Women

59

We ran up the long ramp. I was carrying her dresses and the shopping bags.

At the escalator Tammie saw the flight insurance machine.

"Please," I said, "we only have five minutes until take-off."

"I want Dancy to have the money."

"All right."

"Do you have two quarters?"

I gave her two quarters. She inserted them and a card jumped out of the machine.

"You got a pen?"

Tammie filled out the card and then there was an envelope. She put the card in the envelope. Then she tried to insert it in the slot in the machine.

"This thing won't go in!"

"We're going to miss the plane."

She kept trying to jam the envelope in the slot. She couldn't get it in.

She stood there and kept jamming the envelope at the slot. Now the envelope was completely bent in half and all the edges were bent.

"I'm going mad," I told her. "I can't stand it."

She jammed a few more times. It wouldn't go. She looked at me. "O.K., let's go."

We went up the escalator with her dresses and shopping bags.

We found the boarding gate. We got two seats near the back. We strapped in. "You see," she said, "I told you we had plenty of time."

I looked at my watch. The plane started to roll…