Читать книгу Of Things Gone Astray - Janina Matthewson - Страница 7

CASSIE WAS LIT FROM WITHIN, or so she felt. She gloried for a moment in how little she cared about the strangers that surrounded her, that may have noticed her. Let them look, she thought, let them marvel at her secret joy. Let them recognise her as one of the few for whom life holds wonder. For it must be only a few, she thought, who are designed to know this kind of exultation. If it were everyone, the earth’s orbit would be altered by it, forever thrown off course by the collective gladness of its inhabitants.

Her eyes seemed to throb with the smile hidden behind them. The corners of her mouth were set in a curve that any moment threatened to beam.

Cassie ran a hand through her hair and looked at the arrivals board.

IB2202 from São Paulo: LANDED

The letters rearranged themselves: FLOSS IS HERE.

Cassie had been playing this moment over in her mind for weeks. Months. All her life. There were many versions.

There was the one where Floss ran through the gate, paused for a moment on her toes, scanning the crowd like a blithe and confident huntress, until she spotted Cassie and soared into her arms.

There was the version where she walked through slowly and carefully, not even looking at Cassie till they were six inches apart, but smiling all the while.

There was the version where she stopped as soon as she’d come through and the two of them stand there for fully five minutes, for forever, just looking. Staring at each other, right in the eyes, across the space between them, both knowing they have an eternity in which to touch.

Now, though, now it was moments away, she couldn’t imagine anything at all. All she could do was wait and watch.

IB2202 from São Paulo: LANDED

Cassie watched the steady stream of people walking through the gate. She wondered how many planes had recently landed and how many passengers there were on each plane and what the statistical likelihood was of Floss being the next person through at any given point. She knew it was stupid, but it thrilled her to think that the odds were rising with each reunion.

IB2202 from São Paulo: LANDED

There was a child crying. Cassie watched. The girl’s mother was trying to make her hug her father, but she wouldn’t. He was in uniform and Cassie wondered if he’d been away so long his daughter had forgotten him.

The crowd around her thinned and swelled again.

Cassie hadn’t noticed, but the corners of her mouth were no longer curved. She gazed at the gate.

A flight attendant led through a boy of about seven. His mother hugged him briefly, cautiously, and took his bag.

IB2202 from São Paulo had disappeared from the arrivals board to make way for other flights.

A woman jostled Cassie in an attempt to get to a tanned teenage girl with a pack on her back. Cassie planted her feet more firmly on the floor.

She planted her feet and waited.

She gazed at the gate.