Four Thousand Miles

Untitled Part 5

2:30 FOUND NATALIE sitting in the long term parking ramp at O'Hare International Airport. Early afternoon traffic through Chicago had been light, but once there, Chicago didn't feel right. It was too much like Milwaukee, too familiar, too close. Her need for distance was overwhelming, and the car was not moving fast enough. When she spotted the exit ramp for O'Hare, her car took it as if it had a mind of its own. Not knowing exactly where she wanted to go, she followed the signs for Terminal One and located a parking space. She had not packed anything, not even a tooth brush, but she didn't care. She could buy anything she needed later.

Natalie entered the building near the United Airlines counter and looked at the flight schedule to see what was leaving soon. She realized from the flight list that she was in the international area. Fine with her. She checked her purse to make sure that it still contained her passport from this morning.

Was it only this morning? Feels like a lifetime ago . . .

Estimating it would take at least forty-five minutes to get through Security and to the gate, she scanned the schedule for planes leaving after 3:15. Shanghai, Tokyo, Beijing . . . No good. She wouldn't have the first clue how to communicate enough with anyone to get around. She decided to focus on Europe. Frankfurt, Rome, London . . . that's it. She would go to London. She already spoke the language, so it would be easy. Besides, they had castles in England. Natalie always harbored a romantic fascination with castles. Maybe she should go see one.

Natalie approached the ticket agent. "I need a round trip ticket for the 4:30 flight to London please." She attempted a smile, but it hurt too much, and she gave up.

"Let me check the availability for that flight," the woman said as she tapped away at her keyboard. "Any seat preferences?"

"I don't care. Coach is fine."

"I have an aisle seat in row 30. When would you like to return?"

"Open-ended please."

"Sure," the ticket agent said as she booked Natalie's seat. Natalie handed her Visa card and passport to the woman.

"Do you have any bags to check?" she asked.

"No, I'm good," she said, hoping that her light travel would not raise a red flag with Security. The ticket agent didn't seem to think about it at all, just handed back her stuff and a boarding pass.

"Thank you for choosing to fly United. Your flight departs from Gate C15. Security is to your left, and Concourse C is on your right after Security. Have a nice trip."

Natalie made her way over to the security line. Normally, she loved airports, especially O'Hare. She found the variety of people intriguing. Gorgeous Hindu women wearing brightly colored saris, Asian men conducting business on their cell phones, excited children taking their first flights. Today, Natalie didn't see any of that through the cloud of her despair. Her brain was all hazy and muddled. Her eyes burned, but she refused to cry. She had to control herself. If she lost it, she didn't know if she could pull herself together again. Keep going. Get distance.

The way she felt reminded her of her father's death. She had stubbornly held herself together through the arrangements, through the funeral, through the cleanup and sale of her childhood home. It took almost three weeks before she let herself go enough to weep, but once it started . . . well . . . it was a rough week. Natalie pushed those memories out of her mind and set her stoic expression again. Right now, distance was all she wanted, and the security line was moving maddeningly slow.

Natalie forced herself to concentrate on the journey ahead of her. She flew to Canada all of the time for work, and once to Jamaica for her honeymoon, but she'd never been to Europe. What did she know about London? Like almost everyone in America, she knew the basics of English history . . . Henry VIII and all of that. Since she had always been a prolific reader, she'd absorbed stuff from various books over the years, too, but mostly historical information.

She didn't know much about what London was like today. She knew they had a subway, the Tube, so getting around would be okay. Good, because she did not want to try driving a rental car on the opposite side of the road in her state of mind. Again, there were the castles. She knew Buckingham and Kensington Palaces were in London. Windsor Castle and Hampton Court were also nearby somewhere. Maybe she'd get a glimpse of the Queen.

Natalie slipped her shoes off and placed them, along with her purse, in a plastic bucket and sent it all down the conveyor belt to be x-rayed. She walked through the metal detector without a problem and retrieved her items on the other side. The map of the terminal next to the security line helped her to locate the gate. It looked a long way off, but she had plenty of time. Too much time actually. She needed to keep moving forward, not sitting and waiting.

She stopped at a news stand on her way to buy some magazines for the flight. She didn't think she'd be able to concentrate on a novel. She steered clear of the women's mags filled with articles like, 'Cougars Among Us: Older Women in Their Pursuit of Younger Men,' 'Men Who Cheat and Women Who Love Them,' and 'Pregnant At 50.'

She couldn't stomach the business periodicals either with all of their talk about the recession and corporations tightening the purse-strings. She ended up choosing a stack of travel magazines.

She walked to the gate slowly, taking stairs instead of escalators. She didn't want to get there too early and have to sit around. She'd rather wander and people watch. She peered around at the faces of the other travelers, wondering where they were headed. Maybe she'd see someone famous . . . celebrities flew all the time, right?

A loud group of middle-aged women crowded one of the gates. They had matching yellow shirts which read "3rd Annual Girlfriend Getaway." Judging by their walking shorts and floppy hats, they appeared to be heading some place tropical. Natalie ducked by them hurriedly.

She arrived at her gate just as boarding started. Her seat was located next to a heavy-set man who leered at her as she took her seat. She buckled in and leaned as far to the side as possible so as not to press up against him. It was going to be a long flight.

"Hi, I'm Duane," he said offering his hand to her. She gripped it out of politeness, but he held on a little longer than was comfortable. He breathed through his mouth. "Are you going to London or just connecting?"

The last thing Natalie wanted to do was make small talk for the next eight hours with this man. She thought it best to discourage it now. She cleared her throat a couple of times and whispered, "Laryngitis." She gestured to her neck and shrugged.

"Oh . . . I see," he responded, clearly disappointed. Her acting skills must have worked, though, because Duane turned his attention to the woman on his left.

Now, Natalie would have to remember not to talk to the flight attendants. She hoped to sleep most of the way, it would be early tomorrow morning when she arrived in London, but she never slept well on planes. Her main goal was to not think about the awful events of the morning, afraid that if she did, she'd cry, and if she cried she'd never stop, and she had to hold it together.

A dull, burning feeling pulsed in her chest. She ripped open the plastic wrapped earphones provided to everyone and unraveled the cord. Once the plane was in the air, she planned to listen to the in flight radio as loud as it could comfortably go in order to drown out the thoughts of her rapidly deteriorating life. Until then, she would need something to focus on . . . a mantra or something. Something to hold on to with her mind. She closed her eyes and began repeating, Distance, distance, distance . . .