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“Mr. White, my boss, has asked me to keep on the original schedule,” I revealed. “I have to send him the pictures for the column before the end of the month.” I could’ve stopped there, but I was stressed and getting annoyed with Mr. Delaney’s moods. “I was asking about the weather and flying to try and determine how much of a chance I had at not getting fired.” I raised my hands in mock surrender. “But I’m so sorry for disturbing you. I’ll stop asking all these random questions. I wouldn’t want to cause any discomfort.”
Mr. Delaney’s face softened a little and a crease appeared in his forehead. It wasn’t the frown crease. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it looked a bit like concern.
“Listen, Miss Overstreet,” he started.
“Grace,” I said sharply. “Sorry,” I added more calmly. “You can call me Grace, you know. Miss Overstreet is a little too formal for my tastes, and I definitely won’t survive the next few days if I’m stuck here and being called ‘Miss Overstreet.’”
A light pink flush colored his ears, but he turned towards me. “Then, Grace, listen to me. Any job that asks you to risk your life in this kind of weather – and by extension, asks you to consider risking the lives of others – is not worth the money they’re paying you. It could be a job with the greatest salary you’ve ever seen, and I’d say the same thing. This job is not worth your life.”
He turned to face the window again, shaking his head as the snow gathered higher and higher upon the window with each minute that passed. Snow accumulating on the window was a soft reminder of how much was actually coming down right now, too.
“Then, what do I do?”
I didn’t really know if Mr. Delaney could help at this point. Though I didn’t know what I could photograph here, I figured he might know. He specialized in landing in smaller airports. Dawn, Colorado’s airport was the smallest I had flown through so far.
“Dawn’s an incredibly pretty town,” he said. “I’ve been here and Aurora multiple times. While Aurora may get all the press, I think Dawn is prettier. Maybe it’s time that Dawn got some press, too. Even if it’s just a tourism column.”
I nodded slowly.
“Thanks for the advice, Mr. Delaney,” I said.
“Gabe. If you’re going to ask me to call you by your first name, I suppose it would only be polite of me to extend the same courtesy to you.” He didn’t take his eyes off the window. “But don’t ask me to fly in this weather. That is one of the few things I will stay firm on. This is not the kind of weather that you try to fly through knowing that it’ll end eventually. Maybe darker clouds or something, but not actively snowing this hard. It’s not even feasible to clear a runway in weather this thick. That said, if you wanted to take pictures while we’re here and waiting for clearance, I could show you some of my favorite places.”
“Of course… Gabe. Thank you for the advice.”
I stood up and went back to my room. I was planning on checking my camera and maybe taking some test shots of the hotel, but I found that my keycard was glitching. I sighed and made my way back to the lobby. I suppose I might as well spend the time watching the snow fall from the lobby as from my room. I’d just have to remember to ask the clerk to fix the card before the night.
Chapter nine
Gabe
After a few hours of waffling between silence and staggered conversation with Grace, I decided that it was time to stop watching the snow pile up. It would do nothing for our mental health right now. Normally, I loved watching the snow pile up like this. However, in the middle of a job, that was not nearly as relaxing as it was at home. Even though we were both stuck here, I still felt responsible for Grace, and I was even more antsy now that I knew her job was on the line. We needed a distraction.
I pulled a deck of cards from my duffel bag. While it wasn’t necessary in the airport, I liked to have a deck of cards in case something caused a delay once we had arrived at the destination. Or, in this case, had caused us to delay our arrival at the destination. As I pulled the cards out of the box, I realized this set was getting worn out. Some of the cards had torn at the corners, and others had folded corners. Some of the shine on the back had worn off, too.
Without a word, I shuffled them on the small table between the chairs we sat on. I glanced up at the sound of footsteps to find Grace coming into the lobby. If she wanted to play, I had a few games I could teach her from my time in the military. Civilians would be surprised at how much time we had to goof off if we were up to par on everything.
“You carry cards on trips like this?”
“Mainly in the winter. You never know if the forecast will stay true,” I replied. “Would you like to play something?”
“Better than watching the snow pile up and forbid us from leaving, I suppose.” Grace turned in her chair to face me. “What are we playing?”
“We will be playing Egyptian Rat Screw,” I replied. “Have you ever played before?”
“I’ve heard of it, but no.” She shook her head. “Sounds fun, though. How do we play?”
First, I confirmed that I didn’t have the Joker cards in the deck. The first shuffle was mainly out of habit because we would play with it.
I then taught Grace how to play. It was decently simple. Once a certain combination of cards had been played out of the multiple combinations, we attempted to slap the deck before the other person.
“First one to slap the deck wins the deck and adds it to the bottom of the pile they have in their hands.” I smiled as I showed her some of the possible combinations. “First one to have all the cards in this assembled deck in their hand wins. Seem simple?”
“Enough, at least,” Grace joked. “So, shall we play, then?”
I shuffled the deck a couple more times to be sure that it was going to be a good game. Then, I dealt all the cards to the two of us. It wasn’t a bad use of our time. It wasn’t something that required a lot of thinking, but it kept us from getting bored without giving Grace time to start interrogating again.
As much as Grace Overstreet intrigued me, I could only handle so many of her questions at once. It did appear she was learning how to tell when I wanted to be done with a conversation that had turned into an interview. The more she talked, the more I learned I did like her voice. Or, I really liked her normal voice. She had a different voice she’d slip into when she started asking questions like a reporter trying to write a story. That was more impersonal and probing. Her regular voice had more of her personality in it, and I didn’t mind listening to it.
