Listen To The Universe

Part 1: Goodbye Florida

"Al, I just want you to be happy. Are you sure this is what you want?" Christine Beechman said, leaning against the frame of her daughter's bedroom door and watching as Ali checked her packing list for the 3rd time in a row.
"This is what I want, I'm completely sure." Ali assured her mom "Don't worry about me. Gram and Gramps will take care of that. Plus, June said it would be good for me. A change of scenery, ya know?" Ali said, remembering her conversation with her therapist. June, the therapist, thought it would be a therapeutic for Ali to go back to her dad's home state. Ali wasn't so sure, but she knew better than to argue with June and she never missed a chance to see Grammy Ellen and Grandpa Paul. Normally when her dad took her to Minnesota to see her grandparents they drove up.
"Do you have enough underwear, socks, and sweaters?" Christine said, trying a new approach "Minnesota is quite cold, you have to be prepared for anything."
"Mom," Ali said with a tone that shook Christine back to reality. Her daughter was leaving today, whether she liked it or not and she was going to alone for the first time since she could remember. Christine sighed.
"Fine Al, but please be careful." Christine's expression softened, along with any hope that her daughter would stay in Florida with her.
"Of course mom." Ali said, zipping her red rolling luggage closed and standing it up "Now can we please leave for the airport, I don't want to be late!".
Later, at Fort Myers International Airport, Ali's mom struggled to find a parking spot. "My gosh, they always take all the spots!" Christine hollered at no one in particular. She banged her fist on the steering wheel and started yelling again.
"Mom, calm down, we have plenty of time."
"Okay, okay. Ooh look, I see a parking spot up ahead!" Christine said and pointed toward the empty spot about 20 feet ahead, just as the car in front of them pulled into it. "See! They always steal the spots!" Ali just laughed.
"Just, go over there," Ali said as she directed her mom to an empty parking space.
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Now inside the airport terminal, clutching her backpack and red suitcase, Ali looked around. Large windows projected light into the big space filled with lots of people. Travelers late to their flights ran through, weaving in and out of people. Dad's with young children chased them through the lines. Families exchanged goodbyes, wishing their relatives to have a good flight. "C'mon, that way Al, get moving we don't have forever," Christine said startling Ali out of her shock at the bustling airport. Ali hadn't flown in an airplane since her mom's cousin's wedding when she was 11. It had been a destination wedding in Hawaii. The bride and groom had a big fight before their wedding day and ended up canceling the wedding. The bride got married two years later to some North Dakota farmer. We didn't go to that wedding.

Ali navigated over to the check-in line. They were in line behind a family of 6 with a little boy who kept running away from the family. "Nolan!" The mother yelled, "Get back here!"

"Is this why we never traveled when I was little?" Ali asked.

"Yes Al," Christine said and laughed. Luckily because Ali was a minor, her mom could accompany her all the way through the terminal to the airport gate. When it was Ali's turn to check-in she provided her full name, Alison Beechman, and added a paper luggage tag to her suitcase. She put it on the scale and gave it to the airport employee to send to the plane.

After security, lots of goodbye hugs from her mom, a promise to call her mom when she landed, and a bag of pretzels, Ali was finally ready to go. She was excited, a little nervous but mainly excited to go live in Minnesota. Ali rubbed her sweaty hands on her jeans as the airport sound system informed her flight that they could begin boarding. Ali wasn't sure why, but airports always made her nervous. Maybe it was the thousands of people or the fact that soon she would soon be thousands of feet up in the sky. This time Ali knew it was because she was starting a new beginning, turning over a new page in the book that was her life.

Seat M-3, near the back of the plane, was where Ali would be spending this 3 and a 1/2 hour flight to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. When she got to her seat there was already a boy about her age sitting in the seat next to her. He had dark chocolate colored skin and hair and a bright purple suit. Ali wondered how she had missed him in the boarding line. He was talking with someone on a phone in a language Ali didn't know. She took her seat and slid her backpack under the seat in front of her, turned her phone on airplane mode, and took out the book she had selected for this long flight. It was another book about star-crossed lovers who fought dragons and goblins. The boy beside her shut his phone, clearly upset about something. "What's bringing you to Minnesota?" the boy asked Ali.

"Um," Ali said startled by his abrupt directness "I'm going to live with my grandparents for a while."

"Hmm" he commented "I live in Minnesota. It's quite a drag actually. I came to Florida to try and jump-start my acting career. It didn't work so now I'm going back home for the school year."

"Oh"

"So yeah that's me, Lewis Portabello, big hooray," Lewis said sarcastically "and who are you?"

"Umm, I'm Ali Be--"

"Is Ali short for something?"

"It's short for Alison."

"Alison" Lewis said rolling the name around on his tongue. "Yeah, I like Ali more."

"Uh, thanks?" Ali said and buckled her seatbelt to prepare herself for takeoff. She couldn't help but think that this boy with a purple suit, Lewis, was quite interesting. "Do you fly a lot?" she asked him.

"Only during the summer," Lewis replied as he too buckled his seatbelt. A flight attendant came down the aisle making sure everyone was buckled. "Do you fly a lot?"

"No, I don't."

"Why are you going to live with your grandparents?" Lewis asked.

"Umm," Ali hoped Lewis wouldn't catch her lie, "My grandparents need my help."

"Cool," Lewis said, straightening out the cuffs of his suit and with that, he put a neck pillow around his neck, earbuds in his ears, and a sleep mask over his eyes. Ali listened as the pilot announced that they would be taking off shortly. Ali felt a jolt as the plane started moving across the runway, accelerating so fast you could hear the cement under the plane like thunder and as it took off she experienced that weightless feeling you feel when you're in the air. She looked out the small airplane window and down at the ground that kept getting farther and farther away. I guess it's goodbye, Florida.