Julie Clark - The Last Flight

But my stomach growls again, pushing me through the doors. Eclectic music swirls around the space, something Eastern and meditative. The smell of roasted coffee travels straight through me, and I inhale, savoring it.

“Morning,” the barista says. Her long dreadlocks are held back with a colorful scarf, and her smile is bright. “What can I get you?”

“Large drip coffee, room for cream, and a ham and cheese croissant if you have one. To go please.”

“You got it.”

As she begins making my drink, I look around. Outlets dot the walls, and I imagine the place later in the morning, crowded with students studying and professors grading. As the barista finishes up my order, my eyes are drawn toward a stack of newspapers. San Francisco Chronicle and Oakland Tribune . The headlines are hard to avoid.

“The Fate of Flight 477” reads the Tribune .

“Crash of Flight 477 Leaves No Survivors and a Lot of Heartache” reads the Chronicle . Luckily, the editors have decided to go with action shots of the wreckage and not human-interest stories that would surely put my face on the front page. I hesitate for a split second, before sliding them both on the counter along with a twenty-dollar bill.

The barista sets my drink and a bag with my croissant next to them and hands me my change. “Sad, isn’t it?”

I nod, unable to meet her eyes from under the brim of my cap, and shove the change in my pocket. Tucking the papers beneath my arm, I push out onto the dark street again.

I cross the empty road and follow a sidewalk that leads me into the center of campus. Beautiful redwoods tower over me, the sidewalk dotted with lamps still illuminated, casting pools of light beneath them. I follow a path through a thick stand of trees and emerge onto a wide expanse of grass leading down toward an enormous stone building. I settle on a bench and sip my coffee, letting it heat me from inside out. The place is deserted, though in a few hours it will probably be crowded with students, making their way across campus to morning classes or study halls. I open the bag and take a bite of my croissant, my mouth aching from the rich flavors. It’s been nearly twenty-four hours since I’ve had anything substantive to eat, and it’s been years since I’ve had anything as heavy as a ham and cheese croissant. I finish it quickly, then crumple the bag in my fist.

The birds in the trees around me begin to wake up, soft at first, but growing louder as light creeps over the hills to the east. Behind me, a street cleaner makes its way up the empty road, while overhead, a plane flies, its lights blinking. I think about the people on board, no different than the ones on Flight 477, who got on a plane thinking they’d get off at their destination, a little tired, a little wrinkled, but no different than taking the subway from point A to point B, trusting they’ll arrive where they’re supposed to.

The plane passes behind the trees, and I study the buildings that surround me and think about my own years at Vassar. My mother had been so proud of me, the first of our family to go to college. Violet had sobbed when I left, holding on to me so tight my mother had to pry her arms from around my waist.

I’d been ten when Violet was born, the product of a short and volatile relationship with a man who left town shortly after my mother told him she was pregnant. I was relieved, and I think my mother was too. She had a talent for finding unsuitable men whose only skill was their unreliability, like my own father, who disappeared when I was four. I got the better end of the deal , she’d always say. My mother never seemed to think we needed anyone but the three of us. But I always wished she had found someone to share the burden, to make us feel more like the families I read about in books and saw on TV. I knew she was lonely and often worried about money, exhausted from working two jobs and doing everything on her own.

And so I tried to make things easier for her. I was a hands-on sister from day one, feeding Violet, changing her diapers, carrying her for hours when she fussed. I watched her while our mother worked, taught her how to play Monopoly and how to tie her shoes. Leaving home was the hardest thing I ever did, but I needed to see who I might be, apart from a dutiful daughter and devoted sister. My high school years had been rough, and I was eager to reinvent myself as someone new, to build the life for myself I’d always dreamed of. I feel the weight now, the cost of wandering too far away from home. Of wanting too much.

I could have gone to college locally. Worked part-time. Spent the evenings with my mother and sister around our wobbly kitchen table, where we could have sat in the warm, yellow light, my mother doing a crossword while Violet and I played endless games of gin rummy.

Instead, I’d left, and I never went home again. Not in any real sense.

* * *

The sky is streaked with pink clouds, and the lamps on the walkway flicker off for the day. It would be easy to sit here and wallow—to rail against all that has happened to me—but I don’t have that luxury. I need to stay focused and make some decisions. What do I need?

Money, and a place to hide . One out of two isn’t bad.

I won’t be able to stay at Eva’s for very long. As soon as Eva doesn’t show up downtown next week, people are going to come looking for her, and I want to be gone by the time that happens. But for now, it’s my best option. It’s free, and it’s safe.

I stand and toss my empty coffee cup and crumpled bag into a nearby trash can, making my way back toward the edge of campus, the newspapers tucked into Eva’s purse. Behind me, bells toll the hour, and I pause, listening. The chimes seem to vibrate through me, and I think of what it would be like to live here. To walk these streets on my way to a job I don’t yet have, living the quiet life I always imagined for myself when I dreamed about leaving Rory. Of all the scenarios I imagined, the glitches I prepared for, the mistakes I knew were inevitable, I never imagined a break as clean as this. Not a single person knows what happened to me, and I have to guard this opportunity—for that’s what this is, an incredible and heartbreaking opportunity—with every ounce of cunning I’ve got.

* * *

I find a twenty-four hour pharmacy a few blocks west of campus. The bright lights assault my eyes when I enter. I angle my head down, keeping my cap pulled low, and find the hair-care aisle. So many different shades, from bright reds to jet blacks, and everything in between. I think of Eva’s blond pixie cut and choose something called Ultimate Platinum. On a lower shelf is a complete hair-cutting kit— Easy to use clippers! Color-coded combs! A step-by-step guide to the most popular hairstyles! —on sale for twenty dollars, and I grab that too.

At the front of the store, there’s only one person working the registers, a pimply undergrad who looks half-asleep at the end of his shift, with glazed eyes and earbuds shoved into his ears. I set everything down on the counter and mentally calculate how much of my meager savings this will eat up.

I hesitate before sliding Eva’s debit card out of her wallet, tracing the edges of it, wondering if I can use it as a credit card. I cast a quick glance around the empty store before I slide it into the machine. It’s not like Eva’s going to come back and accuse me of stealing from her.

I bypass the request for a PIN and select credit, my heart beating out a frantic rhythm I’m certain this kid can hear through whatever music pounds in his ears.

But then the register does something I can’t see, drawing the kid’s attention back. “Credit? I gotta see your ID,” he says.

I freeze as if I’ve been caught in a bright headlight, every vulnerable inch of me exposed. Thirty seconds. One minute. An eternity.