GuiTara

🎵~1

🎶I feel like a guitar that's never played ~ Aly & AJ

●Tara Afua Henrie●

Good evening passengers. This is the pre-boarding announcement for flight 89B to Kansas City. We are now inviting passengers with...

Airports.

I hated airports.

Airports took me back to 2010. The year after Papa died. The year we had to leave the States. The year my life changed for the worst.

I remembered Mama dragging a reluctant twelve-year-old me all the way to the terminal and Pam tagging along with our suitcases, mumbling about how I was being an embarrassment. I remember crying and throwing a series of tantrums. People turned to see who the bawling baby was. The pretty lady at the check-in desk shot me a pitiful look, but I didn't care. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to move to another country and be the new kid at school.

My eyes hurt, and my throat was sore. My tear tank was empty when Mama got fed up with my protests. She got down on one knee and wrapped me in a tight warm hug. "I also don't want to leave, T," she said against my head. "But we have to. There's nothing left for us here."

That was ten years ago. Now I had another reason to hate airports. It wasn't just the numerous immigration checks, the unpleasant smell of some stranger sitting next to you, or the terrifying and unfriendly airport security. Airports constantly reminded me that I, Tara Henrie, did not have a job.

Everyone had a job. The guy with the shiny gelled hair at the check-in desk, the smartly dressed air hostesses that just passed by in their clicky red heels, the bald man in the oversized black suit standing next to me impatiently waiting for his bags from the carousel. Even the thick, tall, intimidating, dark-haired woman had a job as a security guard. I felt like the most aimless person in the world... all because I let some people get so close to me, and they didn't hesitate to ruin my life.

Pulling my mind out of my sordid past, I finally spotted my guitar case and my suitcases casually gliding on the carousel. I quickly picked them up, leaving the bald man who kept glancing at his watch and furiously tapping his foot.

I manoeuvred through the crowd and out the sliding doors with my luggage. A bunch of people holding signs formed a semi-circle around the doors, waiting for their pick-ups. My eyes scanned the many faces, searching for that familiar brown one but never found it. I did a double scan before letting out a deep sigh.

Great. Pam forgot to come pick me up.

I pulled out my phone, swiftly turned off flight mode and dialled Pam's number into the keypad. It rang for a couple of minutes before going to voicemail. I let out a frustrated groan and called her three more times. The last one didn't even ring. Just went straight to voicemail.

"This is what happens when you have a workaholic for a sister," I mumbled. I knew Pam would do something like this, that was why I asked her to text me her house address yesterday so I wouldn't have to rely on her for a ride, but nooo, "I have to come pick you up, Tara. You've never been to Mexico. You could get lost," she had said through the phone.

Pamela has been living in Mexico for the past seven years. She married her college sweetheart, Fernando Martinez, a year after graduating, and now they have a five-year-old daughter named Keyana.

A couple of months ago, my sister decided to venture into the culinary industry as an entrepreneur, which wasn't surprising because Pam was a literal goddess in cooking. I wasn't a bad cook myself, but Pam's meals made anything I cooked look like something from a dumpster. Although it was a little discouraging, I realized that making sumptuous, mouth-watering meals was her gift, just as stringing words together with rhythmic backing was my gift.