While Drea lost herself in her oversize bag, Kara took the moment to check her phone. Two more missed calls from Ollie. Argh! The sooner they were in the same place the better because all this phone tag was driving her crazy. She cleared the notifications, before flicking onto social media. The story and video of Sienna was trending on X, and all over her Facebookand Instagram. She no longer had TikTok, after realising she could spend endless hours scrolling IKEA hacks, even though she didn’t need any furniture and she couldn’t use an electric saw if her life depended on it.
She was about to shut it down and put her phone away when she spotted a pap photo of Corbin Jacobs, walking out of his house wearing a medical boot on one foot. According to his spokesman (his name wasn’t mentioned but step forward Josh Jackson), it was ‘a minor injury sustained while taking part in martial arts training for a potential movie role. More details to be released at a later date.’
Suffering from a sudden bout of dickhead-induced nausea, Kara tossed her phone into her handbag, just as they pulled into the drop-off zone at the airport.
The driver grabbed a trolley from the stand, but that was as far as his help with the luggage went, so it was down to Kara to wrestle the cases into the luggage equivalent of a Jenga tower, and then push it, while trying to hold on to the top case so it didn’t fall off.
The terminal building was packed, and Kara presumed that was because it was a busy time, with people returning home after spending the New Year celebrations in Scotland. Once upon a time she’d known a lovely Irish guy who did the very same thing.
‘I’m a gold member of their loyalty programme, so we get to go in this queue,’ Drea directed her to a priority queue, and Kara changed course like an F1 driver taking a hairpin bend. ‘Mum texted and said she’s running late and we should go on through. She’ll meet us in the lounge.’
Kara didn’t want to admit that she was a little relieved. She couldn’t face recounting the whole story of her day to her mum right now. In fact, there was only one person she was desperate to see. Their wait was only twenty minutes or so to get to the front of the line and the whole time, Kara anxiously scannedthe terminal for Ollie, but there was no sign of him. She’d been fretting about him ever since the Sienna story broke. All she wanted was to sit down with him and a large glass of wine and make sure he was okay.
When they finally got to the desk, they handed over their passports to a slightly harassed-looking lady behind the counter, who scanned them and then requested that the suitcases be put on the scales. Again, Drea eyed Kara with a pleading expression.
‘All right, all right,’ she said, manhandling the cases from the trolley one by one until her biceps were on fire. She’d need to collect them tonight at Heathrow, and then do all this again tomorrow morning when they flew out to San Francisco, en route to Honolulu.
‘I’m afraid your flight to London is currently delayed for two hours, so you’re now scheduled to depart at 8p.m.’
Drea visibly paled. ‘But I just checked it before we left home and it said no delays.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s the snow and the fog. We have had a weather warning running all day…’ The tension showed in her tight smile. She’d probably had the same reaction from every single passenger she’d checked in.
Kara struck ‘ground crew’ off the list of potential jobs now that she was unemployed. She’d rather deal with Corbin Jacobs than with hundreds of irate customers in one night.
Drea was still under the impression that arguing would make this woman phone the pilot and say, ‘Get your tea down, and get your jacket on – ignore the fact that it’s like pea soup out there and fire up the 747 because this lady needs to get to London tonight.’
‘I saw that, but when there were no delay notifications I assumed it was fine. Sorry, I know it’s not your fault. I’m just worried about the next leg of my journey. We’re staying overnight at Heathrow and then tomorrow morning we’re flyingonwards to San Francisco and then Hawaii, because I’m getting married there the day after tomorrow.’
Drea had also inherited the oversharing gene.
‘Congratulations. At the moment, it’s only a two-hour delay, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.’ Kara watched the woman scan the packed hall and suppress a sigh. It was going to be a long night.
‘At the moment…? You mean it could be longer?’ It was impossible to miss both the rising panic and the rising volume in Drea’s voice. People in the queues on either side were turning to stare.
With an apologetic smile, Kara took the passports and boarding passes from the woman’s outstretched hands. ‘Thank you so much. Hope things calm down here soon and your night gets less hectic. Happy New Year.’
Was it still okay to be saying Happy New Year, on the third?
‘Okay, breathe, just breathe,’ she urged Drea as she gently nudged her sister in the direction of the lifts that would take them up to security. ‘It’s only a couple of hours.’
‘But what if they extend it for another hour? Then another. What if we’re here all night and then miss the flights tomorrow?’
‘If we’re here all night, I’ll treat you to a swanky suite in the hotel across the road. They’ve got Toblerones in their minibar and cashew nuts that cost a week’s wages, but you’re worth it.’
They went through the barriers and joined a security line that was approximately seven miles long.
Two little lines appeared between Drea’s eyebrows as she frowned. ‘How do you know?’
‘How do I know what?’ Kara asked, gulping back the realisation of what she’d just said, and trying desperately to come up with a way to dial it back.
‘About the hotel across the road. When did you stay there?’
Of course Drea would remember that kind of stuff. She was a travel professional who booked all Kara’s trips and who stored that kind of info in her travel professional encyclopaedic brain.
‘Erm, it doesn’t matter.’
Drea knew her too well. She immediately zeroed in on Kara’s reddening face, flustered with a side dish of guilt.
