12. United Flight 962 Newark to Berlin
Business class was a luxury to be sure, but as soon as they entered the cabin, Lucy realized she had not thought through the concept of pods.
While the plane was taking off and landing, she wouldn’t be able to talk to or even see her kids.
Jack was in heaven with his fully reclinable seat, but the girls were looking small and lost in theirs.
Lucy did her best to get them settled, showing them how to use their in-seat monitors and reminding them not to watch anything that wasn’t rated G.
Zoe held on to Fred as Lucy helped her with her headphones and started a movie.
She gave Alice a kiss, reminding her not to get up, even if she felt scared again, even if the plane jostled around.
Lucy took her own seat at the window and then got up one more time to double-check the girls’ seat belts.
Finally, a flight attendant made her sit and buckle her own.
And then, as the plane took off, she closed her eyes and thought of Mason, who was becoming farther and farther away.
There was certainly no turning back now.
She looked out her window as they flew over New York City, shocked that she had gone through with this plan, that they were actually on the way to Berlin!
She had so many wonderful memories of her year there, of the patient woman who taught German classes, of reading Buddenbrooks —in English, of course—on a bench in the Tiergarten, of drinking Sekt with friends at KaDeWe, the big department store, in the early afternoon.
She could picture her apartment and her bedroom with the big square pillows and the down comforter.
She could see Bj?rn’s face, his strong jaw and ocean-blue eyes.
Living in a house directly next to her parents was not where Lucy had imagined she’d end up.
She’d been very independent when she’d left Texas for college, deciding to spend her junior year abroad.
She loved everything about Europe and dreamed of a life overseas after graduation.
She flew home to Dallas before her final year at Vanderbilt; if her parents saw how changed she was, they didn’t mention it.
Maybe they noticed the superficial details, like the three new holes in her left earlobe, the Dunhills they found in the car, and the airy, Bohemian clothes she’d taken to wearing.
But they didn’t realize she’d decided to live overseas.
She would find a job in London or Copenhagen or maybe even return to Berlin and become fluent in German.
No matter what, she would be free to travel and would decide for herself where she wanted to settle.
As she was packing to go back to college, it dawned on her that she’d missed a period, or possibly two. She took a test and waited, without feeling especially worried; she was on the pill and was pretty darn good about taking it regularly, most of the time.
“How good?” her mom said to that, and after Lucy confessed that the test had been positive and that the test she’d taken after that one had been positive as well.
They were in the living room, and Irene was pacing the periphery while Lucy’s dad was sitting in a chintz armchair in the corner, rocking slightly and holding on to his head as though his palms had been superglued to his scalp.
“I mean, do you take it every single day, without fail,” Irene asked, “as per the instructions?”
“I may have missed a day or two at some point,” Lucy said, biting her fingernails, “but then I just take a couple together to make up for it.” She had her bare feet tucked under her on the couch, and she turned to look at her dad.
He’d closed his eyes, and Lucy had a feeling she’d said the wrong thing.
Irene stopped pacing and stood directly in front of her with her fists on her hips. “That’s not how it works,” Irene said. “And stop chewing your nails.” She looked down at Lucy, shaking her head. “I can’t tell what’s going on under that getup you’re wearing,” Irene said.
Lucy had on a long skirt with a loose blouse she’d bought at a flea market in Berlin. It was the kind of outfit she imagined an eighteenth-century poet might wear to write by candlelight.
“So,” her mom said, like a challenge, “why don’t you tell me how pregnant you think you are.”
Lucy wished she could tell her mother it was none of her business. Instead, she squinted at the ceiling, doing her best to think her way through her calendar, recalling the past few months. “I’m, like, barely even… at all.”
“Can you be more specific?” Irene said, the words barely making it past her clenched teeth.
“Let’s see—I took that trip to Spain”— the tapas and the museums! the medieval towns and the beaches! —“and a big group of us took the train together back to Berlin, and it was then, more or less.”
“On a train ?” said Irene.
“More or less,” said Lucy.
“Oh Lord,” said Irene. She turned to Lucy’s dad. “Rex Henley, say something!”
Her dad opened his eyes and dropped his hands. “Lucy’s on the pill ?”
Irene sighed. “Yes, Rex, Lucy’s on the pill. Can you keep up, please?”
“Well… who’s the father?” he asked.
Now, that was a fair question. And Lucy had an answer because she knew exactly who it was, and she really liked him.
“Yes, I’d like to know that too,” Irene said. “Is this a boy you know from college?”
“Not exactly,” Lucy said. “His name’s Bj?rn.”
“ Bee Yorn? ”
“Bj?rn,” Lucy repeated, pronouncing it carefully.
“Bj?rn who?”
“Bj?????rn… Well, he’s a friend of a friend. Of a friend.”
Her dad stood up, looking as flustered as he had when he’d walked in on Lucy and her seventh-grade friends playing a kissing game. “You don’t know his last name?”
“Not off the top of my head,” Lucy said.
“I can find out.” But the truth was she had no idea whether she could.
She would have to call the girl she’d roomed with in Berlin and have her friend Bettina ask her boyfriend to ask his classmate from Wesleyan to get the name of his Australian friend who introduced them all to the cutest blond boy Lucy had ever seen, who was traveling back with them to Berlin.
Lucy had had the best sex of her life, twice on the overnight train and several times at her apartment.
“He was spending the semester studying existential philosophy in… Valencia maybe? But he’s from Denmark. ”
Rex bent over, hands on his knees, breathing like he’d just crossed the finish line after a marathon. “This is a bad dream,” he said, “and we’re going to wake up any second now…”
“Her trip to Spain was in April,” her mom said, turning her back on Lucy. “She’s already”—and she counted on her fingers—“halfway there. So buckle up, y’all, because this is happening. I’m going to make an appointment with an OB right away, and Lucy’s going to track down that boy.”
Lucy did not return to Vanderbilt. She stayed home with her parents and nursed her baby in the middle of the night in her childhood room with the floral wallpaper and the canopy bed.
Jet-setting around the world had been a girl’s fantasy, one that got replaced by the reality of diapers and playgrounds.
But she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t wondered what her life might be like instead if things hadn’t gone the way they did.
What if…? What if she hadn’t fallen for that Danish boy who loved Haribo Fizzy Colas and American sitcoms, who read Aristotle’s Poetics on the train and scribbled notes in the margins?
But she had fallen for him, and she’d gotten pregnant. Lucy’s dream of moving overseas evaporated. And yet here she was, flying past Newfoundland and out over the Atlantic on her way to Europe.
As soon as the plane hit its cruising altitude, far above the storm, she got up to check on the girls. Alice was watching The Little Mermaid with headphones.
“You okay?” Lucy said.
She nodded. “This is a much better plane,” she said loudly over the sound of the engines.
Lucy looked at her screen. “Did you know that Ariel,” Lucy said, “is a Disney addition to the fairy tale? Hans Christian Andersen didn’t give the mermaid a name.”
“What?” said Alice, sliding her headphones off her ears.
“Never mind,” said Lucy.
Across from her, Zoe was sound asleep with her bunny in her arms. Lucy said a silent thank-you to the fellow traveler in Newark who’d saved the day. Then she reclined Zoe’s seat and covered her and Fred with a blanket.
Jack was sitting a couple of seats in front of her, watching the flight map as though he needed proof that he was getting farther and farther from home.
“You okay?” she said.
“Yeah, but I wish Dad was coming with us.”
“Me too,” she said.
The flight attendant was coming down the aisle with the drink cart, so Lucy went back to her seat.
She got her laptop out and started by calculating the actual time difference between Berlin and LA.
Her workday would begin at six in the evening and would not be over until two in the morning; that was going to suck.
Was it even possible to be in one place while pretending to be somewhere else?
The flight attendant offered a glass of champagne. Lucy declined.
She found the file on Laurel Hotels and reviewed the mock-ups she’d made of the guest rooms, hallways, and lobby, excited to think this would all be brought into being.
Over the next several weeks, she would source the furnishings and flooring, pick the tiles and fabrics, select the art and the decorative objects.
She’d gotten quite a few messages of congratulations from members of the team, most of whom worked in the LA office.
She’d never had such kind, responsive, and capable coworkers before and always felt lucky, even if she only saw them on a screen.
As she worked, in that nowhere-land between one continent and another, Lucy lost track of time and created something she couldn’t wait to show to Bryn, Harper, and the others.
She looked out the window at the black sky, thinking of the Little Mermaid and how a price had been exacted for her trading in one life for another.
Would there be a price to pay for this deal she’d made with Greta?
All Lucy wanted was a safe haven. And for the first time since the shit had hit the family fan, she felt something akin to hope.