The Business Trip

Chapter 35. Jasmine

The Day of the Flight

17A was my seat, and I walked down the aisle thinking of the new me, the happy me, the energized me, so different from the beaten-down me I had become with Glenn.

A woman was already in my row, sitting in the aisle seat. She had brown hair and a kind-looking face. I decided to try out the refurbished me.

“Hey, I’m in the window seat,” I said, hoisting my carry-on to the overhead compartment. She nodded and stood up to let me in. I set my fringed purse in the seat between us and added, “I hope we have an empty middle seat, don’t you?”

“That would be nice,” she replied.

Glancing down the aisle to see who else might be boarding, I noted a little old lady with curly gray hair, glasses, her coat over her arm, and a slight limp. She was moving gingerly, checking her boarding pass at each row. She stopped at ours.

“I think I’m here with you two,” she said. “I’m sorry to make you stand up.”

“No problem,” said the brown-haired woman. She stood again, offering to put the old lady’s coat and purse in the overhead. I reluctantly moved my purse to the floor by my feet, and the older woman lowered herself into the middle spot, buckling up and looking back and forth at the two of us.

“Well, isn’t this nice?” she said. “I get to be with two lovely young women. Are you sisters? Your hair is different, but you look similar. I bet you want to spend the trip talking!”

The stranger at the aisle and I glanced at each other, puzzled, and chuckled.

“No, we’re not sisters,” I said.

“Silly me,” said the older woman. “Would either of you like a stick of gum?”

She pulled a pack from her pocket. The brown-haired woman politely declined, but I decided maybe it would help calm my adrenaline and I took one.

“It’s funny you say that about sisters,” said the brown-haired woman. “My coworker told me about this website, Find My Doppelganger, where you can easily find someone who looks like she could be your sister, even your twin.”

“I don’t know much about doppelgangers… or websites,” said the old woman and we all laughed. She was wearing a white sweater and what you would call “sensible” slacks and shoes. Slightly pudgy in the way you don’t mind a grandma being so you can fold into her lap, she reminded me of my own grandma, and I felt it was another sign from above. I only wished this stranger smelled of patchouli instead of something that seemed to be an odd cross between mothballs and baby powder.

“Where are you both going today?” the older woman asked, looking to the woman on the aisle first for an answer.

“I’m headed to San Diego. Denver is just a layover. I’m going to a work conference,” said the woman.

A conference, look at you , I thought. I certainly couldn’t keep up with her on a professional level, so I decided not to go for the conference–in–New York idea in case she started talking hotel points and things I didn’t know about. Keep it simple.

“Denver for me. Visiting a friend,” I replied. That was vague enough.

“Oh, how nice,” the old lady replied. “I’m going to see my son and grandson in Fort Collins. They’ll be picking me up at the airport. I do wish they lived closer. My grandson is getting an award this weekend.”

“What kind of award?” asked the woman on the aisle.

The older woman started telling us all about the community service her grandson did and how the local Rotary Club was honoring him.

“Well, I hope you have a wonderful time,” said the woman on the aisle, and I nodded.

We all settled in, the plane took off, and I looked out the window at Madison receding behind me, my heart pounding with adrenaline about this escape and relief starting to pulse down into my cells.

As we reached cruising altitude, the older woman got up to use the restroom, and when she came back, she said, “Ladies, I noticed there’s an empty window seat just two rows back. I think I might move there and take a little nap. It’s been a busy day already. You two have a nice flight now.”

I brought my purse off the floor and back onto the middle seat. The stranger did the same. I could see her more clearly now that no one was between us. They say you can size someone up in seven seconds, and my read was: wealthy. She had on a nice sweater and low leather boots, and I could smell a hint of a floral perfume now that mothballs and baby powder were not between us. I was surmising that this person going to San Diego was one of those businesswomen I had always wanted to be, someone like my sister. Her watch was the kind where she could answer emails or check her heart rate. The pearls in her ears seemed real. I imagined someone gifting them to her in a velvet box after a meal with champagne, maybe for a birthday or holiday.

I thought of the unfairness of life. Why did she get to jet around the country in lovely clothes when it took me over a year to save up enough for just this one flight? I wanted to feel her life for a few moments, so I decided to initiate further conversation.

“My name is Jasmine. Are you from Madison?”

“I’m Stephanie,” she responded. “And no, I mean, not from Madison originally. Indiana. I’ve been there about ten years, though. You?”

From there, we got into a long conversation. She told me she was a news director at the CBS TV station in Madison. I didn’t know what a news director actually did until she explained it. It was crazy to imagine that she was in charge of all of those anchors and reporters and everyone else. And it was extra fascinating as I had just been watching that channel for weather to plan this trip. I told her I thought the weather guy was cute. She laughed and said he was just voted Madison’s favorite in a local magazine.

I turned to what she did outside of work: Did she have kids? What would she do in San Diego? I just wanted to chat with someone, to distract myself, and I was fascinated by her world. The conversation kept going, and she cracked open like an egg. I learned she had an adult son. She was divorced. She talked about owning a cat and said her neighbor was cat-sitting. She told me how she always got her neighbor a little trinket in the city where she was—a mug or a magnet, that kind of thing.

Listening to her, I felt jealousy rising up. What a life. A high-paying job but no man around to tell her what to do or drag her down. A woman in charge of a TV station and seemingly in control of her own destiny too.

When she asked me what I did, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. I was surprised that it involved my mom: “I’m a nurse’s assistant at a retirement home.” I hoped Stephanie had no knowledge of the nursing industry that she would press me on, but she didn’t seem to.

She asked me if I had a husband or boyfriend. The question startled me, although I had just asked her the same thing, so it was only fair. Still, it took me a second to respond. I didn’t feel I could properly voice it without emotion showing through, so I just shook my head and averted my eyes.

Meanwhile, my story about the weekend away grew. It was an old high school friend, I fibbed, named Allison. “And what are you going to do in Denver?” Stephanie asked, and I responded with the only thing I was pretty certain every Coloradoan did: “Hiking.”

“I’ve never been to San Diego,” I sighed, taking a bite of a pretzel from the little bag the flight attendant had handed out. “Are you staying by the ocean?”

“No,” she said. “That would have been nice. It’s a Hilton five miles from the beach, and I probably won’t even have time to see the water.”

As we talked, something began to occur to me. It started as a tiny germ of an idea, but the more she divulged about herself, the more it blossomed. I studied her face. We did have similar features. Not exactly the same, of course, but if I had her hair and fancy clothes and took off my John Lennon glasses, I could reasonably pass for her. The little old lady had been right.

My eyes flashed to our two purses sitting in the middle seat, and I thought of her wallet in there with her ID and credit cards. Could I steal those when she wasn’t looking? Could I take on the identity of this stranger sitting next to me on a plane? It was ridiculous, ludicrous, right?

But was it? Maybe the universe was trying to give me the break I had been craving, that I had been deserving for so long, that I had literally prayed to my grandma about before I got on this plane. I mean, I had to have been placed near this particular person for a reason, right?

I had thought of my escape for so long, nibbling my fingers to the nubs and trying to figure out what I would do with my freedom from Glenn once I gained it and how I could live. This woman had to have tons of money in her bank account. If I had her ID and her cards, maybe I could drain her account and be off to Mexico or somewhere else south of the border that felt even safer than Denver. I started to imagine cutting my hair and dyeing it. I could easily pass for her at a bank or in a store if I did so. I kept asking her questions, and I tried to memorize her mannerisms, the way she paused at times and slightly tilted her head, the way she smiled, just in case there were security cameras where I went.

If I could get my hands on her money, I could dash off immediately and it would be enough time for me to be home free. If she noticed anything missing, she would be racking her brain for how it disappeared, but she would never suspect the person on the plane with her, would she? Or would she? If she started yapping to the police, my whole story might blow up.

I needed to use the bathroom and get to a space where I could think for just a moment.

“Do you mind if I slide by you and go to the restroom?” I asked. “I’ll just leave my purse here.”

“Of course,” she said and stood up to let me pass.

In the bathroom, locking the door, I was panting with ner vous energy. If she got up to use the restroom as well and also left her purse, I would have full access to it. I already knew a ton about her from our airplane conversation. Her job, her background, her family and friends. I even knew where she was staying. If I wanted to follow her, I could easily do so. Imagine if I showed up at her hotel out of the blue? The thought gave me jitters. What could I do if I found her there? What would she do if she saw me?

Another thought moved in, like an approaching thunderstorm, dark and full of lightning bolts. What if I took this one step further and actually became her? How would that look? What would that mean? If she disappeared and I became Stephanie, the high-powered, rich TV executive, even for a few days, I could truly disappear. Because then I could have her entire wallet, her laptop, her clothes, whatever else I wanted, and I could hide in plain sight until I hid out of sight. A beach in Mexico, a tiny out-of-the-way town no one bothered to look at.

I imagined the little beach cottage I could buy: just enough for one person, decorated in shabby chic, the way I had done my apartment in Madison before I moved into Glenn’s place and was forced into his style, which was what I would call a true bachelor trailer. He had zero interest in decorating and didn’t like the knickknacks, hooked rugs, plants, and brightly colored furniture I wanted to bring along.

“Let’s sell it all, babe, and go on a trip together with the money,” he had said when we first started living together. “I’ve got stuff, we don’t need more.” And in the cloudiness of early love, I had agreed, thinking about a romantic getaway somewhere, but he pocketed the money and kept putting off the trip until he told me that “household expenses” were getting to be too much, blaming the president for rising inflation.

Now I stood in the tiny airplane bathroom, fantasizing about how I might decorate this fictional beach house in a fictional Mexican beach town with the fictional money I was going to steal from the real woman seated back in row 17. Squeezing my eyes shut, I slowly counted backward from ten until my breathing steadied. Just be natural, Jasmine , I said to myself. Maybe Stephanie won’t even need to use the restroom and this whole little fantasy will disappear.

Walking back to our row, I felt lightheaded, almost sick to my stomach waiting to see what would happen. I knew it was now or never as the first tiny dip of the plane descending a notch had started. The FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELT sign was soon to go on, I was sure.

When I got to the edge of our row, Stephanie stood up to let me in, but then said, “I’m going to use the restroom too.”

My adrenaline shot up. Keep it cool. Jasmine, keep it cool. Don’t look happy or surprised or anything.

“Sure,” I said in as natural a voice as I could. She turned and went down the aisle. My hands started to sweat. Her purse was just inches from me, a Kate Spade in a robin’s-egg blue. It looked wildly different from my purse with the tassels and fringe, worn down from so many years of use.

Wait , I told myself, be patient, not yet. I snuck a peek behind me toward the restrooms. She was just going in.

My body felt like it was not even itself. Glancing across the aisle, I saw a middle-aged couple with their eyes shut, their shoulders leaning against each other, his hand covering hers. There was no one else who could possibly see a thing; the flight attendants were busy in the galley.

Quickly, almost in a robotic trance, my hand slid toward Stephanie’s purse and pulled it to me. I glanced back one more time. The bathroom door remained shut. Gently gliding the zipper of the purse open, I felt inside for her wallet. It was right there, cool to the touch and firm, made of good leather, I could tell.

Keeping an eye on the couple across from me, I slid the wallet out and opened it, glancing down. Her driver’s license was right there: Stephanie Monroe. I also saw three major credit cards, a handful of specific store credit cards, a debit card, some sort of work ID, several insurance cards, and a photo of a handsome young man in a graduation cap and gown.

The driver’s license slipped out of its plastic holder easily, and I gently eased it into an inside pocket of my purse. I was just about to take a credit card too when the woman across from me stirred, opened her eyes, and said to her husband, “I think we’re landing soon, honey.” My heart leapt into my throat. Here was Stephanie’s purse open next to me. Although I doubted they’d notice across the aisle, I couldn’t be 100 percent positive. The man mumbled something I couldn’t make out, and I thought I heard the bathroom door click at the rear of the plane. I wasn’t sure if it was Stephanie coming out or whoever might have been in the other tiny restroom, but I couldn’t take the chance. I had just seconds now.

The woman turned her gaze to look out the window, and I zipped Stephanie’s wallet shut, shoved it back into her purse, zipped that too, and put the purse in the exact spot it had been.

To make it look like I was busy, I reached for my phone and earbuds just as Stephanie walked up. I thought I might have a stroke, her contraband with me now like a tiny beating heart.

Sure that my facial expressions would give it away or that I was visibly sweating, I needed a mental break. I wasn’t confident I could keep up conversation with her either, so as soon as she sat down, I said, “It’s been so great to chat with you, Stephanie. I’m just going to rest for a bit before we get there.” Then I threw in one more lie to double down on it. “My friend wants to go out tonight.”

“OK, sounds great,” she answered. “I’ll do the same. I could use a rest too.”

You know how when you’re a child and play Marco Polo at the lake or at someone’s pool and you’re supposed to keep your eyes shut but you really don’t? You keep them open just a slit, just enough so that no one notices? That’s what I did for the rest of the flight.

Faking that I was sleeping, I leaned my head on the window shade but tilted my body in such a way that I could still see her. I needed to know if she went into her purse—and if she did? Well, I truly didn’t know what I would do. My entire escape plan could be blown by that if she demanded that the flight attendants empty my purse and the police came.

God, I was stupid. Maybe I was as dumb as Glenn said I was, but as soon as that thought entered my mind, I stomped on it again and again, like a person in a barrel turning grapes into wine. I was smart. Screw Glenn.

Think, Jasmine, think.

Stephanie had tilted her seat back as far as it would go and had her eyes shut. Should I return her ID now so that no one would know? That was absolutely too dangerous. Not only was she right here, but I would never get the chance to get it again. But if she noticed her ID was gone and accused me, what would I do?

Watching her through the slits of my eyes and keeping an eye on the middle-aged couple, now fully awake and fussing to find a missing boarding pass for a connecting flight, I put my hand carefully into my purse and found the side pocket. Stephanie’s ID pulsed in my palm. Wrapping my fingers around it and making sure Stephanie remained zoned out with her earbuds in, I slipped it from my purse and up toward my chest, keeping my hand cupped protectively over it.

Pretending I had an itch in case the couple across the way looked over, I pushed the ID into my bra, the plastic edge poking me uncomfortably and reminding me of what I had done. But it was safer there. If the flight attendants made me empty my purse, they would find nothing, and I could act as horrified as Stephanie.

Did you leave your ID on the ticket counter in Madison? I imagined myself saying, feigned sympathy in my eyes.

But Stephanie paid no mind to her purse. She rested, and I pretend-rested, my adrenaline so high I would have needed two of Glenn’s Ambiens to get me to feel even a tiny bit sleepy.

As we descended through the clouds and into the range of Denver, I looked down and saw snow-capped mountains and sprawling suburban areas, and I began to feel scared. Where would I go? What would I do? I knew no one, and I had no place to sleep that night.

The hazy plan I had dreamed of for a year was all in front of me: get to Colorado, figure it out. But the plan that had just twinkled at the edges of my psyche during my conversation with Stephanie began to dance again. It was like one of those giant blow-up, vinyl creatures you see at car dealership openings, where the arms and legs move around wildly and the body dips and lifts in all sorts of awkward movements, bolstered by a fan of some sort. That’s how I felt. A little out of control but buoyed by air.

It was the same feeling I had at the Halloween party in high school.

I tried not to think of it, tried to push it back deep into the depths of my memory. It was so long ago—why think about it now? It had been an accident, right? I hadn’t meant to hurt Allison that badly.

Or had I? I knew in my heart how angry I was at her, how jealous I was of her life.

Allison always had the best clothes and prettiest hair of anyone in school. She treated me horribly when a small bit of kindness was all that I wanted, the least that I deserved.

Still, the incident itself was an accident. At least that’s what I had been telling myself for decades just so I could sleep at night.

Flashes of the party at Drake’s massive house in Maple Hills came to mind as the plane moved closer to Denver and I looked out the window. Drake’s rich parents out of town. Music thumping: “Monster Mash” someone had put on a loop. People drinking from orange plastic cups. The Kool-Aid, spiked with who knows what, ladled out of a punch bowl. Fake spiderwebs and skeletons on the walls. A group passing joints around.

Allison throwing her head back and laughing, her perfectly straight teeth glowing, her lips with the brightest red lipstick I had ever seen. All of the boys flocking around her.

My costume was homemade. My family lived in what was considered the low-rent part of our school district, while Allison and Drake both lived in Maple Hills, one of the wealthiest areas. It was even where the governor’s mansion was located. We were all funneled to the same public schools, though, and it sometimes made for conflicts and difficult dynamics.

The Maple Hills kids clearly thought they were better than the rest of us, and some had started a group called “the Fun Bunch,” huddling together and laughing about things we weren’t supposed to be privy to.

Drake’s parties when his parents were gone were well known around school, and our whole junior class was invited. I was so excited to go, thinking that maybe I could break through to some of the kids in the Fun Bunch. It was a group I constantly admired from afar.

I asked Raven to go with me. She and Anna were my only two friends, but Anna had to go to her grandma’s birthday in Milwaukee that weekend and would miss the Halloween party.

Raven lived in the projects and had even less money than me. She was a scrappy girl, used to fending for herself. Raven’s mom had been addicted to several types of drugs for many years and came and went from their tiny apartment at all hours. Raven was known as the go-to at our high school for any type of drug, including weed, ecstasy, you name it. She somehow had a pipeline to anything and everything.

Raven and Anna hated the Fun Bunch, but I thought if the three of us could break into their group, we could turn our entire high school experience around. Being in the popular group seemed like the only thing that mattered at the time.