The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

  “It’s against the law,” the woman says under her breath, her eyes shifting over to where two bulky security guards are standing just outside the food court.

  Hadley glances back at the boy, who offers her a sympathetic smile. “Never mind,” she says. “I’ll just take it. Thanks anyway.”

  She begins to gather her things, tucking the book under her arm and swinging her backpack up onto her other shoulder. The woman just barely pulls her feet back as Hadley maneuvers the suitcase past her. When she gets to the end of the waiting area, the colorless carpeting gives way to the linoleum of the corridor, and her suitcase teeters precariously on the rubber ridge that separates the two. It rocks from one wheel to the other, and as Hadley tries to right it the book slips from under her arm. When she stoops to pick it up again, her sweatshirt flutters to the floor as well.

  You’ve got to be kidding, Hadley thinks, blowing a strand of hair from her face. But by the time she gathers everything and reaches for her suitcase again, it’s somehow no longer there. Spinning around, she’s stunned to see the boy standing beside her, his own bag slung over his shoulder. Her eyes travel down to where he’s gripping the handle of her suitcase.

  “What’re you doing?” she asks, blinking at him.

  “You looked like you might need some help.”

  Hadley just stares at him.

  “And this way it’s perfectly legal,” he adds with a grin.

  She raises her eyebrows and he straightens up a bit, looking somewhat less sure of himself. It occurs to her that perhaps he’s planning to steal her bag, but if that’s the case, it’s not a very well-planned heist; pretty much the only things in there are a pair of shoes and a dress. And she would be more than happy to lose those.

  She stands there for a long moment, wondering what she could have done to have secured herself a porter. But the crowds are surging around them and her backpack is heavy on her shoulders and the boy’s eyes are searching hers with something like loneliness, like the very last thing he wants is to be left behind right now. And that’s something Hadley can understand, too, and so after a moment she nods in agreement, and he tips the suitcase forward onto its wheels, and they begin to walk.

  2

  7:12 PM Eastern Standard Time

  12:12 AM Greenwich Mean Time

  An announcement comes over the loudspeaker about a passenger missing from his plane, and Hadley can’t stop the thought from tiptoeing into her head: What if she were to skip out on her own flight? But as if he can read her mind, the boy in front of her glances back to make sure she’s still there, and she realizes she’s grateful to have some company on this of all days, unexpected as it may be.

  They walk past a row of paneled windows that face out over the tarmac, where the planes are lined up like floats in a parade, and Hadley feels her heart pick up speed at the thought of having to board one soon. Of all the many tight places in the world, the endless nooks and crannies and corners, nothing sets her trembling quite as much as the sight of an airplane.

  It was just last year when it happened for the first time, this dizzying worry, a heart-thudding, stomach-churning exercise in panic. In a hotel bathroom in Aspen, with the snow falling fast and thick outside the window and her dad on the phone in the next room, she had the sudden sensation that the walls were too close and getting closer, inching toward her with the steady certainty of a glacier. She stood there trying to measure her breathing, her heart pounding out a rhythm in her ears so loud it nearly drowned out the sound of Dad’s muffled voice on the other side of the wall.

  “Yeah,” he was saying, “and we’re supposed to get another six inches tonight, so it should be perfect tomorrow.”

  They’d been in Aspen for two whole days, doing their best to pretend this spring break was no different from any other. They rose early each morning to get up the mountain before the slopes were too crowded, sat silently with their mugs of hot chocolate in the lodge afterward, played board games at night in front of the fireplace. But the truth was, they spent so much time not talking about Mom’s absence that it had become the only thing either of them could think about.

  Besides, Hadley wasn’t stupid. You didn’t just pack off to Oxford for a semester, spend your days teaching poetry classes, and then suddenly decide you wanted a divorce without a good reason. And though Mom hadn’t said a word about it—had, in fact, grown nearly silent on the subject of Dad in general—Hadley knew that reason must be another woman.

  She’d planned to confront him about it on the ski trip, to step off the plane and thrust an accusing finger at him and demand to know why he wasn’t coming home. But when she made her way down to the baggage claim to find him waiting for her he looked completely different, with a reddish beard that didn’t match his dark hair and a smile so big she could see the caps on his teeth. It had been only six months, but in that time he’d become a near stranger, and it wasn’t until he stooped to hug her that he came back again, smelling like cigarette smoke and aftershave, his voice gravelly in her ear as he told her how much he’d missed her. And for some reason, that was even worse. In the end, it’s not the changes that will break your heart; it’s that tug of familiarity.

  And so she’d chickened out, instead spending those first two days watching and waiting, trying to read the lines of his face like a map, searching for clues to explain why their little family had so abruptly fallen apart. When he’d gone off to England the previous fall, they’d all been thrilled. Until then he’d been a professor at a small mid-tier college in Connecticut, so the idea of a fellowship at Oxford—which boasted one of the best literature departments in the world—had been irresistible. But Hadley had been just about to start her sophomore year, and Mom couldn’t leave her little wallpaper shop for four whole months, so it was decided that they’d stay behind until Christmas, when they’d join him in England for a couple of weeks of sightseeing, and then they’d all return home together.

  That, of course, never happened.

  At the time, Mom had simply announced that there was a change of plans, that they’d be spending Christmas at Hadley’s grandparents’ house in Maine instead. Hadley half believed her dad would be there to surprise her when they arrived, but on Christmas Eve, it was only Grandma and Pops and enough presents to confirm that everyone was trying to make up for the absence of something else.

  For days before that, Hadley had been overhearing her parents’ tension-filled phone calls and listening to the sound of her mother crying through the vents of their old house, but it wasn’t until the drive home from Maine that Mom finally announced that she and Dad would be splitting up, and that he’d be staying on for another semester at Oxford.

  “It’ll just be a separation at first,” she said, sliding her eyes from the road over to where Hadley sat numbly, absorbing the news one incremental thought at a time—first, Mom and Dad are getting divorced, and then, Dad isn’t coming back.

  “There’s a whole ocean between you,” she said quietly. “How much more separated can you get?”

  “Legally,” Mom said with a sigh. “We’re going to legally separate.”

  “Don’t you need to see each other first? Before deciding something like that?”

  “Oh, honey,” Mom said, taking a hand off the wheel to give Hadley’s knee a little pat. “I think it’s already been decided.”

  And so, just two months later, Hadley stood in the bathroom of their Aspen hotel, her toothbrush in hand, as her dad’s voice drifted in from the next room. A moment earlier she’d been sure it was Mom calling to check in, and her heart had lifted at the thought. But then she heard him say a name—Charlotte—before lowering his voice again.

  “No, it’s fine,” he said. “She’s just in the loo.”

  Hadley felt suddenly cold all over, wondering when her father had become the kind of man to call the bathroom a “loo,” to whisper to foreign women on hotel phones, to take his daughter on a ski trip as if it meant something, as if it were a promise, and then re
turn to his new life like it had never even happened.

  She took a step closer to the door, her bare feet cold on the tiles.

  “I know,” he was saying now, his voice soft. “I miss you, too, honey.”

  Of course, Hadley thought, closing her eyes. Of course.

  It didn’t help that she was right; when had that ever made anything better? She felt a tiny seed of resentment take root inside of her. It was like the pit of a peach, something small and hard and mean, a bitterness she was certain would never dissolve.

  She stepped back from the door, feeling her throat go tight and her rib cage swell. In the mirror, she watched the color rise up into her cheeks, and her eyes felt blurred by the heat of the small room. She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the sink, watching her knuckles go white, forcing herself to wait until he was off the phone.

  “What’s wrong?” Dad asked when she finally emerged from the bathroom, walked straight past him without a word, and then flopped onto one of the beds. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Fine,” Hadley said shortly.

  But it happened again the next day.

  As they rode the elevator down to the lobby the following morning, already warm beneath layers of ski gear, there was a sharp jolt, and then they came to an abrupt stop. They were the only two people in there, and they exchanged a blank look before Dad shrugged and reached for the emergency call button. “Stupid bloody elevator.”

  Hadley glared at him. “Don’t you mean stupid bloody lift?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she muttered, then jabbed at the buttons randomly, lighting up one after another as a rising sense of panic welled up inside of her.

  “I don’t think that’s gonna do anything….” Dad began to say, but he stopped when he seemed to notice something was wrong. “Are you okay?”

  Hadley tugged at the collar of her ski jacket, then unzipped it. “No,” she said, her heart thumping wildly. “Yes. I don’t know. I want to get out of here.”

  “They’ll be here soon,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do till—”

  “No, now, Dad,” she said, feeling slightly frantic. It was the first time she’d called him Dad since they’d gotten to Aspen; until that point, she’d pretty much avoided calling him anything at all.

  His eyes skipped around the tiny elevator. “Are you having a panic attack?” he asked, looking a bit panicky himself. “Has this happened before? Does your mom—”

  Hadley shook her head. She wasn’t sure what was happening; all she knew was that she needed to get out of there right now.

  “Hey,” Dad said, taking her by the shoulders and forcing her to meet his eyes. “They’ll be here in a minute, okay? Just look at me. Don’t think about where we are.”

  “Okay,” she muttered, gritting her teeth.

  “Okay,” he said. “Think about someplace else. Somewhere with open spaces.”

  She tried to still her frenzied mind, to bring forth some soothing memory, but her brain refused to cooperate. Her face was prickly with heat, and it was hard to focus.

  “Pretend you’re at the beach,” he said. “Or the sky! Imagine the sky, okay? Think about how big it is, how you can’t see the end of it.”

  Hadley screwed her eyes shut and forced herself to picture it, the vast and endless blue marred only by the occasional cloud. The deepness of it, the sheer scope of it, so big it was impossible to know where it ended. She felt her heart begin to slow and her breathing grow even, and she unclenched her sweaty fists. When she opened her eyes again, Dad’s face was level with hers, his eyes wide with worry. They stared at each other for what felt like forever, and Hadley realized it was the first time she’d allowed herself to look him in the eye since they’d arrived.

  After a moment, the elevator shuddered into motion, and she let out a breath. They rode down the rest of the way in silence, both of them shaken, both of them eager to step outside and stand beneath the enormous stretch of western sky.

  Now, in the middle of the crowded terminal, Hadley pulls her eyes away from the windows, from the planes fanned out across the runways like windup toys. Her stomach tightens again; the only time it doesn’t help to imagine the sky is when you’re thirty thousand feet in the air with nowhere to go but down.

  She turns to see that the boy is waiting for her, his hand still wrapped around the handle of her suitcase. He smiles when she catches up, then swings out into the busy corridor, and Hadley hurries to keep up with his long stride. She’s concentrating so hard on following his blue shirt that when he stops, she very nearly runs into him. He’s taller than she is by at least six inches, and he has to duck his head to speak to her.

  “I didn’t even ask where you’re going.”

  “London,” she says, and he laughs.

  “No, I meant now. Where are you going now?”

  “Oh,” she says, rubbing her forehead. “I don’t know, actually. To get dinner, maybe? I just didn’t want to sit there forever.”

  This is not entirely true; she’d been heading to the bathroom, but she can’t quite bring herself to tell him this. The thought of him waiting politely just outside while she stands in line for the toilet is more than she can bear.

  “Okay,” he says, looking down at her, his dark hair falling across his forehead. When he smiles, she notices that he has a dimple on only one side, and there’s something about this that makes him seem endearingly off-balance. “Where to, then?”

  Hadley stands on her tiptoes, turning in a small circle to get a sense of the restaurant choices, a bleak collection of pizza and burger stands. She isn’t sure whether he’ll be joining her, and this possibility gives the decision a slightly frenzied feel; she can practically feel him waiting beside her, and her whole body is tense as she tries to think of the option that’s the least likely to leave her with food all over her face, just in case he decides to come along.

  After what seems like forever, she points to a deli just a few gates down, and he heads off in that direction obligingly, her red suitcase in tow. When they get there, he readjusts the bag on his shoulder and squints up at the menu.

  “This is a good idea,” he says. “The plane food’ll be rubbish.”

  “Where are you headed?” Hadley asks as they join the line.

  “London as well.”

  “Really? What seat?”

  He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and produces his ticket, bent in half and ripped at one corner. “Eighteen-C.”

  “I’m eighteen-A,” she tells him, and he smiles.

  “Just missed.”

  She nods at his garment bag, which is still resting on his shoulder, his finger hooked around the hanger. “You going over for a wedding, too?”

  He hesitates, then jerks his chin up in the first half of a nod.

  “So am I,” she says. “Wouldn’t it be weird if it was the same one?”

  “Not likely,” he says, giving her an odd look, and she immediately feels silly. Of course it’s not the same one. She hopes he doesn’t think she’s under the impression that London is some kind of backwater town where everyone knows everyone else. Hadley’s never been out of the country before, but she knows enough to know that London is enormous; it is, in her limited experience, a big enough place to lose someone entirely.

  The boy looks as if he’s about to say something more, then turns and gestures toward the menu instead. “Do you know what you’d like?”

  Do I know what I’d like? Hadley thinks.

  She’d like to go home.

  She’d like for home to be the way it once was.

  She’d like to be going anywhere but her father’s wedding.

  She’d like to be anywhere but this airport.

  She’d like to know his name.

  After a moment, she looks up at him.

  “Not yet,” she says. “I’m still deciding.”

  3

  7:32 PM Eastern Standard Time

  12:32 AM Greenwich Mean Time


  Despite having ordered her turkey sandwich without mayo, Hadley can see the white goo oozing onto the crust as she carries her food to an empty table, and her stomach lurches at the sight. She’s debating whether it would be better to suffer through eating it or risk looking like an idiot as she scrapes it off, and eventually settles for looking like an idiot, ignoring the boy’s raised eyebrows as she dissects her dinner with all the care of a biology experiment. She wrinkles her nose as she sets aside the lettuce and tomato, ridding each disassembled piece of the clinging white globs.

  “That’s some nice work there,” he says around a mouthful of roast beef, and Hadley nods matter-of-factly.

  “I have a fear of mayo, so I’ve actually gotten pretty good at this over the years.”

  “You have a fear of mayo?”

  She nods again. “It’s in my top three or four.”

  “What are the others?” he asks with a grin. “I mean, what could possibly be worse than mayonnaise?”

  “Dentists,” she offers. “Spiders. Ovens.”

  “Ovens? So I take it you’re not much of a cook.”

  “And small spaces,” she says, a bit more quietly.

  He tilts his head to one side. “So what do you do on the plane?”

  Hadley shrugs. “Grit my teeth and hope for the best.”

  “Not a bad tactic,” he says with a laugh. “Does it work?”

  She doesn’t answer, struck by a small flash of alarm. It’s almost worse when she forgets about it for a moment, because it never fails to come rushing back again with renewed force, like some sort of demented boomerang.

  “Well,” says the boy, propping his elbows on the table, “claustrophobia is nothing compared to mayo-phobia, and look how well you’re conquering that.” He nods at the plastic knife in her hand, which is caked with mayonnaise and bread crumbs. Hadley smiles at him gratefully.