The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight(2)

It had been her own idea to skip the rehearsal dinner and arrive in London the morning of the wedding instead. Hadley hasn’t seen her father in more than a year, and she wasn’t sure she could sit in a room with all the important people in his life—his friends and colleagues, the little world he’s built around himself an ocean away—while they toasted to his health and happiness, the start of his new life. If it had been up to her, she wouldn’t even be going to the wedding itself, but that had turned out to be nonnegotiable.

“He’s still your dad,” Mom kept reminding her, as if this were something Hadley might forget. “If you don’t go, you’ll regret it later. I know it’s hard to imagine when you’re seventeen, but trust me. One day you will.”

Hadley isn’t so sure.

The flight attendant is now working the keyboard of her computer with a kind of ferocious intensity, punching at the keys and snapping her gum. “You’re in luck,” she says, raising her hands with a little flourish. “I can get you on the ten twenty-four. Seat eighteen-A. By the window.”

Hadley’s almost afraid to pose the question, but she asks it anyway: “What time does it get in?”

“Nine fifty-four,” the attendant says. “Tomorrow morning.”

Hadley pictures the delicate calligraphy on the thick ivory wedding invitation, which has been sitting on her dresser for months now. The ceremony will begin tomorrow at noon, which means that if everything goes according to schedule—the flight and then customs, the taxis and the traffic, the timing all perfectly choreographed—she’ll still have a chance at making it on time. But just barely.

“Boarding will start from this gate at nine forty-five,” the attendant says, handing over the papers, which are all neatly bound in a little jacket. “Have a wonderful flight.”

Hadley edges her way toward the windows and surveys the rows of drab gray chairs, most of them occupied and the rest sprouting yellow stuffing at their seams like well-loved teddy bears. She props her backpack on top of her carry-on suitcase and digs for her cell phone, then scrolls through the contacts for her dad’s number. He’s listed simply as “The Professor,” a label she bestowed on him about a year and a half ago, shortly after it was announced that he wouldn’t be returning to Connecticut and the word dad had become an unpleasant reminder each time she opened her phone.

Her heart quickens now as it begins to ring; though he still calls fairly often, she’s probably dialed him only a handful of times. It’s nearly midnight there, and when he finally picks up, his voice is thick, slowed by sleep or alcohol or maybe both.

“Hadley?”

“I missed my flight,” she says, adopting the clipped tone that comes so naturally when talking to her father these days, a side effect of her general disapproval of him.

“What?”

She sighs and repeats herself: “I missed my flight.”

In the background, Hadley can hear Charlotte murmuring, and something flares up inside of her, a quick rise of anger. Despite the sugary e-mails the woman has been sending her ever since Dad proposed—filled with wedding plans and photos of their trip to Paris and pleas for Hadley to get involved, all signed with an overzealous “xxoo” (as if one x and one o weren’t sufficient)—it’s been exactly one year and ninety-six days since Hadley decided that she hated her, and it will take much more than an invitation to be a bridesmaid to cancel this out.

“Well,” Dad says, “did you get another one?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t get in till ten.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No, tonight,” she says. “I’ll be traveling by comet.”

Dad ignores this. “That’s too late. It’s too close to the ceremony. I won’t be able to pick you up,” he says, and there’s a muffled sound as he covers the phone to whisper to Charlotte. “We can probably send Aunt Marilyn to get you.”

“Who’s Aunt Marilyn?”

“Charlotte’s aunt.”

“I’m seventeen,” Hadley reminds him. “I’m pretty sure I can handle getting a taxi to the church.”

“I don’t know,” Dad says. “It’s your first time in London….” He trails off, then clears his throat. “Do you think your mom would be okay with it?”

“Mom’s not here,” Hadley says. “I guess she caught the first wedding.”

There’s silence on the other end of the phone.

“It’s fine, Dad. I’ll meet you at the church tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t be too late.”

“Okay,” he says softly. “I can’t wait to see you.”

“Yeah,” she says, unable to bring herself to say it back to him. “See you tomorrow.”

It isn’t until after they’ve hung up that Hadley realizes she didn’t even ask how the rehearsal dinner went. She’s not all that sure she wants to know.

For a long moment, she just stands there like that, the phone still held tightly in her hand, trying not to think about all that awaits her on the other side of the ocean. The smell of butter from a nearby pretzel stand is making her slightly sick, and she’d like nothing more than to sit down, but the gate is choked with passengers who’ve spilled over from other areas of the terminal. It’s Fourth of July weekend, and the weather maps on the TV screens show a swirling pattern of storms blotting out much of the Midwest. People are staking out their territory, laying claim to sections of the waiting area as if they plan to live there permanently. There are suitcases perched on empty chairs, families camped out around entire corners, greasy McDonald’s bags strewn across the floor. As she picks her way over a man sleeping on his backpack, Hadley is keenly aware of the closeness of the ceiling and the press of the walls, the surging presence of the crowd all around her, and she has to remind herself to breathe.