Flight Read Online Free PDF Page B

bedrooms.
    In the end, Bernice Lewiston was prevailed upon to stay with her son’s future in-laws. This will give a Carol a chance to try out her hostessing ideas, and it will be a lot easier, because the closest motels are in Kalamazoo, over thirty miles away. That’s another reason her B&B will be a success.
    Her stomach flutters happily as she thinks about the project. Will doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already scheduled and paid for an ad to run in one of the special advertising sections of the Chicago Tribune. It’s not a glossy ad, just a small one-eighth page of text, but she worked long and hard on the copy, getting every word just right. It will appear in a few weeks, at the end of June, just as peoplein the city will be in the mood for weekend getaways. Carol is sure she can have everything ready by then. This is one project that’s really going to happen.
    Leanne’s wedding is really going to happen, too, and Carol needs to make sure she’s thought of everything. She sits down at the kitchen table and contemplates her shopping list. Shrimp. Cocktail sauce. (Margaret will disapprove—she would make her own.) Cherry tomatoes for the vegetable tray. Olives from the deli section. (“Canned olives?” Margaret yelped on a visit last summer. “You guys are still eating canned olives?”) Sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese for a recipe Carol tore out of a magazine. Some nice crackers. Everything else, she should be able to get in Ryville.
    Water runs upstairs, and then she hears the thud of Will’s feet coming down. She looks around for her purse. Once he’s ready to go, he can’t stand waiting for anyone else to get ready. When the girls were little, Carol was always scooping them up and rushing to the car, shoes untied and jackets unbuttoned, hair ribbons clutched in their hands. If she grabs everything now, she might have time to dash out to the garage and check the doves one more time.
    “Okay!” Will booms, bursting into the kitchen like an event. “Time to go to the airport!”
    Planes always wait to take off at Newark for at least half an hour. Leanne would have preferred to fly out of the Westchester County airport, or even La Guardia, but the only direct flight to Grand Rapids leaves from Newark. Kit didn’t mind having to come down. He works in the city, as a video production editor, so the Metro-North trip from Cold Spring to Grand Central is no big deal for him. Leanne proposed taking the Carey bus from there, but Kit pointed out that with luggage it would be a huge hassle, and a cab wasn’t that expensive.
    “Besides, you only get married once,” he said, “at least to each other.” His voice was level, but he raised an eyebrow in his archway, and Leanne, as always, had to laugh. Kit’s dry wit puts people at ease, rather than making them feel left out. It’s what makes his real work—documentaries—so good.
    They stood on line for forty minutes before having to remove their shoes and jackets for the amped-up security screening. Kit was sent back to empty his pockets a second time, because on the first he had forgotten to remove his BlackBerry and the metal detector pinged him. Leanne was carrying the box containing her wedding dress, and the security screeners watched it glide through their machine without so much as a smile. It’s all grave intensity now, the fun and excitement of travel forgotten.
    Kit steered Leanne to a coffee bar for double lattes. “Don’t you feel safer now?” he asked her, only half in jest. He held his hand out to her, palm up, his habit whenever he asked a question. As if waiting to take hold of the answer, cradle it like a small bird.
    Now they are sitting on the tarmac, inching forward every few moments, in an excruciating waiting game that seems designed to mimic their earlier slow progress through security. Leanne twists in her seat and sighs. All of this would be fine—nothing has gone badly, really—if only she had done what she has been