The Ageing Hippy

Cynthia arrived at the airport early.  She wanted to make sure she had time to compose herself before David arrived on his international flight.  She knew there would be delays through customs, and knowing David he would make the most of duty free, but she liked to get there when the flight was due.  There was always that chance that he would be early and through to the terminal before she got there.  Then it would seem as though he was meeting her, not the other way around.  She hated that feeling of walking into a crowd and trying to find someone, knowing that person could be standing in a corner watching her the whole time.  She would always rather be the one in the corner, observing.

She was so worried about what David would be like after all this time.  The last time she had seen him they had both been nineteen.  It had been at this very airport where she had clung to his bony frame and begged him not to leave.  But he had gone on his crusade, and six months later she had met her future husband. 

Before that they had both been free spirits, her in her long floral skirt and boob tube, and David in his flares and jandals.  She could still see him waving at her from the door of the plane, lifting his John Lennon glasses so he could see her for the last time, then quickly flicking a peace sign before he disappeared.  Her Father had looked quizzically out onto the runway as Cynthia had laughed and imitated the gesture,
“It’s okay Dad, it was a peace sign.”
Her Father had hugged her tightly as they had left the airport, tears running down her cheeks as she carried the weight of her first love lost.

Cynthia knew they both had changed over David’s twenty year absence, if not physically then emotionally.  For the last few weeks she had had this image in the back of her mind of a sad ageing hippy.  When he wrote, and on the odd occasion that they had spoken on the phone, David still sounded the same as he always had.
She knew his taste in music had not changed, as he had been excited to tell her he’d been able to catch the Art Garfunkel reunion tour earlier in the year.  She imagined he would still have the long hair which he used to pull back into a rough ponytail behind his neck, and he’d been so attached to his beard that Cynthia knew he must still have that.

She sighed and jangled her keys, running her free hand through her shortly cropped auburn hair.  Twenty years ago it had been long and a few shades lighter, bleached that way by the hours spent on the beach under the hot summer sun.  What if David didn’t even recognise her? 

While David had gone on to live his passionate single life, Cynthia had stayed at home for a series of bad relationships and two children.  While David joined up and supported causes such as Unicef and World Vision Cynthia went to Wellington for two years and then crawled back home to her parents, broke, beaten and pregnant.  That had been as far as her overseas adventure had taken her.

She glanced at her watch and then up at the television on the wall, where the latest flight information blinked and flickered as each plane landed.  David’s flight had changed from ‘On Time’ to ‘Landed’.  She felt her heart skip a beat and it launched itself into her throat.  He was here.  She nervously slid a fingernail in between her teeth, trying hard to picture David walking from the plane and down into the terminal. 

There was movement behind the large frosted doors and Cynthia watched the first passengers emerging.  A woman with her children came through first, pushing a large luggage trolley while juggling a baby and toddler into the terminal.  She pointed to a man waiting in front of Cynthia, and the toddler ran off excitedly to meet his Father. 

A swarm of various people followed, and several times Cynthia had to glance twice to make sure David wasn’t among them.  She had worried that maybe David wouldn’t recognise her, but it had not occurred to her then that it could be the other way around.  What if he walked straight past her and she didn’t even know him?  The stream of people had slowed to a mere trickle, and suddenly Cynthia wondered if that had in fact happened.  She turned around to scan the terminal, looking to see if there was anyone waiting. 

As she turned back she could hear the doors sliding open once more.  There he was, walking slowly into the terminal, talking to the man by his side.  They were saying their goodbyes and David smiled as the man walked in the other direction.  His unmistakable smile lit up the room.  Cynthia had forgotten until this moment how good that smile made her feel. 

There was no ponytail, or beard.  His short blond hair had receded and darkened over the years.  He wore blue jeans and a loose blue striped shirt.  There were no jandals or John Lennon glasses, just a middle aged man who was well weathered and looked much better for it.

Cynthia waited for him to find her.  She was silent and still, a little smile creasing the corners of her mouth, as she stood watching him looking for her.  When their eyes met he smiled, his warm gaze penetrating right to her heart. 

Her David was home.  She had waited twenty years but he had returned to her at last.  They were both different people, their lives had taken different paths, but now, here in the same place they had left each other, they would find each other again.