Mexicana Airlines had one daily flight out of Cozumel, and it was entirely booked — with a ten-person waiting list. We were told we could get seats for the following day. But we didn't want to return to the hotel and so became numbers eleven and twelve on the waiting list.
The flight was scheduled to leave at 12:45 p.m.
The clock read 10:15 a.m. and we sat. We waited. I prayed.
We waited.
I ate my sandwich. A woman wept at the Continental counter. Lines of tourists wove through the airport. A low-level hum rang with worry.
I read my book, In Cold Blood, and thought how things could have been worse. I could've been a Kansas farm girl in 1959. I wished I hadn't eaten the whole sandwich.
At noon we went back to the Mexicana counter and were told we were way too early. But it's going to leave in 45 minutes, I squeaked.
We sat back down.
At 12:20 we were told, We just don't know.
We sat back down.
The amount of people in the small airport had tripled in two hours.
At 12:35 we crept back to the counter, nervous of another rebuff. The damn flight was scheduled to leave in ten minutes.
You can have the two last seats, the ticket agent said.
Really?
Yes, they won’t be together, but they're yours.
A lucky break.
Things happen in threes.
We held hands and walked across the tarmac. I looked back from the top of the boarding stairs and saw that the sun had disappeared. Dark clouds were rolling toward us.
As the plane lifted off and I watched the coastline in the distance, I thought about Rosa, the dining room hostess, and Enrique, our waiter, and Liuva, Mrs. PR. What about those families playing on the beach? Where would they go and what would happen to their homes?
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