Page 15 of The Christmas Express
When the seat belt sign clicks off, I’m one of the first to leap up, my belongings already gathered in my arms, and the man next to me is so fed up with me by this point that he and his neighbour willingly scoot into the aisle to let me grab my bag from the overhead locker before them.
Ember is refusing to make eye contact with me any more, and the others are all busy getting themselves ready to disembark. Only Luke looks over his shoulder at me and I try to convey that I need to talk to him urgently, using only the power of my eyebrows.
I guess they aren’t that powerful, because he puts his headphones back on and looks away.
Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. I don’t actually push the people in front of me shuffling off the plane, but I’d quite like to. As soon as I emerge into the tunnel, I take three seconds to let excitement wash over me at the sight of Canadian flags (I’m in Toronto!!!), and then race to catch up with Luke et al.
It’s not until passport control that I get close, but Luke is too far ahead of me in the switchback queue. Joss and I, on the other hand, keep ending up side by side briefly, before we both move forward and out of sync until the next switchback.
Joss wouldn’t be my first choice of initial confidante, but needs must.
‘Hey,’ I stage whisper to her.
She looks up at me from her phone but says nothing. I guess we haven’t magically all become besties again, then.
‘Ember’s not here for the wedding,’ I say, keeping my voice low.
‘Oh. Good.’ Joss goes back to her phone.
‘No, I mean she is, just not in the way we thought. Joss?’
She taps something with a flourish and then drags her gaze back to me. ‘What?’
‘It’s Ember. She’s here to ruin the wedding.’
‘No way?’ The awkwardness drops for a second, and a smirk comes across Joss’s face like we’re just having a good gossip, but then she seems to check herself. ‘No, she’s not.’
‘Y-yes, she is,’ I stutter. I’m so bad at any kind of confrontational speaking, but we have to push aside our differences – just for the moment – until this problem gets resolved. ‘In a roundabout way. She just told me – she thinks Bryn still has feelings for her so she’s come out to see her, to see if they should get back together before it’s too late.’
‘I don’t know if that’s romantic or delusional.’
With that, the line moves and she shuffles forwards quickly, as if happy to be able to break up our convo as we lose our spot beside each other. By the time we’re back side by side again, she says. ‘I’ll, um, text Joe about it.’
‘Oh good.’ I sigh. Joe was always a bit of a voice of reason. When he had an opinion of his own, that is. ‘I’m glad you and Joe are still . . . you know . . . close. After everything that happened.’
‘We’re not close,’ she replies, teeth gritted. ‘I barely see him any more.’
‘Ah. Sibling rivalry, eh?’ I do a nervous-guffaw which is quite talented considering my foot is lodged deeply in my mouth.
She ignores me. ‘Well, he reckons we should just mind our own business.’
‘We can’t do that, can we? Don’t we have to let Bryn know? Warn her?’
Joss shrugs and we meet eyes but both quickly look away, me down at my shoes, her back at her phone. After a moment, Joss adds, ‘Maybe she wouldn’t want to be warned. Maybe she does still have a thing for Ember. We don’t know Bryn any more, remember?’
The line moves forward again, snatching Joss with it and I do a giant sigh, ruffling the hair of the person in front of me. Somewhere too far behind me in the queue is Ember. I think I need to talk to her, urgently, but what do I even say to her at this point?
Ahead of me, Joss veers off for her turn through passport control, and I focus on looking calm rather than antsy and suspicious for a few minutes. Once I’m through too, I speed walk to baggage claim.
My phone dings with a series of messages just as I reach the carousel. I pull it from my pocket. Texts about the local phone service, one from Bryn, I’ll read that in a minute. Where are the others?
I find Luke again in that strange magnetic way and zoom over to him. He’s in his headphones again, but frowning at his phone. I don’t get a second to signal to him to take them off before he does so without noticing me, and Sara with her long violet hair strides over, parting the sea of travellers as she goes.
‘Have you seen this?’ She tilts her head to the side, holding up her phone.
Hello to you, too. ‘What?’ I say.
She focuses on me for the first time this trip and the awkward in me wants to lob out a compliment or a smile or something, but her impassive face makes my brain blank.
