Robert’s wife — Vada, according to Al’s notes — swept the little girl into her arms and hurried along faster. There was no sign of Marguerite.
I picked at my salad, chewing without tasting. My heart was beating hard.
I could hear the approaching roar of engines and saw the white nose of a DC-8 as it pulled up to the gate. Greeters piled up around the door. A waitress tapped me on the shoulder and I almost screamed.
“Sorry, sir,” she said in a Texas accent that was thick enough to cut. “Jes wanted to ask if I could get y’all anything else.”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Well, that’s good.”
The first passengers began cutting across the terminal. They were all men wearing suits and prosperous haircuts. Of course. The first passengers to deplane were always from first class.
“Sure I can’t get you a piece of peach pah? it’s fresh today.”
“No thanks.”
“You sure, hon?”
Now the coach class passengers came in a flood, all of them festooned with carry-on bags. I heard a woman squeal. Was that Vada, greeting her brother-in-law?
“I’m sure,” I said, and picked up my magazine.
She took the hint. I sat stirring the remains of my salad into an orange soup of French dressing and watched. Here came a man and woman with a baby, but the kid was almost a toddler, too old to be June. The passengers passed the restaurant, chattering with the friends and relatives who had come to pick them up. I saw a young man in an Army uniform pat his girlfriend’s bottom. She laughed, slapped his hand, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him.
For five minutes or so the terminal was almost full. Then the crowd began to thin out. There was no sign of the Oswalds. A wild certainty came to me: they weren’t on the plane. I hadn’t just traveled back in time, I had bounced into some sort of parallel universe. Maybe the Yellow Card Man had been meant to stop something like that from happening, but the Yellow Card Man was dead, and I was off the hook. No Oswald? Fine, no mission. Kennedy was going to die in some other version of America, but not in this one. I could catch up with Sadie and live happily ever after.
The thought had no more than crossed my mind when I saw my target for the first time. Robert and Lee were side by side, talking animatedly. Lee was swinging what was either an oversized attaché case or a small satchel. Robert had a pink suitcase with rounded corners that looked like something out of Barbie’s closet. Vada and Marina came along behind. Vada had taken one of two patchwork cloth bags; Marina had the other slung over her shoulder. She was also carrying June, now four months old, in her arms and laboring to keep up. Robert and Vada’s two kids flanked her, looking at her with open curiosity.
Vada called to the men and they stopped almost in front of the restaurant. Robert grinned and took Marina’s carry-bag. Lee’s expression was. amused? Knowing? Maybe both. The tiniest suggestion of a smile dimpled the corners of his mouth. His nondescript hair was neatly combed. He was, in fact, the perfect A. J. Squared Away in his pressed white shirt, khakis, and shined shoes. He didn’t look like a man who had just completed a journey halfway around the world; there wasn’t a wrinkle on him and not a trace of beard-shadow on his cheeks. He was just twenty-two years old, and looked younger — like one of the teenagers in my last American Lit class.
So did Marina, who wouldn’t be old enough to buy a legal drink for another month. She was exhausted, bewildered, and staring at everything. She was also beautiful, with clouds of dark hair and upturned, somehow rueful blue eyes.
June’s arms and legs were swaddled in cloth diapers. Even her neck was wrapped in something, and although she wasn’t crying, her face was red and sweaty. Lee took the baby. Marina smiled her gratitude, and when her lips parted, I saw that one of her teeth was missing. The others were discolored, one of them almost black. The contrast with her creamy skin and gorgeous eyes was jarring.