My bum had just started going numb from sitting on the hard metal airport chair when I saw someone familiar in the distance. I recognized the walk immediately. Matt has this cool kind of swagger that makes you think of sexy, lasso-wielding cowboys. Panic seized me and, without thinking, I dove straight onto the floor.
“EX-ca-uuuse me!” the woman sitting next to me said. I glanced up and saw she was looking down at me in horror, as if I’d just committed some monumental crime against humanity. As if I was personally responsible for global warming, world poverty and antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
“What?” I looked up at her.
“Do. You. Mind?” Her eyes flicked from my face, to my hand, and then back again. I followed them.
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t see it . . .” I mumbled, removing my hand from off her shopping bag.
She reached down and picked the bag up angrily. “Oh, now look!” she moaned, pulling something out of the bag. “I bought this chocolate for my grandson and you’ve gone and crushed it.”
“Hardly,” I said looking at the perfect slab.
“Here.” She pointed to the corner of it, where a tiny piece of foil wrapping had been ever-so-slightly disturbed.
“Oh, please. I didn’t do that.”
“Young lady,” she said, her voice slightly louder than I would have liked, and I looked up quickly to see where Matt was. He was still walking in my direction and,oh-no, Doctor Samantha had just joined him.What the hell were they doing here so early?Perhaps they’d also had the same thought; try and get on an earlier flight to avoid me?
“You have destroyed my grandson’s chocolate.” Her voice got even louder and the man sitting across from us glanced in our direction.
“I’m sorry. Here.” I pulled out my wallet and handed her a fifty-rand note. “Get him another one.”
“It was the last one,” she said, but snatched the money anyway.
“Well, I’m sure there’re many other chocolates out there.” I didn’t bother concealing the sarcasm in my voice.
The old woman sat up straight. “Are you sassing me?” Vocal volume really growing now!
“Shhhhh,” I hissed at her, putting my finger over my lips in a desperate attempt to silence her.
“Don’t you dare shush me. And what on earth are you doing on the floor anyway?” Too loud! Way too loud. People were starting to turn and stare.
I looked up again. Matt and Sam were getting closer, and I started panicking. I needed to get out of there, unseen. So I shot up, grabbed my bag and started power-marching away as fast as I could, hoping that I wouldn’t be seen. Only I was.
“Val?” It was Matt.
Shit!My power-march turned into a jog which soon turned into a run as I scuttled across the airport.
“Val. Wait!” he called. And then I heard another voice.
“Matt, what the hell are you doing?” Sam said. “Come back here. Immediately!” She sounded furious. I didn’t blame her.
“Val. Stop!” Matt called out again. But I didn’t. How the hell was I ever going to look at him again when just the sound of his voice made me so embarrassed and panicky that I wanted to puke? I picked up pace and took a sharp left, and to my absolute joy, found this section of the airport jam-packed with hundreds of jostling bodies.
International departures. I pushed my way straight into the dense crowd and started weaving through them, going deeper and deeper into the sea of noisy, moving bodies.
When I was satisfied that I was right in the belly of the beast and that there was no way I could be seen, I took refuge behind a large group of Chinese tourists and let out a long, loud sigh of relief.
Behind me stood a very large man with a sunburnt wife the color of a lobster. I could tell immediately that they were foreigners who’d come here on safari. She was kitted out head-to-toe in those trinkets you buy from game reserve shops, including two huge elephant head earrings. I was so intrigued by the way they swung so violently every time she moved her head, that when I suddenly found myself at the counter I was shocked.
“Huh?” I looked at the woman behind the counter who was now talking to me. “I didn’t get that?” I said.
“Ticket, please,” she replied.
“Ti . . . Oh. No. I don’t have one,” I said, ducking down a little now that my Chinese protectors were gone.
“Ticket, please,” she repeated. Very slowly this time.
