Thirty-Five

I was sitting next to a man

At the airport

Who told me

He’d just turned thirty-five

I wished him a happy birthday

And went back to the book I was reading

Something about a President

Not the current one

And a little girl who wrote him a letter

And it all ties together

In one of those strange ways

That people write books about

This was on the eve of me

Turning twenty-six

And while thirty-five wasn’t that far away

A part of me couldn’t imagine

Nine years into the future

Even a year seemed like

A ragged stretch

The man in the airport

Was tapping his foot

And checking his phone

And it occurred to me

That traveling on your birthday

Might be exciting

But traveling alone is tricky

Even under the best of circumstances

And traveling alone on your birthday

Could certainly give one

Too much to think about

I asked him if he was excited

To be going to Miami

And he told me

He’d be meeting

His daughter there

Your daughter?
I was nineteen

Wow

She’s…

I shouldn’t--

No, it’s--

I’m sorry

It’s fine

I did the math

And realized

That this person

Had another person

Who probably thought of him

As something he wasn’t

I had that too

But mine was a fiance

Who was about to lose

Any hope of a wedding

There was nothing to blame

But distance

And distraction

And while he fully expected me

To be arriving

With eight weeks

Worth of clothing and accessories

I had only my travel bag

And a ticket to return home to Houston

In two days time

The man--now thirty-five

Took out a notepad

And began writing something

I wasn’t trying to pry

But it was hard not to let my eyes wander

Partly because I was reading

Was as dry as a drawing room

And the man’s penmanship

Was dramatic

With flourishes

And hard dots

For every ‘i’

When the time came to board

The man took a deep breath

And I took the opportunity to assure him

That everything was going to be okay

I’m terrified of flying

I meant with your daughter

What about the flying?

For that I have Xanax

I gave him two

And he thanked me

His daughter’s name is Natalie

She’s an artist

She goes to a private academy in Miami

She moved there with her mother

She was seven at the time

He’s seen her five times since then

Her favorite movie is anything where a dog talks

Her favorite song is anything with an acoustic guitar

She painted her room blue then she painted it back

The first boy who kissed her was named Xavier

She doesn’t like boys

She never wants to drive

She wants to live in Austria

When she was nine she buzzed all her hair off

She’d like to do it again

She once called her father to tell him she hated him

She hung up before he answered

If she’s going to eat pizza, there has to be mushrooms on it

She doesn’t dance

She doesn’t sing--in front of others

She has an online shopping cart with four hundred items in it

She has seventeen unfinished diaries

She can’t commit to any project for longer than two weeks

She gets bored with herself, but not with others

Sometimes with others

She has a crush on one of her teachers

Well, two of her teachers

She one shoplifted some eye make-up

The guilt made her sick for three days

She wants to lose her virginity the night of graduation

She looks like her paternal grandmother

She has four best friends

She’ll lose one of them in a month

She hates lists of things

She loves kickball--really loves it

These are the thirty-five things

I think I know about his daughter

And I don’t know

If any of them are true

We boarded the plane

And I fixed my eyes on the window

Waiting for the world

To fall away