You Must Fall In Love

Chapter Five

Pushing baggage carts

Isn't the worst job ever

But it is up there.

Whenever Rob Slade was bored, which was almost always, he sank deep into his thoughts and composed snippets of verse. He did this not because he wanted to be a poet, or because he was under any illusion that his doggerel was anything of quality, but simply to pass the time.

Airport Baggage Attendant

A-B-A.

Airport Baggage Attendant

Works all day

For not much pay.

Rob was supposed to pay more attention to his work than to his pay, but as anyone with two legs and functioning hands could do his job, he tended to leave that to the more primeval parts of his brain. He was just happy he wasn't working retail. Carts didn't ask questions, his manager hadn't said anything past the Day One Spiel, and travelers were even less chatty, particularly when they realized that he couldn't care less where Gate 53 was.

When you were after a bona-fide legendary princess, what room did that leave you for talking?

"Hey. Sorry. Excuse me."

There was no sorry in that voice. Rob pushed his glasses up and engaged the cart brake, quashing his immediate instinct to fire off a retort.

"Can I help you, Miss?"

She was tall and thin, or at least tall for an Asian girl — as things were she only came up to his Adam's apple. Her eyes were wet and strangely defiant, like she wasn't so much asking for a favor as demanding to see his manager.

Entitled tourist girl, check. This is going to be great.

"I've lost my luggage," she said slowly, chin hard and fists bunched, with hints of a strange sing-song accent that he couldn't quite place. It was like she was speaking Queen's English, but dunked in several coconuts and left on a deckchair somewhere. "And my wallet. And my phone. I think someone took them. Do you know where they might be?"

Against all common sense and decency, Rob fired the retort, because her look was really rubbing him the wrong way, and anyway, he knew exactly how most Chinese people viewed those like him.

"Are you speaking slow because I'm black?"

Her face scrunched up in outrage, like he had slapped her in the face. It was immensely satisfying.

"No!"

"Good," said Rob. "Just checking. Welcome to Stagport, incidentally. Lost and Found is that way."

He pointed in the direction of the help-desk, gave a very polite smile, then wheeled off.

Stray cart returned to its lost brethren, he turned around to survey the condition of the other cart bays, glanced back and realized that she was still behind him.

Damn.

"You can make a complaint if you want to, Miss," he said offhandedly, pretending to align the carts. "I don't particularly need this job. Personally, I think you should be more focused on finding your stuff."

A lie, but calm was crucial, and he figured she'd be less likely to complain than, say, a frumpy boomer with five chins. Besides, he could defend against the Purported Racism charge (he said I was speaking slow) with the Reverse Purported Racism charge (she was speaking slow), which, all other factors being equal, would probably return things to a resting state.

"Do you know Jennifer Travers?"

He frowned, then looked back at her carefully. Her arms were folded. She looked a bit like a string of spaghetti threaded through a straw, what with her puffy white skiing jacket and too-big fur boots.

Disagreeable, definitely, but otherwise normal. Or was she?

"Depends," he said. "There's a lot of Travers around, and even more Jennifers."

"The magician," she said. "I can smell it on people, you know. You reek of spellcraft."

Rob's inward calm crumbled into something like feta cheese. He let out a deep sigh and rubbed the space between his eyebrows.

"You mages are all the same," he said. "Lineage this, family this, school that. Do you really think I care if you know Jen?"

She looked offended, as if the name Jen was something deeply personal to her. That settled it. He was dealing with a nut.

"I don't just know Jen," she said. "And I'm not a mage, my mother is. Jen was meant to pick me up at the airport, but she isn't here."

"Well, I'm very sorry to hear that," said Rob. "How about you sort things out with your good friend Jen and leave me to do my job?"

He tried to step past her, but she didn't move at all.

"Out of the way," he growled. "I won't say it again."

Her chin was trembling. Her eyes were even harder and even wetter than before. For a brief, embarrassed moment, he wondered if she was going to start bawling, and what he might possibly do if she did.

"Look," she ground out, "I wasn't speaking slow because I thought you wouldn't understand. I... I don't talk to strangers. Alright? I need your help."

It wasn't even the beginning of an apology. There was defiance in her jaw, defiance in her neck and hands. There was far too much defiance in her voice, like she was trying to prove something to him that he already knew.

But even then, even with all that, Rob Slade realized that he had something in common with this annoying girl.

He didn't talk to strangers, either.

"Okay," he said, folding his arms and stepping back against the trolleys. "What do you want?"

She blinked at him in such a hapless way that his annoyance doubled. Had she not expected him to say yes?

"Hurry up!" he snapped. "I don't have all day!"

She wasn't even looking at him. She was staring off to his right, her mouth working furiously, her lips shaking, as if she were trying to swim through a tsunami of word salad. Her face was beet-red.

"I... I need to call Jen! But I can't remember her number! But I have her on Skype, so if you..."

He unlocked his phone, went to his contacts, tapped thrice and handed it to her without a word. She stared at the screen, as if not quite believing that it was really dialing, or that the name on the screen really was Jennifer Travers.

"Do they not say thank you where you're from?" asked Rob. "Or is that just you?"

It was a legitimate question, he felt, but she looked so terribly lost all of a sudden that he decided to drop the matter. He could get her later.

Right now, he needed his phone back.