Chapter Text
“Temperatures are again expected to stay at or below freezing, with wind chill bringing things down even further, and that winter storm warning is still in effect until the morning of the 26th. The city of Chicago is recommending limiting all non-essential travel, and we’re projecting further delays on the roads and in the skies into the weekend.”
The latest local weather broadcast plays, on a timed loop, from televisions scattered across the gates at the airport, drowned out every so often by boarding calls and raucous travelers headed home for the holidays. The departures board continues to accumulate yellow and red DELAYED or CANCELLED badges as the night wears on.
Not that Beatrice is counting, but it’s the fourth time she’s seen that news segment in the last hour.
With a sigh, she adjusts her headphones and glasses and resumes her study of the soft-bound manuscript in her lap. Pages are dog-eared, phrases highlighted and color-coded, and nearly the entire document is annotated – she’s always been meticulous, but this is perhaps too much even for her. Still, her agent’s voice rings softly in her ears.
“I know you’re under immense pressure already, Beatrice,” Suzanne placates. “But opportunities like this don’t come around very often. We’re lucky they were willing to consider you independently of the recent press –“
“Of which I’m very aware, thank you,” Beatrice interjects. She takes a beat and breathes deeply. When she speaks again, it’s even and collected – back to business as usual. “I’m sorry. Thank you for working so hard on this. I know it’s our best chance after everything, and it’s meaningful work.”
“That it is. I apologize for bringing it up again.” A beat as Suzanne shifts the phone between her ear and her shoulder, presumably juggling several different tasks as always. “You don’t deserve this situation, and I know you’ll give it your best.”
“I always do.”
As she begins to skim the middle pages of the script yet again, she’s shaken from her focus by the chime of the public address system – disrupting Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” playing from the ancient overhead speakers.
“Passengers for flight 313 to JFK, we’ve finally got some updates for you. It looks like that delay is coming from the front end – your aircraft actually never left Denver. Seems like they ran into some maintenance issues on the ground over there, and had to pull that flight. Unfortunately, that means we don’t have a plane for you, and everything incoming is diverted or on a ground stop for the weather. Real sorry folks, but they’re going to go ahead and cancel us.”
Predictably, there are audible protests of frustration from the scattered passengers that remain in the gate area. Beatrice takes notice of a woman seated nearby that slouches her head into her hands at the news, gently so as not to wake the sleeping child on her lap. There are other families around that look similarly devastated. I’ll be home for Christmas, indeed. She pulls out her phone and sends a quick text to Suzanne, and one to her friends’ group chat as well – Cancelled the last flight out to JFK for the weather – before deciding her best bet might be to talk to the gate agent before an angry queue forms. She slings her duffel bag over her shoulder and heads to the desk, where the airline employee seems to already be bracing himself for the mob.
“Sorry about the news, miss,” he apologizes preemptively. “Can I try and help?”
“I’m hopeful you can,” Beatrice starts. The man relaxes, possibly at her accent as much as her politeness in the face of the inconvenience. “Are there any other flights leaving for New York tonight or tomorrow? Other airlines as well, if you can check.”
He’s already briskly tapping away at the keys as she speaks, having anticipated her question. “There’s a chance, but the weather is working against us right now. Let me see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
He scrolls along thoughtfully, clicking and muttering here and there. Beatrice’s phone buzzes in her hand, and she glances at the incoming texts. They’re all from her friends’ group chat, and most of them seem to just be “dislikes” on her message. There are a few scattered profanities – mostly from Mary and Lilith, and sad emojis – mostly from Camila. She catches the employee’s gaze just in time for him to check the screen, then his watch, and frown dejectedly.
“We’re still on a ground hold, and the last flight anywhere close just closed its doors about five minutes ago. Granted, they’re stuck on the runway until this passes, and it would’ve only gotten you to Philadelphia, but – “ he sighs. “The short answer is no, there’s nothing left. Tomorrow morning is actually oversold, and I can’t guarantee those flights will even go out. You can wait and see, or – “ he lowers his voice conspiratorially, “you can try and make a run for the rental car counter before they close. You’ve got a head start on all these people, but other cancelled flights are going to be moving that way soon.”
Her phone vibrates again in her hand, this time with an incoming call from Suzanne. “I appreciate your help,” she offers the man, gathering her bag and starting toward the terminal exit.
“How are we looking?”
Beatrice sighs. “In short, there’s nothing viable tonight or tomorrow.”
“I know you know this, but they won’t wait for you if you can’t make that audition on Tuesday. The producers have already been gracious enough to move your callback after the holidays.”
“And it’s my last chance, I know,” Beatrice fills in the blanks. “I’m headed to the rental car counter to see if that may be an option.”
She can hear the concern in the older woman’s voice as Suzanne thinks through a reply. “It’s not safe for the planes to take off, and they’re subjecting people to try and drive in it instead?”
“I didn’t say it was a good option.”
“Please be safe. And keep me updated.”
“You know I will.”
*********************
The rental car counter, as it turns out, is the airport’s worst-kept secret.
All but one of the service counters are closed – due to staffing or inventory, Ava can’t tell – and the line of people cascading down the escalators to the transportation center is only growing. Call it divine intervention, but she’s somehow managed to find herself towards the front of this line, staring down a tired and overworked car rental employee who seems about thirty seconds away from simply removing their nametag and walking out the doors into the freezing Chicago night. Stranded passengers are shouting into their phones, or at their travel companions (or each other), and the ambient volume of the room has to be beyond the safe exposure limit.
“So you don’t have a reservation?”
“No, I don’t,” Ava groans. “Like I said before, they sent me down here to see if there was anything left since all the flights out got cancelled.”
“One moment,” the employee deadpans, before returning to scrolling endlessly on the ancient and toiling desktop computer. If the cooling fan on it were any louder, Ava would be tempted to take it outside and see if itwould lift off.
She would certainly be scolded at home for the huff she lets out, but patience has never been one of her virtues. She sneaks a text to her chat with Diego and Michael – think I met the real life slug from Monsters Inc. – and decides to ring Jillian. “Hey, yeah – I’m still at the car place. They’re working on it.” At this, she sends a pointed glance at the employee, who scrolls on unaffected.
“You know I can have a driver come and collect you,” Jillian’s voice muses warmly from the other end.
“And you know I won’t let you. I can figure this out, I’m a big kid.”
“That was never my concern. But Christmas is only three days away and I know how you feel about – hold on.” There’s a clatter from the other end of the receiver, and what sounds like laser gunfire in the background. “Boys, keep that down. I’m talking with your sister.”
Ava chuckles. “Sounds like the product testing is going smoothly.”
“I never should have told them about the laser tag prototype,” she sighs, but Ava can hear the smile in her voice. There’s another loud jostling noise from Jillian’s side of the call, and suddenly Diego’s voice comes through. “Are you coming home for Christmas or not? ‘Cause we don’t have enough people for Catan without you, and I want to play the expansion this year. No pressure.”
“I’m working on it, dude. I know you’ll hold that against me for way too long if I deprive you and Michael of your precious board game time. Why couldn’t you have just been a normal teenage boy and into video games or, like, blowing up the neighbors’ mailboxes or something?”
It takes a moment, but she registers a laugh from the person next to her at the counter. She ceases glaring daggers at the not-quite-Roz-from Monsters Inc.-employee just long enough to look over, and her already unreliable train of thought is immediately derailed from the phone call, the car rental, and all coherent thought entirely.
Ava has seen her fair share of beautiful people. The place where she bartends in the theater district is full of them – weekend in and weekend out, tourists and locals alike pass through like revolving doors looking for a drink and a good time. And sure, she’s what her primary school teachers called a “social butterfly” – so she has no trouble making conversation and accepting the occasional phone number or overly gratuitous tip.
This stranger at the counter is something entirely different.
She’s dressed comfortably, in a soft blue-grey sweater falling just so to her wrists, and tapered black sweatpants with a pair of well-loved high top sneakers. Her hair is tied back, a few loose ends escaping an otherwise neat bun, and a pair of thin-framed glasses hang loosely from the collar of her undershirt. She doesn’t even seem to notice that she’s crash-landed into Ava’s conversation until she catches her eye.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” the stranger acknowledges politely, and now it’s a proper seven car pile-up as Ava simultaneously registers her accent, the shy glance, and a faint blush crawling to color her cheeks and the tips of her ears. She may as well be an astronaut for how far unmoored from the Earth’s orbit she feels.
As the planets begin to realign and gravity reasserts itself beneath her feet, she recollects that she’s actively on the phone and presses the handset to her ear just in time to hear Diego finish rambling his way through an extensive list of activities he’s tried. He’s into all the same things as his classmates, thank you very much. “I’ll take your word for it, dude,” she says, clearing her throat of the apparent softball she’d swallowed whole. “I’ll be home, I promise.”
“You better. We’ll watch The Sound of Music without you.”
“Don’t you dare,” she laughs. “Gotta go, I’ll catch you guys later.”
*********************
Beatrice can’t find it in herself to look away as the (admittedly pretty) brunette next to her finishes her phone call – the one that she certainly would have been scolded for tripping headlong into and eavesdropping upon, once upon a time. She settles for watching with quiet amusement as the woman fights off another threat from presumably a family member, and ends the call with a good-natured roll of her eyes.
“Apologies again,” she offers to the stranger, raising her left hand in a gesture meant to convey surrender.
She watches as the brunette’s face morphs from near surprise to something like self-assurance. Her own hands go to her pockets, where she tucks her phone away. “Don’t sweat it. Glad to bring a little humor to your night.”
“Seems like you know someone with interesting hobbies, is all.”
The stranger laughs then, bright and unexpected, and Beatrice feels the warmth of it resonate through her chest. Before she’s even conscious of the action, she finds herself leaning on the counter with a propped elbow, fully drawn in by the woman next to her.
“I guess we could’ve started smaller, like egging their front doors.”
“I would not be pleased to be on the receiving end of that activity.”
“That’s kind of the point.” The brunette smirks, and Beatrice tries very hard not to stare. Then, a beat passes, and she softens into a more thoughtful expression. “Where are you headed?”
“Back to New York, if I can get there – although the weather seems determined to keep me away. Home to family, for you?”
“Yeah,” she answers with a smile. “Actually, they’re just outside of the City, so I’m headed that way too.”
“That feels fortuitous.”
“And that feels like a word that exists solely in the dictionary.”
The rental car associate chooses that particularly inopportune moment to sever the new and tenuous thread between them, pulling the stranger’s focus away from her. “I have exactly one car left on the lot. It won’t be cheap for the mileage you’re looking to go, but it’s yours if you can pay it.”
The brunette simply nods, rocking up onto the toes of her sneakers as she counterbalances the simple blue backpack around her shoulders. “Where do I sign, boss?”
Beatrice’s heart sinks a little at the exchange – her only backup plan to make it in time for the audition deadline was afloat on the chance of a rental car, the last of which was about to drive somewhere far away from here. She spares a glance at her watch, which reads 10:05pm – now past closing for any of the other transportation options. The once dense crowd of passengers around the counter begins to disperse as news of the availability spreads among them. She frowns at her phone, now crowded with more texts and wondering question marks from her friends’ group chat. She’s mostly tuned out of the interaction between the employee and her fellow traveler, when it suddenly picks up in volume.
“Okay, I understand the circumstances, but this is highway robbery.” The stranger is shaking her head, astonished at something she sees on the rental paperwork in front of her.
“Look, lady. It’s past closing time and I’ve just been yelled at for the last four hours consecutively. I’m sure there are lots of people here that would be willing to pay that price, maybe even double that, to get home to their families for Christmas. It’s just supply and demand, company policy. So either pony up, or pass it on.”
“I can’t pay this,” the brunette sighs, and something like heartbreak laces through her words.
“Not my problem.” Beatrice is startled when the worker pivots and levels a finger at her. “You. Want this rental car?”
“How much?”
The employee slides the paperwork across the countertop to her. She blanches slightly at the dollar figure, and makes a mental note to have someone with a legal background investigate the company’s operating policies. While it’s not enough to be a real deterrent for her personally, the amount is certainly still significant.
The keys to her future lie, figuratively and to at least some degree literally, in her hands. She can sign her name, take the car, and make it smoothly to Manhattan in about 12 hours’ time. No hard feelings – it’s just business. She really doesn’t owe anything to the beautiful, soon-to-be-stranded traveler with no way to make it home to her family for the holidays.
Damn it to hell.
She contemplates her choices, the space between martyrdom and selfishness in this interaction with someone who she’s only just met but inexplicably feels connected to, and does the most un-Beatrice thing she can think of.
She doesn’t plan. She just leaps.
Making a point not to look at the stranger next to her – whose expression is almost certainly wavering somewhere between affronted and personally betrayed – she hands over her credit card, signs her name smoothly on the dotted line, and collects the keys from the desk.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” the worker deadpans.
“I wish I could say the same,” Beatrice replies coolly. She turns to the woman next to her, who’s settled for leaning back against the counter, texting with a frown on her face. It leaves a wrinkle between the brunette’s eyes, and Beatrice shrugs off the itch to reach out and smooth it away with her hands. She gently steps into the stranger’s space, just close enough to make her aware of her presence. The effect works as intended – the woman looks up, and Beatrice uses the newfound eye contact to spur her bravery as she nods her head towards the exit of the rental car center. “Well, are you coming?”
It’s akin to whiplash, seeing her expression change from sadness to disbelief, before boomeranging around to confusion. She seems to be growing roots into the (appreciably dreadful) tile flooring. With a blink, the stranger shakes her head. “Sorry, what?”
“Last I checked, there’s room for more than one person in a car,” she says simply.
“You paid for it, it’s yours,” the brunette demurs.
“Correct, it’s mine to do with as I want. And right now, I want to make sure that the youth of tomorrow are not deprived of the finer points of education on exploding a neighbor’s mailbox,” Beatrice explains, headed toward the doors of the car lot. “You don’t have to.”
“Like I have a better option,” the stranger replies, and breaks into a grin as she all but skips up next to Beatrice, wheeling her suitcase close behind. It seems she’s misinterpreted the woman’s politeness as reluctance – Beatrice doesn’t think she’s ever met someone with this level of instant enthusiasm. Even the greatest actors she’s worked with couldn’t conjure energy on the spot to this degree.
The automatic doors ahead of them slide open, and a blast of cold air rushes forth to greet them. The sodium lights overhead barely illuminate the extent of the car park, but there’s not much need – one single, solitary vehicle remains on the lot for the taking.
“You can’t be serious – “
“Dude, no way – “
They cross sentences as their eyes settle simultaneously on their newly acquired mode of transportation – and quite possibly the ugliest thing on four wheels. Horrifically, it’s a minivan, and perhaps more horrifically, it’s gold. When was the last time a car company voluntarily chose to paint something metallic gold?
Beatrice frowns, turning over the key fob in her hand. “Perhaps there’s another car on the lot somewhere?” With an experimental press of the lock button, she grimaces as the offensively-gold van chirps in greeting. Because that would be too convenient. Turning to look at the stranger, she finds her with her phone camera already out, grinning and taking pictures like the paparazzi. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Documenting that we lucked into the Pimpmobile for the weekend, duh.”
“I refuse to call it that.” A warmth passes through Beatrice at the stranger’s use of we, and she kicks it aside.
“Suit yourself, Mary Poppins. I absolutely will be,” she laughs, and turns to take a selfie with the van. “Will you take one of me on the hood?”
“No.”
“Fun sucker.” The brunette sighs and tucks her phone back into her pocket. “Hey, real quick. I know we didn’t get to this before, but you’re not like, a serial killer, right?”
Beatrice fights back a smile. “Sorry, did I not mention that before? I wasn’t sure it was appropriate to discuss our day jobs in front of the other travelers.”
“Cool. Well, just in case this is it, I’m Ava. Please tell the police my name, and that I died doing what I loved.” She offers a handshake, and the absurdity of the situation washes over Beatrice all at once.
“Taking a cross-country road trip with a total stranger in the –“ she scrunches her face in disdain – “Pimpmobile?”
“Oh my god, you’re right. I died horrifically.”
That gets a proper laugh out of both of them, echoing through the empty expanse of the parking garage. She reaches out to accept the handshake, and half expects to feel a static charge pass between them. Instead, the moment comes and goes without much of a second thought. “Beatrice,” she introduces simply.
The stranger – Ava – hums thoughtfully. “That suits you. I like it.”
Beatrice tries not to let the compliment sway her, but she’s reasonably certain that the tips of her ears are a different shade than the rest of her face at present. Her mind is otherwise occupied unmooring itself from the stranger’s name that rings in her ears. Ava, Ava - “I didn’t choose it, but I appreciate that,” she eventually manages.
“Well, let your parents know they did a fine job on my behalf,” Ava smiles.
It’s intended as yet another bit of playful commentary, but Beatrice feels the levity of the moment snap as a rush of cold floods her chest. Of course, Ava couldn’t know how deep the wound of her family runs, and she wishes she was over having this reaction at every such mention of them. (Her therapist would probably remind her that healing isn’t linear, Beatrice.) When she realizes she’s likely taken more than the socially acceptable length of time to respond, she settles for clearing her throat and acknowledging it briskly. “Yes. Well, we should probably be going if we want to outpace this storm.”
“Yeah, right.” Ava’s face falls ever so slightly at her reaction, enthusiasm slipping just for a moment, but neither of them choose to acknowledge it. With a beep, the van doors unlock and they sling their luggage into the back wordlessly before sliding side-by-side into the front seats. Beatrice settles in behind the wheel and begins adjusting the mirrors, while Ava fishes through the glove box (for what, exactly, remains to be seen).
She’s a stranger, after all, Beatrice reminds herself. Paired by fate for at most three days, and then scattered to the wind. Still, she feels an inexplicable weight settling beneath her ribs at the thought. Shaking it aside, she clicks on the pin marked “home” in her phone’s GPS before recollecting the situation and turning to her co-pilot. “What’s the address for your – “
Said co-pilot, meanwhile, has pulled an entire road atlas out of the glove box and is poring over a comically large map of what appears to be the state of Indiana (it’s also upside down, but Beatrice bites her tongue and allows her to figure that out on her own, which she eventually does). “What freeway are we taking?”
“Normally I’m all for the classics, but I’d prefer the GPS if you don’t mind,” she chuckles. “Much easier.”
Suddenly self-conscious, Ava retreats with a shy smile into the task of folding the map back up. “Oh. Totally. I was just – backup plan, you know?” As soon as the hesitancy appears, it’s gone again, and she reaches over the center console and begins typing her address into Beatrice’s phone. “That should do it.”
The display reads 14 hours, 16 minutes, for a grand total of 840 miles. A beat passes between them as they both acknowledge the full extent of what this unexpected arrangement will ask of them. “Okay, well. I’m just going to make a disclaimer now, I’m definitely going to have to pee somewhere in that time,” Ava jokes. “Plus I want to stop and get some fuzzy dice for the Pimpmobile.”
Beatrice rolls her eyes, but it’s only a half effort. “I don’t share your enthusiasm, but considering how unsustainable this vehicle is for the environment, we will most certainly have to stop for fuel somewhere.”
Ava actually fist-pumps in the passenger seat, shaking the frame of the aged gold minivan with the effort. “I know it’s still too early to tell, but I have a feeling this is going to be the best road trip ever. Granted, I haven’t been on that many, but still.”
“At least one of us has the enthusiasm for it.”
“C’mon, Bea.” Ava nudges her with an elbow, and Beatrice tries very hard not to get caught in yet another spiral of the sound of the new nickname in her companion’s mouth. She gestures animatedly. “When was the last time you got to drive across the country with a total stranger in a shitty van? The night is young and the road is wide – anything can happen.”
Beatrice chuckles as she shifts the car into gear, pointedly ignores the suspicious death rattle the transmission makes, and glides them smoothly out of the parking garage out into the cold Chicago night. “Anything?”
“Anything,” Ava grins. “Trust me.” She’s caught in the glow of the traffic lights as they slow to a stop on the airport exit ramp, and Beatrice shoves her heart down in her chest when it gives a traitorous jump. Hair loose and just to her shoulders, with a softly-worn flannel draped over her arms and her legs tucked up under her in the oversized van seat, Ava looks like she could be a very specific kind of dangerous to Beatrice’s well-built resolve.
“Trust me,” she thinks. Maybe that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
They steer onto the highway and out into the stretch of road before them, and as the car’s headlights catch the first sporadic flurries of snow, the night morphs into something boundless and transformative.
Beatrice realizes, with a start, that she is well and truly in over her head.