The Layover Proposal

The board did that thing where it flickered, and then our flight number just wasn't there anymore. Jayne stared at it with her arms crossed and I watched her jaw do the thing it does when she's doing math about how mad she's allowed to be.

"That was my birthday trip," she said. "Gone. Just gone."

"I know, honey. I'm sorry. The beer festival isn't going anywhere, we can..."

"We drove four hours to this airport, Gregg. The rental car I borrowed from Yara is out in that parking lot, and now this."

Jayne is fifty-two this week, and she plans things. I mean really plans them. Spreadsheets. A laminated itinerary, and I'm not exaggerating, she laminated it. So when the airline agent said the words weather and rebooked and tomorrow morning, I watched fourteen hours of planning die right there in front of gate four.

"Okay," I said. "Let's at least go check on Yara's car. Maybe it's fine and we drive into town, get a motel, get dinner. Salvage operation."

"Salvage operation," she repeated, but she picked up her bag, so that counted as a yes.

* * *

The car was not fine. Yara's little grey hatchback sat in the lot like it knew it was letting us down. I turned the key and got a click, click, click, and then nothing at all.

"Oh, perfect," Jayne said, hugging her arms against the wind. "Now we're stranded in a parking lot in Saskatchewan. Happy birthday to me."

"Hey, I've got jumper cables in my bag."

"You brought jumper cables to a flight?"

"I bring jumper cables everywhere. It's a personal trainer thing. Be prepared." I popped the hood anyway, mostly for show, and stared at a battery that was very clearly not the problem. Then I did remember something else, and I stood there grinning like an idiot.

"What," she said. "Why are you making that face. That face is never good."

"You remember I did the security contract out here, what was it, six years back?"

"The camera job. Sure."

"I never handed back my keys. All of them."

She gave me a look. "Gregg. You still have keys to this airport?"

"I have keys to a lot of things. It's a problem. It's why I can't run for office." I dug in my bag, past the jumper cables, past the granola bars, and came up with a lanyard that had a badge and two keys on it. "Service corridor. And the server room."

"And what exactly are we going to do in a server room, at my ruined birthday, at nine at night?"

"Explore. It's warm in there. It's quiet. Nobody has walked past that door since I left. And I have a surprise."

"A surprise. In a server room."

"Trust me. You're going to want to trust me."

She looked at the dead car, then at the airport, then at me. "Fine. But if we get arrested I'm telling them it was your idea and I was an innocent bystander."

"Fair. I'd do the same."

* * *

The corridor smelled like floor cleaner and old coffee. The badge reader on the service door blinked green on the first try, which honestly surprised me too, and then we were in the back hallway of the terminal, past the supply closets, to a plain grey door with a laminated sign that said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Jayne read the sign out loud. "We are not authorized."

"I was authorized. Six years ago. I'm grandfathered in by memory and a key."

"That's not how authorization works, Gregg."

The door opened onto cool air and a low hum. The server room was smaller than I remembered, two long racks of machines with little lights blinking green and blue, and it was warm the way I'd promised, that steady dry heat like a car with the heater on low. Jayne stepped in and looked around.

"Okay, this is kind of neat," she admitted. "It's like a spaceship in here. A boring spaceship."

"Told you." I sat down on the floor by the rack and pulled my bag over, and I made a show of digging in it again. "Now. The surprise. Sit down, this is formal."

She sat. I handed her a seed catalog.

"Gregg," she said slowly. "Is that..."

"The Johnson's seed catalog. Spring edition. Yes."

"You brought a seed catalog. To my birthday trip. Why do you have a seed catalog."

"Because I ordered tomato seeds in February and I never threw the catalog out, and because right now I am going to save this birthday, that's why. It's a game. Pick your pleasure. I read you a flower or a vegetable, you pick one, and whatever you pick, I have to do something matching. It's a birthday thing. It's very romantic, don't fight me on this."

She laughed so hard she had to put a hand on the rack. "This is the stupidest thing you have ever done. And you once proposed to me in a homebrew supply shop."

"And you said yes, so clearly my instincts are good."

She flipped it open, still giggling. "Okay, okay. Hit me."

"'Moonlight Climber,'" I read. "Blooms after dark, vigorous, wants support, will take over any structure it's given."

"Ha. Wants support. Fine, that one. What do I win?"

"You win my arm for the rest of the layover. Right here." I held my arm out and she leaned against it, warm and solid, fifty-two years old and still my favorite thing to look at. "Next one."

"'Ruby Empress.' Deep red, very wet soil preferred, produces heavily all season."

Jayne went quiet for a second, and then she read the next line herself, out loud, in a different voice. "'Sweet fragrance. Best enjoyed up close. Continues producing well into the night.'" She looked up at me over the top of the page. "Gregg. Are they allowed to write that in a seed catalog?"

"Apparently."

"That's not about a flower. That is not about a