Free Standby by Kim Fielding Page A

account was empty. He couldn’t afford to book a flight on another airline. He couldn’t even afford to rent a car for the four-hour drive home. Besides, in his sleepless state, he probably wouldn’t make it to the Iowa border before drifting off the road or into the path of an eighteen-wheeler. Even a hotel room was out of his budget.
    He didn’t know a single person in Minneapolis. No. Scratch that. A few years earlier, he’d dated a guy with the spectacularly awful name of Kipper Persons. But Kip got some kind of insurance job in the Twin Cities, so they broke up and he moved away. But even assuming Kip still had the same phone number
and
would be willing to come to Tom’s rescue, Tom’s phone was dead. An hour ago, when he was running out of battery, he discovered he’d left the charger back at the hotel in San Francisco. At that point the flight to Cedar Rapids had been close to boarding, so he’d stuck close to the gate in hopes of getting a seat. But of course his hopes were dashed, and now all the airport shops were closed.
    With a weary sigh, he heaved himself to his feet. He found a pay phone, figured out how to call directory assistance, and asked for Kipper’s number. He wasn’t surprised when the phone company came up blank. Hell, for all he knew, Kip had moved again.
    That pretty much left Tom with no choice but to wait it out in the airport and hope he got on that early morning flight. Sobbing was optional.
    He set out in search of somewhere to spend his voucher. He desperately needed coffee and almost lost it when every single restaurant seemed to be closed. Finally he found a Subway with the lights still on. He must have looked more psychotic than relieved, because the poor kid behind the counter treated him warily. But Tom wrangled the biggest coffee they had, and the cheapest sandwich. Thanks to the voucher, he was livin’ large.
    He found a comfy place to sit, and while he ate, he mentally composed scathing letters to airline executives.
    But those activities could last only so long, and then—overtired to the point of restlessness—he wandered. He’d already noticed that airports have a rhythm, an ebb and flow of human beings that corresponds to the planes’ comings and goings. A few gates would gradually fill with people until there was no place left to sit, the collective energy building and building until flights boarded and the chairs abruptly emptied. For a while, nobody would be left except a few stragglers and an employee or two.
    As the hour grew later and there were fewer flights, everything slowed. Some folks wandered sluggishly as if they were sleepwalking or moving underwater, while others gave up altogether and slept on the floor with their suitcases and coats as pillows.
    Tom walked.
    At a little past two, he found himself in a small concourse that was completely deserted except for a woman emptying trash cans. He sank into a chair facing the huge windows. Lights shone on the nearby buildings, but the few jets he could see were dark and still. Nothing moved on the runway; the woman emptying the concourse trash was gone. It all triggered a creepy, post-apocalyptic feeling. He shivered.
    The miserable journey home wouldn’t have been quite so bad if he had any hope of getting the job in California. But although the phone interview had gone well enough for them to fly him to the coast, once he’d arrived it had been clear right away that he didn’t fit in. Sure, Tom had a solid résumé, with several years’ experience in marketing and plenty of creative campaigns to his credit. But he wasn’t hip. He didn’t have any facial piercings or interesting tattoos, his clothing was boring, and his hair was its natural mousy brown.
    The people at the San Francisco firm clearly felt they’d taken a risk interviewing someone from a flyover state to begin with, and their disappointment when they met him was