As Christmas stories go, this one isn’t as sad as it could be.
I’m not Tiny Tim. There were no Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, or Future. All told, it is a tale completely free of angels and elves, wise men and shepherds. Even Santa didn’t make an appearance.
Nope. As it turns out, I was visited by Hulda.
“Yes. Yes.” I heard her voice, high and clear, through the crowd of people who stood too close, wearing coats that were too heavy. Our collective breath clung to the windows, almost hiding the sight of the 747 that was waiting right outside. I shifted on my feet, wondering if there is any place on earth more chaotic than Chicago O’Hare Airport five days before Christmas.
Families ran for connections. Carols played over a scratchy PA system while people stood crowded together. Waiting. But for some reason I couldn’t stop staring at the blond girl leaning against the counter at gate H18.
“New York,” the girl said. “I will go there please. Now.”
Her voice carried an accent that I couldn’t quite place—the consonants too precise, like someone who is very worried she might not be understood.
She slid her ticket toward the gate agent then forced a smile, an afterthought. “Please.”
The agent took one glance at the piece of paper and forced a smile of her own. “Oh, I’m sorry, but this isn’t a ticket to New York.”
The blond girl rolled her eyes. “Yes. That is why I stand in this line and talk to you. You can change it to New York, no? It is okay. I will wait.”
The gate agent shook her head and punched a few keys on her computer. True to her word, the girl waited.
“No. I’m sorry,” the agent said a moment later. “Your ticket is nonexchangeable and nonrefundable. Do you understand?”
“I am Icelandic. I am not moronic.”
“Of course. Yes. It’s just that…” The agent trailed off, looking for words. “I’m afraid that this ticket cannot be used on this flight. And even if it could, this flight is full.”
“But I must go to New York! I thought I could fly to where this ticket takes me and then take a bus or a train to New York, but it is very far. In Iceland, the distances … they are not so far. And now I am going to a place I do not want to go, to see someone I do not wish to see, and—”
“I’m sorry.” The gate agent shook her head. “You can purchase a ticket for New York. We have another flight leaving at six a.m. tomorrow. If you wish to go to New York you must buy a ticket for that flight.”
“But I have a ticket!” the girl snapped and pushed her old ticket forward again.
Meanwhile, another gate agent was approaching the door, propping it open as she announced, “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to flight 479 with nonstop service to New York’s LaGuardia Airport.”
The lady behind the counter gave a desperate look to the even more desperate girl. “You will either need to buy a ticket for a later flight or go to your original destination.”
“But my boyfriend is in New York! And if you would only change my ticket—”
“This flight is full.”
“But I do not love him!”
The woman looked confused. “Your boyfriend in New York?”
“No.” The girl shook her head and shrugged. “My other boyfriend.”
“Oh,” the woman said, her mouth forming a perfect circle. Then she leaned closer. A kindness filled her eyes. “Are your parents here?”
The girl shook her head. “I am alone.”
And right then I totally knew the feeling.
I watched the girl push away from the desk and start through the crowd of people that swarmed, jockeying for position as the gate agent announced, “We would like to welcome our first-class passengers at this time.”
En masse, the crowd took another step forward, jostling the girl, who dropped her bag and wiped her eyes. Her footsteps faltered.
And that was when I did it.
I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t even a conscious thought, a decision. Instinct alone was driving me as I stepped forward and blurted, “You want to go to New York?”
The girl looked at me, confused, but before she could even answer, I thrust my own ticket toward her and said, “Here. Take it. You can have it if you give me yours.”
“But that is your ticket.”
“You can have it. We can trade. Here.” I waved my ticket, but the girl glanced nervously at the gate agent standing by the door.
“It’s okay. They don’t check IDs during the boarding process,” I told her. “If you want to go to New York, this is your chance. Just give me your ticket. Give me your ticket and go.”
I could practically see what she was thinking. I was a teenage girl, too. We were about the same height, the same weight. To anyone in that heavily secured airport we might have even looked like sisters. It’s not like I was a creepy dude asking her to get into my van, but the offer probably sounded too good to be true. Which meant it probably was.
She hesitated, then snatched the ticket from my hand, held hers out to me.
“Go ahead.” I motioned toward the open door. “You’re boarding.”
She pointed to another open door a few gates away, another mass of crowding people. “So are you.”
It really was that easy, believe it or not. I started toward the open doors. For the first time in my life I did not look back, not until I heard the girl call, “You don’t even know where I was going.”
I shrugged and shook my head and said the only thing that mattered: “If you just want to go away then any ticket will get you there.”
*
“Miss?” the voice came through the blackness, and yet I did not move. “Miss!” The flight attendant seemed almost sorry. “It’s time. We’re here.”
That’s when I realized the plane was on the ground; all the other passengers were gone. The lights were down and the tarmac was dark. Wherever the girl was going, I was there.
Walking through the nearly deserted terminal, I made a list of what I had to do. I had enough cash for a hotel and a car, but they’d never rent one to a minor. Especially a minor traveling alone. I took the battery out of my phone, knowing I’d need to buy a burner. I would have to—
“Hulda!” someone yelled.
I looked at the crowd of people waiting just outside of security.
“Hulda!” the woman at the front of the crowd yelled again, a massive Welcome (to your new) Home, Hulda! banner unfurled in front of her. “We’re so glad you’re here!”
As she rushed forward, she must have crossed into a secure area because an alarm started sounding—both in my head and out of it.
This was dangerous.
This was wrong.
This woman was invading territory that was better left roped off. Secured. Barricaded and impenetrable to intruders. But the breach had already happened, and I let myself give in to the hug.
It was, after all, a really nice hug.
“Well, look at you!” The woman held me at arm’s length. “You changed your hair.”
I thought back to the short blond locks on the girl in the airport. The girl with the accent. The girl from Iceland. The girl these people were evidently waiting for.
I felt myself starting to panic, needing to run …
“You look so different from your picture,” the woman said, and I managed to breathe.
The girl these people had evidently only seen in pictures.
Maybe they wouldn’t get suspicious, call security. The police. Maybe I could just bide my time and slip away quietly and …
“Well, what am I doing hogging all the hugging? Ethan!” the woman yelled. She looked around, and I followed her gaze to the boy who was walking around the corner.
He wore Wranglers and boots and a plaid shirt heavy with starch. Until then, I’d thought boys like him only existed on the covers of romance novels. He must have been shocked by the looks of me, too, because he stopped short, frozen in the process of sliding a phone back into his pocket. Hulda’s words came back to me:
I don’t love him.
My other boyfriend.
“Ethan!” the woman yelled. “She’s here!”
I started to spin, but I was too late. He was already there. Looking at me. I could see the truth playing across his face, the realization that I was not an Icelandic girl name Hulda. I was not his girlfriend.
“It’s…” The boy started, and, mentally, I filled in the blanks.
An imposter!
A liar!
A fraud.
He moved closer.
“So good to see you!” the boy said.
And then he kissed me.
*
So it turns out that if you swap tickets with a girl who doesn’t want to go see her boyfriend, then there’s a good chance said boyfriend will meet you at the airport.
Along with his entire family.
“This is Aunt Mary,” the boy—Ethan—said, pointing to the woman with the really good hugs. “You’ll be staying with her,” he added before pointing to the others. “My mom, Susan. Dad, Clint.”
Clint took my hand in his big, beefy, calloused one, but he gave me a warm smile.
“Welcome.” His voice had a soft, southern twang. They all did.
“Oh, and that’s Emily. She’s my sister,” Ethan said as Emily looked up at me with the biggest bluest eyes that I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure she could see right through me.
“I’m twelve,” she said before I could ask. “I’m older than I look.”
We were walking toward the baggage claim, past a nativity scene where all of the wise men were dressed like cowboys, when the boy’s mom looked at me and asked, “So, is this your first trip to Oklahoma?”
Oklahoma.
Middle of the country. Middle of nowhere. Approximately a thousand miles from New York, another thousand from LA. It was … perfect.
“First time,” I said.
There was a long pause while everyone waited for me to do something. I felt like an animal at the zoo, an exhibit called Icelandic Girl in the Wild. But I wasn’t an Icelandic girl. And I couldn’t let them know that.
“It’s nice to meet you all,” I tried.
“My goodness,” Aunt Mary started, “Ethan said your English was good, but it’s perfect. Just perfect.”
“I watch a lot of American TV,” I said, and they all nodded as if that made sense.
“Okay, let’s get your bags.” Clint clapped his hands together.
“Oh, I don’t—” But before I could finish, a huge suitcase came around the conveyor belt, a giant sticker of the Icelandic flag plastered to the side. “I guess that’s mine.”
Clint went to grab the old-fashioned suitcase, lifting the giant thing as if it weighed nothing at all. I had to wonder how long Hulda was expected to stay.
But that didn’t matter. I wasn’t Hulda.
*
“So … Hulda?” Ethan asked, and it took an embarrassingly long time to realize he was talking to me.
“Yes, Evan?” I asked.
“Ethan,” he whispered. “My name is Ethan. You might want to remember that since you just flew halfway around the world because you are so in love with me.” I studied his profile in the dim light of the backseat of his parents’ SUV as it pulled away from the airport. His jaw was strong, and he kept his gaze straight ahead, as if trying to stare down the horizon. “You’re never going to get away with this, you know? Pretending to be Hulda.”
“Hulda is fine,” I told him. “I didn’t gag her and shove her in a closet if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, I know. She called to tell me that she didn’t get on the plane. She asked me to look out for you, and that is the only reason I’m going along with this crazy stunt. Hulda is a good person. You did her a favor, so I’m doing you a favor because…” He trailed off, then looked at me anew. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No.”
“Because if you are … if there’s something about you that brings trouble to my family—”
“I’m not in any trouble.”
“Because girls always trade plane tickets with strangers in airports. They’re always flying off to meet some stranger’s boyfriend.”
“That’s funny. According to the people in this car, you’re Hulda’s boyfriend. But Hulda didn’t think so.”
“What’s your point?”
“We all have secrets.”
He turned and stared straight ahead again. “I went on a foreign-exchange trip to Iceland last summer.”
“And…”
The corners of Ethan’s mouth turned up in something not quite resembling a smile. “What happens in Iceland stays in Iceland.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He glanced back at me. “So, what’s in it for you?”
“I didn’t want to go to New York.”
“What’s in New York?”
Aunt Mary was leaning between the front seats, talking to Ethan’s mother and father. Emily was wearing headphones—I could hear faint traces of music as she closed her eyes, fading in and out of sleep. Ethan and I were alone in the last row, but the SUV was too quiet. Someone might overhear. Get suspicious. Find out.
I swore right then that no one would ever find out.
“I needed to get away, okay? I saw my chance, and I took it. I’ll be out of your hair, and you can start mending your broken heart or whatever just as soon as we stop. I will disappear, and you will never have to see me again.”
I expected him to protest, to complain that I was putting him in an impossible position. I didn’t expect him to actually say, “You can’t just run away.”
But I was not in the mood to hear what I couldn’t do. The list had been too extensive for too long.
You can’t eat that.
You can’t go there.
You can’t be this.
Ethan didn’t know that I was in that SUV-bound-to-nowhere because I had solemnly sworn to never let anyone tell me what I could or could not do ever again, so I leaned closer. “Watch me.”
But he only laughed. “No. You don’t understand. I know my father, and there is no way this vehicle stops until we get home.”
“So I’ll split as soon as we get there.”
But that must have been hilarious, because Ethan just laughed harder.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, but he sank lower in his seat, closed his eyes and whispered, “You’ll see, Not Hulda. You will soon see.”