Tuesday was a dream as indistinct as a mirage and its night was a lonely poem of love. The yellow fog swirled around the windows of bus 237 and oozed its way into the corners of my evening. The day had been liquid heat that by ten pm was evaporating into a thick atmosphere.
The seven other passengers scattered unsociably through the bus dozed restlessly, but the profoundity of the night weighed heavily down, forcing unwanted wakefulness upon me. While waiting for the bus to drink its fill at an isolated gas station, I saw an older woman sitting alone on the tar, leaning back against the station’s small convenience store.
As she boarded the bus, her lustrous eyes met mine with the kind of unabashed gaze that is rare between strangers, and I had the distinct impression that I’d seen them before. Her face was like an ember still glowing but only a memory of the fire it once burned.
Ignoring the many empty seats around the bus, she sat down beside me, pulled off her hat and whispered, “Hello there.”
“Hey,” I replied, still staring at her unexplainably familiar face. She adjusted her bag and tried in vain to smooth her waft of white hair before she noticed me watching her.
“Yes, dear?” she asked, not unkindly.
My conviction of recognition was so strong I failed to feel self-conscious of the fact that she caught me staring. “I’m sorry, it’s just. . .you look so familiar,” I admitted. “I’m not sure why I think that.” She nodded thoughtfully and said,
“You’re not the only one who has noticed, but there haven’t been many.”
“Noticed what?” I asked. She smiled.
“You thought you’d seen me before, and you’re quite right. In pictures, I mean.” Noticing my expression, the woman laughed and patted my arm, “Don’t worry, I’m not a criminal.”
“Well, who are you?” I asked, still curious.
“I didn’t crash in the Pacific like they said. Nor did I land on an island,” she stopped. “I can trust you, my dear, can’t I? Secrets are no good when everyone knows.”
I nodded. “Who do I have to tell?” I said, my voice unsteady.
“Right. I thought so. That’s why I sat here. My name is Amelia.”
“You- you mean. . .like. . .” I stammered. She carried on, ignoring me.
“Oh I know, I know, it’s not a good name for an old lady like me, but I make the best of it.”
“Yes, but, what’s the rest?” I asked again, impatient as ever.
“You mean, who am I besides a crazy old lady named Amelia? Well, I used to be a crazy, young lady named Amelia. I loved the way they cheered and called out my name. They loved me,” her voice was faraway, “they loved me. But I left them, I didn’t tell the truth. I thought I was doing something great and good. I’m not sure I’d make that decision again.”
“Amelia Earhart?” I whispered.
“Yes. Well, used to be anyway. It’s been Amelia Weston since 1937 though. I changed my name to become an American spy. Roosevelt asked me himself. The whole thing was such a secret that even I didn’t know all of what was going on. I don’t think it was the best way to go about it, making a woman just disappear altogether. But with all the turmoil in the world, at the time it just seemed terribly exciting.”
She went on telling me about her life and escapades, gesticulating in the air with her small, knotted hands with a piquant, undaunted energy unusual in a woman of her age. As tired as the old lady had appeared when she first boarded, reliving her exotic past adventures seemed to reanimate her and I listened, rapt, with the feeling of a dream surrounding me. Since my childhood, I’d been fascinated by the story of Amelia Earhart, the mystery of it, like she’d planned it that way, knowing everyone wouldn’t understand her. The same way I knew my family didn’t understand me and my own motivations for leaving.
I sat there quietly taking in what she said. I don’t know why I trusted her so completely, but I did. Something about her - something - told me I could.
Early in the morning she finally nodded off and I must have followed suit, because when I opened my eyes the sun shone in the window and the old woman was gone. The bus was pulling away from a rest stop. Out the window I saw her standing alone beside the gray building, wind blowing her white hair in a halo around her head.
