Found in Translation (2 page)

But—oh, no!—I forgot I was wearing a different watch now. When I spilled my makeup on the floor of the plane, I lost the watch I’d just reset and was now wearing the totally inelegant replacement I bought at one of the airport gift shops. Since the new watch was already running after I fought my way into the plastic packaging—it was too cheap to merit a box—I assumed the factory had set it to the correct time.

Duh. The correct time at the North Pole, maybe. So much for “no carelessness” today.

Imagining Mom and Dad shaking their heads as if they’d predicted a disaster like this was bad enough. Just this morning before leaving home, Dad said, “I wonder if the airlines are up to our well-intentioned Kimberly.” He barely cracked a smile when he added, “Do you suppose Mexico has special insurance to cover Kimber-quakes?”

He’d been teasing—or so I’d convinced myself at the time. I wasn’t so sure now. Either way, I wasn’t going to admit any more of my carelessness to Millie Q. than I had to.

“I bought a new watch,” I said, as if that explained everything.

“I assumed that.” Millie reached across the counter and peeled off a sticker I’d overlooked.

“They failed to set the time correctly at the factory.” There. I’d told her my version of the complete truth.

I wished she would stop laughing so hard, though. I was going to have to compromise if I wanted her to help me. “I guess I should have checked the time on an airport clock, huh?”

She nodded, tears of laughter overflowing the dam of her raccoon-look, black eye makeup and giving her face a mildly water-colored streak.

I guess I should have prayed then, but swearing came more naturally under the circumstances.

I couldn’t yield to the urge to curse, though. I was desperate to break that habit. If I didn’t succeed now, I’d chance being sent home early from the mission trip. Swallowing my favorite four-letter words to keep from saying them aloud was like trying to eat dry, crumbly cheese without a nice mug of diet root beer to wash it down.

“Millie, will you please get me on the next available flight?” I smiled at her as if we’d become best friends. That was tougher than forcing back swear words. “Just book me on a plane that’s a lot faster than the one I missed so I can still arrive in San Diego at the original time. Okay?”

Her laughter broke the cosmetic dam that time, leaving her face looking like a little kid had finger painted a hodgepodge of abstract art all over it. I had to keep my eyes focused on hers so I wouldn’t crack up laughing back.

I didn’t want her to think I was laughing with her.

“Kim, you’ve never flown before, have you?” She didn’t wait for me to shake my head no. “You’d need to rent the space shuttle to reach San Diego that fast. Or maybe ask Scotty to beam you there.”

She cackled. I didn’t.

Stranded on Gilligan’s Island in the middle of a busy international airport, I was starting to despair of Millie Q. even wanting me to get to San Diego on time. More likely, though, she enjoyed torturing me so much she would keep it up as long as she could.

I kept waiting desperately for Mom’s voice to say, “Wake up, Kim. We need to leave for the airport in thirty minutes.”

But—alas!—I was already wide awake.

Miss Congeniality started clack-clack-clacking away on her computer keyboard without saying anything else. I couldn’t tell if she was doing something to help or just ignoring me. Whatever else, she succeeded at annoying me big-time.

Lord, if she doesn’t help me now, You will, won’t You? After all, this mission project is Yours, and I know You plan to bless my activities in a special way. Don’t You have a moral obligation to fix this mess and get me to San Diego in time for orientation?

Perhaps whining, cajoling, and trying to pin a guilt trip on God as if He’d landed me in this dilemma weren’t the most mature things for a Christian to do; but I was starting to catch on that this situation far exceeded my ability to control, and that realization made me more than a little queasy.

When God didn’t respond the instant I said amen, I looked at Millie Q. She was still clack-clack-clacking—can’t you set that keyboard to silent mode!—doing who knows what.

My panic level began inching its way up, like the red column of mercury in an old-fashioned thermometer. But if I’d known what I was facing today—this problem was just one more installment in today’s ongoing tragicomedy—I would have begun practicing my panicking months ago rather than my music.

Witnessing to the lost people of Ciudad de Plata—Silver City—with my singing, my testimony, and my modest Southern charm—I’d use that Spanish-English Bible if I needed to—would be the thrill of my young adulthood, especially when we won everyone in Silver City to Jesus in two weeks.

Well, almost everyone. They might not let us visit prisoners, and they might be afraid to let us convert highranking government officials.

Of course, I was also looking forward to chowing down on all the authentic Mexican tacos, chimichangas, and enchiladas I could and buying one of those sombreros that’s bigger than me. That would look so cool at the community pool back home. Making people walk three feet around me would be a blast.

Although I’d been a professing Christian for just a couple of years, I’d grown up in a Christian home and been heavily involved in church activities almost since birth.

I believed God loves and cares about everyone equally.

“He loved Judas Iscariot as much as He loved Simon Peter,” my parents used to tell me.

So every person in the world should have a chance to hear and respond to His Good News—even that toothy toad across the counter from me.

I hoped God didn’t expect me to witness to her, though. Playing Jonah to a Nineveh that welcomed me—that’s how I pictured Ciudad de Plata—was one thing, but I almost gagged at the thought of having to be Jonah to Millie Q.

Miss Congeniality’s nasal voice brought me out of my daze.

“The good news is we have five flights leaving for San Diego between now and midnight”—
Huh? What’s wrong with Skyfly? Only five flights in ten hours isn’t one every few minutes!—“and
the next flight hasn’t started boarding yet.”

I stared at her, unsure whether to get my hopes up. What was the …?

“The bad news?” The expression on my face must have been as legible as handwriting. “That flight is completely full. The next one doesn’t have any available seats, either. Neither does the one after that or the one after that.” I was glad she didn’t say, “I’m sorry.” I wouldn’t have believed her.

Then she changed to an unbelievably cheery voice that would have sounded more convincing coming from an undertaker talking with a bereaved family. “But switching back to the good news channel …”

She glanced to her right and to her left as if expecting a drum roll from somewhere. I rolled my eyes impatiently, but I doubt that she saw me.

“The 10:19 red-eye has one seat left. It’s at the very back, but at least it’s inside the plane.” She paused as if expecting me to laugh. “Shall I book you on that one?”

“But the mission team buses will leave for Mexico without me. They’ll reach Ciudad de Plata before I leave Dallas/Fort Worth.”

“Oh, you’re going to Mexico? Your baggage is only checked through to San Diego, you know. Before you change planes there, you’ll have to pick up your luggage at the baggage claim area and recheck it. I hope you have plenty of time before the flight to your final destination. Of course, since flights leaving San Diego after 11:30 p.m. have to pay a hefty fine, practically no airlines fly out that late. So you’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning after 6:30 for a flight to Mexico, anyhow.”

I seldom cried—I could manipulate boys without having to—but the reality of my dilemma finally hit and hit hard. I was terrified, not just angry and frustrated. I couldn’t waste time and energy calming down, and Millie’s inattentiveness was making things worse—if that was possible.

She didn’t honestly believe she was helping me, did she? Like my dad sometimes, Millie Q. hadn’t listened closely enough to grasp the real problem, and she couldn’t have misunderstood the facts more perfectly if I’d been speaking a foreign language.

But worst of all, she was a grown woman. She should have been more like Mom than like Dad.

“That’s all well and good, Millie, but—as I just explained to you—we’re going to Mexico by bus, not plane, and the group I’m going with is not going to wait for me.”

I heard my voice rising again, and my favorite expletives began pawing the earth to see which one would break out of the starting gate first. I was cheering for the one that would tell the toad where to take an extended hot vacation.

No, Kim. Don’t even joke about something like that. Hell is for eternity, and your goal is to stop people from going there, not encourage them to.

Millie Q. hadn’t maxed out on thoughtlessness and insensitivity yet, though.

“So, Kim,” she said, just as oblivious to my dilemma as before, “do you want to take the 10:19 flight or not? There’s a hundred-dollar fee for changing your unchangeable reservation. We wouldn’t charge you if Skyfly had been responsible for your missed flight, but …”

She shook her head and shrugged. She didn’t need to say, “But we’re not responsible.”

“Do you have a hundred dollars, Kim?”

As if I could have gotten a refund on the manicure I had an hour ago while killing the time I didn’t know I didn’t have. Or on all the airport food I’d eaten in the past two hours.

“But I’m not changing reservations. I’m just”—
think hard, Kim!—“I’m
just using my reservation later than I’d intended to.”

I didn’t realize how featherbrained I must have sounded until I’d said it and heard Millie Q. start guffawing. Passersby were looking at us now—in amused amazement at Millie and in sympathy at me.

She’d be the hit of the break room today with my story. At least I had the satisfaction of knowing nobody would believe one bit of it.

I let an obscenity slip. In fact, I pushed it out. But it was the least offensive one I could think of.

I didn’t seem to have any choice about the 10:19 flight, although it meant using the Visa card Mom and Dad had given me for emergencies only—the same one I’d used for the manicure, which I hoped Mom and Dad would view as an emergency. I’d forgotten to have my nails done the day before.

I’d fly to San Diego tonight as if everything was okay and return home tomorrow. I’d explain to my parents that there’d been a problem with my flight—I’d try to avoid admitting that I was the problem—and, by the time I reached San Diego, the team had already left.

That plan sounded better than returning home today and saying, “Guess what, Mom and Dad? I discovered the funniest thing after killing hours at DFW. Did you know cheapie-watch factories don’t set their products to the time zone they’ll be sold in?”

Like I could’ve expected Mom and Dad to make the three-to four-hour roundtrip to Atlanta twice today, anyhow.

Then something caught my eye.

Huh? You’re kidding me. You can’t possibly be a …

S
ure enough, Millie Q. was wearing a WWJD bracelet. I used to think the initials meant Walking with Jesus Daily, but my best friend, Betsy Jo Snelling, laughed and told me they stood for What Would Jesus Do? I liked my interpretation better.

I hadn’t seen one of those things in ages and never on anyone as old as her. I was glad she had it on, though. I would never have suspected she was a Christian, otherwise.

Whew! I don’t have to witness to you after all.

Okay then, what would Jesus do in a situation like mine? Since His only recorded flying experiences—that’s how I pictured His ascension and maybe His trips through locked doors after the resurrection—were supernatural, He hadn’t left any specific instructions in the Bible that I could recall.

WWJD. What would Jesus do?
I kept repeating that question to myself as if inserting bullets in a gun until the chamber was full. But when I pulled the figurative trigger, I drew a complete blank.

Okay, if not Jesus, what would my parents do?

I snapped my fingers in a lightbulb moment. I knew what they’d do. I’d seen them do it dozens of times when they encountered bad service, and it almost always helped.

“Millie … ” I suppose I should have thanked her for her uselessness so far, but I wasn’t that mature a Christian. “Millie, I need to speak to your supervisor ….” I hesitated a moment before adding, “Please.”

I thought I owed her that much, anyhow.

Without responding, she picked up a nearby telephone, punched in several numbers as if driving tiny finish nails into a fragile picture frame with a humongous sledgehammer, and mumbled a few indistinguishable words to whoever answered. They talked for several minutes.

I fiddled with my purse, searching for the cell phone I’d packed in my suitcase because Mom and Dad told me I couldn’t use it on the plane. True, but duh, I didn’t think about being able to use it the whole time I was at the airport. Although I was experiencing severe Twitter withdrawal, at least my fruitless search kept me from eavesdropping on Millie.

Millie, don’t people go over your head frequently? Or am I the first person you’ve ever failed to help?
I sighed.
I hope your supervisor is more helpful than you. Otherwise, I’m sunk.

An African American woman in her early thirties emerged from an
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
door I hadn’t noticed before. She may have been Millie’s supervisor, but she looked so chic and gorgeous in her shoulder-length cornrows and stunningly tailored Skyfly pantsuit uniform that I could have mistaken her for the superstar of some new airplane movie.

“Millie, you haven’t had your break yet, have you?”
My word! You know how to express authority through a gentle, considerate suggestion.
“Feel free to take an extra ten minutes. I’ll handle things here.”
Millie, that means go and go now.

I could barely hear her when she added, “You might want to freshen your makeup while you’re at it.” Not everyone would have made such an effort to avoid embarrassing an underling.