Five
FIVE
He and Roxy walked her to the station and she thought about just handing the money back to him but then thought, why make a scene? And she also thought that maybe she could use the extra thousand.
“Are you sure I can’t put you in a cab?”
And then she was furious, a fresh wave of fury: it was just a turn of phrase but still the idea that he was going to put her anywhere.
She hugged Roxy, who licked her face, and tried to let the pressure of the dog’s body melt the fury away.
It didn’t. She kissed Judd quickly and hustled down the stairs, not looking back.
“Amy!” he called after her. “I love you! Be safe!”
“I love you too,” she mumbled, then guiltily texted him as soon as she got to the platform. “I love you too.” Smiley face, thumbs up, heart.
Then an hour and fifteen minutes of inaudible announcements and the smell of Roxy’s breath on her hands and the traces of fur clinging to her parka.
On the AirTrain, which connected the subway to the terminal, new worries: had she packed too much?
Not enough? Did she have enough time to make her flight?
She had two and a half hours. The sun was setting over Manhattan.
What if she never saw home again? Never saw Roxy?
Ferry? She did not think of Judd. She was worried that, if she did, she would lose all her resolve.
Not just because she was worried about what he would do while she was gone, but because she really was going very far away, and she really had never done something like this by herself.
And in fact she didn’t have to do this—she could spend two weeks anywhere. One thousand dollars on her person, clean underwear in her suitcase. An ATM card. She could buy a ticket for St. Barts.
But no: she would accomplish this absurd thing.
She said this out loud: “I will. Accomplish. This thing.” She was a woman with a passport and a plane ticket and a specific set of expertise.
She had found dozens of lost pets since she herself was a child.
She was doing this not because it was absurd and not because she was lost; she was doing this because she could.
She marched like an automaton through the airport and toward the thing she had set out to do.
Kennedy was mercifully empty.
The woman at the Air France counter checked her bag, checked her passport, asked her no questions. The woman at security ushered her through. There was no delay, nothing stopping her from moving forward.
Earlier in the day she had emailed Irine: “Are you sure it’s okay that I’m coming? I’m very happy to stay at a hotel.”
And Irine wrote back right away: “It is an honor to host you, Amy. In our country we are very proud of our culture of hospitality. You are doing me and my family a great favor by staying.”
So what could she say? At the airport, she bought I Heart New York T-shirts for five people in five different sizes, hoping that would cover whoever was in Irine’s family.
She had also packed a large bottle of Woodford Reserve, a miniature bronze Statue of Liberty, three New York Yankees caps and a coffee-table book of America’s National Parks.
And if none of that appealed to Irine, she could give her $1000.
And then the gate: “Flight Eleven to Paris: anyone needing a little extra time?” In a lovely French accent. Amy needed time, she needed time, although she was so often overwhelmed by all the time she had.
She popped her Xanax before she walked onto the plane and was asleep by the time it departed.
But her dreams, usually muted by sedatives, were strangely vivid: Judd was in a plane that was following hers, his plane was in fact trying to chase hers, because he wanted to tell her something.
He had lied about Meret. They were going to spend the next two weeks in bed together, and he wanted to thank her for leaving.
Thank her for giving him what he wanted once again.
That was why his plane was chasing hers, so he could thank her in person.
And then, as she opened her mouth to say something, Judd’s plane went down, and Amy witnessed the plunge from her own plane’s small window, saw Judd explode in a lake of fire on the ground.
“Chicken or pasta?”
Amy blinked awake: pasta.
And also a travel-sized bottle of tannic red, then Marry Me with Jennifer Lopez and the catastrophically miscast Owen Wilson, and then another nap.
And then the strangely endless nowhere Paris of Charles de Gaulle airport, somewhere outside the city but definitely in France , which was made clear by the many tiny patisseries where any US airport would have had an Auntie Anne’s or Starbucks.
She bought herself two croissants and an espresso in a paper cup and sat down to watch the travelers shift back and forth under the fluorescent lights, trying to delight in the French all around her.
How long since she had been immersed in another language?
She had taken a few French classes at Baruch, understood enough to order food.
And she had watched Amélie at the Angelika four separate times.
She’d said to Judd, the first time they went—2008?
2009?—that Paris was the only place she’d ever been that looked exactly like its publicity shots: yellowish white limestone buildings, black shutters, curlicue balconies, outdoor cafes with awnings.
And then, turning a corner—the Eiffel Tower!
The first time she saw it she couldn’t believe it, gasped then tried to cough to not seem like such a rube.
But still: the Eiffel Tower, just hanging out in the middle of the city like some kind of ordinary building.
Paris still felt beautiful to her, even from a distance, inside this airless airport : a family in African robes, green and magenta; a family in sweatpants; a confused-looking family pushing four different luggage carts, balancing nineteen suitcases; a couple in chic clothing; a woman with a small dog.
She texted Ferry: “I’m sort of in Paris!” She texted Judd: “halfway there.”
Three more hours to kill before the flight to Tbilisi—not enough time to leave the airport, too much time to do nothing.
She booted up her laptop to check the latest Angel news and was shocked, on the Didi Gulabi home page, to see a photo of her own face from that oh-so-brief period of her life when she modeled.
God, from what freakish internet wormhole had they unearthed that?
She looked young, beautiful, and surprised, eyes lined with bright blue liner, green shadow, a kind of carnival effect, mouth puckered in a kiss.
Blond curls framed her face. The photo, she remembered, had been for an ad for a local video chain.
She ran the accompanying text through Google translate: We are pleased to announce the arrival of Amy Webb, American model and benefactor, to Tbilisi to help in our search for Angelozi.
In a time of much sadness, Miss Webb’s presence brings optimism and joy.
Amy couldn’t help it; she laughed out loud, and then, when she was done laughing, whispered, “fuck.”
BUT AT LEAST it was a different sort of despair that filled her as she boarded the flight to Tbilisi: the despair of knowing how badly she would disappoint Irine.
Her tired face, her idiotic gifts, the fact that she had never really been a model and that she could no more guarantee Angel’s return than she could guarantee a sunny day.
The preflight announcements were in French, English, and Georgian, the first time she’d ever heard the language spoken live.
It was lovely, gentle and lilting. The flight from Paris to Tbilisi was five hours long.
It would be six in the morning when she arrived, and Irine said she would meet her at the airport.
Five hours before she brought the disappointing truth of herself to this lovely woman in the Caucasus.
Still, as the plane lifted, heading East toward Asia, she felt a brief rumble of excitement in her belly about going somewhere she’d never been before.
And the chance to go somewhere and do something helpful!
She even indulged in a little fantasy of bringing Angel back to the shelter, muddy and a little scratched up but very much alive, and how excited everyone would be.
Which is perhaps why, when the plane finally landed, and Amy again readjusted her watch, she found herself overwhelmed by an entirely new and surprising feeling:
Joy.
Joy!
She was here, had arrived here. Home of Irine and Angel and 46,000 stray dogs and even if she couldn’t rescue everyone she was here to help. Yes yes I will be of use, she whispered as she waited in the freezing-cold immigration line.
“Address where you are staying?” A stern-faced man at the counter.
“I don’t have—let me just find—”
“A private home?”
“Yes. A friend.”
“You have a friend in Tbilisi?”
“Yes. She lives—she lives in—” But how to pronounce any of this? She showed the transcribed address to the man behind the counter.
“Okay,” the man said, and then he stamped her passport. He smiled at her: one of his teeth was bright gold. “Enjoy your visit.”
“Thank you.” Madloba .
Past immigration, the airport was much like every airport she’d ever been in, glass and steel and plastic, except that the signs were both in English and beautiful flowery Georgian.
As she waited for her suitcase, she tried to figure out what time it was in New York (ten p.m. the day before?) and then she went through customs and the sliding glass doors that separated airport world from the real world.
And—just as she had dared to hope—there was a beautiful dark-haired woman on the other side of the sliding door, holding a sign: AMY WEBB WELCOME TO GEORGIA!
The woman was smiling broadly and was wearing a bright red coat and sunglasses and a smile that could electrify the entire airport.
And Amy felt herself beloved.