2. Addison
2
Addison
“H ey, girl,” Natalie said over her shoulder as Addison moved around her to get to her own spot behind the ticket counter. “Did you ever hear anything from your yummy Viking?”
Addison shook her head as she scanned her badge and keyed in her password. “He’s not my Viking. And no, I haven’t heard from him, because I didn’t give him my number.”
“But he is yummy, right?” Natalie pressed, balling up a scrap of paper and tossing it at Addison.
She dodged the missile, then rolled her eyes. “I suppose, but it wasn’t that kind of a… a thing.”
A harried woman approached the ticket counter. Natalie turned to greet her. “Good afternoon,” she said brightly. “How may I help you?”
Most passengers preferred to use the self check-in options. Those who came to the counter usually had questions needing answers or problems that needed to be solved. The raised voice of the woman Natalie was currently trying to assist was evidence of just that.
“The man at the security line said that this bag is too large to carry on, but I measured it at home according to what’s posted on the airline website. I am not going to pay for my bag just because you people don’t know what your own website says.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Addison saw Natalie pick up a pen and nonchalantly add a slash mark to the unlabeled tally sheet on the counter next to her monitor. Whenever the two of them worked together, they kept a running tab of the number of times they heard the words “you people” in a given day.
Addison pulled up the check-in list for the flight that was scheduled to leave in a little more than an hour. “I can help the next person in line,” she called out to a group of twenty-something women obviously traveling together. Five of them carried large tote bags that read “Vegas or Bust” and the sixth wore a sparkly tiara and a satin sash over one shoulder with the word “Bride” embroidered on it. Her tote read “What Happens in Vegas….” Addison knew the world was changing, but to her admittedly conservative way of thinking, the message on the bag read a little like a harbinger of trouble that was already brewing for the couple who hadn’t yet shared their vows. But she smiled warmly, congratulated the blissfully beaming bride, and sent the ladies off with well wishes and a final “Take care of each other!”
When the line emptied again, Natalie wiggled her eyebrows at Addison, picking up the conversation where they’d left off. “So....” She drew the word out in a suggestive tone. “What kind of a thing was it, then?”
Addison snorted. “I was too busy holding other people’s camera equipment, refilling thermoses, and trying not to freeze to death to have time for a thing.” She eyed the sliding doors where an inconceivably young couple was attempting to herd their five children into the terminal ahead of them. They turned and headed toward another airline's counter.
Now it was Natalie’s turn to roll her eyes. “Oh, you poor thing. Traveling the globe, seeing the wonders of the world, and all expenses paid, no less. You make it sound like torture.”
Addison grimaced sheepishly. “Ugh. I do, don’t I?”
“You know, if I didn’t know you better, I might think your Viking—”
“Again, not my Viking.”
Natalie dismissed her denial with a deadpan look. “I might think your Viking adventure was all a lie, that maybe you just stayed home on your time off. Read a book and played with your cat.”
“I don’t have a cat.” The thought of doing just that, however, made Addison sigh longingly. A man hurried by, hauling a large suitcase behind him, the wheels of the thing refusing to work in tandem. He let out a frustrated growl when the thing wobbled wildly and almost tipped over, forcing him to slow down.
“I don’t know why not,” Natalie said. “You’re about as cat lady as they come.”
Addison laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said before waving the next in line forward, a mom and her preteen daughter. She took the woman’s driver’s license, checked her suitcase, and printed out four boarding passes. The duo was heading to Los Angeles with a stopover in Dallas. “Here you go, Vanessa and Leah. Have a great trip.”
“We’re going to see family in Orange County,” the woman said, touching her daughter’s shoulder maternally.
The girl, Leah, rose up on tiptoe to try to see over the counter. “And we’re going to Disneyland,” she exclaimed in a voice hushed with anticipation.
“Wow.” Addison gave her a bright smile. “You are going to have so much fun.” She said each word with dramatic emphasis.
“Have you ever been out to California?” Vanessa asked, and Addison didn’t miss the beat of nervousness in her question.
“I have,” she said with a reassuring smile. “I’ve been on this exact route more than a few times. Are you familiar with the Dallas airport? You have a three hour stop there.”
Vanessa was already shaking her head. “I’ve never flown before. This is a first for me,” she said with a self-conscious smile.
“And for me,” Leah interjected.
“Well, congratulations, you two!” Addison pulled open the small drawer under her counter and took out a couple of plastic airline stick pins. “You’re earning your wings today.” She leaned forward and said to young Leah, “You let your flight attendants know on both planes, too, okay? You might end up with a whole collection of these by the time you get home. And today is your lucky day, because I have it on good authority that you’re flying with Sharon on this first leg of your trip, and she is just about the best flight attendant you could ever wish for.” She’d text Sharon to let her know to watch out for the duo.
While the delighted Leah carefully pinned the little bauble to the front of her pink hoodie, Addison gave Vanessa a quick rundown of how to get around the enormous Dallas/Fort Worth airport using the tram system. “And if you have any trouble, don’t hesitate to ask an employee for help. That’s what we’re here for.”
Vanessa gushed her appreciation, and Addison waved as the two headed toward the security check line. That kind of interaction was one reason she really liked her job. Her extensive travel experience gave her inside knowledge of different airports, destinations, cultures, and more, and she always got a hit of dopamine at being able to set nervous travelers’ minds at ease.
At another break in customers, Addison bent over to pick up the crumpled ball of paper her friend had thrown at her.
“What you need, girlie, is a man,” Natalie said, holding out the trash can toward her.
“I do not need a man,” Addison contradicted, straightening up too quickly. She thumped her skull against the underside of the counter and dropped back to her haunches. “Ouch,” she exclaimed through clenched teeth, reaching up to press a palm to her throbbing head.
“A real man,” Natalie went on, undeterred. “Someone who exists in the real world. In your world.”
“I do not need a man,” Addison repeated, standing up more slowly.
“A man like that one,” Natalie said in a loud whisper as she began typing furiously on her keyboard. She pulled her phone from her pocket and held it to her ear, doing a ridiculous job of trying to look busy.
Addison turned around, her hand still clutched to her sore head, to find a man approaching her counter. She froze.
Not just any man.
Noel Stewart.
She dropped her hand and prayed fervently that he hadn’t heard Natalie’s declaration only moments before. With a bright smile, she asked, “How may I help you?”
Tall, dark, and handsome… if there were an official photo to represent the ridiculous phrase, it would not be one of Noel Stewart.
No, Noel Stewart’s photo would sit next to ‘boy-next-door-you-clean-up-nicely.’ He had stick-straight dark hair that kept wanting to fall forward onto his forehead. His eyes were coffee brown beneath a broad forehead, and the smudge of a shadow on his upper lip and jawline gave the guy a slightly rakish appeal. He wasn’t tall—only a few inches taller than her own five-foot-six, Addison thought—and he had the lean physique of a guy who liked to play basketball with his buddies down at the park, rather than one who spent hours pumping iron in a gym.
She cleared her throat and tapped the screen on her monitor, not wanting him to think she was all but holding her breath as she waited for him.
Not that Noel noticed anything about her at all.
He greeted her with a distracted, “Hello,” and set his ID on the counter in front of her. “I need to check in.” After briefly meeting her gaze, he dug his cell phone out of the inside pocket of his navy blazer and started thumbing out a text.
Addison smiled brightly at the top of his bowed head and picked up his driver’s license. “Hey, though,” she said, then blushed furiously at her jumbled response. What on earth was she trying to say, anyway?
She ducked her head, glad he wasn’t paying her any attention. She smiled down at his license a little too long—it was an awful picture, even she had to admit—then pulled up his information, checked him in, and printed out his boarding pass. How she wished she had the panache to say something clever or complimentary, something to encourage his attention. “Here you go, Mr. Stewart.”
He looked up from the phone when she said his name, almost like he’d forgotten where he was standing.
With a sinking heart, she realized she could have said, “Hey, there, man of my dreams. Will you marry me?” and he wouldn’t have noticed.
“Thank you,” he said with a half-smile, then tucked the items into his breast pocket along with his phone. He paused like he was about to ask her something, and she leaned forward the tiniest bit. But he only patted the counter and said, “Have a great day, Addison.”
“Uh, yeah.” Heat flooded her senses when he said her name, making her forget how to respond. She stared after him as he made his way toward security. How did he know—? “Duh. My nametag,” she muttered, reaching up to touch the plastic badge clipped to her uniform pocket.
Natalie was suddenly no longer busy. “That’s him, isn’t it?” she asked, sidling up to Addison. “Your lake man?”
“Not my lake man, Nat.” Addison shook her head. She’d first seen Noel in Autumn Lake a few days before Thanksgiving coming out of Schnucks grocery store carrying a very full canvas bag and a bottle of San Pellegrino. It hadn’t been a terribly cold afternoon, and he’d been dressed in what she’d come to think of as his signature look—a tailored sports coat over slim-cut pants. She’d sat in her car, staring at him as he hurried past her in the parking lot, his head down, his expression one of serious contemplation. He’d caught her attention because he’d seemed so out of place, like an actor who’d stepped into the wrong movie, and the look on his face told her he was very aware of how ill-fitted he was for the role he was suddenly playing. She’d felt an immediate empathy toward him, a response that had quickly turned to intrigue when he’d climbed into a big, black sedan with a Carpe Diem Resort logo in the lower right corner of the rear window. A guest or a staff member, she’d determined. So what was he doing slumming it over on the south shore, mixing it up with the locals at Schnucks Market? The folks on the ritzy north side of the lake had their own whole foods grocer, one that was much more conveniently located to the resort.
She’d crossed paths with him at a gas station the following week, too. Once again, she’d been sitting in her car, having just filled her tank, and he had pulled up on the other side of the pump in a dark gray sports car, presumably his own this time, and not a company car. He’d been talking rather animatedly as he got out, and it had taken Addison a few moments to realize he’d been using a Bluetooth device and not speaking to a passenger, or worse, himself, with so much enthusiasm.
Then a couple of weeks before Christmas, he’d shown up at the airport where she’d stepped in to help him at the finnicky self-serve kiosk. Up close and personal, his sophisticated urban image seemed to fall away, catching her by surprise, and Addison had gushed about it to Natalie for the rest of their shift.
Now she said, “I don’t have Viking. I don’t have a lake man. I don’t have a man, period, and before you say it, I don’t need a man, either.”
“But that is him, right?” Natalie grabbed her by the arm and shook her, knocking her off balance. “That’s the guy you were drooling over a few weeks ago, isn't it?”
Addison narrowed her eyes and pointed at her friend’s mouth. “You’ve got lipstick on your teeth.”
Natalie frowned. “Are you serious? Have I had lipstick on my teeth this whole time and you said nothing?” She rubbed frantically at the front of her perfectly pristine teeth. She stopped when she saw Addison’s wry expression. Natalie made an impatient sound and rolled her eyes, but she was not to be deterred. “I know that’s him.”
Addison didn’t confirm or deny it.
Natalie stepped up onto the baggage scale and leaned out past the counter to watch Noel walk away. “He knows your name, at least. That’s something,” she said, then let out a quiet whistle of appreciation. “Girl, you need to grab that—”
“Stop it,” Addison chided. “I’m not the kind of person to 'grab' anything. Especially not something—or someone—that isn’t mine already.”
Natalie moved back behind the counter and shrugged. “Your loss.” Then her expression brightened. “Hey. You want me to push him in front of an airplane for you? Steal his man purse?”
“What?” Bemused, Addison furrowed her brow at her friend. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“You know. Like in that While You Were Sleeping movie. You’re totally Sandra Bullock here.”
“Oh, please.”
“Seriously,” Natalie insisted. “I could knock him down and you could rescue him at the last minute, save his life, endear yourself to his family while he’s in a coma, and then marry him. Or his way hotter brother.”
“Wow. That would take a lot of effort, starting with the part where you’d have to lure him out onto the runway first.”
“Hey, I know.” Natalie tapped her temple and nodded slowly. “I could shove him right in front of Wendy’s cart. Anyone who gets in her way is going down, down, down.”
Addison snickered at the thought. Wendy was the airport’s custodial day crew manager, and she took her role seriously. “If you did that, at least I wouldn’t have to throw myself in front of a plane to save him. Wendy would just continue on her jolly way, and I could pick up the pieces and put them back together again.”
“Maybe your Noel has a way hotter brother, too,” Natalie suggested. “One who will travel the world with you.”
“Again, he’s not my Noel. And I don’t need someone to travel the world with me.”
Natalie ignored her. “One who might actually notice you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“And the only way you’re going to meet the hotter brother is if I put Noel in a coma.”
“You are insane.” Addison shook her head, then reached over and hugged her friend. “But I love that you’d be willing to go to prison to help me get my man.”
“Or his hotter brother.”
They were still laughing when the next customer showed up, but Addison’s thoughts lingered on the lovely notion of having someone like Noel Stewart to come home to at the end of the day.
“It’s never going to happen,” she murmured softly to herself.
“Hush your mouth,” Natalie reprimanded as she handed the man his boarding pass. Then she had to apologize to the guy when he flashed her a startled look.
When the customer had moved on and they’d stopped snickering, Addison tapped her badge. “The only reason he knows my name is because it’s right here in big blue letters. I’m one of the invisibles, my friend. A nobody. We keep the world spinning so that the somebodies—like my parents or like Mister Noel Stewart and his even hotter brother—can focus on being somebody.”
“Well, that’s the saddest thing I ever did hear,” Natalie chastised, planting both hands on her hips and glaring at Addison. “What’s up with you talking so down on yourself, girlie?”
Addison sighed and managed a half-smile. “I don’t know. Ever since I got back from Iceland, I’ve just felt out of sorts. Like I’m walking around in shoes that don’t fit anymore. Or maybe they’ve never fit, and I’m just now realizing it.”
Her friend cocked her head and gazed at her with narrowed eyes. Her expression wasn’t unkind. More curious than anything.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Addison hedged. “I’m fine. Really. I’m not going to run out in front of a plane or anything, other than to rescue Noel Stewart, of course. I’m just in a post-holiday slump, okay?”
“It’s almost March. That’s like me blaming these extra forty pounds on pregnancy weight, even though my baby is five years old.”
“Hey,” Addison admonished. Her friend wasn’t as rail-thin as she’d been before her pregnancy, but she certainly didn’t need to lose any weight. “Now look who’s talking down on herself.”
Natalie tsked. “You know what I mean. Maybe you need to take a vacation. And I don’t mean a trip to some exotic place where you’re going to be your parents’ lackey. A vacation of your own,” Natalie suggested. “Go somewhere you want to go and only do stuff that you want to do. Get away from all of this humdrum work stuff.”
Addison was shaking her head before her friend finished speaking. “You forget, Nat. My passport is so full that it has a dozen foldout pages added to it. If I never travel again, it will be too soon.”
“Then why are you so quick to jump on a plane when your mom calls?”
Addison shrugged one shoulder. “She’s my mom. They’re my parents. If I don’t go to them, I don’t see them.”
“And you’re their daughter, Addison,” Natalie shot back adamantly. “Maybe they should come to you now and then. Spend a few holidays with you in your pretty little lake town. Do a photoshoot or something.”
Addison snorted. “There’s nothing here they’d want to photograph.” She gestured out the window toward the parking lot. “Places like Autumn Lake aren’t really my folks’ cup of tea. They go where few have ever been before. They photograph strange and wondrous things.”
“You’re a strange and wondrous thing.” Natalie chucked her under the chin. “And you’re here.”
“Ah. But they don’t photograph me, remember?”
“Because you don’t let them.”
“They stopped taking my picture right about the time I hit my awkward, gangly, pimple-faced age," Addison muttered dryly. "When I became less wondrous and more strange."
“Hey now. That’s my friend you’re insulting.” Natalie’s words were drenched in censure.
Addison took a deep breath in, held it for the count of three, then let it out. “Sorry. Maudlin Mary over here.”
Natalie’s frown only deepened. “Don’t you have any dreams for your future? Any plans for a career? Hobbies you love? I mean, this—” She extended an arm to encompass the surrounding terminal. “This can’t be all there is for you, especially after the wild and wonderful childhood you had.”
Natalie had all kinds of interests outside of work. Not only was she in a relationship with a man she planned to marry one day, but she was working on her business degree and had big plans for a career in financial management. She also had a five-year-old daughter, Avia, who was the cutest thing in the universe.
Addison sighed. “You’re going to think I’m silly, but what I really want more than anything is a place to call my own. I mean, I love my little apartment, but it’s not mine . I’ve been there for almost six years now, which is crazy to me. It’s the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my entire life. But it still feels temporary because it’s—” She broke off, trying to put her thoughts into words. “I want to put down roots in a place where I can grow old with someone I love, raise a whole brood of children who will love me so much that they want to live close to me and raise their kids so I can be an awesome grandma.”
Natalie grinned affectionately at her. “So you’re telling me that your life’s dream is to be an awesome grandma?”
Addison chuckled and nodded. “Yep. Sounds about right.”