Chapter 4: (Via Elsa)

Touchdown would have filled me with lots of nervous energy and slightest amount of dread, stuff that generally comes when your pipe dream of starting somewhere new materializes finally, but it didn't. Rather, it made me frustrated and annoyed.

Not because I was scared of what might happen here and whether it was even a smart decision to move to this town alone, leaving my somewhat sorted life behind in the city thousands of miles away now.

Not even because I was missing my mother and sister beyond my capacity to endure. Well, that's not entirely true, I did miss them a lot, already. But that wasn't the reason why I was so annoyed.

The reason behind my frustrations, was that Alabama welcomed me with torrential rain.

"Urghh!" I groaned, as I listened to the flight attendant speak in clear tones letting us know that the deboarding and deplaning might take much longer than expected due to the heavy rain flooding the runways.

I looked around, all the passengers looked just as restless as I was. It's been more than half an hour that we were stuck inside while the plane was just sitting like a duck on the runway. Some looked annoyed but kept quiet, some were already expressing their discomfort vocally.

I opted to keep quiet and sulk on my own. It wasn't like the airport authorities were at fault that the sky opened up right after our plane landed. I looked back to the window, the heavy splattering of rain making everything look very blurry.

I couldn't see much, but it was still visible enough that I could see the silhouettes of men and women in yellow raincoats trying to arrange for the tracks to be cleared up enough so the airport shuttle can drive through to the plane and the passengers can deboard. I felt guilty thinking of my annoyance, here they were, trying their best to ensure fastest service to us in this rain.

I tsked and tried to wait patiently, and looked above the workers, to as much of the cityscape if I can see any, but the rain and fog didn't help much. I tsked again, If I remembered correctly, from the international airport, I will have to take a car or a bus to the small town of Fairhope.

Grace Millers, my supposed colleague and transition guide, who I had already spoken to the night before, had told me it will be a 4-6 hours long ride, depending upon whether it rains.

Well, it is raining, so it is probably going to take 6 or more long hours and in this torrential rain I doubted any cabbie will be willing to take on such a long ride. That means only one thing for me, I will have to take a bus.

"Arghh!" the involuntary sound coming from me startled the lady calmly paging through a magazine beside me, she looked at me as I tried to seem as nonchalant as possible, mortified endlessly.

Why can't I control my reactions better! I looked back through the window hoping if I ignored the woman long enough, she would move on. Back to the brooding, I remembered I hated bus rides, sitting for 6 hours in a cramped space with no legroom ran a shudder through me so intense I couldn't stop despite my efforts.

The lady cleared her throat now, beckoning me to look at her, can I blame her after my full body jerking! I have to look now; else it would be mean and impolite.

Tentatively I craned my neck and looked back at her, she gave me a warm smile, I couldn't help but smile back.

"Are you okay dear?" the lady asked, she looked so elegant and poised with her well-coiffed white hair and delicate string of pearls lining her neck.

I smiled again, "Yes, thank you for asking." Short and sweet, subtly closing the unwanted conversation then and there.

"You seem very distressed, for the rain outside?"

But the lady seemed to have other plans.

"Umm, I'm sorry, I'm usually not this agitated, but this is not actually my final destination and I have to take another car or a bus to where I actually am going to and this rain is just ruining my plans."

Too much Elsa, you spoke too much, there was no need for so much information.

But the lady smiled, "Oh honey, you must be not from around here, it keeps raining here now and then and once it starts it doesn't stop till it bottoms out. Do not worry though, you will find a car right away."

"They won't refuse in this rain?"

The lady laughed a little, "Its July, if they start refusing for rain, they will not get any work whole season long." Her voice was so soft and melodious, I felt my nerves soothe a little.

I smiled and thanked my lucky stars, at least no bus, my legs would cramp the hell out of me. I knew should've stopped it right there, the lady had gone quiet and had returned to reading her books. The old Elsa would have happily taken this safe exit and minded her business, alone.

But I wasn't going to be the old Elsa anymore, and so I asked back, "Are you from around here?"

The lady blinked at me, "Oh yes, born and raised. I have stayed here too many years to remember now."

The conversation was starting to feel easy, so I continued, "With your family?"

"Oh yes, my entire family lives here only, peppered across the state. My cousins, their children, some grandchildren." The lady winked at me.

And I thought about it, a big warm family, with so many people, all living nearby, loving each other. So different than what I have been used to. The Condors, bless them they were lovely to me, but we never had a long family, never had a long thanksgiving dinner swarming with people, children. I have never seen even Mr Condor's immediate family.

Mr Condor, I have seen, through photographs, he passed away long before I came into their lives, but he was warm and loving, a doting father, was what I heard from Bellie. So there never was much scope for being surrounded cousins or uncles or aunts. It was always just us three, Me, Beth and Bellie. And we were enough, it was more than enough, the fast life of the city never let us feel any vacancy.

And for me, it was heaven, because what I knew from before my life with them, had me learn the value of love thoroughly.

I felt a nudge at my side again, startled, I looked back at the lady, "Where did your mind run off to girl?" she asked and then made a gesture with her fingers swirling around her temple.

She was something, I smiled, "Nothing just remembering my family."

"Oh, I never asked you girl, where are my manners! I am Melanie, Melanie Rockelle. And you dear?"

"Elsa, Elsa Condor." I said and held out a hand in the cramped space. But the lady, no Melanie, she wrapped me in an awkward side hug. I was shocked for a second, but her hug was warm and soft and I found my hands going around her. It was nice.

She gushed "Oh its nice to meet you dear Elsa, what a beautiful unique name!" in my ears and I smiled again.

The dull mechanical tone of the overhead announcement broke our little talk, the tone of the air hostess telling us we might start deboarding soon now that the downpour had thinned a little was so bored yet so relieved, I smiled wide. No wonder they were exhausted after a long flight and then dealing with complaining passengers waiting to deplane.

"Well, there's that, the hostess seems so pissed at all of us right now!" Melanie whispered in my ear and then smirked as we saw an air hostess come towards us with a deadpanned face and as she neared her she plastered a smile so fake it almost looked plastic.

"You bet." I whispered back at Miss Melanie, delighted inside.

"Mrs. Rockelle, are you all ready to deboard, would you like any help?"

The hostess asked Melanie like there is some level of familiarity between them, how often does Melanie travel back and forth!

"No dear, I'm alright here." Melanie replied back smoothly.

And then the hustle began and we had less and less time to talk, Melanie was busy gathering her belongings and I was busy locating my carry on, which some other passenger seemed had grabbed mistakenly thinking theirs.

Even in a whirlwind of activities, Melanie found me and hugged me warmly, whispering in my ear, "I hope we meet again dear Ella."

I smiled, easily ignoring her forgetting my name, "So do I Melanie.", I said as I squeezed her right back.

She withdrew and smiled at me again before walking ahead with an attendant and proceeding for deboarding, it was long after that I realized she deboarded first and isolated even though her seat had been much back in the rows right beside mine.

In a hurry to get down myself I didn't put much thought into it either.