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The first American flight was a nine thirty to Miami, with a connection to New York two hours after landing. I had just enough money left for a meal, maybe two. Nick booked the same flight. We asked to board early and sat in our separate seats, smoking, while passengers trickled on.
Some final tension in my chest dissolved when I could see the ocean below. I fell asleep and woke to hear the captain’s voice crackling out, ‘Bienvenidos a los Estados Unidos,’ a sentence that sounded to me, still only half-conscious, like a song.
I found Nick reading the Miami Herald and eating a burger at an unfamiliar fast-food joint in the Miami terminal.
‘Listen,’ I said. I was standing on the outside of a railing that separated the premises of the burger stand from the slick and echoing corridor of
