It was the first Christmas without my dad. Kiki, my three-year-old brother, and I had gathered around the TV to watch the updated version of
Miracle on 34th Street
.

When the camera pans around to New York City at Christmastime, with all of its festive lights and cheer, Kiki, in his Grinch pajamas, turned to me and said in a serious voice, “That place is so beautiful it must be make-believe.”

“No, it’s real,” I said. “It’s a place for dreams. One day, I’ll figure out how we can move there and our wishes will come true.”

“Really?” Kiki asked. His eyes were as big as ornaments.

“If miracles happen anywhere, it’s there,” I whispered.

Chapter 1
I’m a Waitress, Too

“F
LIGHT
F
IVE
-O
H
-F
IVE TO
N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY
, LaGuardia Airport, is now boarding business class and Advantage Executive Platinum cardholders. All other ticketed passengers please remain seated until your zone numbers are called,” blares over the loudspeaker.

I look down at my ticket. It doesn’t say Advantage Executive Platinum anywhere, but it does say “Business.” What kind of Business (with a capital B) does American Airlines think I, Kitsy Kidd, have? I’m only seventeen. Hopefully, this isn’t the mistake-that-ruins-my-trip. I’ve known about my summer in New York City for two months now, and I keep waiting for someone to say there’s been a mix-up and that this is too good to be true.

I’ve been sitting at gate 9 in the same uncomfortable plastic seat for over an hour. I wanted to buy a trashy magazine, get a strawberry milkshake at Burger King, and most importantly, go to the bathroom, but I was too afraid that I’d miss my flight.

“Kitsy, pay attention at the airport and don’t go wandering around,” Amber, aka my mother, instructed. “They ain’t going to hold back three thousand pounds of steel just because you aren’t on it
.
” In a rare bout of parenting, Amber offered me a lot of advice before I left, but not much of it seems to be true. “Dress up, Kitsy,” she had said. “You are supposed to wear your best clothes to fly.” I wanted to argue with Amber that even celebrities fly in sweats according to
Us Weekly
, but I just let her go on. It’s easier that way. So here I am wearing my Easter outfit in July, surrounded by people traveling across the country dressed like they’re shopping at Walmart.

With all the emotion of a robot, the airline employee begins taking and scanning the Business tickets from a line of men dressed in two-piece suits. Maybe there
was
some merit in Amber’s advice about dressing up. People in the Spoke only wear suits if they are going to a funeral. Just follow them. Just do exactly what they do
.
It’s like a cheerleading routine. Synchronize yourself to everyone else. I just wish there was a beat. I hand my ticket to the airline lady; she scans it and passes it back.

“Thanks, Ms. Kidd,” she says without a smile. “Have a nice flight.”

Ms. Kidd? That’s
Amber
, not me. I give her a big grin, which seems to startle her, and I go down the hallway. At the end of it, to get onto the plane, I’m forced to step over a big gap. Hands, my boyfriend, forgot to mention this. I asked him to tell me everything he knows about aviation because, after all, he’s flown six times! I can’t believe he left out this part, which seems crucial, not to mention life-threatening. Yet I shouldn’t be surprised: You can only be tackled so many times before you have some residual effects. As the quarterback of our football team, Hands has spent the majority of his life in a heap of turf and defensive linemen.

A flight attendant looks at my ticket, smiles, points, and says “Four C.” That’s when I realize: Business class is first class! Unlike buses, where the back is cool and coveted, the front of airplanes is distinctly superior. I know this from the movies. The seats are bigger, not to mention leather, the people richer, and the bathroom closer. There’s even a curtain divider. I can’t believe that
I’m
flying first class like a movie star. I sit down in 4C next to the only other woman. She’s dressed in all black, including a silk eye mask, and appears to be either unconscious or sleeping.

The flight attendant swoops over to me and asks, “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’d love a Coke please,” I say.

“Oh, honey, today we only have Pepsi products. Is that all right?” she asks, and then proceeds to pour me a Pepsi and set it down without waiting for my answer. In my whole life, I have
never
drunk a non-Coke product. Everyone I know calls all carbonated beverages “Coke”: It’s a Texan thing. My friend Corrinne tells me that in New York a carbonated drink is a “soda,” which does not sound refreshing or delicious the way “Coke” does.

I sip my Pepsi, which tastes acidic compared with Coke’s carbonation perfection. Hands told me that there would be a demonstration about safety procedures, so I decide that I don’t need to memorize the safety card just yet. Instead, I text him.

On the plane, I made it. Thanks again for the ride. Call you in New York, New York. XXX.

He responds right away.

I told you it’d be easy. Call when you land, and don’t forget about the Spoke or me. OOO.

Before long, the flight attendants give a performance on how to properly fasten a seat belt. The scary thing is no one even looks up from their cocktails or BlackBerrys even when the pilot instructs us (for the second time) to turn off all electronic devices. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be the only one on this flight prepared if there’s an emergency. Life with Amber is always an emergency situation, so I reckon that I’m doubly prepared.

I listen as the flight attendant explains how in an emergency to put on our own oxygen masks before assisting others. I think she’s made a mistake because I’ve never lived in a world where we worry about ourselves first, then about others. Maybe that place is New York. And maybe that’s what this trip is about for me. Some people say that New Yorkers are heartless. I don’t think that’s true at all; just like it was with my friend Corrinne Corcoran, it might take a while to locate their hearts under their chic designer clothes. I’m the opposite: I pin my heart on the outside.

When the plane takes off, I hold my breath.

“Good-bye, Old,” I whisper. “Hello, New . . .” I pause. “. . . York.” I giggle at my own lame joke.

Real flying feels a lot like flying in your dreams. My body seems light and disconnected, but it also feels like I could crash to the ground in an instant like the sensation you get when you wake from a dream with a jolt.

Since Corrinne’s parents are paying for my flights and my summer art classes
and
letting me stay with them in their apartment, I want to do well and prove to them that I can make art with more than just Wet n’ Wild makeup. So I pull out my sketchbook and a charcoal pencil and start drawing my favorite painting, Vincent van Gogh’s
The Starry Night
. I have an old, semi-torn poster of it hanging above my bed. It’s the only piece of art displayed in my entire house, and I know nearly every inch of it by memory. I focus carefully on my sketch because I shouldn’t waste time watching movies or eating airline food that Hands told me tastes like rubber anyway. (Although my menu, with an option of steak or salmon and some dessert called tiramisu, doesn’t sound like rubber at all. It sounds exotic and fancy, two adjectives that I am not very well acquainted with.)

The man across the aisle from me orders a Jameson and ginger. Good thing Amber isn’t here: Amber plus free drinks would be a dangerous combination. This reminds me that I need to text my eight-year-old brother, Kiki, when I land. I want to make sure that he’s doing okay since I left and that he remembers to start his assigned summer reading, four books from the Boxcar Children series.

“What would you like for dinner?” the flight attendant asks, bringing me back from thinking about the Spoke. I politely request the salmon. Eventually, I’ll need to sleep. After all, this flight is billed as a red-eye. But my mind’s racing. Four weeks in New York City taking art classes at Parsons with other students who are hopefully as passionate about art as I am. Four weeks away from Texas heat, housework, and Amber . . . but also Hands, Kiki, and free ice cream from Sonic. The longest I have ever been away from home was three days camping with my fifth-grade class. Somehow, I think this trip will be a little different.

When Hands dropped me off at the airport, he told me, “I hope you like it there, Kitsy, but not too much. We’re Americans by birth—”

I finished for him: “And Texans by the grace of God.”

That also happens to be the slogan of the bumper sticker on Hands’s truck, Yellow Submarine. (Corrinne also mentioned that no one names their cars in New York and that most people don’t even own cars. That’s
almost
as weird as the calling-Coke-soda thing.)

I didn’t say what I
really
thought, though: If God graced Broken Spoke, it must’ve been long before I was born. Unemployment, unforgiving fundamentalists, and struggling farms don’t look like grace to me. . . . Of course, I know that’s wrong to think. The Spoke’s just going through a rough patch. And we did win the state football tournament last fall, the answer to fifty-two years of unanswered prayers to win another title. I even got to be on TV with the Mockingbirdettes, my cheerleading team,
and
I was interviewed since I’m team captain. I need to work on being more grateful in my thoughts and not just my words.

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