Round Trip

 
Tony dragged his suitcase through the cramped aisle as he made his way back to his seat. He looked around at the faces as he passed, paying particular attention to his feminine company. Married, single, widowed, divorced but secretly sleeping with her ex, single, horny, cougar, divor-
“Oi lad, watch it there, will ya!” Tony quickly averted his attention to the overweight, balding, and currently red-faced man whom he had unconsciously knocked into.
“My apologies, sir, I’ll just…squeeze…past…you…and…ah! Here we go, 21D." He turned to give his obstacle a nod of defeat, but the man was too busy yelling at the next passenger who dared to dance the airline tango with his overly large frame.Tony lifted his luggage into the overhead compartment and sunk into the faded blue, plush seat, letting an emphasized sigh creep from between his lips as he peered out the window at the Manhattan skyline. He was clearly in seat 21F, but if he made the effort to be first in his row, he thought, why not snatch the coveted window-side throne while he had the chance? He flipped open the flap of his father’s old leather messenger bag and reached his hand inside a well-concealed pocket, puling out a case of malleable earplugs. After slipping his bag carefully under the seat in front of him, Tony inserted the miniature sound blockades into his ear canals, and buckled his seatbelt over his light washed jeans. He combed his fingers through his chestnut-brown tresses, pleased that his thick head of hair didn’t resemble the man’s from the aisle, and turned his head towards the window, slowly closing his eyes as the sun made its retreat beyond the horizon.
 
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“Excuse me Miss, would you mind tapping the gentleman beside you and let him know that this is the last call for snacks?” breathed the rather unenthused stewardess.
“Of course.” She reached her arm over the middle seat and tapped Tony on the arm. With no response, she led her hand down to Tony’s thigh, squeezing it gently just above his knee.
“Uhhhhnn,” Tony moaned, still half a sleep. The woman giggled as the stewardess began to grow impatient. She squeezed his leg again, her action reciprocated by an even louder groan, garnering cold looks from the family across the aisle.
“Sir, Sir!” The stewardess shouted. “Wake up! It’s last call for snacks.”
Tony quickly came to and stared through blurred eyes at the scowl on the stewardess’s face, and then at her nametag, as he pulled the rubber from his ears.
“Excuse me, um, Bridget is it? Hi Bridget. Don’t you think if I wanted food I would have made sure to be awake during the first three times you came around? I’m flattered by your concern, but really, I’ve packed enough peanuts to last me until next Thursday. Now see that family across the aisle? They don’t look too happy.  I bet they’re starved.”
Bridget glared at Tony for a few seconds before turning around to tend to the other passengers.
Tony shook his head and laughed in harmony with his new companion. When the laughter died to a mere chuckle every few moments, Tony took a glimpse at the figure next to him. She was thin, but curvy. Her powder blue dress hugged her body in all of the right places, reminiscent of a ‘60s housewife, who was having an affair with the milkman. Her auburn curls hung down just below her bare shoulders, and her lightly tanned skin illuminated in the fluorescence of the overhead light. Too many times had Tony found himself encountering beautiful women, but never being able to breathe a word. He enjoyed the unknown, the opportunity to fantasize about the “what if’s,” that came along with every chance meeting, but for a change, he didn’t want to have to wonder. How’s the weather? No. We’re in a plane. You have a great laugh? No. Creepy. Would you like my nuts? No. The Stewardess was here, she had her chance. As he was about to compliment the precise manner in which the bows were tied on the tops of her white ballet flats, she reached into her bag and pulled out her iPhone. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as she navigated through the screens to her iTunes library, proceeding to click on her recently purchased audio book of On the Road. As she began to place her headphones into her ears, Tony interrupted:
“He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him."
She turned to him. “So you know Kerouac?”
“Know him? For all intensive purposes I am him!” She tilted her head as her forehead wrinkled, her eyes penetrating his gaze. “Well, I mean, I was like him, or like Sal and Dean, traveling across the country and what not.”
He paused.
“Well,” she said, intrigued, “aren’t you going to tell me about it?”
He smiled. “Oh, of course, sure! I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“In a modern-day Dean Moriarty? How could I not?”
He unbuckled his seatbelt and shifted his body so that he was square in her line of sight.
“A few buddies of mine from my office wanted to take a trip since we’d all piled up a weeks worth of sick days. Europe seemed nice, but Steve didn’t want to shell out the cash for a flight. My pal Peter brought up the idea of a cruise, but Jim doesn’t do so well with boats, you know, he gets sea sick. So I thought, hey, why not take a road trip to California, just us guys. They went for it, and for a week we traveled the country in my beamer, down the east coast, and across the open land. It was great, really.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Nothing less. How about you? Been anywhere recently?” Tony inched his body farther into her personal bubble.
She mirrored his movement. “Yes actually. I spent my summer in Madrid. My uncle recently bought a house in Canillejas, so my sister and I went down to spend time with our cousins.”
“Did you see any bull fights?”
“Of course. I even fell in love with a matador.” A coy smile played across her lips as Tony’s expression faded into one of defeat.
He wasn’t going to let her get away that easily. He reached down into his messenger bag and unveiled a miniature bottle of merlot. “Would you care for any?” he asked, motioning the bottle towards her.
“No thanks, I had two glasses of my own while you were sleeping.” She reached into her lap to put her headphones back into her ears.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Tony said too loudly, hoping to encourage further conversation. “You have to be prepared when you’re going to a wedding. Look, I’ve even been working on my British accent.”
A look of disinterest entered her eyes.
“Here, have a listen. I’ve been a real wanka. My bollocks were stuck up my arse and I’m sorry.” He looked at her, but her expression hadn’t changed. “Well, what do you think?”
She turned her head toward the aisle as the pilots voice erupted over the intercom, signaling that they were beginning their descent into Heathrow.
“What, already?” Tony asked in surprise. How long was I sleeping for?
“Six hours.” She didn’t turn to face him.
“Look Michelle, I’m sorry. I fucked up, I know. But I’ve changed. I really have.”
“Changed, Tony? You haven’t changed a bit. I keep in touch with your sister, you know. I know full well that you didn’t travel across the country. Jim and Steve aren’t even your friends anymore. They gave up on you when they realized you were a cheat, just like I did. And you drive a Chevy, for Christ’s sake.”
Tony looked out the window at the hints of land taking shape beneath the melting clouds.
“Chelle, I’m sorry. I’ve tried calling, I’ve tried writing, I’ve done everything. There’s a reason Mike and Julie sat us next to each other on this flight. Weddings are supposed to be a time of celebration. Why don’t we just give it a chance?”
“You know, the last wedding I went to was ours, in Vegas.”
Tony turned his body in her direction. Her head was down, her hands fiddling with a loose thread on her dress.
“Dinner. Have dinner with me. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Tonight’s the rehearsal dinner, Tony.”
“Fine! Then drinks. Meet me after for a drink.”
“It’s not going to change anything.”
“It might.”
Her eyes met his gaze and she stared, unwilling to look away.
“Yes,” she sighed, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
 
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Interview by Entertainment Weekly columnist Diablo Cody, with the author of Round Trip.
 
Cody: So I’ve read the story, and I love it. You definitely seem to be on the same wave I’m on when I write. What was your inspiration for the story?
Cordero: Thanks, that means a lot coming from the woman who wrote Juno. When I was coming up with ideas, I knew I wanted it to be a one-setting story, I have a tendency to go into too much detail, and with a 1,000 word limit, I knew I wouldn’t be able to allow changes in setting. As you can see though, I still managed to go over the limit. I’m really not one for boundaries, if I do say so myself. Anyways, I originally wanted my story to take place on a train, but on a train there’s room for movement. Having it in mind that I wanted my characters to have actually known each other from the start, I felt it’d be more appropriate on an airplane where they’re constrained to their assigned seat. This would mean that they would have no choice but to interact.
 
Cody: What made you decide to add the bit of irony at the end? Why did you have the reader believe that these were two strangers throughout most of the story?
Cordero: My main motive for writing my story this way was a passage that I liked in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. The passage discusses the curiosity and delicacy of a relationship between people who know each other only through sight. They may encounter each other often, but there is something that causes them to keep up the pretense of being strangers. While the reader is later led to understand that Tony and Michelle had a past together, I wanted to make it seem that they hadn’t seen each other in a long time. The curiosity then sparks from wondering what the other has been up to during the lapsed time and whether or not they changed enough where they truly were strangers and could potentially start anew.
 
Cody: Were there any other literary allusions present in the story?
Cordero: Yes, the most obvious being Kerouac’s On the Road. I chose to have Michelle listening to the book rather than read it, one, because it set the timeframe in which the story took place, and two, it mirrored a bit of society’s disconnect with the world around them because of the constantly changing wave of technology. I originally wanted to have Death in Venice be the book she was listening to, but I chose On the Road because it was an easier text to use to transition into the conversation between Tony and Michelle about their recent travel experiences. When I was searching for a good quote to use, I remembered the one about Dean being a con man, and I chose to use it because it set up a nice framework for the contextualization of Tony’s character, as well as the crux of the couple’s break up. The idea of Americans in Europe can be seen in Daisy Miller andThe Sun Also Rises. I chose to incorporate The Sun Also Rises in other ways, referencing Madrid and the bullfights and how they acted as a sort of distraction for Michelle. I also chose to end my story with Jake’s final line from the novel. To me, this tied together the relationship between Tony and Michelle, much the same as Brett and Jake’s relationship came full circle in Hemingway’s novel. They were in the same place as they had started, uncertain of what the future would bring.
 
Cody: Was that idea the inspiration for the title Round Trip?
Cordero: As a matter of fact it was. I liked the idea that here were Tony and Michelle, two lovers who had long since parted due to a mishap, but found themselves together again, forced to talk. The reader is left unsure of how far their relationship go, as the story ends with Michelle seeming fairly against any sort of reconciliation with Tony, but they are both going to London for the same wedding, and both will have to go back to America at some point, presumably on the same flight – round trip.
 
Cody: Was there any inspiration for the characters names?
Cordero: Funny you should ask that. I’ve recently been following the British television show Skins. Two of the characters were named Michelle and Tony, and in the show, the two were lovers who were forced to find a way to rekindle their love after (spoiler alert!) Tony gets hit by a bus and has trouble remembering how to perform everyday tasks, let alone the aspects of his former relationship. One could find a slight parallel between this idea and the themes of my story, but mainly, I just have a fascination with British culture and I’m still on a high from the series finale.
 
Cody: Thanks so much for your time Kristen. I’d love to get together again soon.
Cordero: Could you bring Ellen Page?
Cody: No.

(The photo is my own)