Airport Sighting
By Nisha Shirali
I recognize my old university friend Sarah by the rounding of her shoulders that turns her into a spoon. She stands a few feet from the queue for my flight from the Toronto airport. Her previously long blonde hair is now puddle brown and cut to her shoulders, and her navy pantsuit replaces the ripped jeans and tees from school days.
The line trudges forward, placing Sarah in my line of vision. She’s absorbed in her phone, unconcerned about the line-up, while I pulse with anxiety. I am afraid of airplanes, and since my husband died a month ago, death has been perched on my shoulder. I don’t know if I want it to catch me or not.
Unsure if I should make eye contact, I decide to stare ahead and cradle my belly as the baby kicks her impatience. Perk up, I tell myself. Aman may be gone, but my niece’s wedding is an occasion to celebrate and cheer up.
In the airplane, I settle into an aisle seat, scrutinizing everyone who approaches to see if they’re my seat mates. After the fifth person squeezes by, I lose interest and flip through a magazine, when someone finally stops: Sarah. Her smile is thin and apologetic as her hands twist the boarding pass.
“Hi, Juhi. Long time, no see. Looks like I’m in this seat?” She points to the window seat two seats down from me.
“Sarah, hi! Oh my God! It’s been years.” My voice is embarrassingly high-pitched. She nestles her sleek black briefcase into the overhead bin and awkwardly brushes past me into the cramped space. I wait for someone else to fill the seat in between us, but no one does.
The flight crew begins their security road show and Sarah opens her book, something about Daring to Lead on the cover.
“So, how have you been?” I venture. “It’s been years.”
She hesitates before tucking in a bookmark. “It has. I’ve been well—mostly busy with work. You?” Up close her crow’s feet wink at me and I self-consciously wonder what she thinks of me, fourteen years later.
“I’ve been alright.” An overstatement. I want to tell her that I can count my friends on a couple of fingers, that every day I wake up and wonder how to make it through the day. “What are you headed to New York for?”
“Work meeting. I’m a senior associate at McKinsey.”
“Amazing.” The name rings a bell, a powerhouse consulting firm. She doesn’t ask but I hurry to add, “I work at a boutique art gallery in Toronto.”
“Ooh. Owner?”
“Admin. But I’m exploring getting back into graphic design.”
Out of university, I worked at a graphic design firm for about a year, but when Aman shot up the ranks of his legal career and wanted to try for a baby, I decided to quit. A familiar dread creeps over me as I think about the black hole that is my future.
The flight attendant comes by to offer us drinks.
“A scotch on the rocks, please,” says Sarah.
I politely decline and her eyes flit to my belly, which swells under my open cardigan. “Congratulations. You’re pregnant?”
The plane shudders and my hands tighten on the armrests. I gulp in a breath and refocus on Sarah’s question. “Five months. Our first baby.”
Sarah’s mouth flatlines, bringing me back with a thud to university days and my transgressions against her.
We met on the first day of university, hiding from the freshman welcome committee that bobbed around campus like bunnies in heat. We bonded over our shared love of art, chess and pop culture.
On the second day we found each other again, and most days after that. Sarah wasn’t the best-looking, but she had a focus and drive about her that lit a fire in me too. She was the top achiever in our year and proclaimed she wanted to become a CEO one day. Our second week, Sarah pointed to a tousled-hair man jogging around the baseball court and told me that was her high school sweetheart. Aman.
Aman and I ended up in the same South Asian dance team. When he was around, the pitter-patter of thoughts in my head slowed down. He never spoke about Sarah, and they were rarely seen together. Meanwhile, like a twisted Casanova, I was also spending time with Sarah in class, at art events, at the library.
I confessed my feelings to Aman after a particularly exhilarating dance practice one night. He gave me a wry, almost relieved, smile in return. In class the next day, Sarah passed me and sat with someone else, her face carefully blank.
Part of me hoped she would forgive me and the other part knew I had bungled this friendship. But at the end, the loss of Sarah seemed worth it because Aman and I were happy. I told myself she’d probably just been friends with me to make herself feel smarter by comparison.
I would be lying if I said I haven’t thought about Sarah over the years, with the associated pinches of guilt. We even followed each other on social media for a while, until one day I realized that she had removed me from her lists, sometime after the engagement photos I posted.
Sarah’s face returns to neutral. “I’m sure Aman is thrilled. He always wanted kids.”
“He was. He died.”
Her face blanches. “I had no idea. How did he pass?”
“Allergic reaction.”
“The nut allergy?”
I nod, surprised she still remembers.
She opens and closes her mouth in shock. “Why did he eat food with nuts in it? Why did someone feed that to him?”
My stomach coils as I’m brought back to the scene for the millionth time to tell her what happened. A month ago, Aman had ordered from a new restaurant who had falsely confirmed the meals didn’t contain nuts. When Aman took his first few bites, I was fixated on my phone, clicking on an email from the Doctor’s office.
I was yanked out of my focus by a gasping sound. Everything was a blur, but I remember Aman’s handsome face swelling and him falling to the ground. By the time I grabbed his Epipen, he was gone.
I stare down at my intertwined hands. “I was distracted by my phone. I always tried to be vigilant, but I missed it this time.”
“I’m sorry, Juhi.”
Her voice is low but clear, with no trace of malice or pity. She’s not making it about herself, not falling over herself to make me feel better, not telling me that I’ll find someone else.
“Thank you. Sarah—” I continue before I lose courage. “I want to apologize for the way I handled things back then. I was an idiot.”
Her face pinches like she’s smelled rotten egg. “You know,” her voice is soft, but the bitterness seeps through. “It’s not only that you and Aman got together. Rather, it was obvious you had never cared about me at all.”
I feel exposed with the partially true allegation. “I did. But I didn’t know you thought so much of me. You didn’t contact me at all that summer after first year.”
“I was busy with my family, I thought we all were. You were one of my closest friends.”
“I’m really sorry.”
Her face shutters. “It’s alright—it’s over now. How have you been since he passed? I can’t believe it.”
We’re interrupted by the ice cubes in Sarah’s scotch glass clinking together. My eyes meet Sarah’s for a brief second before the plane quakes. Passengers are jostled to the left, then to the right.
The flight attendants hush people before they scurry back to their seats and buckle themselves in. I feel paralyzed as passengers around me murmur anxiously.
“Juhi, put your seatbelt on,” Sarah orders as she fastens her own.
“It’s fine, I don’t need it.”
The plane thuds again, and a ray of hope rises in my gut. Maybe I can be taken away from all this. An easy way out.
My seatbelt is being buckled around my belly. It’s Sarah, eyes blazing at me. We’re glowering at each other when we realize the plane is still again. The pilot’s voice sounds over the speakerphone, alerting us that they have stabilized the plane and that it was just a bit of turbulence.
Passengers around me break into sheepish, self-conscious tittering. The trembling of my hands ceases as my body calms down.
“Juhi, are you okay?” Sarah asks, a mix of irritation and curiosity on her face.
“I’m fine.” I turn away from her to process what I just did. My brain wants to yank me towards shame, tell me how bad a friend and wife I am, and now a bad mother, because I couldn’t even keep my baby safe. I force the thoughts away and scribble down job ideas on one of the blank pages of my magazine instead.
After the plane lands, I pick up my luggage and make my way to the pick-up zone. Still in my head, I hardly notice my name being called until Sarah appears next to me.
“You know, McKinsey is always looking for graphic designers. Take a peek at the website if you’re interested.”
She must have seen my scribbles.
“Wow. Thank you for saying that.” I pause before deciding to plunge ahead. “Hey, it’s been nice running into you. Maybe we can meet in New York, or in Toronto for a coffee?” My voice takes on a pleading tone that I hate, showing how badly I need to connect with someone who had loved Aman too.
She looks at me for a minute, assessing, judging, softening. The minute seems to stretch on into ten.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea, Juhi. But perhaps we’ll run into each other again on the flight back? Take care of yourself.”
I’m left unanchored, like a raft in the ocean as she walks away, but I know it’s only fair. I owed her this—it was a long time coming.
THE END
Author Bio: Nisha Shirali is a writer, policy analyst and mother of two young children based in Toronto, Ontario. Her work has appeared in Litbreak and Brilliant Flash Fiction magazines. She can be found at www.nishashirali.com and her Instagram handle is @nishas.writing.