‘Who wants the good news and who wants the bad news?’ Kekipi asked as I flung open the door to the passenger side. ‘Because I’ve got both.’
‘Can we just have the good news?’ Amy asked, climbing into the back seat on all fours. ‘Because that didn’t go very well and I think Tess needs cheering up.’
‘Good news, we’re only about twenty minutes away from Linate airport,’ he announced, starting the car and tearing off down the street. ‘I should have said, the good news doesn’t make a lot of sense without the bad news?’
‘Linate? Where’s that?’ I was so tired and so mad at myself, I really didn’t care any more. ‘I thought the airport was in Malpensa?’
‘There are two,’ he replied. ‘Charlie has gone to Malpensa. Mr Miller has gone to Linate.’
‘Why is Nick at the airport?’ It was too much for my poor brain. ‘What is happening?’
‘Domenico called to say Mr Miller took a cab to the airport about half an hour ago,’ he explained. ‘He left a letter for you but Dom thought you’d want to know.’
‘Again?’ I smacked the back of my head against the headrest in the SUV and closed my eyes. This couldn’t really be happening. ‘He’s taking off without talking to me, again?’
‘I didn’t think he seemed that mad,’ Amy offered. ‘And they say women are fickle.’
‘It would have been better if he had been mad,’ I said. ‘I know what he’s thinking when he’s shouting at me. It’s when he goes all quiet I’ve got problems. I never know what’s going on in his head.’
‘Calm down and fix your make-up,’ he ordered, turning up the volume on the car stereo. I was rarely in the mood for Rihanna anyway but this was definitely not the right time. ‘Leave everything to Kekipi. I have a plan.’
‘This is the plan?’ I asked, standing in the check-in hall of Linate airport. ‘To get here?’
‘I didn’t think he could have checked in already,’ Kekipi wailed. ‘I was sure we’d be able to grab him on the way through.’
Even with his jacket over my dress, we were still quite the sight. Amy had a blanket from the car wrapped around her shoulders and aside from my messed-up make-up and enormous hair, I was also hobbling around with half a roll of duct tape wrapped around my foot in lieu of a plaster and it wasn’t doing its job very well.
‘Did Domenico say where he was going?’ I asked. Kekipi shook his head.
The departures board had flights going out all over the world. London, LA, New York. Hadn’t he said something about Hong Kong the last time I saw him? Nick could be headed anywhere.
‘Maybe it’s in the letter?’ I suggested. ‘Can he open it and see? Please?’
‘Do you think maybe this time we should just let him go?’ Amy asked as I pulled out my phone and dialled Nick’s mobile for the fifteenth time. ‘Chasing after Charlie didn’t go terribly well.’
‘No,’ I replied, phone pressed right up to my ear. ‘If Nick goes, he won’t come back and I’ll never hear from him again, I just know it. I’ve got to talk to him,’
‘Then we’ll find him,’ she promised, kissing me on the cheek before sprinting over to the customer services desk. ‘I promise.’
Not many people arrived at the airport wearing evening dress and a black eye and so I wasn’t terribly surprised to be attracting quite a lot of attention. Travellers in their comfy jeans and leggings gave me a wide berth, as I tracked a bloody path back and forth under the departure boards, waiting for Nick to answer. He could be in the loo and not looking at his phone, it could have been switched off by the security scanner. There were a million reasons why he wasn’t answering, but I refused to accept the most obvious one: that he just didn’t want to talk to me.
‘He’s going to New York,’ Kekipi shouted even though he was quite clearly close enough to just tell me. ‘He said he’s going to New York. When’s the next flight?’
‘In an hour,’ I said, looking at the boards. ‘Could he be on that one? Is there time to stop him?’
‘Let’s find out,’ he nodded over at the American Airlines desk. ‘Let me do the talking, I’m nicer than you.’
‘You are not,’ I huffed, hobbling behind him but not fast enough to stop him.
‘Hi.’ Kekipi put on his most charming smile for the desk attendant.
The desk attendant looked up, looked back down and rolled her eyes.
‘I’m hoping you can help. Our friend is travelling to New York and we very much need to speak to him before he leaves.’ Kekipi moved on to batting his lush eyelashes at the tired-looking woman behind the desk but nothing was working. ‘It’s practically a matter of life and death. Could you tell us whether or not he’s on your flight?’
‘I’m not at liberty to give out passenger information,’ Debbie (according to the name tag on her jacket) replied in a flat American accent. ‘Is that all?’
‘You couldn’t just put a quick call in and tell the lovely people on the gate that we need a word with him?’ he asked. ‘It is real important.’
‘If you go to customer services, they’ll put out a passenger announcement,’ she said, eyes down the whole time. An ascending chime echoed over the loudspeaker at that exact moment.
‘Could passenger Nick Miller, passenger Nick Miller, travelling to New York City please come to the nearest customer service desk, thank you.’
‘It would be something like that,’ Debbie said before returning to the very important business of not giving a shit. ‘They’re located by the front door.’
Debbie needed either a big cup of coffee or an attitude adjustment and I knew which I was happiest to give her.
‘That was our announcement,’ I slapped the desk to get her attention, barrelling Kekipi out of the way. ‘I have to talk to that man. If I buy a ticket for the same flight, will you tell me if he’s on it?’
‘No,’ Debbie replied. ‘But if you buy a ticket for the flight, you would be able to see whether or not he’s on it, wouldn’t you?’
‘Give me your credit card.’ I held my hands out to Kekipi. ‘I’ll pay you back.’
‘Have you gone crazy?’ he asked. ‘Where’s your credit card?’
‘I haven’t got any money because we spent it all on clothes,’ I shouted as Amy came bounding back from the customer service desk. ‘Give me your credit card.’
‘How much is a ticket to New York?’ he asked our new friend, Debbie. ‘For this flight.’
‘We’ve got a couple of seats left …’ She scanned the screen, suddenly a lot more interested at the prospect of making a sale. ‘The cheapest will be just over four thousand euros. Will that be credit or debit?’
‘Oh, this is brilliant!’ Amy hopped from one foot to the other, clapping her hands. ‘Can I come too? Is there another seat?’
‘Let me check,’ Debbie said.
‘No one is getting any seat on any plane,’ Kekipi yelled. ‘Can you freaking tell us whether or not Nick freaking Miller is on that freaking flight?’
Debbie pulled herself upright and narrowed her eyes slowly.
‘No.’
‘No, he’s not on the plane or no, you won’t tell us?’ I asked, clutching at Amy’s hands.
‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to give out passenger information,’ she said again, more deliberately. ‘Please step away from the desk before I have to call security.’
‘I’m going to knock her out,’ I whispered as Amy and Kekipi dragged me away. ‘I’m actually going to knock her out.’
‘No, you’re not,’ Kekipi replied firmly. ‘Because I’m going to do it first.’
‘She’s not going to help us,’ Amy shouted over the two of us, trying to play peacemaker and doing quite a good job. ‘Why don’t we go and see if he’s still in security. He might not have gone through yet.’
‘You’re a genius,’ I said, limping as fast as my lameness would carry me towards the escalators. ‘Thanks, Debbie.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Debbie called after us, determined to push her luck.
Luckily for her, I was too distracted by our new plan. Amy was a genius. For the first time in anyone’s life, I sent up silent praise for the epic queue for airline security that greeted us at the bottom of the escalator.
‘Shit, Tess, is that him?’ Amy spun me around and pointed towards the front of the queue. A man about Nick’s height, about Nick’s weight was stepping up to the full body scanner as we watched.
‘It could be …’ I squinted, wishing he would turn to face me.
‘Nick!’ Amy didn’t wait for verification. Instead she tore up to the front of the line and started shouting at the top of her voice. ‘Nick! Nick! It’s Amy! Turn around you arsehole!’
‘Amy, wait!’
My foot was officially about to fall off. I half-ran, half-hopped all the way along the security line, the train of my bright pink dress billowing out behind me as I staggered along, apologizing to everyone as I passed.
‘We’re not pushing in,’ I promised as I went. ‘Just looking for someone. Hope you’re all going somewhere nice.’
‘Is she bleeding?’ I heard someone ask. ‘Is that blood?’
‘Nick Miller!’
The force of Amy’s voice bent her right over and the force of her bending right over meant that her boob popped out of her dress again. Everyone in line for the scanners gasped, mothers covered their children’s eyes and wives covered their husbands’. The single men in the queue seemed perfectly happy.
‘Nick!’ I caught up to Amy just as the man in the scanner turned around. His eyes met mine across the snaking lines of people and I felt every part of my body tense up.
It wasn’t him.
‘Not Nick.’ Amy dropped her hands to her hips, defeated, before looking down to see her errant boob. ‘Wardrobe malfunction,’ she muttered, trying to tuck it away. ‘Now I understand how this happens to celebs so often. I will never retweet another nip slip as long as I live.’
But Italian security guards at Linate airport weren’t feeing nearly as magnanimous about accidental nudity as Amy. Two of them broke ranks from the front of the line, enormous guns slung across their chests the same way I might wear a satchel and scooped her and her boobs up in their arms, loudly decreeing something in Italian.
‘Tess?’ Amy yelped, her toes scraping along the floor. ‘Help?’
‘I’ll go with her.’ Kekipi touched my shoulder as he ran after my friend. ‘I’ll call a lawyer.’
‘A lawyer?’ I was feeling terribly faint all of a sudden. ‘She needs a lawyer?’
He nodded before following them around a corner and disappearing.
So much for New Tess who didn’t just sit around passively waiting for things to happen to her. At least Old Tess had never got her best friend arrested in an Italian airport. I held on to the closest thing I could find to keep me upright – sadly a particularly smelly bin – my phone with its seven per cent of battery tucked down the front of my dress, and gave up. For a moment, it was peaceful. I sank to the floor. My foot ached and my eye throbbed but in that moment, I felt light and free. I wasn’t looking for anyone, fighting for anything, I wasn’t racing against the clock. All I was doing was giving up – and it felt great.
That lasted for about four seconds.
‘Excuse me.’ A not-nearly-as-tall-as-me security guard looked down at me on the floor, his gun held at a jaunty angle in his hands – and pointing right at me. ‘You must move now.’
‘And go where?’ I asked, throwing my arms up and letting them drop into the piles of tulle and lace around me before pointing at the bloody footprints behind me. ‘I’m bleeding.’
‘You must move now,’ he repeated, gesturing to nowhere with the pointy end of his gun. I imagined that usually had a pretty impressive effect on people but I was just too exhausted to care. ‘Now, please.’
Groaning loudly, I rolled onto my knees and pulled myself up with the assistance of the wall and my good friend, the smelly bin.
‘Happy?’ I asked as the guard started to walk away. ‘I’m going.’
Only I didn’t know where I was going to. Kekipi had the car keys, I didn’t have any money and I didn’t know the phone number for the palazzo. I was buggered.
I could go back and bother Debbie again, I thought, pulling a stray strand of hair out of my mouth. Or at least ask her to charge my iPhone long enough for me to call Al. Not that Debbie struck me as an iPhone owner. No one with access to the Weather Kitty app could be that bitter and miserable, but it was worth a try.
I was stumbling back along the security line, crying a little bit, feeling sorry for myself a lot, and enjoying everyone’s disapproving looks when I saw him. Nick was on the other side of the scanners, staring up at the departure boards and checking his watch. I felt like someone had lit a fire underneath me. There he was, it was definitely him, one hundred per cent absolutely Nick Miller. Right. There was no way I had driven to the airport, shouted at Debbie, shown half of Linate Amy’s boobs and watched my best friend get arrested for him to swan off to New York without getting an earful first.
I knew the security guards weren’t going to let me through. I knew I didn’t have a ticket or a passport or anything to barter with, financially or physically. If I had to pick one person out of everyone in the airport that I was prepared to let break all international travel laws, it would not be the mad giant in the fucked-up evening gown, hobbling on one leg and sporting a black eye. But I had to do something.
Breathing in, I turned on my heel, the good one, and started back towards the front of the line, to where I could see Nick looking at his phone, presumably counting how many times I had called him and ignoring them all. It wasn’t easy to be inconspicuous in bright pink and I knew all the guards were watching me as I sidled right up to the edge of the barriers and took out my phone. The red empty battery flashed up on the broken screen as I pulled it out of my boobs but that was OK, I didn’t need to make any calls. It turned out an iPhone 5 made a really impressive projectile, whether it was fully charged or not. I hurled the phone as far as I could towards Nick – admittedly, not all that far but it served its purpose. The entire security area was in uproar and now I had everyone’s attention.
‘Nick!’ I shouted at the top of my voice as two uniformed men and one uniformed woman sprinted towards me. ‘Nick! Turn around, you shit.’
But if he did turn around, if he did see me, I didn’t know about it. The last thing I remembered was seeing a tiny but incredibly fierce woman with a slick black ponytail charging at my midriff. After that, there was a bang and a shriek that might have been mine and then nothing but darkness.