She was afraid that her baggage would not get checked and that it wouldn't turn up in LA. Her favorite white dress was in that blue suitcase which would have to survive the flight to Kansas City, the transfer of planes to LA. She had been afraid of missing the seven o'clock AM flight altogether and indeed, would have if the doorman had not repeatedly beeped the intercom buzzer system. She pressed the "talk" button.
"Hello. Hello? Hello!" she frantically searched for her keys, grabbed them, and ran barefooted into the elevator, down to the lobby. A white car waited in front of the fourteen story apartment building.
"I'll be down in five minutes! I overslept!" she told the doorman.
The buzzer had finally wakened her out of a sound sleep.
"Oh, yeah, I'm going to California!" The thought sprang to mind and she leaped out of bed.
The airplane taxied down the runway, gathered speed and rose into the air. She watched as her earthly existence turned sideways. The world outside the window appeared calm, serene, swathed in blue grey mist, a picture of an aerial view of Manhattan, tilted on its side. They climbed higher.
Debbie felt a rush of excitement, caused by living on the edge, watching her world as she left it, lopsided and shaken up: the violence, the loud noises, the speed of looming garbage trucks and approaching taxis, the poor, the dirt, the street hustlers. Every horrible thing that had happened to her in the years since she had moved here. Her world riveted into a vertical slant as she rose into the clouds, rose above her earthly worries. Her problems were left on the tiny crowded island and she was up here, floating perfectly above them.
She would not worry about last night's decision too much. She remembered Scott's consoling words a few months ago when this whole situation started.
"Don't worry about it too much. I'm sure everything will turn out all right."
Maybe it was better. She would call Nicole as soon as she got to the airport in Kansas City. She looked to her left. Puffs of the purest white clouds floated before her, through the little windows, blanketed by a blue, blue sky.
"Nothin' but blue skies..." she thought of the slap-happy song. Wheee! At the age of 28, she was flying for the second time in her life and she felt all the excitement of a little kid. The first time, she had been almost too terrified to open her eyes.
Is this what heaven is like, she thought lackadaisically, surveying the clouds. No annoying horns, no shouting or street noises, just the soothing rush of the engine as the jet plane soared barely above the clouds. Not a bit of turbulence rocked them as they glided into Kansas City.
"Hello. Nicole?"
"Muffy? Hold on one second."
"Muffy..." Nicole paused.
"Are you having second thoughts?"
"Know what? Do you want to move in with my parents on Long Island? My mother said we could live there for free. No bills..." Nicole proposed.
No bills. "Nicole, I can't afford the city. I'm scared for the first time. I haven't been able to pay my bills."
"I tried calling you last night. No one answered." Nicole sounded slightly annoyed.
The phone hadn't rung. She had tossed and turned all night, not knowing where she would live once she returned from California. She had just talked herself out of a possible new home. She phoned her old college roommate, Kate and they called it off. She could not afford to commute from Connecticut and Kate could not afford to depend on her for the rent. Had she done the right thing?
This was her Out. A chance to get out of this crazy city. She wanted out. And here she had just agreed to be Nicole's roommate again in a different apartment. She hoped Nicole's former psychotic boyfriend would not call anymore. She could not take this suspended existence any longer.
She had wanted to call somebody last night. Her mother, an old friend back home. But she did not want to upset them. She had finally curled up in a ball and said a little prayer, remembering Scott's words. Knowing, hoping everything would be all right tomorrow morning.
"Well, do you want to?"
"Tell your mother no! But thanks a million!" Debbie hung up the phone and prepared to board the next flight to LA, where her suitcase with the white dress in it would be waiting.
DH/0699D
