window seat

I saw the first ghost before I even boarded the plane.

I was sitting in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, Terminal A, Gate 16. It was still early, 8:30 AM Texas time, and summer sunlight was streaming in the plate glass windows, so I’d taken a seat facing the opposite direction. I sipped pomegranate green tea from a paper cup, and wished the benches didn’t have armrests so I could lie down for a bit.

Pretty soon, a gate attendant arrived. There weren’t too many people around yet, so I left my backpack on the bench and walked over to the kiosk. I’d been rerouted due to delays and needed a seat assignment for this final leg of my journey.

“Good morning,” I greeted the woman and handed her my boarding pass. She nodded, fingers clacking on the antiquated keyboard.

“If it’s at all possible, I’d really like a window seat.”

“At the moment, I’ve got an aisle for you.” Her eyes scanned the screen. “Oh, there is a window, but it’s in the very last row.”

“It’s my hometown,” I explained, “and I haven’t been there in ten years.”

She looked up from the monitor. “I can wait to see if something opens up. You won’t get your seat ‘til the last minute, though.”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

I returned to my seat and took out my iPod. After a few moments’ deliberation, I chose an old school acoustic mix I’d recently made for a friend: James Taylor, Jim Croce, Glen Campbell. It was that kind of morning.

Time passed uneventfully. I watched as passengers drifted into the waiting area and wondered whether their trips were ending or beginning in Tucson, or if they were just passing through. I thought about that for myself, too.

I noticed a young woman standing in line at the kiosk. She had beautiful hair: tight, shoulder-length curls the color of chocolate. My hair is curly, too, but not like hers, and rather than fight the humidity, I’d pulled mine up in an elastic. I felt a little bit jealous of her, even though I I’d have to be black to have that kind of hair. She reminded me of Jessie, I girl I’d known in middle school.

Then it occurred to me: what if this actually was Jessie? It was highly improbable, but not impossible. Since she was facing away from me, I figured I could study her for a few moments without her noticing. She was tall and slender, wearing a fitted black blazer, dark skinny jeans and brown flats with gold buckles. A white headphones cord dangled down into a handbag that wasn’t Coach but sort of looked like it, which was perched atop a classic black rollerboard.

Overall, this woman appeared put-together in a casually professional sort of way, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. For some reason, I felt sure that this is just how Jessie would look now. Self-consciously, I glanced down at my ‘quirky’ knee-length skirt, scuffed Converse sneakers and hiking backpack.

The Jessie I’d known was a classmate, not really a friend. I don’t think we’d interacted much before eighth grade. (As schools go, Booth-Fickett Math/Science Magnet K-8 was even bigger than its name: 432 students in my grade alone.) But that year we had lots of the same classes: Mr. Callesen for Algebra and MathCounts (the competitive math team—don’t judge me); Mr. McCarville for Honors English; Mr. Jones for band.  Jessie was smart, but she wasn’t a nerd like I’d been. She was tall, thin and athletic, reasonably popular, and always wore the cutesy graphic tees with monkeys and turtles that were so popular at the time.

Early in the year, I ate lunch with her and her group of friends (none of those names I remember now). Actually, I often skipped eating ‘cos I didn’t like the ‘food’ offered to those of us on the free-and-reduced lunch program. Jessie, like the rest of the cool kids, ordered from the snack bar instead of the hot line: a bagel without cream cheese and a Reese’s, or a Nutty Buddy ice cream cone if the weather was especially hot. How she, and so many of the other girls, stayed thin eating that kind of junk is beyond me. Weight had been a problem for me then.

“Passenger Burgess, please report to Gate 23.” A good number of people were milling about by now, so I quickly gathered my things and returned to the kiosk. Future-Jessie-Lookalike was now speaking with a second associate, but it was my turn before I could eavesdrop. I now had a seat: 7A, a window. I never got to sit that far up in the plane, and for a moment I wondered if I’d been put in first class. I flashed the woman a grateful smile, which she returned.

As I turned to walk away, I heard the mystery woman give her birthday: February 4, 1986. The year was right. It had to be her. For a moment, I seriously considered asking her name. But if it actually was her, what would I say? “So, Jessie, do you still think running shoes make your feet look like boats? Do you still rock out to Hansen and Savage Garden? Do you still get ‘stomachaches’ ”—air-quotes here—“when you’re stressed so that you can stay home and finish your creative writing project?” I didn’t see much potential in any of those.

Anyway, now that I was down memory lane, I vaguely recalled some kind of disagreement between us. Maybe it’d had something to do with All-City Honor Band, when she made fourteen chair flute and I made second—which became first chair flute when the first chair player doubled on piccolo. That’d been a big deal for me, especially since I wasn’t the one who’d ordered a brand new, open-hole Gemeinhardt with solid silver headjoint from The Woodwind & Brasswind company. Or maybe it was about something else entirely.

Whatever the issue was, it must have seemed serious at the time, because I spent most of the year eating lunch not with Jessie, but with Carrie Chan. Carrie’s family had left Hong Kong after the political changeover in ’97, and while she understood English well enough, she was very embarrassed by her accent. In the whole time I knew her, I don’t think I heard her say more than two or three words. We communicated with body language and by passing notes, a few of which I still have. I’m not sure what that says about me, that in middle school, my best friend and I literally were not on speaking terms.

Back in the airport, someone had taken the seat I’d vacated not two minutes before. I opted to look for the restrooms, not out of necessity but because I needed to stop staring at strangers, even if the stranger was someone I thought I’d known once.  When I returned, the gate attendant was calling my group to board the plane. Before leaving the terminal, I took one last glance back at Faux-Jessie. She was standing along the far wall, bags at her side, earbuds in place.

Row 7 wasn’t first class, but it was in the bulkhead, which meant I’d have a few extra inches of legroom, a luxury on airplanes these days. I pulled out paper and pen and started to put down this story. I got so involved in my writing that I forgot to look for Jessie in the stream of boarding passengers. I have no idea whether or not she was on that plane. But maybe that’s for the best.

I lifted the shade on the window beside me. The Plexiglas was remarkably clear, without the usual smudges and scratches, and no wing or engine obstructed the view from below. I’d really lucked out, getting this seat. Then it was time for takeoff, and I settled in for the flight.

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