The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(8)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

And so this morning, just a plane ride away from seeing the source of all their problems, Hadley woke up in a rotten mood. If everything had gone smoothly, this might have translated into a few sarcastic comments and the occasional grumble on the ride to the airport. But there was a message from Charlotte first thing, reminding her what time to be at the hotel to get ready, and the sound of her clipped British accent set Hadley’s teeth on edge in a way that meant the rest of the day was as good as doomed.

Later, of course, her suitcase refused to zip, and Mom nixed the chandelier earrings she’d planned to wear for the ceremony, then proceeded to ask her eighty-five times whether she had her passport. The toast was burned and Hadley got jam on her sweatshirt and when she drove the car to the drugstore to pick up a mini bottle of shampoo, it began to rain and one of the windshield wipers broke and she ended up waiting at the gas station for nearly forty-five minutes behind a guy who didn’t know how to check his own oil. And all the while, the clock kept lurching forward toward the time when they’d have to leave. So when she walked back into the house and threw the keys on the kitchen table, she was in no mood for Mom’s eighty-sixth inquiry about her passport.

“Yes,” she snapped. “I have it.”

“I’m just asking,” Mom said, raising her eyebrows innocently, and Hadley gave her a mutinous look.

“Sure you don’t want to march me onto the plane, too?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Or maybe you should escort me all the way to London to make sure I actually go.”

There was a note of warning in Mom’s voice. “Hadley.”

“I mean, why should I be the only one who has to watch him get married to that woman? I don’t understand why I have to go at all, much less by myself.”

Mom pursed her lips in a look that unmistakably conveyed her disappointment, but by then, Hadley didn’t really even care.

Later, they rode the entire way to the airport in stubborn silence, an encore performance of the fight they’d been having for weeks now. And by the time they pulled up to the departures area, every part of Hadley seemed to be tingling with a kind of nervous energy.

Mom switched off the engine, but neither of them moved to get out of the car.

“It’ll be fine,” Mom said after a moment, her voice soft. “It really will.”

Hadley swiveled to face her. “He’s getting married, Mom. How can it be fine?”

“I just think it’s important that you be there—”

“Yeah, I know,” she said sharply, cutting her off. “You’ve mentioned that.”

“It’ll be fine,” Mom said again.

Hadley grabbed her sweatshirt and unbuckled her seat belt. “Well, then it’s your fault if anything happens.”

“Like what?” Mom asked wearily, and Hadley—buzzing with a kind of anger that made her feel both entirely invincible and incredibly young—reached out to fling open the door.

“Like if my plane crashes or something,” she said, not really even sure why she was saying it, except that she was bitter and frustrated and scared, and isn’t that how most things like that get said? “Then you’ll have managed to lose both of us.”

They stared at each other, the awful, unrecallable words settling between them like so many bricks, and after a moment Hadley stepped out of the car, swinging her backpack up onto her shoulder and then grabbing her suitcase from the backseat.

“Hadley,” Mom said, jumping out on the other side and looking at her from across the hood. “Don’t just—”

“I’ll call you when I get there,” Hadley said, already heading toward the terminal. She could feel Mom watching her the whole way, but some fragile instinct, some mistaken sense of pride, made her refuse to turn around again.

Now, sitting in the little airport café, her thumb hovers over the button on her phone. She takes a deep breath before pressing it, her heart pounding in the quiet spaces between rings.

The words she spoke earlier are still echoing in her mind; Hadley isn’t superstitious by nature, but that she so thoughtlessly invoked the possibility of a plane crash right before her flight is nearly enough to make her sick. She thinks about the plane she was supposed to take, already well on its way across the ocean by now, and she feels a sharp sting of regret, hoping that she didn’t somehow mess with the mysterious workings of timing and chance.

A part of her is relieved when she gets her mom’s voice mail. As she starts to leave a message about the change in plans, she sees Oliver approaching again. For a moment she thinks she recognizes something in the look on his face, the same tortured worry she can feel in herself right now, but when he spots her something shifts, and he’s back again, looking unruffled and almost cheerful, an easy smile lighting his eyes.

Hadley has trailed off in the middle of her message, and Oliver points to her phone as he grabs his bag, then jerks his thumb in the direction of the gate. She opens her mouth to tell him she’ll only be a minute, but he’s already off, and so she finishes the message hastily.

“So I’ll call when I get there tomorrow,” she says into the phone, her voice wavering slightly. “And Mom? I’m sorry about before, okay? I didn’t mean it.”

Afterward, when she heads back to the gate, she scans the area for Oliver’s blue shirt, but he’s nowhere in sight. Rather than wait for him amid the crowd of restless travelers, she circles back to use the bathroom, then pokes around the gift shops and bookstores and newspaper stands, wandering the terminal until it’s finally time to board.

As she falls into line, Hadley realizes she’s almost too tired to even be anxious at this point. It feels like she’s been here for days now, and there’s so much more ahead of her to worry about, too: the closeness of the cabin, the panicky feeling that comes with no escape route. There’s the wedding and the reception, meeting Charlotte, and seeing Dad for the first time in more than a year. But for now, she just wants to put on her headphones, close her eyes, and sleep. To be set in motion, sent careening across the ocean without any effort on her part, seems almost like a miracle.

When it’s her turn to hand over her ticket, the flight attendant smiles from beneath his mustache. “Scared of flying?”

Hadley forces herself to unclench her hand, where she’s been gripping the handle of her suitcase with white knuckles. She smiles ruefully.