The woman replaces the emergency landing card back inside the pocket of the seat in front of her and rests her head back to stare out the window at the tarmac, taking a moment to pause before looking back at me. “First, tell me why your hands were shaking when you arrived at the gate?” she asks.
I think back for a minute, trying to remember why my hands would have been shaking. I don’t think I realized they were, but if so, it was likely because I thought I would miss my flight. Well, I suppose the call from Pops sent me through a loop too. Or maybe, too much caffeine. That must have been it.
“I had a rough night,” I say, fibbing a bit. It was a bad night after Pops’ call, but I don’t want to tell her I was shaking from coffee when she’s obviously distraught about something.
“Going home or visiting?” she continues with the questions.
“Going home,” I respond. “You?”
My response seems to make her think about the answer as if she hadn’t already decided. “As of twenty minutes ago, I’m going home.”
Twenty minutes? What could have happened in the last twenty minutes to be so influential in changing a permanent destination? Now, I want to know.
“What’s your name?” It’s a proper time to ask, far less creepy than it would have been if I asked five minutes ago. I think.
“Let’s not …” she says, taking her headphones out of her bag.
I should have figured. I just need to know if you’re Melody Quinn, but I’m going to sit here and keep wondering for the rest of the flight, and possibly after the flight too. Unless, maybe she recognizes me and would rather not start up the awkward catch-up conversation. I can’t imagine what a conversation like that would sound like after sharing a kiss, then never speaking again.
Hey, so … remember me? Yeah, we kissed like ten years ago. Before that, we kind of grew up together, but not really. Then, I disappeared for ten years, and wow, here we are. Weird. Nope.
“Fair enough,” I say to her. “You know … you look like someone I once knew.” Someday, I will gain the ability to think before I speak. I had this minor issue under control while enlisted, but after falling back into civilian life, I have apparently lost my filter again.
The look on her face screams the word, “creep,” and I think I’ve said the last of all words on this flight.
“It’s the red hair. You know one redhead, and you think you know us all,” she responds.
Is that true? I can’t remember being friends with another redhead, but if I had been, I don’t think I would confuse Melody and that person unless they were twins. Like her sister. They used to look like twins, but when Journey got older, she started coloring her hair. After her changed appearance, they didn’t look so similar. With that thought, I guess she could be Journey with her natural hair color. However, I think Journey would recognize me, and would have called me out by now.
The other possibility is that I’m just losing my mind. Although, the action of losing something would mean the process is already in motion, but some days I’m sure that I lost my mind on the battlefield in the middle of Afghanistan.
After a few more unfiltered comments that got me nowhere, the woman falls asleep in her seat, giving me the opportunity to take a few more glances in her direction. Her left hand falls from her phone and lands on her lap. No ring. I’m almost positive I heard Melody was engaged or married. Another check mark in the “Not-Melody-Quinn” column. Then, I notice a cluster of freckles on her knuckle. They’re in the shape of a heart. Weird.
“You’re into romance novels?” she asks, making it known she’s awake and admiring the book in my hand, but she can’t see the cover with the way I’m holding it up. I had the book out, so it didn’t look like I was staring at her the entire time she was asleep, like I actually was.
While hoping I don’t sound lame; reading a book about a particular process of distilling bourbon, I respond with, “All of them. You should see my collection at home. It’s embarrassing.”
She doesn’t believe me, thankfully. “I bet,” she says with a modest smile inching toward one cheek.
We’re about to land, which means there are only a few minutes left to figure out if this woman is Melody. If I don’t, I might forever wonder.
As she’s repacking her carryon bag with a few belongings, I take a minute and search around my coat pocket for a piece of paper. Lucky enough, I not only locate a receipt for some random coffee shop I went to yesterday, but I find a pen too. We’ll go with fate on this one. I scribble down my phone number and leave off the crucial identifier, being my name.
I can only assume if she is, in fact, Melody Quinn, she recognizes me too. If so, maybe she’ll call me.
The plane cruises around the tarmac for a long ten minutes before parking in front of a terminal. “It was nice to meet you,” she says, tossing her bag over her shoulder.
“Likewise. Hey, totally random, but I want to do the old-fashioned thing and give you my number. You are welcome to toss it in the trash if you think I’m crazy, but on the slim chance you don’t think I’m nuts—”
If a woman approached me with her phone number after exchanging less than ten minutes worth of conversation, would I blink in slow motion, smile, grin awkwardly, or turn around and walk away from what might be a crazy person?
I’m calling it a win when she takes the paper from my hand and offers what I can consider another hint of a smile.
That’s it. I tried. I failed. Well, I guess I didn’t fail, fail—because I didn’t really try, but the look on her face says: see ya.
By the time I reach the baggage claim, I come to the full-blown conclusion that I’m delusional and shouldn’t have given the girl my phone number based on the fact that she looks like Melody Quinn. Yet, I’ll be damned … because a few yards away, I spot Melody’s mother and sister, Journey, who are waiting by the front sliding doors of the parking garage exit.
It’s true. I was sitting next to Melody Quinn for the last four hours—the girl who ruined all other women for me; the one I compare every other woman to, and the one who made me crazy enough to buy forty different brands of shampoo until I found the one that smelled like her hair on the night of our one and only kiss.
