Larry was the last to board. He no longer had Charlie leaning on his shoulder and would be flying not over the ocean but over the mountains and valleys between Bogotá and Medellín. His anxiety increased as the minutes passed and the distance shrank.
In the first-class cabin there were twelve seats that were already occupied. Charlie wasn’t in any of them. He walked to the back, scanning the seat numbers and looking at the passengers, hoping to find her, reassured knowing he probably wouldn’t. He reached 24A, his assigned window seat. She’s not here, he said to himself sadly. She’s not here, he repeated, relieved. Charlie’s face began to dissolve in a fog, the way things do at the start of a magic spell.
What if I didn’t recognize her? And what if she didn’t recognize me either and we’re now traveling on the same plane like two strangers? . . .
The crew announced that the door was closing. The flight attendants walked up and down, preparing for takeoff. The pilot spoke, his neighbor crossed herself, a flight attendant spoke, and a child cried at the top of his lungs. Larry put on his headphones, but he didn’t know what music he wanted to listen to, what would be fitting for the moment, since he didn’t even know what sort of moment he was experiencing.
The plane took off and pierced the clouds at a speed that defied reason. Larry stared out at the white sky, and the chaos of the city shrank away. Then he pushed his seat back as far as it would go, which wasn’t much. He considered sleeping for the thirty minutes, though it wouldn’t be enough to catch up on all the hours he’d been awake, but he didn’t want to become disconnected from places and names: Medellín, Fernanda, Julio, Pedro, El Poblado, Charlie. Especially her. He closed his eyes and let the music play at random. Anything that would also muffle the airplane engines.
Just as he felt himself starting to drift in his seat, afloat on exhaustion, the flight attendant offered him boxed juice, water, or coffee. Hating her, he accepted a cup of water. He looked out at the cushion of gray and white clouds, with a pale blanket above that hid the sky. He closed his eyes again, and mingling with the music he heard the names that were keeping him awake: Fernanda, Medellín, Pedro, Libardo, Julio, Charlie. Especially hers.
Suddenly, he felt as if he were falling and started in his seat. He clutched the armrests. He thought they’d hit an air pocket or maybe he was falling like when a person is just dozing off. But the bump was only the call of the earth. Down below, very close now, were the mountains. Larry pressed his face against the window. The massive, dramatic peaks heralded the inevitable.