elderly couple across the aisle from us was quickly losing patience. “Ridiculous. We’ll never make our connection. This is the last time I make this trip.” They tossed complaints back and forth between each other until they cycled on to repeats. “Ridiculous.” They lobbed a few at John. “Can you believe this? We were supposed to land at seven. By the time they find us a gate, it’ll be eight thirty.”
“Yes, sir. I imagine the whole airport has slowed down.” John seemed very young to me, politely addressing this old guy.
The wife leaned over her husband to address me. “I tell you, this is a total disaster. It will be months before this airport is functioning right.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I meant it.
The wife laughed. “I can’t imagine how it’s your fault, dear, but thank you.” They both fell silent, content that at least they’d gotten an apology.
At JFK we raced through Terminal 5, past armed military men, and hopped into a cab to Grand Central. “Aren’t we going to check in to our hotel first?”
John smiled at me like I was cute. And seven. “They haven’t let me know where we’ll be spending the night yet. We’ll get our work done first.”
“You mean staying.”
“What?”
“You meant to say, ‘They haven’t let us know where we are staying,’ like to imply a hotel, with a minibar and a big bathtub and unlimited hot water. Right? The phrase ‘spending the night’ suggests, well, what we’ve been doing the past six nights. I smell an air mattress when I hear that.”
“I meant spending the night. But we’ll see what they say after we get the bag.”
The city was just like I’d imagined it from TV and the movies. But bigger, taller, and louder. The traffic was slow, so we got out of our cab at Park Avenue and Fiftieth Street and walked seven blocks to Grand Central Station. I got half a block before I decided that women who could walk in heels must be professionally trained athletes. I teetered along beside John, stopping to fix my heel more than a few times. But no one saw me, no one noticed. You could really do anything in New York City.
We entered Grand Central Station through Vanderbilt Avenue and took the escalator to the Main Concourse. Riding down that escalator, next to John, I drank in the magic of what was around me. The ceiling was gold-leafed with a depiction of the constellations on it. The layout of the night sky was backwards, but perfectly backwards. If everything in New York was going to be that beautiful, I didn’t care if it was all upside down.
John was looking at me. “You okay?”
“I love it.”
“Me too. Let’s go.” Dream sequence over, back to work. Everything went so easily, that I started to wonder why it was so hard to get a job at the FBI. We asked at the Information booth where we could find the Lost and Found. We went there and looked through thirty-two bags until we found the one and only diaper bag. John threw it over his shoulder, and we walked out. Like shooting fish in a barrel, right? Wrong.
What Would Scooby-Doo?
I was giddy with success and the realization that I had a future as a terror-fighting, high heel–wearing, code-breaking badass. John was noticeably less relaxed. He took my arm as we left Grand Central Station, scanning the Main Concourse like he was watching a tennis match. He led me up the main escalators and out onto Forty-third Street and Vanderbilt.
“John, they’re not after us.” I was teetering as he rushed me along. “They are probably still watching my house or the FBI parking lot. If they knew where their precious bag was, they would have grabbed it before we did or killed us already. Relax.”
A cab jumped out of the taxi line and pulled right up alongside of us. I guessed it paid to be well-dressed in the big city. We got into the cab and the driver muttered, “Where to?” “Please take us uptown to the Excelsior Hotel, Eighty-first and Central Park West.”
We drove
“Yes, sir. I imagine the whole airport has slowed down.” John seemed very young to me, politely addressing this old guy.
The wife leaned over her husband to address me. “I tell you, this is a total disaster. It will be months before this airport is functioning right.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I meant it.
The wife laughed. “I can’t imagine how it’s your fault, dear, but thank you.” They both fell silent, content that at least they’d gotten an apology.
At JFK we raced through Terminal 5, past armed military men, and hopped into a cab to Grand Central. “Aren’t we going to check in to our hotel first?”
John smiled at me like I was cute. And seven. “They haven’t let me know where we’ll be spending the night yet. We’ll get our work done first.”
“You mean staying.”
“What?”
“You meant to say, ‘They haven’t let us know where we are staying,’ like to imply a hotel, with a minibar and a big bathtub and unlimited hot water. Right? The phrase ‘spending the night’ suggests, well, what we’ve been doing the past six nights. I smell an air mattress when I hear that.”
“I meant spending the night. But we’ll see what they say after we get the bag.”
The city was just like I’d imagined it from TV and the movies. But bigger, taller, and louder. The traffic was slow, so we got out of our cab at Park Avenue and Fiftieth Street and walked seven blocks to Grand Central Station. I got half a block before I decided that women who could walk in heels must be professionally trained athletes. I teetered along beside John, stopping to fix my heel more than a few times. But no one saw me, no one noticed. You could really do anything in New York City.
We entered Grand Central Station through Vanderbilt Avenue and took the escalator to the Main Concourse. Riding down that escalator, next to John, I drank in the magic of what was around me. The ceiling was gold-leafed with a depiction of the constellations on it. The layout of the night sky was backwards, but perfectly backwards. If everything in New York was going to be that beautiful, I didn’t care if it was all upside down.
John was looking at me. “You okay?”
“I love it.”
“Me too. Let’s go.” Dream sequence over, back to work. Everything went so easily, that I started to wonder why it was so hard to get a job at the FBI. We asked at the Information booth where we could find the Lost and Found. We went there and looked through thirty-two bags until we found the one and only diaper bag. John threw it over his shoulder, and we walked out. Like shooting fish in a barrel, right? Wrong.
What Would Scooby-Doo?
I was giddy with success and the realization that I had a future as a terror-fighting, high heel–wearing, code-breaking badass. John was noticeably less relaxed. He took my arm as we left Grand Central Station, scanning the Main Concourse like he was watching a tennis match. He led me up the main escalators and out onto Forty-third Street and Vanderbilt.
“John, they’re not after us.” I was teetering as he rushed me along. “They are probably still watching my house or the FBI parking lot. If they knew where their precious bag was, they would have grabbed it before we did or killed us already. Relax.”
A cab jumped out of the taxi line and pulled right up alongside of us. I guessed it paid to be well-dressed in the big city. We got into the cab and the driver muttered, “Where to?” “Please take us uptown to the Excelsior Hotel, Eighty-first and Central Park West.”
We drove
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