The following evening, Mom and Dad drive me twenty-five minutes north, up near the airport, to a small church. When they direct me to the basement, I feel like I’m joining AA (or how AA is portrayed in movies, anyway), but I guess this is what I signed up for.
Mom rubs my back. “They’re inside. Are you sure you’ll be okay in there alone?”
“Jenny!” a familiar voice calls.
“I won’t be alone.” I turn to greet Mrs. Spring; Mr. Spring is, of course, at her side. “Mr. and Mrs. Spring!”
I introduce them to my parents, who visibly relax in their comforting presence.
“All right, if you’re sure,” Mom says. “Brad only lives ten minutes away, so if you need us, you can call us.”
“With what?”
Mom digs in her purse. “I’ll leave my phone with you. The passcode is your birthday—011578.” She hands me the phone and shows me how to navigate to Dad’s phone number.
I pocket the phone. “Thanks. I’ll see you at eight thirty.”
Mom and Dad both hug me, casting several glances back as they walk to their car.
Mrs. Spring keeps a hand on my shoulder as we walk in. “We didn’t get to chat very long yesterday. So how are you doing, honey?”
I shrug, only realizing afterward that doing so dislodges her hand, and it was nice having the support.
She sighs. “I’m glad you came. We’ve been worried about you.”
I pause to really look at them. They took care of me in that horrible room at the airport, and they were still stuck there for who knows how long. It probably took hours for the FBI to interview everyone and take samples. I’m glad Bradley got me out of there, but I’m sorry no one came to rescue them. “Thank you.”
We descend the stairs to a fellowship hall with accordion-style partitions that slide along tracks to separate the larger room into smaller meeting rooms. My tennis shoes squeak on the linoleum floor. It smells like coffee—a pot is brewing on a table by the wall—and, strangely, paint. The walls do look pristinely cream. Beside the coffee is a pitcher of water and a plate of brownies that are calling my name.
“Do you want a brownie?” I ask the Springs.
Mrs. Spring shakes her head, but Mr. Spring starts toward the table with me. “I never say no to a coffee.”
A man approaches the table from another direction at the same time. I don’t recognize him at first without his uniform. It’s the pilot.
“Jenny, I’m glad you came,” Captain McCoy says.
I wonder if this is a standard phrase you say at support groups.
“Thanks,” I reply. He looks different in jeans and a short-sleeved button-down shirt that hangs loose. I’d guess he’s somewhere between the age my parents were when we got on the plane and now.
“We’ll start in a few minutes.” He gestures at the brownies. “Please enjoy the refreshments.”
Since it seems weird to say thanks again, I nod and stuff a brownie in my mouth. It’s delicious and clearly not from a mix. Although, who am I to judge? They might’ve really improved brownie mixes while we were gone.
Mrs. Spring motions for us to join the circle of chairs set up in the middle of the room. The fluorescent lights are harsh overhead. I settle into my seat and scan the others. It’s not the whole roster of passengers. I mean, obviously some of them don’t live in St. Louis. For example, I don’t see the poor businessman who got Tasered by the security guard. (Bradley explained those things to me, and it sounds even more awful now that I know what they are.) Or the lady who was reading People. Or a lot of others for that matter. There are about twenty people here, though, including the other copilot and the younger flight attendant, so I guess most of the crew was St. Louis–based.
Captain McCoy glances at a clock above the coffee table and claps his hands. “I think most everyone is here, so why don’t we all take a seat and get started?”
Captain McCoy leaves a seat between himself and me, and nobody sits in it. I’m grateful for the breathing room and anxious to get this conversation started. There’s so much I want to know.
Captain McCoy leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “Our flight’s unexpected detour through time has caused quite a stir.”
I snigger. I can’t help myself. I mean, “unexpected detour through time”?
Captain McCoy sits back and grins at me. “Like that, do you?”
My cheeks grow warm as everyone focuses on me. “Well, it’s just … the way you said it. Like we’d encountered a delay or something. But our whole lives have been upended.”
His grin slips. “That’s why we’re here. Most of you”—he sweeps a hand around the circle—“are strangers to each other. Walter, Tracey, Stephanie, and I at least knew each other.” He points at the copilot and young flight attendant. I assume the other woman he mentioned is the absent flight attendant. “We’ve been able to talk about adjusting to life here, how to respond to incessant requests from the media, etcetera, and we realized it might be beneficial to expand that support to the passengers.”
“It’s definitely helpful to have someone else going through this with you,” Mrs. Spring says, gripping Mr. Spring’s hand. Tears sparkle in her blue eyes. Poor Mrs. Spring. She’s probably lost more people than I have. “I don’t know what I’d do without—”
“Did you start yet?” a voice echoes down the stairs.
It’s plane groupie.
“I’m here!” Art declares as he bursts into the room. His shirt says, “Eat. Sleep. Time Travel. Repeat.” If he’s here for support, I’ll chug the entire pot of coffee, black. If Agent Klein hadn’t put a gag order on us, I bet he’d be granting interviews left and right, telling reporters how awesome it is we’ve jumped ahead to a new century.
“Welcome, Mr. Ross,” Captain McCoy says.
Ross! That’s it.
Art waves a hand. “Dude. I’m not formal like that. Y’all can call me Art. Some of my friends even call me Artie. But they’re all, like, old now.” He laughs, but it goes on so long I wonder if maybe he does feel a twinge of discomfort about our situation. Maybe there’s more to Art than the obnoxious front he puts on.
There are several chairs open in the circle, but of course he makes a beeline for the open spot beside me. He plops down and leans in. “Hey there, Jenny, what’s the 4-1-1?”
I’m tempted to scoot my chair closer to Mrs. Spring, but not only will the metal folding chair make an awful screech and draw even more attention; I don’t want to show Art he’s bothering me. Also, did I tell him my name on the plane? Although, this doesn’t matter, since according to Angie, everyone knows who I am. She said it was because I was the youngest on the plane, though, and Art isn’t that much older than me—maybe nineteen or twenty?
“We were just getting started,” I say, nodding toward Captain McCoy to indicate Art should give him his attention.
“Ooh,” Art says. “I have so many theories about how we got here. Like—”
“Perhaps we can discuss that another time,” Captain McCoy says. “The purpose of this meeting is to share our stories. It’s a support group, Art.”
Art leans back and stretches his legs out before him. “Gotcha.”
“Excuse me.” I raise my hand. “Is that the only reason we’re here? Because I’d really like to talk about what’s going on with the FBI and these people who think we’re a hoax.”
“We have a limited amount of time tonight, Jenny,” Captain McCoy says. “We’ll dig into that another day, okay?”
Not really. That’s why I came! I open my mouth to protest, but he’s already moving on.
“So why don’t we go around the room,” he says, “introduce ourselves, and share a bit about what’s happened since we returned. Walter will start.”
As the copilot clears his throat, Art grabs my hand and leans close to my ear. “I’ll talk to you about that stuff after, Jenny.”
He writes a phone number across my palm, and it’s sort of weird, like when I blushingly wrote my number on this guy’s hand at a youth rally last year (he called once, and it was awkward, so we never talked again). But also I really do want to talk more about the plane and the FBI, and Art sounds serious for once, so I nod and curl my fingers closed.
I missed part of the copilot’s introduction, something about living with his mom. “Anyway, she’s gone. Ten years ago, I guess. All by herself because I don’t have any brothers or sisters. Our airline doesn’t exist anymore, so I’m applying elsewhere. And I have to retrain for my job because planes are different now.”
People murmur condolences for Walter’s mother and ask questions about the job. My own questions about what the world is saying about us, whether the FBI has discovered why we jumped ahead in time, fade into the background in the face of Walter’s despair. Poor guy. He’s so dull, with his grayish skin and stubbled cheeks. And now he has no one.
Tracey the flight attendant is next. She tugs on the chestnut braid hanging over her shoulder. A diamond ring flashes on her ring finger. “Well. It’s weird. Everyone’s older. I’m twenty-five, and when I left, my fiancé was twenty-seven.”
Oh, man. I’m afraid to hear where this is going.
“He’s fifty-two now, but … Keith waited for me.” Her lips tremble. “He waited twenty-five years, said there was never anyone else, and how can I turn that down, even if he is so much older?”
“Wow,” I breathe. What if Steve had waited for me? I haven’t seen him yet, and I honestly don’t know how I’ll feel when I do, but I can’t imagine dating a forty-two-year-old man. It seems gross—and possibly illegal?—but then, Tracey’s story is different. They were engaged. She’s an adult.
The testimonies continue. Parents who have died. Pretty much everyone has to start over job-wise. Being a student, I haven’t considered how the time jump would affect someone with a career, but it makes sense. I’ve seen how much technology has changed, just with the things around our house. Some jobs don’t exist anymore, like poor Miss Klaffke’s—she was a computer operator. Apparently everything she used to do is automatic now.
“I’m Valerie Wen,” the next woman says. I remember her from the conference room at the airport. She’s attractive, younger than Angie but older than Tracey. “I teach grade school—third grade. A lot’s changed, but the school district will let me teach again if I get up to speed and recertify, assuming the FBI clears us.” She casts a glance at Captain McCoy. “So I do care about what’s happening with the investigation. And I’d really like answers too. Imagine standing in front of a class full of kids. They’ll have a million questions about where I was!”
“Of course,” Captain McCoy says. “We all want to know what happened. There just aren’t any answers yet.”
Valerie exhales through her nose. “I know! It’s just so frustrating. Because while I can probably get my job back, my personal life is a mess, and it’d be nice to understand why. My husband had me declared dead and remarried five years after we disappeared. He’s very happy. Has three teenagers. We were very happy before Flight 237, so it’s awkward. He feels guilty, but he loves his new wife. Basically he’s a bigamist.” She shrugs as if there’s nothing to do, and I guess there isn’t, but it’s awful. I feel so sorry for both of them. “And to top it all off, this really cute guy came up to me in Starbucks the other day and asked me out. Took me a while to place him. He was one of my students.” She holds up her hand. “Like, one of my students when I disappeared.”
“So he was”—Tracey scrunches up her nose, calculating—“ten the last time you saw him?”
Valerie tips her head to the side. “Nine. Cute kid.” She pauses. “Surprisingly attractive man. Who I used to scold in class for his inability to sit still.”
By now, half the circle is chuckling.
“So?” Mrs. Spring leans forward. “Did you say yes?”
Valerie throws up her hands helplessly. “I told him I’d think about it. But I’m not really over my husband, you know? It’s been years for him, but for me it’s been barely a week.”
Exactly! I can’t help but identify with Valerie’s situation. I mean, I wasn’t married, but with how it feels like yesterday and everyone expects me to just accept that it happened forever ago.
“We’re all going to be feature stories in People magazine,” I say. “Or someone’s gonna write a book.”
Art gasps. “Try books, plural. Haven’t you seen—”
“Excuse me, son. I’m Ted Spring, and I’m going to take the floor for a moment,” Mr. Spring interrupts.
I swallow a laugh. Guess I’m not the only one Art annoys.
“And this is my wife, Agnes,” Mr. Spring continues. “I wish we had a story about long-lost love like Tracey or even a student harboring a crush. Unfortunately, we’ve mostly encountered sadness since our return.” He chokes up, and my lingering amusement vanishes.
Mrs. Spring takes over. “Yes. We went to New York for our sixtieth anniversary, so as you can imagine, most of our friends were in their later years already in 1995. So now, so many years later, all of our friends are gone. Our son is gone. He had a heart attack at seventy. Our oldest daughter lives in an assisted living facility. She’s a year older than me. Our younger daughter lives in California near her kids. Our house was sold not too long after we disappeared, our belongings distributed among our children. We’re currently living with our son’s son and his wife. They’re still working, so we mostly have the house to ourselves, but I know it’s odd for him to have grandparents living with him who are the same age as his mother.”
I knew the Springs would have it tough, but I didn’t imagine this. News flash, Jenny: other people on Flight 237 came back to much more devastating situations than you.
Mr. Spring already has his arm around Mrs. Spring, but I reach out and hug her from the other side. “I’m so sorry.”
Mr. Spring smiles tremulously. “It’s not all bad. We have grown great-grandchildren, so we have great-great-grandchildren too. Not many people have the opportunity to know so many generations. We will get to teach them about our family.”
“You have such an amazing attitude, Ted,” says Captain McCoy. “Thank you for sharing with us.” He turns to me. “Jenny? What’s going on with you?”
My concerns seem petty after what the Springs just shared. “Um. You know. Friend stuff.”
Mrs. Spring squeezes my knee. “That can’t be all, Jenny.”
She furrows her brow, staring into my eyes, not allowing me to hide.
I crinkle the napkin that held my brownie. “All but one of my grandparents died. My best friend married my boyfriend. My parents and my brother are so much older. Plus, I’m basically grounded. It’s amazing they let me out of the house to come here. They won’t even let me read a newspaper.”
I’m surprised to feel tears welling up, in this room full of relative strangers who are now nodding at me, but I know they empathize. Because they understand—these random people who just happened to book the same flight as me. It changed us all in ways we never could have imagined, and now we’re in this together.