Gate 29

Laura isn’t the type of person to abide idleness. She’s always moving, always lunging from one thing to the next.

When she hears her flight will be delayed, she gets right up and starts walking. The terminal’s a circle and reminiscent of the track she walks around at home. A bit shorter, a bit busier, but at its core, the same.

Her pace is brisk but steady. A case study in consistency.

As she passes people sitting around, lounging, scrolling on their phones, she judges them. She thinks of how lethargic and apathetic this nation has become. She thinks, without any evidence, that this wasn’t how it used to be. That once, in some imaginary past, this was a nation of movers.

She blames smartphones and the internet. She blames fast food and the erosion of morals. She blames atheism and the end of the cold war. She blames many things but proposes no solutions.

She passes a child sitting on his mother’s lap. He stares at Laura, confused and a bit horrified. She doesn’t know why he looks at her this way but chooses to ignore it. To meet his opposition with kindness. She waves, and the mother pulls the child towards her chest and gives Laura a dirty look. The kind of look you give a criminal. The kind of look Laura is accustomed to giving, not receiving.

The whole next lap, she fixates on that look. Her pace quickens. She has half a mind to have it out with the mother.

She feels her heart rumble and her palms slicken as she nears them. She stares at the woman and child, an iPad shoved an inch from his face, the mother on her phone. Laura decides it isn’t worth it. These two are too far gone. They’re in the virtual world, and there’s no coming back from there.

She scans the seats as she walks, searching for other stories, other distractions, other places to cast judgment.

She sees a drunk man staggering over to a seat. He holds a cup in his hand with no lid. He stumbles and spills ice and liquid on the disgusting carpet. He doesn’t move to pick it up or even seem to realize he’s spilled.

“Excuse me,” she says to him as she passes, careful not to slow her pace. “It seems you dropped something.”

The man doesn’t hear her. He’s in his phone and his drink and much too gone to register her scolding.

She walks on, judging the weak for their inability to show restraint.

A couple's fighting at gate 34.

“That’s not up to me,” the man says. He has long hair, much too long in Laura’s opinion, and a bushy beard. She grew up with long hair and beards but seems to have forgotten that.

“That’s real good, real nice,” the woman tosses her hands in the air. She’s wearing those yoga pants that leave nothing to the imagination. Laura thinks that if she were a bit more modest, she might not be having this fight. “It’s all up to me. You never have to make a decision. Just like when we were at the lake…”

A man at gate 35 shouts into his phone, drowning out the couple. He’s wearing a black suit and is pacing as he talks. “I won’t be there by then. My flight is delayed… I can’t control the weather…”

His conversation disappears, swallowed up by the casual murmuring of the airport.

Laura picks up the pace, determined to catch the end of the couple’s argument.

As she passes gate 29, she sees a young woman leaning against the wall, hood pulled up over her head, covering her face. She reminds Laura of her daughter. Fragile but angry. The young woman appears to be crying. She's rocking back and forth, hugging herself. The row across from her is full of people, but no one looks at her. No one asks if she’s ok, no one offers assistance.

“We had an open thing,” the long-haired man is saying. People are watching and listening. A man has begun to film the scene.

“An open thing doesn’t include that.”

“Doesn’t include what?”

“Your dick in my sister’s mouth,” the woman in leggings stands up, stomps her feet, and sits back down. She knows people are listening. She has a choice to make. She can retreat, regroup, continue this fight in private at another time.

But her rage and vanity won’t allow that. She’s wanted to have this out for so long. She’s wanted him to feel her fury, to experience her wrath. She welcomes the audience. She sees the man filming. She’s unapologetic, flagrant in her rage. She stares into the camera, feels its lens burrow into her, then turns back to the long-haired man and resumes her tirade, now conscious of the unseen eyes.

Laura doesn’t see this. She’s already gone. She’s half running to get back to the girl at gate 29. Laura knows society would tell her this is a woman. 19, 20, 25, she can't tell, but it doesn't matter. Laura sees her as a girl. A girl in need of saving.

She passes the man in the suit, still fuming, still pacing. She sees the kid and his mother, both still trapped in their devices. She sees the drunk, his cup has fallen from his hand. An attendant is cleaning up the ice but ignoring the man himself.

And then she’s there. The girl sitting on the floor. Still crying. Laura is relieved to see the tears and the distress. If she’d recovered, if she’d been scrolling on her phone in peace, Laura never could’ve interfered. She never could’ve saved her.

"Hello," Laura says, her hands raised, her steps long but careful. "My name's Laura. Is there something I can do to help you?"

The girl shakes her head and buries herself further into her hood. Laura can just make out a wisp of hair – dirty blonde and curling. It’s the same color as her daughter’s. Or at least it was the last time Laura saw her.

"I know, I know," Laura says, even though she doesn't know. "It's ok. I'm here to help."

She can feel the eyes of the airport on her. She believes she knows what they’re thinking. They’re jealous of her bravery and compassion. They’re humiliated by their own lack of action.

Laura sits down next to the girl, leaning her back against the wall, trying not to think about how dirty the airport is. “You can talk to me, it’s ok. I have a girl… she’s about your age. I know how it is. Everything seems so… important, but it isn’t. It’ll pass.”

The girl’s shoulders drop, the tension evaporates. She pulls her hands from the pocket of the sweatshirt and starts to pick at her crumbling nail polish.

Laura reaches out her arm and drapes it over the girl’s shoulder, but the girl leans away and goes stiff. Laura retreats. “Do you want to tell me what happened? Tell me what I can do to help?” she thinks it’ll be money. It’s always money. She sets a limit in her head, $100. The story will have to be convincing, but she can spare that.

She breathes in and realizes the girl stinks. Stale BO and smoke. Maybe only $50. She needs to be careful. This could be a drug thing. A setup.

The girl kicks the heel of her shoe, dislodging it and showing a dirty, torn sock. “Ok,” she says. “Can you really help?”

“Of course, I can help.”

"He wasn't… I knew him, so I don't know if it's… I said no, but he was… it wasn't my first time, does that matter?” she turns to Laura. Her face is covered in freckles and darker than Laura had anticipated. There’s dirt on the girl's left cheek, and snot has crusted over her philtrum. Her lips are chapped bloody, and her eyes carry large, heavy circles under them.

Laura has no answers. She pretends not to understand, not to comprehend what happened. She shakes her head and gives the girl a soft look.

“I would’ve…” the girl says. “You can help? They’ll believe me if I… you’re a… it wasn’t my fault. You can tell them. Just because I’d done it before… I said no, I said no,” her voice is almost a shout now, her posture straight. She reaches out and grabs Laura’s arm, holding it tight. “You believe me, right?”

“Of course,” Laura stands up, her arm still in the girl’s grasp. “Of course, I believe you, I... you should… the authorities… I would stay and help, but my plane…” she motions to her gate, a desperate smile clawed across her face. She still has another hour until her flight leaves, but the girl doesn’t know that. “I can’t…”

The girl’s hand slips from Laura’s arm, her eyes fall, her back curves, her face retreats into her hood. Laura sees the hope recede from the girl and the defeat return.

People are watching them. They’ve watched the whole affair. They’ve heard the girl’s plea. They’ve judged Laura’s reaction. She smiles and shrugs to the audience. She looks down at the girl who’s still on the floor, rocking back and forth.

Laura opens her wallet and pulls out some cash, dropping it on the floor in front of the girl. It tumbles away, and Laura steps on it then picks it up and puts it in the girl’s lap.

Again, she looks at the audience, searching for approval, for forgiveness. But none comes. Just stone faces and a phone filming her. Laura stares into the phone’s lens, she sees the countless eyes staring back at her, she feels their judgment. She wants to explain but knows she can't. They won't listen. They've already decided on her.