“I’ve been to Canada a few times, but I’ve never been off the continent.”
“I haven’t even been to Canada,” he says, laughing. “Silly, right? I live in freaking Montana, right there, and I’ve never been across the border.”
“It’s not as convenient as it could be. Needing to pay a hundred dollars for a passport just to drive across a bridge seems… dumb.”
“Money grab,” Jerome says.
“Passports might as well be trackers,” Wendy says as she comes up alongside Jerome. “They know which country we’re in at all times.”
“But most countries are pretty big,” I say.
“So, I have a Global Entry card. It’s this card that allows me to skip the really long lines at customs when entering some countries. But then the card arrived, and it came in this little sleeve that states, ‘Keep card in sleeve when not in use, to protect the card’s sensitive electronics and youridentity.’” She gives us a pointed look. “Sensitive electronics.”
“To be fair, credit cards hold sensitive electronics. That’s what the chip in them is,” Jerome says, though he doesn’t look entirely convinced it’s the same thing.
Wendy shrugs. “Whatever. It’s not like I’m doing anything that needs to be watched. It’s just… sus, you know? Like we’re cattle that need to be chipped.”
“American freedom,” Jerome says, a bemused smile on his face.
I don’t add anything to this conversation because… I’m not sure what to say about it. This isn’t an area I know anything about. So I walk along quietly and listen to them.
“We were just saying that we haven’t really been out of the country. Brevan has been to Canada. But you have this special card. That means you travel often?”
“Mm,” Wendy says, shrugging. “I have family in Wales, so I travel to visit them over the summer. Less so now that I’m on the West Coast, but my family lives just outside of Boston, so getting to Wales was pretty easy and relatively cheap, too. Since I stayed here for a summer course that isn’t offered during the school year last summer, I missed my yearly holiday in Wales.”
