“I’m not checking a bag.”
“Yes, you are.” At the open position, Jenni heaved the box onto the scale. “We had a school assembly, and everyone made cards and signed a banner. The teachers who remembered Rey spoke, and so did his sister. Lucky I caught you so I don’t have to pay postage.”
Jenni’s words meant everyone in town had discussed Grace’s supposed engagement. People had speculated about her and a man she didn’t know, their couplehood suddenly a given. Her stomach plummeted into her clogs, and no smiling cartoon apples and pears on the side of a box were going to reassure her.
As the digital scale settled at fifty-four pounds, Grace asked, “How did you know I was at the airport?” She hadn’t told her family she was flying to D.C., because she didn’t have answers for the inevitable questions.
Jenni was too wrapped up in bargaining with the woman on the other side of the counter over the extra eighty-five-dollar charge for overweight items to hear or respond. “But she’s taking it to her wounded fiancé! He was hurt in Afghanistan.”
She tuned out the rest of her sister’s spiel by staring at the departure monitors. Without her sister’s interference, she would already be finished here.
“Thank you so much.” Jenni beamed at the clerk. “What’s your name so she can submit a compliment card?”
Score another for her sister, and two more minutes of time at the desk. “Let’s just go.”
“I realize you’re in shock.” Jenni headed with her toward the security lines. “But you need some game face.” She glanced sideways at Grace. “Start with makeup. You look blah.”
“Big surprise. I feel blah.” She’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours online trying to understand her situation. She shouldn’t have read internet comments, but she was cursed to be a researcher. The women who wanted to trade places were weird, and the nuts who thought people like her and Cruz ruined the United States were scary, but the men who posted graphically lewd comments describing what they wanted to do to her had made her spend the darkest hours of last night locked in her bathroom.
“You can’t show it. You need to look good. How long since you last saw Reynaldo?” Jenni’s pronunciation sounded Spanish, reminding Grace that her sister was a bilingual elementary teacher.
“Never. I have to tell you—” Her sister hustled into the line at a coffee stand before Grace finished speaking.
“Let’s get you snacks for the plane. What do you want?”
“Nothing, thanks.” Although the security line was as short as check-in, she didn’t think there was time to stop.
“Two double tall nonfat lattes.” As usual, Jenni knew best and didn’t hesitate. “Oops, can’t take that through security, just one. And a bag of chocolate almonds and a croissant.” She turned to Grace with her eyebrows raised as if conveying a significant fact. “It’s twelve dollars.”
Eleven sixty-four, but Grace pulled a twenty from her wallet. Before she said goodbye, she wanted to make her sister understand. “The engagement isn’t real.”
“Whether he formally proposed down on one knee or not doesn’t matter. It’s too late to dump him.” Jenni shifted the latte to her other hand and pulled Grace’s rolling suitcase through the rope line toward the security station without stopping her mouth. “It’s not what’s on the outside, whatever that might be after his injuries, that matters. He’s still the same person on the inside. Even my students know that.”
“Will you listen?” She quickened her pace to keep up with her sister. The urge to make Jenni shut up before they reached the security desk filled Grace’s chest until she wanted to scream, deny being the local hero’s fiancée and kick a path free. However, only deranged people begged to be Tasered by airport police, so she blew out a breath and tried again in the calmest voice she could manage. “He lied.”
“Whatever he lied about, forget it. He’s hurt, everyone thinks you’re engaged, and your boss bought your ticket. So you go.”
“It was frequent flier—” she recognized a verbal detour, Jenni’s specialty. “How do you know that? And how did you know I was going to D.C. tonight?” Jenni hadn’t answered that question at check-in.
“Umma called him because that one little text you sent her saying everything was fine and not to worry made her worry.”
Her life was a deep pile of kimchi, getting deeper. “The point I’m trying to make is, we’re not engaged!” This time she failed to modulate her voice, and both the security officer and the passenger ahead of them at the podium looked up, frowning.
Chill,she cautioned herself.
“What, because he hasn’t bought a ring?” Her sister shook her head as if Grace had failed the good citizenship category on her report card. “You never cared for jewelry or status stuff. Livingin the city’s changed you.” Jenni snatched the paper ticket out of Grace’s hand and slapped it in front of the officer before Grace could respond.
“I’m not talking about a ring. I’m talking about me. I don’t know this guy!” It seemed like the world only listened to women who yelled.
“Picture ID?” the TSA screener asked.
“Then you ought to be more careful about what you write to people! It saidLove, Graceon that photo. For a smart girl, sometimes you’re so dumb.”
“Identification for Grace Kim?” The guard projected his voice over the conversation. Even Jenni stopped talking. “Which one of you is—”
“Her.” Jenni pointed, passing the blame for stalling the line to her big sister, but not offering to hold the snacks while Grace unzipped her purse and fished for her wallet.
She was out of time. When Jenni fell deep into her own narrative, in this case Miss Wiser than Thou delivering tidings from the entire town, it was impossible to correct her. Grace had to let this conversation go until she arrived in Washington, D.C. The big hero could straighten out the record, her life could return to normal, her parents would be fine, and their hometown could settle back into rural bliss.
