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Peter checks his watch. “Yes. Nash asked me to, and I have time.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Peter walks over to the couch, where a messenger bag waits. He pulls out a laptop and opens it on the small desk in the sitting room.
I turn my attention back to packing and eventually call hotel staff to come in and take some of the clothes away to be sent back to the store or mailed. I work quickly since Peter is waiting, and I’m done in forty-five minutes.
“All done. These need to go to your car,” I tell him. “I’m going back to my room to grab my bag and then I’ll meet you downstairs?”
He nods, and we split up.
On the way to my room, I pull out my phone to check my notifications. There are two missed calls from my sister, Daria, which is weird.
As soon as I escape the elevator, I call her back.
“Hey,” she says as soon as she answers. “I’m desperate. Can you please come by and take Bella to daycare? I’m running late, and apparently, there’s a meeting with the higher-ups that I need to sit in even though I—”
I cut her off. “I’m in Switzerland.”
“What?”
“I’m in Switzerland,” I repeat. That familiar irritation prickles my chest. “I mentioned it in the group chat that I would be out of town for a few days.”
“Why are you on vacation? Aren’t you coming to Christmas?”
“I am,” I say with more patience than I feel. “I’ll be back tomorrow. And I’m not on vacation; I’m working with clients.”
She laughs a little. “Working with clients? A client flew you to Europe?” The laughter in her voice is now incredulous.
“Yes.” I bite my cheek as I use my keycard to enter my hotel room.
“Oh my god, I don’t want to tell rich people how to spend their money, but wow, to be that spoiled is wild.”
The last thing I want to get into a discussion about right now with my sister is the ethics of working in an industry entirely reliant on disposable income while still believing that capitalism sucks. Instead, I get back to the original point. “So, you’ll have to figure out something else to do with Bella.”
“Oh, Kara.” My sister sighs. “Don’t be mad at me. I just forgot. You know, with my postpartum depression and going back to work, life has been a little hectic around here.”
My sister knows how to immediately soften me and make me feel bad for her despite the fact that there’s always some excuse for forgetting about my life. She’s not wrong—she has been struggling, and I do what I can to help, but this time she’s out of luck.
She hangs up shortly after, still in search of child transportation, and I get to packing.
When I exit the front door of the hotel five minutes later, Peter is in his car, a dark Volkswagen sedan idling by the curb directly under the three flags jutting from the hotel’s facade. The street parking here is weird: there’s no curb, but instead, there are posts that divide the parking area from the street, and a minor change in the texture of the ground signifies the pedestrian area.
There’s also EINFAHRT painted onto the sidewalk, which made me giggle.
Peter helps me load my bags, and then it’s a ten-minute drive to the Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg airport—named after the three closest cities in Switzerland, France, and Germany, respectively—and located in France. Yes, residents of Basel drive to another country to fly. We don’t talk, but I steal glances at him when I’m not watching out the window.
Growing up in New York, I never learned how to drive. Usually when I’m in a car, I’m always on my phone, but here—maybe it’s because the car, the driver, and the view are all foreign—I pay more attention.
The roads around us have a steady stream, lots of cars but not really traffic. Peter drives confidently, navigating roundabouts and merging lanes, which are all intimidating to me. Plus, I can’t read any of the signs—thank goodness for the ubiquitous airplane icon.
We cross the border into France—still very much in the city—and my phone dings in my bag. I dig it out and check my messages.
Unknown number
Dear passenger, unfortunately, your flight has been canceled. Please log in to our website to manage your booking. We apologize for the regrettable inconvenience.
“Oh crap.”
