* * *
If you do a search for “US cities named Christmas” (which, fine, everyone needs hobbies), you won’t find my home. It’s not a city. It’s barely a freeway exit.
You won’t find Angel, grinning and bursting with pride, showing off his new paintings—the only non-Christmas-themed decorations hanging on the diner walls. You won’t find Lorna, organizing the Christmas book club and asking Ben’s opinion on what to serve for snacks. You won’t find Rick and my mom and me, sitting on the couch, watching the Bonanza DVDs dubbed in Spanish we got him for his birthday.
You won’t find Candy. Neither will Jerry, for that matter.
And you won’t find Ben and me, sitting on the roof, talking and laughing and planning in our warm, friendly, hopeful census-designated place.
But it doesn’t matter anymore if you can’t find my home.
I found it for myself.
As Christmas stories go, this one isn’t as sad as it could be.
I’m not Tiny Tim. There were no Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, or Future. All told, it is a tale completely free of angels and elves, wise men and shepherds. Even Santa didn’t make an appearance.
Nope. As it turns out, I was visited by Hulda.
“Yes. Yes.” I heard her voice, high and clear, through the crowd of people who stood too close, wearing coats that were too heavy. Our collective breath clung to the windows, almost hiding the sight of the 747 that was waiting right outside. I shifted on my feet, wondering if there is any place on earth more chaotic than Chicago O’Hare Airport five days before Christmas.
Families ran for connections. Carols played over a scratchy PA system while people stood crowded together. Waiting. But for some reason I couldn’t stop staring at the blond girl leaning against the counter at gate H18.
“New York,” the girl said. “I will go there please. Now.”
Her voice carried an accent that I couldn’t quite place—the consonants too precise, like someone who is very worried she might not be understood.
She slid her ticket toward the gate agent then forced a smile, an afterthought. “Please.”
The agent took one glance at the piece of paper and forced a smile of her own. “Oh, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a ticket to New York.”
The blond girl rolled her eyes. “Yes. That is why I stand in this line and talk to you. You can change it to New York, no? It is okay. I will wait.”
The gate agent shook her head and punched a few keys on her computer. True to her word, the girl waited.
“No. I’m sorry,” the agent said a moment later. “Your ticket is nonexchangeable and nonrefundable. Do you understand?”
“I am Icelandic. I am not moronic.”
“Of course. Yes. It’s just that…” The agent trailed off, looking for words. “I’m afraid that this ticket cannot be used on this flight. And even if it could, this flight is full.”
“But I must go to New York! I thought I could fly to where this ticket takes me and then take a bus or a train to New York, but it is very far. In Iceland, the distances … they are not so far. And now I am going to a place I do not want to go, to see someone I do not wish to see, and—”
“I’m sorry.” The gate agent shook her head. “You can purchase a ticket for New York. We have another flight leaving at six a.m. tomorrow. If you wish to go to New York you must buy a ticket for that flight.”
“But I have a ticket!” the girl snapped and pushed her old ticket forward again.
Meanwhile, another gate agent was approaching the door, propping it open as she announced, “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to flight 479 with nonstop service to New York’s LaGuardia Airport.”
The lady behind the counter gave a desperate look to the even more desperate girl. “You will either need to buy a ticket for a later flight or go to your original destination.”
“But my boyfriend is in New York! And if you would only change my ticket—”
“This flight is full.”
“But I do not love him!”
The woman looked confused. “Your boyfriend in New York?”
“No.” The girl shook her head and shrugged. “My other boyfriend.”
“Oh,” the woman said, her mouth forming a perfect circle. Then she leaned closer. A kindness filled her eyes. “Are your parents here?”
The girl shook her head. “I am alone.”
And right then I totally knew the feeling.
I watched the girl push away from the desk and start through the crowd of people that swarmed, jockeying for position as the gate agent announced, “We would like to welcome our first-class passengers at this time.”
En masse, the crowd took another step forward, jostling the girl, who dropped her bag and wiped her eyes. Her footsteps faltered.
And that was when I did it.
I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t even a conscious thought, a decision. Instinct alone was driving me as I stepped forward and blurted, “You want to go to New York?”
The girl looked at me, confused, but before she could even answer, I thrust my own ticket toward her and said, “Here. Take it. You can have it if you give me yours.”
“But that is your ticket.”
“You can have it. We can trade. Here.” I waved my ticket, but the girl glanced nervously at the gate agent standing by the door.
“It’s okay. They don’t check IDs during the boarding process,” I told her. “If you want to go to New York, this is your chance. Just give me your ticket. Give me your ticket and go.”
I could practically see what she was thinking. I was a teenage girl, too. We were about the same height, the same weight. To anyone in that heavily secured airport we might have even looked like sisters. It’s not like I was a creepy dude asking her to get into my van, but the offer probably sounded too good to be true. Which meant it probably was.
She hesitated, then snatched the ticket from my hand, held hers out to me.
“Go ahead.” I motioned toward the open door. “You’re boarding.”
She pointed to another open door a few gates away, another mass of crowding people. “So are you.”
It really was that easy, believe it or not. I started toward the open doors. For the first time in my life I did not look back, not until I heard the girl call, “You don’t even know where I was going.”
I shrugged and shook my head and said the only thing that mattered: “If you just want to go away then any ticket will get you there.”