Waiting to board the plane, we stood nearly touching. Everyone queued up in typical Southwest Airlines kindergarten style, according to boarding pass number order.
I was B1.
He was B2.
B3 and B4 stood directly behind us wearing matching orange travel pillows around their necks like life preservers.
Is Little Rock your home? B2 asked B3.
Yes, thank goodness. We will never ever EVER go back to Austin. It was just too weird!
Yes too weird. B4 echoed.
B2 glanced at me and shrugged.
I rolled my eyes and noticed the time. The flight was already thirty minutes late leaving Dallas.
The Austin haters yammered on oblivious to other B-numbered boarders standing single-file. They clutched paper sacks of Dunkin Donuts like carry on bags. Sugary sweetness mixed with the awkward closeness and made me nauseous. Plus I had consumed too much coffee.
Is Little Rock your final destination? B2 asked while scanning his iPhone for text messages. Scruffy facial hair, maybe two days’ growth, gave him a relaxed yet cool appearance.
No, I’m headed to Piggott.
Piggott? He had dimples.
Yes, Piggott.
What’s in Piggott?
The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum. I’m going to a writer’s retreat.
As in Ernest Hemingway?
Yes. Ernest Hemingway’s second wife was from Piggott, Arkansas. After they married, he spent time there and even wrote a portion of A Farewell to Arms in his barn studio.
Really?
Yes, really.
Rummaging through the duffle, he pulled out a worn paperback. I started reading this a few days ago…
talya
written at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Creative Writers’ Retreat, June, 2013.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemingway
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.
