He adjusted his hat and winked at Chloe, who proceeded to turn every shade of red before turning her back to the rest of them.
“Sir,” Emily said again, “are you sure there are no other planes and no other pilots who can get us to the island this evening?”
“None that I can think of. Most of our planes already left for the island on account of the Lilac Festival. Now, Billy Cornwall can fly, but he doesn’t have a license anymore, ever since he landed a plane in Mrs. McGurty’s alpaca pasture, so I wouldn’t feel right about you going with him. And Cody Faraday is in county lockup right now on account of he was jaywalking.”
“They locked him up for jaywalking?” Emily asked.
His voice lowered as he leaned over the table toward her. “Well, he was naked, mostly. If it weren’t for he was wearing his cowboy boots, he’d have been completely naked.”
Emily turned to look at the Guy in the Suit. The Guy in the Suit looked back at her.
“You think there’s any chance in hell they have Uber around here?” he nearly whispered.
“What’s an Uber?” the old man said loudly, as if to counterbalance their hushed tones.
“It’s like a taxi,” Emily answered.
“A taxi? You need a taxi? Well, why didn’t you say so? Number’s on the wall right there near the pay phone.” He pointed to the wall, and sure enough, next to the window was a beat-up old pay phone, and next to that, attached with the ubiquitous duct tape, was a sheet of yellow legal paper with a phone number scrawled in fat black marker.
Wawatam Taxi Service. Thank goodness.
Ryan Taggert had wondered if this day could get any worse, and now he knew.
The answer was yes.
Yes, it could.
He’d already puddle-jumped across the nation, wasted three hours in a hotel bar in Minneapolis drinking watered-down vodka tonics, and now here he was stuck in Sticksville, Michigan, facing the next leg of his journey. What was supposed to be a forty-minute plane ride, on an admittedly frighteningly out-of-date plane, was now going to be an hour-long taxi ride followed by half an hour on some ridiculous ferry. A ferry? Who the hell was he? Huckleberry Finn?
“I assume you’re headed to the island, too?” asked the honey in the white suit. She was the one surprising perk to his day. What was a beautiful woman like her doing in a dive of an airport like this? Too bad this trip was all about business and not pleasure. Plus, the kid had called her Mom, and he was pretty sure that no woman traveling with her daughter would be looking for his sort of extracurricular vacation activities. They were going to Wenniway Island, not Fantasy Island.
“Yes, Wenniway Island,” he said. “The sooner the better.”
“There won’t be many taxis around here. As you can imagine, there aren’t a lot of evening activities nearby that require public transportation.” She rolled her shoulders, tilting her head from side to side, and he recognized the universal stretch of another weary traveler. Ryan lived out of his suitcase most of the time, and travel was an unavoidable nuisance. The crick in his neck was pretty much permanent.
“I would imagine all the evening activities around here require either a pickup truck or a tractor.” All he’d seen on his flight in were fields and trees. Not another building or town in sight. There did not appear to be many people, either.
“You’d be correct. If we get lucky, there will be some kind of car available that can get us to Michlimac City, but the ferries only run until eight p.m. this time of year. So we’d better get there fast. That being the case, I suggest we share a ride. Unless you were planning to spend the night here.”
Ryan looked over at the hard plastic chairs and the grimy, soiled floor. He’d slept at an airport or two in his day, and on a few dirty floors after one too many shots of Patrón, but this would be more like sleeping in county lockup, and he didn’t have the benefit of being sloppy drunk. Since this woman seemed to know her way around, he had no issue with sharing a cab, as long as she and her daughter didn’t want to chat. He was too tired for chatting.
“Sure. Yeah, that would be good. I’ll call for one.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and stepped closer to the sign taped to the paneled wall.
“Good luck, you kids. Don’t forget to turn off the lights,” said the grandpa in the John Deere hat, and then he shuffled out the door and was gone. So much for customer service.
As Ryan made arrangements with a raspy-voiced woman on the phone, he took note of how many bags his new traveling companions had. A lot. He was scheduled to stay on the island for two months while he worked with his father, and he’d managed to get everything into one suitcase, so what on earth did they bring? Probably shoes. In his experience, women always brought too many shoes. Impractical shoes, like the ones the woman was wearing right now. She had on high heels with lots of straps and even a pointless little zipper on the heel. They looked good, of course. Damn good, but those were not traveling shoes. They didn’t seem much like mom shoes to him, either. And that wasn’t a very practical suit she was wearing, come to think of it. It was white. Who the hell wore white to travel in? Besides the pope?
“Better make it a van,” he said to the woman on the phone. “We’re going to need it.”
He hung up and turned back to the strawberry blonde and her mini-me. “The cab will be here in thirty minutes. That’s going to be cutting it close for making that boat you’re talking about.”
“Well, if we can at least get to Michlimac City tonight, there are lots of hotels. Even with the Lilac Festival starting on the island, we should be able to find some rooms. Better to spend the night in one of those than on the floor here.” She gestured toward the uncomfortable chairs.
He nodded. “Agreed.”
“There had better be some restaurants open, too, Mom, because I am literally ravenous. Like I can literally feel my stomach starting to cave in on itself. We haven’t eaten in like ten years.” The kid pressed clenched fists against her flat belly to demonstrate just how long ten years was to have gone without food. He sensed a career in the dramatic arts might suit her.
“Maybe I can get into that vending machine,” Ryan said before her mother could answer. “I’m Ryan, by the way. Ryan Taggert.” He walked over to the machine, circa 1970s, and began pulling at the duct tape. “Hope the food in here is fresher than the technology, but at least it’s easy to break into.”
The door swung open, and the young girl squeaked with gratitude.
“Ohmygosh, thank you! I am seriously legit starving right now. I’m Chloe Chambers. Nice to meet you.” She shoved her phone into her pocket, shook Ryan’s hand, and then started pulling candy bars from the machine.