Chapter 15 #2
I open the door. She comes in, which is possible in first-class bathrooms in a way it is absolutely not in coach, and she stands with her arms crossed and looks at me with genuine concern that I am somehow still kind of believing.
“I have to tell you something,” I say, to the mirror.
“Okay.”
“I lied.” I meet my own eyes first, then hers.
“At the baby shower. I’m not a head negotiator.
I’m an assistant. I’ve been an assistant for seven years.
I answer emails and I order lunch and I once spent four hours trying to book a grooming appointment for my boss’s purebred poodle.
That’s my full skill set. So you can let me go, when we land.
I’m not useful to you. I just– want to go home. ”
Alana is quiet for a moment.
“Billie,” she says, and her voice is very even. “I have to be honest with you. I’m really disappointed.” She shakes her head. “Lying is wrong. That’s no way to start a friendship.”
I turn and look at her. I look at her for a long moment.
“You trafficked me,” I say.
“That’s—“
“Across three international borders.” I hold up three fingers. “While unconscious. You drugged me! And failed to mention you’re an international arms dealer?—”
“That’s a completely different thing,” she says with the conviction of a woman who truly believes this.
“Is it?”
“Yes. Because I told you I was in imports and exports. I was honest and you just didn’t ask questions.
What you did was outright deception.” She says it simply, as if these are two points on entirely separate spectrums. Then, without pause: “I’m not letting you go when we land. You still have to help me.”
“Alana—“
“Rodrigo will die,” she says. “That is the actual thing that happens if we don’t fix this. I know you don’t like him— I could tell at the shower.”
I think of his face. The jaw. The warm ochre painting of hands on his Instagram. And the way he whispered, “be careful” into the air between us like it cost him something. He was so handsome and so rude that the combination of both made me angry.
But still– I don’t want him to die. He didn’t do anything to deserve this treatment from Alana. And neither did I.
“I don’t dislike him,” I say.
“Then you’ll help,” she says. “Obviously.” She brightens.
“And when we land— you can buy the drinks. As an apology to me. For lying.” She reaches out and squeezes my hand.
Her grip is warm and certain. “We’re still besties.
Obviously. This is actually really good for our friendship, if you think about it.
Girls' trips are like therapy— we can heal our wounds and like, eat, pray, love or whatever.” She pauses, then puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You may not be a negotiator at Franklin, Billie, but— I believe in you. Together, we can do this.”
She turns and goes back to her seat.
I stand in the first-class bathroom of a plane I didn’t board willingly, over the Atlantic Ocean, and look at myself in a mirror that is lit better than any mirror I own at home, and I think: maybe I can really help save Rodrigo.
If Alana is telling the truth, we may not have a lot of time before someone finds him.
And as angry as I am, this is kind of… exciting?
Alana believes in me enough that she really thinks I could help her negotiate with international arms dealers.
Mr. Franklin won’t even let me negotiate a deal for a luxury condo.
My eyes widen at myself in the mirror. Did I really just think that? Am I so overlooked at work and so bored with Tyler that being drugged and kidnapped feels like it’s… at least some attention?
Is this the beginning of Stockholm syndrome?!
Snap out of it, Billie, I think, horrified at myself. You’ve got to get out of this. I need to get away from Alana and call for help as soon as I can. I’m obviously having a massive trauma response, and am going to need therapy after if I’m lucky enough to survive this experience.
Then I think: I am going to die in Spain.
And I suddenly wish I had paid closer attention in my high school Spanish classes.
* * *
Barcelona’s El Prat airport smells like coffee and jet fuel and, underneath both of those things, something warmer— bread, maybe, or stone that’s been in the sun. I know this because I am standing in it against my will.
Alana has her carry-on— monogrammed, obviously— and is walking with an easy stride.
My feet follow her because they don’t know what else to do yet.
I know I will only get one shot at signaling for help, and I can’t mess it up.
My brain, which is finally fully online after being drugged to sleep, is running a parallel process: looking for exits, looking for uniforms, looking for a person in a position of institutional authority.
There. By the far corridor. A security guard, broad-shouldered, in a dark jacket with an official lanyard.
I make eye contact with him. I hold it. I do the thing where you try to communicate via sustained eye contact that you have recently been trafficked across three international borders and would very much like assistance.
He looks back at me.
I take a breath. I start to move toward him.
“Oh my goodness, there you are!” Alana says, suddenly beside me.
Her tone makes it sound as if she just now realizing something she should have caught sooner.
She turns to the security guard with her hand pressed to her chest and an expression of gentle, embarrassed concern.
“I’m so sorry. She doesn’t travel well. It's a medication thing. We just got off a very long flight.” A small, conspiratorial pause— an apology between two reasonable people, conducted over the top of an unreasonable situation.
“She sometimes gets a little— you know.” Alana makes a small, circular gesture near her temple. “We’re almost to the car.”
The security guard looks at me.
I have, I realize, been standing very still with very wide eyes making sustained unblinking eye contact with a stranger, which is not the behavior of someone who is fine.
“Can I—” I start.
“She's great,” Alana tells him warmly, already steering me gently by the elbow. “She just needs air and maybe a juice box. Thank you so much for your patience.” She smiles at him, and the full wattage of it is, I will say, extraordinary even now. He nods. He steps back.
Outside, the November air is cool and bright. The Uber is already at the curb. Alana gets in first, gives the address in Spanish, and I get in because the alternative— running, in an unfamiliar city, with no local currency and no phone signal yet— is a calculation I haven’t finished making.
The car pulls into traffic. Through the window, Barcelona opens up.
Alana is talking. She has been talking from the moment we landed, the way she always talks— bright, fluid, filling the available air.
She is talking about Rodrigo. She says he doesn't understand what she’s built, what she’s committed to.
She says he has never appreciated the vision.
She says she loved him— loves him— but there is a difference between loving someone and letting them dismantle your life plan, and she thinks he confuses the two.
She says this with genuine feeling, and I do not doubt she means every word, which is the most complicated part of listening to Alana explain anything.
I am looking at my phone.