Page 118 of Road Trip
She endured another ten-minute wait before someone from thelost and found department picked up. And ten minutes after that she got the answer she was dreading.
“No, ma’am. Sorry. No US passports were found in any vehicles returned yesterday.”
She slid down onto the floor and tried to regain her composure.
Her phone rang. It was Therese.
“Did the Hertz people find it?”
“No. Where are you?”
“I’m through security and at the gate. They’re starting to board. What do you want me to do? Should I come back and meet up with you?”
“No! The tickets are nonrefundable. Just… go ahead and board. I’ll think of something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t fucking know, Therese!” she exclaimed. “I’m in a foreign country without my passport, and my flight home is leaving without me. I’ll have to figure something out. Maybe, I don’t know, see if I can get to the US embassy in Dublin to ask for their help.”
“Maevey, I’m so sorry. Wait! What about the inn? Is there any chance you left it in our room back at the inn?”
“Oh my God, I hope not. I guess I’ll call them and ask if housekeeping found it. But how am I gonna get all the way back to Wicklow to get it? I don’t even have a car.”
“Maeve? I’m so so sorry, but my row is boarding. I gotta go. Text me and let me know what happens. Love you.”
CHAPTER 51
When Delta Flight 823, Dublin–JFK slowly taxied away from the gate, Therese watched the terminal grow smaller and more distant from her window seat. Her phone pinged with an incoming message:
No luck at Hertz. Headed back to Tarrymore to look for passport there. Will try for flight home tomorrow. Safe travels.
Therese felt a momentary pang of guilt. Then she popped one of Uncle Kevin’s gummies in her mouth and chewed, watching as the plane rumbled down the tarmac, lifted, and then climbed through the clouds while the landscape below turned miniature.
Once they were in the air and the “Fasten Seatbelt” signs were off, she flagged down the flight attendant.
“I’d like a screwdriver, please. Heavy on the ice. And the vodka.” She offered the attendant a ten-dollar bill.
“Sorry. We can’t accept cash. Credit or debit cards only.”
“Allow me.”
She’d barely noticed the man seated on the aisle, on the other side of Maeve’s empty seat. He turned toward her. It was thelawyer from Atlanta whom she’d chatted with the previous night in the hotel bar.
“I know you,” Therese said. “Jason, right?”
“Close enough. It’s Jackson.” He handed his Platinum Amex to the flight attendant. “And I’ll have a bloody mary, please.”
“Thanks, Jackson,” Therese said. “Welcome aboard!”
Maeve hadn’t drivena stick shift since high school, but the clerk at the Hertz counter was indifferent to her plight.
“I’m afraid it’s the only car in the lot, mum. Tourist season, you know, but you could check back tomorrow to see if anything gets turned in early.”
“Never mind.” Maeve handed over her credit card, silently praying she hadn’t already maxed it out.
The Kia stalled twice as she was attempting to exit the rental center, and she found herself reciting the rosary out loud more than once as she searched for the highway markers directing her back to the west.
Pulling onto the airport exit rotary without having Therese in the passenger seat navigating was a new level of terror.
