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Actually, rewind a bit.
If time were linear, then it would be a straight
line, which would make it the Second dimension.
Cee wakes. She looks at her ever present watch. Time to wake up? No. Way too early. She determinedly pulls the covers even more overhead. Cee is a bed burrower. Cee dreams.
She is standing in front of a huge file cabinet, eighteen feet of beige, in a room deep beneath the earth. The great cement cavern is filled with the sound of churning engines. Air being handled and turned and cooled. Cee is filing. Or trying to file. The paper will not go.
Cee wakes up. Is it time yet? No. Way too early. Cee frowns. Stupid work dreams.
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Kay wakes. She looks at her clock. Time to go to France yet? No. Later. Sleep now. Kay dreams.
Curved smiling the cloth bends in the air. Handled. Turned. Cooled by the breeze.
Kay wakes up. Time to go to France yet? No. Not yet. Kay frowns. Fabric dreams?
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Time glances at his watch. Then at his hourglass. Then at his other wristwatch. Pocket watch. The dark oaken clock on the first floor. The Mickey Mouse smiling clock. The watch on his right ankle. Frowns. Shakes the hourglass to get time moving along just a bit faster. He also shifts this story to past tense. Time is apparently manual and not automatic, which explains the occasional lurching when Time doesn’t let out the clutch quite right.
Fast forward the waking and the sleeping. The fits of filing and cloth and anxious tick tocking.
Then it was Time to Go.
The girls, the women, met one another in the hallway. Kay has the top floor of the house, the servant’s quarters once upon a time. Provided she cleans it. The women smile with bright eyed, sharp edged wakefulness.
Showers.
The house has five bathrooms, not including the tub in the attic. Kay uses the top floor bathroom. Cee creeps down the servant’s winding stair to the second floor. Bathroom on the left. The Captain’s bathroom. She doesn’t worry about messing it up like she does the preponderance of Mickey’s bathroom. And thus the door to Atlantis continues to go undiscovered.
The ghost watches, but not like that. The women get ready.
Carefully laid out clothes were unlaid out. Given shape. Worn.
Motion. Down the hall. Down the tiny twisting servant’s stairs to where the Captain’s wife waited, keys in hand, which oddly enough isn’t the way it was in the last chapter. Sometimes when you rewind, changes occur.
It was dark outside. Shiny with the night’s wet exhaustion. Out the little black iron gate. Down the dark, wet dark road. Flashing yellow line. Go, baby. Go. Go. Go.
Destination. The girls, sorry, the women, tumbled out of the car. SFO. Hugs and thanks and goodbyes. Tick tock.
“What does the O stand for?” asked Cee, as she picked up her bag, a black duffle, not so much new.
“Nobody knows,” said Kay, as she picked up her bag, a red duffle, still with the patina of newness.
“Well, except maybe the Shadow,” said Cee, as the doors glided open welcome for her.
“Yes, of course, except for the Shadow and perhaps shadow governments,” said Kay, who then checked her tickets for the seven million one hundred thousand and forty third time for the flight number.
Cee looked around at the arching Lobby of Departure, glowing by the dawn’s early florescent light. The waiting Check In counters stretched out to the right and to the left. A cleaning services guy pushed a lonely buzzing vacuum across the short red nape of the carpet. Buzz.
Oh, and just to get this out of the way. Cee – 5’5, blue eyes, wire rim glasses, long blondish hair that she can’t bother to have cut, all of her own teeth, 27, likes Pina Coladas and walks in the rain. Kay – 5’7, hazel eyes, wire rim glasses, blond hair this month, 24, isn’t much into health food and has already planned her escape. To France.
Anyway, they went to stand in line for check in. Some waiting.
“So, except for the Shadow, shadow governments and God, no one knows.” Cee moved two steps forward.
“Hello, Omniscient. God totally knows.” Kay nodded. “So, God, the Shadow, shadow governments and perhaps Giles.” The women moved two more steps forward down the long intestine of waiting to check in.
Cee paused. Pondered. Shoved her bag forward. Walked two steps. Pondered some more. “Well, if Giles knows then Q totally knows.”
Kay’s forehead creased all thoughtfully. “Bond or Next Gen Q?”
Cee kicked her duffle two feet forward. “Both.” The women nodded. Waited. Moved to the head of the line. Handed over their tickets.
“Any bags to check in?” said the Check In Lady whose name was Irene How May I Help You.
The women smiled, “Nope.” Cee loved saying that. Kay knew that she was going to love saying that. Then boarding passes in hand, they were on their way. Again.
“Oh, look. Books.” Kay pointed at a tiny bookshop folded in among the gew gaw and do dad shops.
“Heh, why in my day, airports only had chairs and they were hard and we liked it,” said Cee as she walked into the tiny dark paneled slice of airport heaven.
“I thought in your day you only had metal spikes and you liked it.”
“That was only for first class, Missy.” Cee picked up a particularly lurid offering, Tempestuous Azure Dawn. “I feel like we don’t have enough books, but we have enough books.”
“Walk away from the books,” said Kay and the women left the den of airport iniquity and walked over to their gate.
Pulled out books. Waited. Were too excited to read. Pulled their duffels over to the great big honking window. Watched time ooze across the tarmac. One hour, twenty minutes and counting.
“Okay, that’s totally sad.” Cee pointed at a cluster of little gremlins huddled next to an air vent as they quickly puffed on their wee little cigarettes. Their breath and smoke swirled in the early morning air.
A uniformed workman walked over to the little gray men, waved his arms about and pointed at a sign in Great Big Red Letters. No Smoking within 20 feet of Buildings. The gremlins slouched in dejected stoop away from the warmth to a red line on the tarmac to finish their smoke.
“Pretty strict,” said Kay. “You’d think they’d worry about gremlins hanging around an airfield more than gremlins smoking too close to a building.”
“Uh, Kay, this is San Francisco,” said Cee.
“Point taken,” said Kay.
They resumed fidgeting.
Finally, hours and hours and hours later, they boarded the plane for beautiful exotic Pittsburg.
There was food. There was a movie. It was something about a guy and a girl and cars. Enough said.
They arrived in Pittsburg. Disgorged out. Wandered the concourse. Had an ice cream. Went to their next gate. The really, really France gate. Kay wanted to take their picture next to the Boarding Gate that said, “Paris, France.” This would however have required walking away from their luggage.
Kay felt incapable of leaving their luggage unattended for thirty seconds while they took pictures. The thought bothered her. You aren’t supposed to leave your luggage unattended.
Cee stood next to the luggage and took Kay’s picture standing next to the sign. Then there was more waiting. And then, oh, caloo, calay, other Lewis Carroll words of excitement, there was boarding.
They picked up their luggage and threaded down the narrow aisle through First Class.
Cee spotted him first, because she was in front, blocking Kay’s view, which was unkind. Helpfully, the line of travelers stalled. She turned to look back at Kay and mouthed, “Oh. My. God.” Kay widened her eyes in agreement. Cee turned back to resume surreptitious scoping out.
After all that, possibly a description might be nice. Black hair, golden skin, all sorts of chiseled features and style. Lots of style. Crisp white suit. Black Raybans. He was ignoring the chick next to him, whose name was Mary Sue and this was her first trip to Paris and wasn’t this a wonderful plane and she’d never flow First Class before and she was taking this trip to get over the tragic deaths of her parents in a freak rabbit stampede and, oh, whatever. The guy was freaking gorgeous. No wonder she was babbling.
The line moved on into Business class country. “Hello, nurse,” said Kay.
“Oh, yeah,” said Cee.
They briefly dissected the guy, his clothes, the unworthiness of Mary Sue sitting next to such a god.
“Greek or Norse?” said Cee.
“French, of course,” said Kay.
They sat down in the seats A and B. There was no one in seat C. They looked at each other. Sat very still in their seats. Mantred, “No one sit in the 3rd seat. No one sit in the 3rd seat. No one sit in the 3rd seat.”
The Flengal family juggling troop traded seats with the green and blue Hawaiian shirt, soccer fiend and happy Goth.
No one sat in the 3rd seat.
Sam I Am asked Places You Will Go if he could sit next to Fox in Socks. Sure. Shuffle. Shuffle.
No one sat in the 3rd seat.
Pink screaming baby and blue screaming baby punched their time cards and got ready to go to work. Ready, set, go.
No one sat in the 3rd seat. And the plane was boarded.
Cee and Kay turned to each other and attempted a high five, failed, tried again, success. “Score.”
The plane shuddered and pulled out onto the runway. And drove down the runway. And turned right and drove down the runway. And drove down the runway.
“Maybe we’re driving to France,” said Cee.
“France.” Kay smiled. The women peered out window. More driving. They came to an intersection. Another plane drove by.
More driving. The plane stopped. Started. Drove really fast. Jerked into flight. Bored Gremlins watching from the tarmac and went for another cigarette break.
“Finally,” said Kay.
The women sat and bobbed heads at each other. Several minutes of that.
“Okay, this is boring. Time to sleep,” said Cee. “I’ll take the floor.” This was not entirely altruistic. Cee believed the floor was easier to sleep on because it was darker and had more space. Some agreement. Cee levered herself down.
Toss, turn, cart rolls by. Skip the movie. Cee sits up, twists to a new configuration of fetal discomfort. Meanwhile, up on the seats, Kay faces the seat. Kay flips and faces the other set of seats.
It was a fascinating flight.
Moving right along.
Lumber back into seats. Eat breakfast. Ooohhh…hot towels.
Okay, now cold towels. Do, de, do, towels slipped into the magazine pouches.
Thirty minutes and counting. Much bobbing in seats. Grinning.
Wheels extended to earth, French earth.
The bleary women tumbled duffels from overhead, bumbled from the plane; the god was already gone, sigh, burbled at Customs and disgorged into a gray French morning.
“I’m in France,” said Cee. “I’m in France and I really need to change clothes.”
Kay plucked at her sweats. “You’re not wrong there.”
The women walked past the machine gun totting soldiers to the bathroom for a refreshing clothes change and face wash. Kay put in her contacts, all the better to see with.
The Preposition fairy appeared. Tingle. Tingle. Tingle. Ping. Kay, put in her contacts, all the better with which to see. The sudden appearance of a grammar enforcing fairy was a little disturbing, what with the green glowing and sneeze inducing fairy dust and, well, grammar.
The women picked up their duffels and hurriedly left the bathroom in search of the arbitrary decision counter. The women had made their reservations to come back on a Friday, but then through talking and pondering on the flight (sorry, it was glossed over, but it’s done now), decided that this was stupid. For $50 they pushed back the return flight by two days. Much better.
That done, now the car. They walked around the airport once. Twice. “So, where is the car place?” said Kay.
Cee shrugged, asked a French Info guy. “Ou est Le Budget Auto?”
The answer made no sense. “Blady, French, Blady, blah.”
“Why would the car place be a mile from the airport?” said Cee. Another lap around the airport. Heh, it was across from the grammar fairy infested bathroom.
The women tip toed past the grammar fairy who was trying to chat up a very French (i.e. bored) looking gremlin in a stylish black beret, black turtleneck ensemble.
Cee leveraged her French at the car counter and keys were produced and it was short walk to the cutest little Mercedes SUV ever. It was wee. Smaller than Cee’s Honda Civic. Purple. Wee. Purple and wee. It was practically twee. It was twee. And it was theirs, for the next week and half.
Cee took a look at Kay, who looks like the seats were definitely less sleepable than the floor. “I’ll drive,” said Cee.
And the adventure begins.