It was half past six and the sun was rising behind the planes on the tarmac. A woman leaned against the wall closest to the gate. She wore a tight athletic jacket, black leggings with gray compression socks over them, and carried a large purse—nice, but not ostentatious. She held an e-reader, but was not reading. Her eyes were focused on the little girl on the ground.
The girl was named Penny and had just emerged from underneath the row of chairs closest to the woman. She sat on her knees, her weight resting on her flexed toes, and licked the back of her hand. A black-and-white-striped tail fell from the top of her skirt. She meowed. She was nine years old.
Four rows behind Penny sat her parents, Jess and David. David laid his head on Jess’s shoulder. He had fallen asleep just after reaching the gate. Jess couldn’t sleep in airports. But she had forgotten her book in the car and her service was bad, so she watched Penny instead.
Jess wore a blue oxford shirt, still damp from the steamer. Baby pink ankle socks showed through her cream linen pants that fell over scuffed white sneakers. It wasn’t until after locking up the house that Jess had noticed Penny’s tail tucked inside her skirt, peeking out below the ruffles. Jess didn’t mind it and David hadn’t seen, so she didn’t say anything to Penny. While backing up, she noticed a grin on Penny’s face in the rearview mirror. Penny never got to take her tail to grandma’s house.
Penny was now crawling toward the gate agent’s desk. His navy suit fit well and his button-up looked recently ironed. His tie was neatly knotted. Jess wondered if he could tie it himself or if he had someone at home do it for him. She couldn’t find anything wrong with him until she noticed the bags below his eyes. This reminded her: she had forgotten to cover her dark circles. Jess didn’t like to wear makeup, but she kept a mini concealer in her bag for trips to her mother’s house. When David woke up she would fix her eyes.
Penny had now reached the agent. She meowed. He didn’t look down. She meowed again. He said hi, but nothing more. He must not have children, Jess thought. Then, channeling David, she amended: He’s probably had a long day.
Ignored by the agent, Penny approached a little boy a few years younger than her. Earlier, Jess had noticed him pointing out Penny’s tail to his mom. Penny unclipped her tail and passed it to the boy.
They crawled together, under a different row of chairs, before Penny stood and held the boy with an imaginary leash. She directed him toward the woman with the large purse. “Don’t you like my kitty?” she asked.
Before the woman could respond, a teenage boy snickered. The gate filled with laughter. Penny’s face fell. Parents began looking for the strange girl’s mother.
The woman caught Jess’s eye and smiled before returning to her tablet.
If David were awake, he would grab Penny and apologize to the boy’s mom. Actually, if David were awake, he would have taken Penny on a coffee trip and hidden her tail before this could have happened. But David was asleep and Penny would recover quickly, so Jess did not intervene.
This week, Ev Wellmon takes the Nassau Weekly to uncharted territory, the Wild West, a real free-for-all — a packed airport gate. So sue me if I wear a cat tail!