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Sloppy Firsts

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For all the readers who have cared enough

to find out what happens next

In our artificial civilization many young people at twenty-five are still on the threshold of activity. As one looks back then, over eight or nine years, one sees a panorama of seemingly formidable length. So many crises, so many startling surprises, so many vivid joys and harrowing humiliations and disappointments, that one feels startlingly old; one wonders if one will ever feel so old again.

—Youth and Life, Randolph S. Bourne (1886–1918)

Even now, when I have come so far, I wonder where you are …

—“Even Now,” Barry Manilow (1943–)

one

When Jessica Darling blindly collides into Marcus Flutie on this crisp, unclouded January morning, she cans’t remember the last time she had imagined where she would be—and who he would be—at the moment of their inevitable collision.

For him, however, it’s a very different story.

two

Regrets. Jessica has so many regrets. She should have stopped pouring after that first glass of wine last night. Shouldn’t have watched the ceiling swirl for hours. Should have resorted to a narcotic sleep aid sooner. Shouldn’t have hit the snooze button one, two, three times before rocketing (“I’m late!”) out of bed this morning. Should have skipped the shower, not breakfast. Shouldn’t have turned down her dad’s offer to drive her to the airport instead of proving her mother right about the unpunctual local car service. Should have chosen the security screening line to the right, not the left, not the one that put her directly behind the starving and savage middle-aged trafficker of more than three ounces of the liquid weight-loss supplement with the funny name, a name Jessica keeps repeating in her head in rhythm with her sneakered feet sprinting across Concourse C.

Hoodia. Hoodia. Hoodia.

So many split decisions and estimations have led to this. To being late. She’s late late late late for Gate C-88. She likes the rhyme, especially when timed with the beat of her feet, and chooses this staccato incantation over the silly-sounding appetite suppressant.

I’m late late late late for Gate C-88.

She recalls how she used to silently mouth spur-of-the-moment mantras back in her competitive high school running days. Hand-slapping rhymes from her youth: Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack … All dressed in black, black, black. Boy-band lyrics she would never say out loud: You might hate me but it ain’t no lie … Baby, bye, bye, bye. Even her own name: Jessica Darling … Darling … Darling … Jessica Darling … Darling … Darling. These invocations lacked deep meaning—even the song of herself—and were meant only to distract her from how much she hated having to pretend she cared about the outcome of the race.

Today she cares. And no matter how fast she sprints through this airport, there are too many people standing still. Standing in her way. Or stretched across the floor in carefree repose, smudgy fingertips plucking chips and curls and twists out of the bags of overpriced snacks in their laps. Seemingly in no hurry to get anywhere, which is funny if you think about it (but Jessica doesn’t have time to think about it), because this is the place where passengers pass time until they can be jet-propelled across states and nations, oceans and continents, at six hundred miles per hour. Why are they standing still, standing in the way of where she needs to be? Surrounded on all sides by the drone of wheeled luggage buzzing across the concourse, she speeds up, slows down, stutter-steps, and shimmies her way through the hive. Onward, onward, onward. She was wide-awake, wild-eyed with worry, for most of the night, and this adrenalized marathon sprint is already taking its toll. She can feel fatigue settling into her muscles, her bones, her brain, her spirit. But no. No! She can’t slow down now. She can’t miss this flight. I can’t miss this flight. The concourse splits down the middle, and she must quickly consider yet another option.