Wired Ashley Heatherly

Airport Relay

Emily Pate

For the first time in a month, I was alone.

Elsewhere in China, whole swatches of the country were flooding, pointed-bow boats being rowed down the streets, but here in Ningbo, the rain was still just a storm tapping an irregular tune against the airport windows as I waited for my flight to board.

I was only in China because my friend Yilin had invited me along on her research expedition. We’d crammed side by side on buses winding up mountain roads, packed onto the underground railway in Shanghai rush hour, and watched Wuxia on bullet trains cutting across whole provinces, but now she was gone, already boarding a flight of her own.

The rain outside fell harder; the tapping on the windows became knocking. I glanced at my watch with its small white face and pink faux-leather strap. I was early, but I had run for far too many connecting flights for that to ease my worry. I was ready to be home, even as I already craved bamboo rice and spicy Chongqing noodles, all the things that would never be as good back in the States.

As the storm built, bruising afternoon into almost night, the airport transformed into a sea of waiting, restless people as flight after flight was delayed or cancelled. The first of my two flights was a short two-hour hop to Guangzhou, a major hub for international flights. The next, to San Francisco, would be far longer at just over 14 hours. My watch ticked in time to the rain. My layover in Guangzhou was supposed to be six hours, but as the second-hand on my watch flickered forward, that time was slowly eaten away.

It took three more hours and two gate changes before my plane boarded. As I took my aisle seat, I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. Outside the plane window, the black runway was cut through with the watery reflections of windows.

Another hour passed before an announcement in Mandarin crackled through the plane. A burst of yelling overtook the English that followed it, so all I heard was a few familiar words, including a fuzzy apology. I took a sharp breath between my teeth and looked around for any sign of what might be happening, but all I saw were worried and tense expressions that matched my own. For the first time in my life, I pressed the button to call a flight attendant.

A flight attendant in a blue skirt and matching blazer approached. Pinned to her collar was a hot pink pin shaped like a spiky speech bubble that said, “I speak English!”

“How can I help?”

“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t quite hear the English announcement.” Title “It’ll be at least another hour before the storm allows us to take off.”

An hour. After so long standing in the airport, the plane was just a new location for purgatory. My feet flexed inside my Vans, wanting to run, to hurry, when all I could do was wait and hope.

Another hour passed, and a new announcement came. This time, the flight attendant came to find me before the English announcement had even ended.

“We don’t know when we can take off,” she said. “We’re allowing people off the plane. Would you like to go?”

“No,” I said, glancing at my watch, as my connecting flight’s departure time crept closer. What would it matter if I went back to the airport and waited there instead of here? Even if my connecting flight took to the air without me, Guangzhou was another step along the trip home. “I’ll stay. Thank you.”

An elderly white man wearing elbow-patched tweed, along with a few others, left the plane, hands clutching tight to their carry-ons. Just 20 minutes later, the plane lurched forward, and sailed down the runway. I had an hour and 45 minutes until my second flight left to cross the ocean. My current flight would take exactly that long. I fidgeted, turning my music on and off, opening and closing my book, and staring at my watch. Thunder cut jagged wounds through the sky, each strike another jolt of anxiety.

As we landed, I pulled my backpack onto my lap, patted my pockets for my passport and ticket. A Mandarin announcement came over the speakers, then an English one. “If you need to rebook a connecting flight, please see a gate agent.”

Did I need to book a new connecting flight? I looked down at my watch again. I’d definitely need to book a connecting flight. My flight to San Francisco was already boarding.

The plane stopped and all the passengers stood, heads bent under the low ceiling of the overhead compartments. A woman with a bright silver suitcase shouldered her way down the aisle, looking down and mumbling apologies in Mandarin and English as people glared.

“We all have flights to catch,” someone said, blocking the aisle. The woman halted and hunched in on herself, fidgeting with the handle of her suitcase.

Eventually, like a river undammed, we started moving, emptying out of the plane onto the gangway. My heartbeat quickened. How far was it to my new gate? Was there even a sliver of a chance I would make it?

The English-speaking flight attendant stood by the plane door, smiling. Her lipstick was a darker, deeper red than the rest of the flight attendants, and she had a calm that rippled out through the frantic crowd as we shuffled off the plane. As I reached the front of the aisle, I held my ticket out to her. “My flight is boarding. What do I do?”

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