Ellie shuts the gate behind her and wraps her fingers around two of the black iron rails. ‘Don’t be silly, Ruthie. He’s just a boy. You’re my best friend.’ She slides her hand through the gate and extends her little finger. ‘Friends forever?’
Ruthie slides her little finger around Ellie’s, then grasps Ellie’s hand. ‘Friends forever, Ellie.’
Chapter 5
En Route to New York From London – 11 September 2001
Sophie ducks under a luggage strap hanging like a noose from an overhead storage compartment and dodges an elbow as she inches her way past the other passengers. She eyes her window seat and spots two barrel-chested men in crumpled navy suits in her row. Their faces are flushed a sticky red and their voices cut through the din of the embarking passengers.
‘Gary’s gotta do something about the way he holds his club. We lost it on the eleventh hole, I tell you. Downhill from there.’
‘Yeah. ’Least the boss was happy. You don’t wanna be too good, if you know what I mean. Gotta keep the main man and his clients happy. We got a good deal outta that day.’
Sophie shifts her Longchamp shoulder bag to her opposite shoulder, careful not to dent the thick pad of her new green Escada crushed-velvet jacket, and rests her new carry-on case on the aisle. Checking her ticket, she groans inwardly. Fabulous. Eight bloody hours on the London flight to New York beside an overweight, drunken salesman who’ll hog the armrest and manspread into my leg space.
Shifting aside her new digital camera, she tugs a stack of blueprints out of a pocket of her case. Someone behind her pokes her in her shoulder. She turns around and smiles apologetically at the impatient woman. Tucking the drawings under her armpit, she wedges her case into the overhead locker and shuffles past the two salesmen. As she slumps into her seat, several blueprints fall into her neighbour’s broad lap.
‘Here you go, hon,’ the man says as he hands her the drawings, his fingers like stout red sausages.
Sophie smiles politely. ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem, sweetheart. You don’t wanna get your boss’s drawings messed up.’
Her smile stiffens. ‘They’re my drawings.’
The man jabs his colleague with his elbow. ‘Hear that, Bob? You never would’a thought that, would you?’ He thrusts out his meaty hand to Sophie. ‘Mike O’Brien.’ He jabs a thumb at his companion. ‘This is Bob Roberts.’ He digs into his jacket pocket and pulls out a business card. ‘We’re in garbage. Biggest garbage contractors in Queens. Been talking to London. They like our methods.’ He rubs his sausage fingers together. ‘Very lucrative. Let me tell you, everybody makes garbage. The twenty-first century is gonna be the garbage century.’
***
Sophie hands the flight attendant her breakfast tray across Mike O’Brien’s head and rolls out a blueprint across the flip-down table. She scans the plans of London’s Millennium Pavilion, remembering inking every line, every vertical, diagonal and horizontal. A Point One pen for the glass and the finer details, Point Three for the interior structure, and the heftier Point Five for the concrete exterior structure.
She has to get this job. The teenage summers given up to advanced calculus courses at the expense of the art courses she’d preferred, the seven years of study and internships, the slog jobs making coffees and photocopies, then the better jobs, then winning the commission to design the Millennium Pavilion, and – she still can’t believe it’d actually happened – the call from Richard Niven’s New York office to come for an interview. Everything she’d ever done had led to this moment. Her life was about to change. She could feel it. All she had to do was ace the interview and the presentation. No pressure.
The plane drops suddenly and veers sharply to the right before levelling out. Sophie looks out the window. Blue sky, clouds and miles of white-tipped water. Just another ordinary day.
The intercom bell dings.
‘This is your captain. Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen. An, um, an instrument problem has arisen and I’m afraid we need to divert to the nearest airport, in Gander, Newfoundland, to have it checked. It’s nothing serious, but regulations state we must have it looked at before continuing on our onward journey. We’ll give you more information once we land. The seatbelt signs have been switched on, so please buckle up. Apologies for the inconvenience. We’ll have you on your way as quickly as possible.’
An instrument problem? Seriously? Sophie glances at her watch. Nine forty-five. The interview wasn’t until tomorrow, but still. She’d planned everything so carefully to get there early so she’d have time to practise her presentation and get a good sleep.
‘Don’t worry, hon,’ Mike says, patting her on her knee. ‘These kinda things happen all the time. Nothin’ to worry about.’
‘It’s not that. I have an important meeting to get to.’
Bob leans across Mike’s girth. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll make it. We’ll be outta here in a shot. Like Mikey here says, nothin’ to worry about. We’ll be in New York by lunch, you can bet on it.’
‘Right. Thanks.’ She shuts her eyes, willing the butterflies bashing around her stomach to settle. Just a minor hiccup, Soph. Nothing to worry about. Take a chill pill.
Half an hour later the aeroplane begins its descent. Sophie peers out the window. The flat, grey roof of an airport building a fraction of the size of Heathrow comes into view below, a grey island in an ocean of trees. About twenty aeroplanes, parked in an orderly row, gleam like silver arrows on the tarmac.
The plane bounces onto the runway and breaks to a gradual stop. Sophie watches out the window as it taxis towards the queue of aeroplanes. Her eyes travel over the bright logos. British Airways, Alitalia, Delta, Virgin, United, Northwest, and others she can’t identify. Another plane, a Lufthansa, glides in to land, while far above, the sun glints on the silver wings of an airliner circling in the September sky.
She
