Page 47 of The Business Trip

My body felt like it was not even itself. Glancing across the aisle, I saw a middle-aged couple with their eyes shut, their shoulders leaning against each other, his hand covering hers. There was no one else who could possibly see a thing; the flight attendants were busy in the galley.

Quickly, almost in a robotic trance, my hand slid toward Stephanie’s purse and pulled it to me. I glanced back one more time. The bathroom door remained shut. Gently gliding the zipper ofthe purse open, I felt inside for her wallet. It was right there, cool to the touch and firm, made of good leather, I could tell.

Keeping an eye on the couple across from me, I slid the wallet out and opened it, glancing down. Her driver’s license was right there: Stephanie Monroe. I also saw three major credit cards, a handful of specific store credit cards, a debit card, some sort of work ID, several insurance cards, and a photo of a handsome young man in a graduation cap and gown.

The driver’s license slipped out of its plastic holder easily, and I gently eased it into an inside pocket of my purse. I was just about to take a credit card too when the woman across from me stirred, opened her eyes, and said to her husband, “I think we’re landing soon, honey.” My heart leapt into my throat. Here was Stephanie’s purse open next to me. Although I doubted they’d notice across the aisle, I couldn’t be 100 percent positive. The man mumbled something I couldn’t make out, and I thought I heard the bathroom door click at the rear of the plane. I wasn’t sure if it was Stephanie coming out or whoever might have been in the other tiny restroom, but I couldn’t take the chance. I had just seconds now.

The woman turned her gaze to look out the window, and I zipped Stephanie’s wallet shut, shoved it back into her purse, zipped that too, and put the purse in the exact spot it had been.

To make it look like I was busy, I reached for my phone and earbuds just as Stephanie walked up. I thought I might have a stroke, her contraband with me now like a tiny beating heart.

Sure that my facial expressions would give it away or that I was visibly sweating, I needed a mental break. I wasn’t confident I could keep up conversation with her either, so as soon as she sat down, I said, “It’s been so great to chat with you, Stephanie. I’m just going to rest for a bit before we get there.”Then I threw in one more lie to double down on it. “My friend wants to go out tonight.”

“OK, sounds great,” she answered. “I’ll do the same. I could use a rest too.”

You know how when you’re a child and play Marco Polo at the lake or at someone’s pool and you’re supposed to keep your eyes shut but you really don’t? You keep them open just a slit, just enough so that no one notices? That’s what I did for the rest of the flight.

Faking that I was sleeping, I leaned my head on the window shade but tilted my body in such a way that I could still see her. I needed to know if she went into her purse—and if she did? Well, I truly didn’t know what I would do. My entire escape plan could be blown by that if she demanded that the flight attendants empty my purse and the police came.

God, I was stupid. Maybe I was as dumb as Glenn said I was, but as soon as that thought entered my mind, I stomped on it again and again, like a person in a barrel turning grapes into wine. I was smart. Screw Glenn.

Think, Jasmine, think.

Stephanie had tilted her seat back as far as it would go and had her eyes shut. Should I return her ID now so that no one would know? That was absolutely too dangerous. Not only was she right here, but I would never get the chance to get it again. But if she noticed her ID was gone and accused me, what would I do?

Watching her through the slits of my eyes and keeping an eye on the middle-aged couple, now fully awake and fussing to find a missing boarding pass for a connecting flight, I put my hand carefully into my purse and found the side pocket. Stephanie’s ID pulsed in my palm. Wrapping my fingers around it and making sure Stephanie remained zoned out with her earbuds in,I slipped it from my purse and up toward my chest, keeping my hand cupped protectively over it.

Pretending I had an itch in case the couple across the way looked over, I pushed the ID into my bra, the plastic edge poking me uncomfortably and reminding me of what I had done. But it was safer there. If the flight attendants made me empty my purse, they would find nothing, and I could act as horrified as Stephanie.

Did you leave your ID on the ticket counter in Madison?I imagined myself saying, feigned sympathy in my eyes.

But Stephanie paid no mind to her purse. She rested, and I pretend-rested, my adrenaline so high I would have needed two of Glenn’s Ambiens to get me to feel even a tiny bit sleepy.

As we descended through the clouds and into the range of Denver, I looked down and saw snow-capped mountains and sprawling suburban areas, and I began to feel scared. Where would I go? What would I do? I knew no one, and I had no place to sleep that night.

The hazy plan I had dreamed of for a year was all in front of me: get to Colorado, figure it out. But the plan that had just twinkled at the edges of my psyche during my conversation with Stephanie began to dance again. It was like one of those giant blow-up, vinyl creatures you see at car dealership openings, where the arms and legs move around wildly and the body dips and lifts in all sorts of awkward movements, bolstered by a fan of some sort. That’s how I felt. A little out of control but buoyed by air.

It was the same feeling I had at the Halloween party in high school.

I tried not to think of it, tried to push it back deep into the depths of my memory. It was so long ago—why think about it now? It had been an accident, right? I hadn’t meant to hurt Allison that badly.

Or had I? I knew in my heart how angry I was at her, how jealous I was of her life.

Allison always had the best clothes and prettiest hair of anyone in school. She treated me horribly when a small bit of kindness was all that I wanted, the least that I deserved.

Still, the incident itself was an accident. At least that’s what I had been telling myself for decades just so I could sleep at night.

Flashes of the party at Drake’s massive house in Maple Hills came to mind as the plane moved closer to Denver and I looked out the window. Drake’s rich parents out of town. Music thumping: “Monster Mash” someone had put on a loop. People drinking from orange plastic cups. The Kool-Aid, spiked with who knows what, ladled out of a punch bowl. Fake spiderwebs and skeletons on the walls. A group passing joints around.

Allison throwing her head back and laughing, her perfectly straight teeth glowing, her lips with the brightest red lipstick I had ever seen. All of the boys flocking around her.

My costume was homemade. My family lived in what was considered the low-rent part of our school district, while Allison and Drake both lived in Maple Hills, one of the wealthiest areas. It was even where the governor’s mansion was located. We were all funneled to the same public schools, though, and it sometimes made for conflicts and difficult dynamics.

The Maple Hills kids clearly thought they were better than the rest of us, and some had started a group called “the Fun Bunch,” huddling together and laughing about things we weren’t supposed to be privy to.

Drake’s parties when his parents were gone were well known around school, and our whole junior class was invited. I was so excited to go, thinking that maybe I could break through to some of the kids in the Fun Bunch. It was a group I constantly admired from afar.

I asked Raven to go with me. She and Anna were my only two friends, but Anna had to go to her grandma’s birthday in Milwaukee that weekend and would miss the Halloween party.

---