The Secrets of Flight by Maggie Leffler

Author:Maggie Leffler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-03-13T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Miami

Grandma’s boyfriend Ray picked me up at the Key West airport, saying, “Change of plans, little buddy. We have to go to Miami tonight.”

“Miami,” I repeated, slipping my arm through the other shoulder strap of my backpack. I had just come through Miami. I had run an all-out sprint to reach my connecting flight, which was on this tiny little commuter plane sitting on the runway in the wind. I ran so hard to catch that flight that I overtook a beeping cart carrying an old woman with two canes and an even older man who looked like he might’ve been dead. I ran so hard that I think I passed the pilot, too, a tall blond guy, jogging out of the restroom with a little carry-on. And now we had to go all the way back? “What for?”

“There’s a problem with Margot’s bag. How was the flight?”

I told him it was fine. I didn’t tell him how the pilot warned us it was going to be a bumpy ride due to the imminence of Hurricane Claudette, and that I felt queasy the whole way from worrying my plane would crash, just to make Mom right: something bad was definitely going to happen since she hadn’t approved of the trip. Or maybe I’d made myself sick thinking about Thea, who hadn’t sent me a single text in the week since I ditched her for the physics bridge. I also didn’t tell him that Mrs. Browning had actually flown me first class from Pittsburgh to Miami, that the seats were wide leather armchairs, and that stewards had brought me warm towels like at a Japanese restaurant, and cranberry juice in a wineglass. I didn’t tell him because then he’d probably ask me who the heck Mrs. Browning was. This morning, when Mom freaked out, I’d lied and told her that Daddy had bought the tickets. It was only after I said it out loud that I realized if I had asked him, he probably would have.

Ray put a hand on my back to lead me out of the air-conditioned lobby and into the balmy dark of the parking lot, where palm trees tussled in the breeze and the soft air felt like it was actually caressing my face. A problem with Margot’s bag didn’t mean much to me, and I wondered just for a second if shopping for a new one would be involved. When it looked like Grandma wasn’t waiting in the car after all, I thought of Mom going, “What do we really know about this Ray guy?”

But Grandma was in the back of the topless Jeep after all, just curled up in a sleeping ball, looking sort of like a child. When Ray reached through the air where a window should’ve been to give her shoulder a shake, Grandma slowly sat up and stretched. “Hiya, baby cakes,” she said to me with a yawn. “Just taking a little snooze, since your plane was late. Wow—look at you, honey!” she added.

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