gone quiet. Then he looked up at the television screen that everyone seemed to be looking at. As he fumbled for his boarding pass, he blinked, then blinked again as he tried to hear what an excited Anderson Cooper from CNN was saying. The second boarding call for seats at the back of the plane was announced. He knew he could have boarded at any point because he was flying first class, but his feet were rooted to the floor.
The crowd that had assembled at the base of the huge screen was beginning to thin out as passengers ran to board their flights. Pete didn’t move, and the woman standing in front of him didn’t move either.
A man standing next to Pete let out a string of profanity. “Poor kids. Where in the hell did the guy get that gun? Where the hell are his parents? Well, shit, they just said it was a group home for teenagers! Where are the teachers and counselors? Nowhere, that’s where. Someone is to blame for this. Look! Look! They look like the kids next door. Twelve dead! Two escaped. Well, good for them. Book deal! Movie deal!”
“Shut up!” Pete said through clenched teeth, as the man hurried off to board his flight.
Lily, hearing the tirade, looked up just as a picture of two young men appeared on the screen. Stunned at seeing Pak, she swiveled around to see his exact likeness on the screen. “Oh, my God!” Suddenly she felt her hat being removed. She turned again.
“Lily! Jesus, it really is you! I’ve been trying to find you. You weren’t in the yearbook.” All this was said with his eyes going to the screen above him. “Look!” he hissed.
“I saw it,” Lily hissed back. “I was in the hospital with an appendectomy when they did the yearbook pictures.” She reached for her hat and jammed it back on her head. “I called your company to find you, but they wouldn’t put me through.”
Pete reached for her arm and held it in a vise-like grip. “Are you going to the fund-raiser? Are you on the flight to San Francisco?”
“Yes, and that was the last boarding call. Come on, we can talk on the plane.”
Pete followed Lily blindly. His heart was beating too fast. “That kid looked just like me when I was his age,” he mumbled as he handed the woman gate agent his boarding pass.
“I know. That’s how I remember you, even if you were five years older.”
“What do you think are the chances of us meeting like this, then seeing…seeing what we just saw?”
Lily felt light-headed as she grappled for an answer. “One in a trillion! Two trillion! This is my seat,” she said as she extricated her arm to slide into her place.
Pete looked down at her. “How are we going to talk?” He sounded so anguished, Lily looked over at her seat companion, a corporate type with tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. “Sir, would you mind changing seats with…with my fiancé? We couldn’t get seats together. I would so appreciate it.”
The corporate type looked up, saw and recognized Pete. “Aren’t you…?”
“Yeah. Shhh. We’re running away. We’re trying to keep it a secret. No one knows,” Pete whispered.
“You mean I’m the first to hear?”
“Well, yeah,” Pete said as he stepped aside for the man to move to Pete’s seat. He settled down next to Lily and buckled up. He immediately turned the bill of his baseball cap backward so he could see Lily better.
“I like your hat.”
“I made it myself.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what you said that day we met. Do you know how many times I thought about you over the years? A lot. I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hell of a time. I am so damn glad to see you. By the way, my name is Pete. Some of the guys back at Berkeley used to call me ‘Pak.’ ” He was babbling, the way Millie babbled when she did something wrong and he caught her at it.
“Pete, that boy looked like you. Exactly like you. Do you think…? Is it possible? They said it was a group home. Why would one of…? Why a group home? They said the one that looked like you got away. So did the other boy. That’s a good thing. At least I think it’s a good thing. God, I don’t know anything about anything these days. What does all this mean? This is so bizarre,” Lily said, running out of breath.
“Why were you looking for me?” Lily asked when she finally caught her breath.
Pete leaned in closer to Lily. “Because… I see kids that look like me everywhere I look. I can’t sleep. At first it wasn’t so bad. I was working, then I went off on my own. I was so tired I’d fall asleep standing up. But when things leveled off, it started all over again. Dreams, then nightmares. I wanted to talk to someone. I really did look for you. I thought…hoped you would understand, and maybe together we could get a handle on it. Assuming, of course, you were having similar problems. I know you said back then that it was no big deal, but…”
“I lied,” Lily whispered. “It was a big deal from the git-go. I’d give anything if I could turn the clock backward and go to those counseling sessions. I mean it.”
Pete leaned even closer. Lily could smell his aftershave. “I started seeing a shrink a while back. It really didn’t help because I didn’t open up until the session yesterday, when he threatened to dump me for wasting his time. He used to be my company’s softball coach, so he can talk to me like that. He said I had to go back to the beginning. That’s why I’m on this flight. I was going to hire a private detective to try to find you. Your turn.”
“My story is pretty much the same as yours. It was a big deal. I hated that I sold my eggs. I was so desperate I thought I didn’t have any other choice. I didn’t want to deal with what I’d done, and I sure as hell didn’t want to go to counseling sessions and talk about it. Unlike you, I didn’t go to a shrink, but I did think about it. I decided to go to the fund-raiser, hoping you’d be there. I didn’t think beyond getting there.”
“Do you…do you want to see the kids we…? Is that what you want?”
Lily bit down on her lower lip. “I have this business. I design and manufacture children’s clothing. It’s called Sandcastle Ltd. I went nuts when I would see all the child models in the beginning. I knew that each one of them was mine. How stupid was that? I finally had to stop going to the photo shoots because I was getting obnoxious and grilling the parents. I even changed the employment forms so I could check on the parents. How sick is that?”
“I’m no better. I started sending computers to just about every school in the Berkeley area. Then I’d send my people there with video cameras to film the kids. Then I’d torture myself by looking at the videos, thinking, swearing to myself, they were all mine. I was teetering on the edge for a while back then. I tried talking myself out of it. I fought going to a shrink because I didn’t want anyone to know. For some reason I thought… I didn’t mind…if you knew. Ah, you know what I mean. And here we are. By the way, does your company have a catalog? I think I saw it on my secretary’s desk. Millie has five grandchildren, and she orders from catalogs a lot.”
Lily smiled. “We do. It comes out twice a year. Christmas and early summer.”
“What happened to teaching school?” Pete asked curiously.
“I gave it a shot. It wasn’t for me. Every one of those kids was mine. End of story. What if that boy we saw on television was…yours? He’s
