So yeah. As I sat on the bus rocketing past the brown slush-guttered suburbs of Chicago, my laptop and the sum total of everything else I brought was stowed in my backpack. I don’t think I’ve owned so little property in—well, in my whole life. Growing up, I had all the comforts a middle-class home could offer. Even as a freshman, I lived in a college dorm packed with stuff: books, clothes and everything else. My hair products alone filled an entire closet. In those long-ago days, my life would have ended if anyone even suspected I had curly hair. What would the younger version of me have thought if she knew I’d actually sold my flat iron to help finance a trip to Scotland?
This was different. It felt real. It felt really … scary.
I leaned forward on the seat, clutched my stomach and closed my eyes. I tried talking myself through it.
Okay, Sheridan, focus. Selling everything means a fresh start. It means you can spend two full months looking for your Fraser. And anyway, it’s only Philadelphia—you’re not leaving the good old US of A just yet.
Deep breath. Deep breath.
Where was that damn tuna sandwich bag when I needed it?
The bus began slowing down, so I made a snap decision to just step out a minute and get a breath of air. Real, clean, not-very-far-from-Chicago air.
It had taken a few minutes, but in the immortal words my sister Sophia stole from a far better cause, things got better.
Really.
It had been a bit of a close one, though. I’d never had a full-blown panic attack on a public vehicle before. Once the screaming stopped, of course, things definitely improved.
That moment when the bus was slowing down? Well, it turned out the bus had only been gearing down to take a curve, and the driver had no intention of pausing to let one worried passenger out to breathe a bit of fresh air.
And to clarify? It wasn’t me screaming.
My jaws were locked together in terror, just as tightly as my hands were clamped around the exit door, which apparently affected the driver’s ability to control the vehicle, somehow. And maybe the radio to his dispatcher transmitted his screaming? At any rate, in the end the police were able to slow the bus down by maneuvering their cars in front of it.
The driver got the rest of the night off, so no need to feel too bad for him. And afterwards, when everyone had calmed down a bit, I had a nice chat with a very personable police officer, who told me he’d had panic attacks in his twenties, too.
“Twenty-nine was the worst,” he said. “I freaked out one night and beat the shit out of this teenage kid. Thought I was going to lose my job. But, the kid turned out to be Muslim, so you know, in the end all I got was sensitivity-training and a transfer, and here I am today, helping talk you down.”
Strangely disconcerting and comforting at the same time. Nothing like a cuddly racist to make a person feel better about herself.
The racist cop sent the first bus on its way once they’d dragged me off in Pittsburgh, and left me with his partner to wait for the next bus. The bus station where we were sitting smelled of urine and old socks, but it was pretty late and I was sitting with a cop, so I tried not to think about it.
“So, why Philadelphia?” she said, over our second cup of coffee.
I fished around in my pack and pulled out the flyer.
“Love Is in the Air, huh?” she said, glancing at the headline. “So, you’re a writer, then. Well, that explains a lot.”
“Blogger, actually,” I said. “I’m on a bit of a travel adventure. This is kind of a side-trip. There’s—well, there’s someone at this event I really need to meet.”
The officer returned to reading the flyer, and when she got to the bottom, her eyes snapped up to meet mine. “Jeesely H Roosevelt Christ,” she said, and her voice filled with a sudden reverence. “Do you SEE who’s the Guest of Honor?”
I nodded slowly. “So—you’ve read the books?”
“Are you freaking kidding me? My husband gave them to me the year we got married. I lost a whole summer to, well … to mmphm.”
“Your husband? Whoah.” I was impressed. “My ex wouldn’t read a book to save his life. Only had eyes for the Blackhawks, that man. And his girlfriend, of course.”
She nodded at me sympathetically. “Divorced, huh? Aw, you’re probably better off without the bum.”
“It only lasted a year,” I mumbled.
She leaned across the table and pointed her spoon at me. “Well, in our case, that book is the recipe for a happy marriage, I tell ya. A man who aspires to be like Jamie Fraser is one in a million. My guy? Well, let’s just say that the year AN ECHO IN THE BONE came out, he didn’t watch a single playoff game. And the Penguins were going for the cup that season.”