“What am I doing, Chloe?” I ask in a tiny voice, and she turns to face me again.
“Remember in The Wedding Singer? Remember how Adam Sandler needed to stop Drew Barrymore from getting married to that total jerk, so he got on a plane?”
I nod.
“In that scenario, Billy Idol was there, and also Adam Sandler had written a really lovely song about Drew . . . you haven’t prepared any music, have you?”
“I have not.”
“Okay, so we don’t have that, but everything else checks out. This is your big The Wedding Singer grand gesture, and air travel is the most romantic form of travel. Well, except for train, but that’s not exactly an option right now. Anyone can send a text; you’re going to show up in person.”
I nod again. Chloe’s right; this is a pretty grand gesture, and it worked in The Wedding Singer . . . Of course, as she mentioned, Billy Idol was there and Adam Sandler wrote a song. I look around the plane and I don’t see even one celebrity, major or minor. I’d settle for a YouTuber right now.
“I’m nervous,” I say.
Chloe pats my arm. “Of course, you are, but it’s Drew. Just go over your big, dramatic speech in your head.”
The plane takes off, and I immediately fall asleep. For some reason, this has always been my reaction to stress—if I’m facing too much or getting too nervous, my body’s like, “You know what? Let’s sleep this one off.”
I open my eyes and see Nick reading a paperback beside me.
“Where’s Chloe?” I ask groggily.
“Sitting with Don. She asked to switch seats because she wanted to sleep and you were snoring too loudly.”
“Oh. Whoops.”
He shrugs. “No problem for me. I don’t sleep on planes.”
I take in his rigid posture and the way his hands are fidgeting with the book. “Wait. Are you scared of flying?”
“I’m not scared of anything,” Nick mutters so quietly that I can barely hear him above the noise of the plane.
“You are,” I say, sitting up.
“I have an absolutely normal amount of apprehension about sitting in a metal tube and hurtling through the sky,” Nick says. “That’s not fear. That’s called being reasonable.”
In a low voice, even though there’s no way she could hear us several rows over and asleep, I say, “You should tell her.”
He eyes me skeptically. “Tell who what?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Chloe.”
“That I’m afraid of planes?” he asks, his eyes darting away.
“I thought you weren’t afraid.”
“Yeah, well.” He meets my eyes again and gives me a wry smile. “Maybe I’m afraid of some things.”
“You’re in love with her,” I say, a statement and not a question.
“I’m not . . . Love is a complicated thing,” he says, rubbing his hands over his stubble.
“Yeah, well, I’m flying to New York to confess my love for Drew. At least telling Chloe how you feel doesn’t involve air travel.”
“And yet I’m on a plane right now,” he says. He narrows his eyes. “So you really like this guy, huh?”
I nod.
“Well,” Nick says. “He didn’t bring in a bunch of bodyguards who peed on the seat, and he didn’t scare Gary with a rant about fluoride, so I’d say he’s okay.”
“To be fair,” I say, “that’s a pretty low bar.”
I glance at my phone—it’s late now, and the coffee shop has been closed for a while. “Have you heard from Tobin?”
“Oh, God,” Nick says. “He probably forgot to lock up. I can’t believe I risked my livelihood on that kid.”
I smile and close my eyes, and when I open them, everyone’s putting their seat belts back on. This is it, as the great Kenny Loggins would say. We’re landing in New York City, a place I’ve never been, because I decided I had to end my romantic comedy with a dramatic run through the airport and a big grand gesture that seems more and more like a silly idea.
Nick grips my arm as the plane lands with a few bumps and skips down the runway, then pulls his hand back and clears his throat as soon as we’re stopped. “Don’t tell Chloe, okay?” he asks with a groan.
“I won’t,” I say, already imagining putting an airplane scene into my screenplay.
We disembark the plane, and one of the plus sides of traveling with absolutely no preparation or logic is that you don’t have to worry about luggage.
“Okay, so.” Chloe claps her hands together as we stand outside near the line of taxis. “Where do we go?”
“Um . . .” I haven’t thought this far ahead. “I don’t know?”
Nick blinks a few times. “You mean you—we—flew to New York and you don’t even know where this guy is?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “I guess I got caught up in the moment.”
And then I remember: Good Morning USA.
“What time is it?” I shout.
“Uh, it’s like six A.M.,” Chloe says. “And also chill. You’re scaring people.”
“He’s going to be on Good Morning USA!” I tell her. “That’s where I can find him!”
“Alternatively,” Nick says, “you could text him. You know, like a normal person?”
“But there’s nothing romantic about texts!” Chloe says.
“I don’t know,” Uncle Don says with a shrug. “I’ve sent some pretty romantic texts in my time.”
I am zero percent prepared to hear about Uncle Don’s sexting history right now. “You guys, focus. I need to get to Good Morning USA.”
“Isn’t that one of those shows where you have to start lining up at, like, four A.M. just to stand outside the window and wave a sign?” Chloe asks.
“Yeah, but . . .” I think for a moment. “They film outside sometimes, too. Like, they have a stage set up, and everyone stands around it.”
“So either we yell at him from the crowd while he’s on the outdoor stage, or we create an elaborate sign that will get the attention of the producers and/or camera people inside,” Chloe muses. “I suggest something with a lot of profanity.”
“Let’s go,” I say, and I march over to the first cab I see, forcing as much confidence as I can. “Sir? Can you take us to the set of Good Morning USA?”
He looks me up and down. “Are you hurt, ma’am?”
“What? No! Why?” I ask.
He points to my hair. “Because you look, well, like maybe you’ve been attacked.”
I run my hands over my hair. It has, to be honest, reached previously unheard-of levels of unkempt, and that’s coming from someone who spends most of her days alone. Perhaps this is not the best look to confess my love to Drew in.
As if she can read my thoughts, Chloe steps between me and the taxi driver. “No. No. You cannot back out now. We’re in New York; we’re minutes away from Drew. You can do this. He doesn’t care what you look like.”
I turn to Nick and Don. “Do I really look that bad?”
Nick politely looks away, and Don says, “You’ve looked better.”