Olivia repeatedly checked her watch to make sure the time on the clock in front of her was correct over and over. They both read ten o’clock. Although Alfie had not approached her or tried to communicate in any way, he always stayed within sight. Olivia didn’t know what to make of this, as long as he left her alone, she was happy. She didn’t need his pestering presence when she was already so miserable.
Slumped back in the terminal seats she let her head roll back and rested her feet upon her suitcase. She was so tired of flicking through her magazines and solving her little book of Sudoku puzzles, tired of checking the departure screen every five minutes. Olivia was desperate to go home.
She passed another hour away by calling up her younger sister, Molly, and listened to her rhyme off all the gifts she and her girlfriend, Nina, got for their one-year-old daughter and all the things they still had to do before they could sit back and enjoy the holidays. Olivia still envied her though. She’d rather be run off her feet at home than stuck with nothing to do at an airport in New York.
“Go buy yourself something nice from the duty free.” Molly said when Olivia voiced her thoughts aloud. “Just go crazy! Buy some perfume and jewellery.”
“And then what? I was hoping to be boarding a plane about now.”
“You were hoping to be here by now!”
“Oh, don’t remind me.”
“Listen, Olli, I have to go. Will you be all right?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Yes, I’ll be fine, Moll. Bye.”
Olivia rubbed her temples and lay back in her chair, staring at the ceiling when the speakers throughout the terminal hissed to life and the cool female voice spoke once more.
“Flights now boarding to Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Munich, Rome, Istanbul, Dublin, Edinburgh and London.”
Olivia leapt from her seat with a delighted squeal. Grabbing her belongings she bolted for the departures screen to find her gate was on the other side of the terminal. There was a frantic flurry as other irate passengers began to run for their gates. As she took off in the direction of her gate, Olivia looked over her shoulder to find Alfie hot on her heels.
There was already a rather long line of people waiting to go through the last security check when she arrived with another dozen or so people joining behind her. Her phone rang as she heaved an exhausted sigh.
“Olivia, sweetheart, any news?” asked Joseph.
“Hi, yes, they’ve just started boarding. But I think I’m going to have another wait. There’s a huge queue and,” she looked out of the large window to where she could see her airplane just being loaded with luggage, “they’ve only just started tossing the cases into the hold.”
“At least you’re on the move now. And it’s safe to fly now, yes?”
“Yes. There’s almost no snow falling anymore.”
“Good.”
“Where are you?”
“Reading.”
“What? I thought you’d be home by now.”
“The train broke down for a couple hours and it only started running again a little while ago.”
“So, neither of us are having much luck.”
Joseph laughed, “It would seem as such.”
“See you in a few hours?” Olivia sighed.
