Page 15 of Journey to Cheshire Bay
“Well… I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure you’ll need to call and cancel. We’re not getting there by morning. Not even if we took a bus.” He grimaced with the last word.
Damn it though, he was right. It was foolish to have been so self-centered. Of course, Amber would need to notify her pilot friend as there was no way I was going to be there waiting in a couple of hours. I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to let her know that at this point in time I had no idea what I was doing, but I was sitting in Calgary trying to figure it out.
“What about you? Don’t you have someone to text with your late arrival? Like the university?”
He laughed and stepped away from me for a moment to grab a couple of luggage carts. He added his bags to one, and tossed his backpack on top, then grunted as he put my bag onto a cart. “What are you carrying? That bag must’ve cost a fortune to check in.”
It was true, but I justified it. Iwasrelocating across the country, so I considered it a travel expense. Although, in hindsight, buying it its own seat on the plane may have been cheaper.
When I didn’t answer his question, he answered the one I’d asked before. “Since I’m staying temporarily with my grandparents, I’ll call them in the morning. They don’t do text messages, especially not at–” He checked his watch. “Three seventeen in the morning. They’re old school in that regard. They prefer voice to voice over that text mumbo-jumbo.”
“Mumbo-jumbo.” I repeated and laughed. That was a fun word to say, and not at all sophisticated.
“You know what, and this is going to sound crazy…”
“At this point, anything said at three am willbecrazy.”
“True, but as I was saying.” He nudged with his shoulder towards the car rental agencies. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“You’re serious?”
“As a heart attack.” He pushed ahead of me while I stood there with a dumb expression upon my face. I’m pretty sure I didn’t even blink. “Come on.”
I raced to catch up, and when I did, I pulled him to a stop. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
“Are you going to hang out here in the airport and just wait? That’s lunacy.”
“Says you, who up until a few minutes ago was thinking the same thing.”
“Yeah, but what you said made sense, and besides I need to get to the university. It’s not a negotiation, and it’s not something I can delay. I have a meeting at eight Monday morning. My whole life I’ve been waiting for this, and I can’t, I won’t allow a hiccup like this to derail my future.” He leaned against the backpack propped up on his luggage. “Do you really want to stay here and hope for a flight out? You could be with your friends in a few short hours.”
“A few hours?” I laughed. “Even I know it takes longer than that to get to Victoria.”
He shrugged and pulled out his phone, opening the map app. “Well, would you look at this. You’re correct. It’s eleven and a half hours to Vancouver International airport, if we didn’t stop anywhere along the way.”
“See, that’s a long drive.” I snorted. Three times as long as the flight that only brought me this far.
“We could split the driving into two shifts or four shifts. With the swapping, we could be in Vancouver by late afternoon. It’s totally doable.”
“Not calling it yvr?” I mocked, but it was late, and I got more sarcastic the tireder I became.
“What do you think? In theory, you could be having dinner with your cousin if we left now.”
I hung my head. As easy as he made it sound, there was a giantno waycoming. “I… can’t drive. Well, it’s not that I can’t, because I know how and all, it’s that I… Can’t.”
The license suspension was still fresh. A week old; a newborn. Too many more weeks to go.
“Oh?” A questioning tone lingered on the tip of his lips and in the rounded upward curve of his brow.
“Yeah. What can I say? I always fuck things up.” Seeing Holden’s eyes bug out, I covered my mouth. “Sorry. I tend to swear like a trucker, especially when I’m exhausted.”
“Well, that does change the method, but the results should still be the same.”
“It’s all good. Really. I appreciate you asking, and I don’t mind hanging out here. I’ve never been in Calgary before.” I spun around and looked for an information kiosk. “Didn’t they have an Olympics here or something? I can play tourist and check out these places.” From google maps, because there wasn’t a lot of money to put behind a tourist adventure.
He tapped his foot as he leaned on his pile of bags. “Is that what you really want to do?”
I rocked on my feet, from the heels to the toes and back again. I didn’t know what I really wanted to do. This whole thing was supposed to be easy. Leave everything and everyone behind, hop on the plane, make a transfer flight and wait for Amber’s pilot friend to pick me up to take me to a place where I could figure out what to do. There wasn’t supposed to be any detours along the way.