A Tale of Aunties and Misplaced Airplanes

A plane flies past a famous statue (Cristo Redentor) situated on a mountain peak in Rio De Janeiro.

By. Beatriz Silva de Almeida Barros

Like all good dramatic stories, this one starts in an airport.

On November 31st, 2018, I got in an airplane to take a future-molding test. I would get to São Paulo late that Friday, have dinner at the mall with my aunt, then go to bed. The next day, I’d wake up at 6:30 AM and go to the school where the test would take place, and absolutely kill it. I’d leave the testing site at about noon and enjoy the rest of my visit to the city before returning late on Sunday.

I was doing some last-minute cramming on the plane when I was interrupted by heavy turbulence. I glanced at the time on my phone and realized my fifty-minute flight from Londrina to São Paulo had been going for an hour and a half. Without paying it much mind, I assumed we were almost there, since we’d taken off that long ago.

A few minutes later, I heard a ding! followed by an announcement from the pilot. Sounding positively stressed, he informed the passengers that, due to meteorological conditions around the São Paulo area, our route would be altered. Our second option, he said, was Campinas (I sighed in relief until I heard the second half of his sentence), but that alternative would not be possible, so we would follow plan C — we’d land in Rio de Janeiro.

Desperation filled me to the brim. Rio is several hundreds of kilometers away from São Paulo, and I’d have to choose my next steps very carefully if I wanted to make it to my exam in time. Thousands of feet up in the sky, however, I did the only thing available to me at that moment — I shrunk into fetal position and cried. Something all my friends know about me is I never cry, so shedding silent tears in front of strangers, unbothered by the turbulence shaking the plane, was the mere beginning of my demise that day. Next to me, a middle-aged Asian man spoke to his daughter as if all was well.

When we landed, I turned my phone on. I opened the family group chat to update my relatives, who were probably very worried. I texted a hasty “I’m in Rio” before realizing, to my absolute pleasure, that I was out of service. I turned to my seat neighbor and asked to borrow his phone so I could call my mom.

“Mom, I’m in Rio,” I told her, unable to stop myself from crying even harder. She told me to stay calm because everything was going to be okay. Then she told me that my aunt, who had been waiting to pick me up in São Paulo, had met the parents of another teenage girl my age who was in the same flight as me, and coincidentally shared my name: Beatriz. “Find her and don’t let her out of your sight,” my mom told me. I returned the borrowed phone, wiping my eyes dry, and thanked its owner. He asked me if everything was okay and I told him I had a test early the next day in São Paulo. He also told me everything was going to be okay. I thanked him and mentally cursed him, because clearly, nothing was okay and nor it would get any better in the near future.

I got up and grabbed my suitcase as fast as possible, I just wanted to get out of that plane. As I waited, I looked around and searched for my namesake, who, according to the description provided by my aunt, was a tall brunette with glasses. I found her right outside the plane, carrying a grey suitcase and talking on the phone.

“Are you Beatriz?” I asked, and she nodded. “Me too.”

Since we were both minors, we had to wait for an escort provided by the airline that would take us to the check-in location so we would be reallocated to another flight to São Paulo. While we waited, my new trip buddy and I started talking. Right away, we found out we had something in common: theatre. She, a theatre student at Londrina State University, studied with one of my actor peers.

Soon, an airline employee — we’ll call her Jessica — came to take us to check-in. Meanwhile, Beatriz and I took calls from our frantic parents, who were giving us instructions about what to do, what not to do, where to go, what to ask for. My dad, a very stern man, told me to put my five years of acting class in practice and put on the show of my life so I would get placed in the next plane to São Paulo. I agreed, but I couldn’t help but think of Beatriz. I knew she was as relieved as I was to have a companion, and I didn’t want to leave her by herself in a strange city where she didn’t know a single soul.

Jessica took us to check-in and briefly explain what would happen. Behind us, an increasingly long line of people to be reallocated was forming. Basically, every single flight that was supposed to land in the São Paulo area had been redirected to the two Rio de Janeiro airports. Half the country was right there, in the same exact situation as me.

While all of this happened, my mom was calling a very close friend, Arlete, who lived in Rio. She is the kind of friend I call my aunt. Tia Arlete is the true hero of this story, and when she found out about our situation, she got in an Uber to meet us right away.

Back to the airport. Worried, Beatriz insisted that, since we were minors, the airline should provide us an escort over eighteen to wait with us and shield us from the chaos. So, Jessica sat us down at a nearby table and asked us to wait.

Wait we did. We waited, and waited, and waited.

And we talked. About life, about theatre, about Londrina and São Paulo, about how long we’d been waiting. I’d heard that people bond faster in stressful situations, but with Beatriz, I found out that was true. Whether it was luck or fate, we became instant friends. She made me feel a little better about being parentless in Rio, without a clue of what would happen to me, facing the imminent possibility of missing a test that would define the rest of my life. It wasn’t hard to follow my mom’s advice and not leave her side.

Two people stand in silhouette gazing out of an airport window at a plane parked in the gateway.

After waiting for too long, we decided to get in line, which grew beyond sight. I got a call from Tia Arlete informing us she was close. Our energy was renewed and as we stepped in line, which at that point, was around as long as the Amazon river.

However, there was still an unresolved matter: my exams. Earlier, when we’d just landed in Rio, my parents had told me there was a 5 AM flight to São Paulo, and I was to try to get a seat in it. However, as we waited for Jessica or her substitute to return, I heard another airline employee talk to someone about that exact flight and say it was it was completely full. A couple of other possible ways to get to São Paulo crossed my mind, but all of them had two insurmountable problems. One, they were way too dangerous for a seventeen-year old, and two, I’d have to leave Beatriz alone in Rio. Having begrudgingly accepted the fact that I would miss my exam, I focused on the immediate issue, which was finding out how and when we’d actually be able to leave.

Midnight struck. I glanced at my phone screen and realized it was December 1st. “Happy December,” I told Beatriz. “It’s my mom’s birthday,” she replied. For the hundredth time that day, we laughed at our tragicomic situation.

After a lot of waiting, Tia Arlete arrived. Seeing her in the crowd was like seeing a glass of water in the desert. I waved at her frantically until she saw me and got in line with us. The strong hug she gave me was as powerful as a mother’s hug. “This isn’t how I wanted to see you, but I’ll take it.” Then, she hugged Beatriz, whom she had never met before, by the way.

And then there were three. Beatriz, Beatriz and Tia Arlete taking on the endless line, and the long hours started to take their toll on me and my friend. We were tired, hungry and stressed. All we wanted to do was get out of there, lie on a comfortable bed and sleep for seven thousand years.

For the next hour and a half, Beatriz and I waited in line while Tia Arlete walked around looking for airline employees to try and find out what was going to happen to us and maybe speed up the process. At one point, she stood perfectly still, leaned against a wall and arms crossed over her chest, for at least twenty minutes, waiting for someone to notice her. Eventually, she walked up to us with two slips of paper in her hand: our tickets! We gleefully stepped out of the line and grabbed our tickets like our lives depended on it.

We decided to stay at Tia Arlete’s apartment instead of the hotel the airline would pay for us, which was far further from the airport. Before that, though, we had a much dreamed-of snack: a grilled cheese for me, a chicken pastry for Beatriz, an orange juice that we shared, and Tia Arlete had a beer. Then, we got in a cab (and skipped the line thanks to my Tia’s magic) and drove to Copacabana.

Despite the sleep deprivation, we didn’t sleep on the way there. Instead, we talked quietly about TV shows and observed the Cristo Redentor, watching the city from above the hill. We laughed together about our pleasant visit to one of the most desirable tourist destinations in the world. This was Beatriz’s first time visiting Rio! We arrived at Tia Arlete’s apartment a little after 2 AM. I snuggled up in the living room daybed while Beatriz got ready to sleep. I jokingly told her I usually waited a little longer to invite a friend for a sleepover. In a few minutes, we were sound asleep.

At 6 AM, our phone alarms rang. Tia Arlete cooked us breakfast while we waited to get back to the airport. As we ate, Bia observed the effort of leaving the airport and going back four hours later was worth it. I agreed. I didn’t want to imagine our physical and mental state if we’d spent that time in a noisy airport, sitting in some uncomfortable chair, unable to sleep.

Fortunately, the flights to São Paulo were functioning normally that morning. We thanked Tia Arlete repeatedly, since our night in Rio would have been absolutely catastrophic without her. Without thinking twice, she stopped whatever she was doing on its tracks to go to a chaotic airport to accompany her best friend’s daughter and some girl she didn’t even know, walked up and down the airport to help us out, fed us and gave us a bed to sleep in.

A few minutes later, Beatriz and I were in line for boarding, ready to get on the plane that would finally take us to São Paulo. We shared a pair of earbuds and listened to Ed Sheeran the whole time. We sang together and talked. When the pilot announced landing was about to begin, we celebrated — after a whole day, things were back to normal and we were in São Paulo. I breathed in the polluted air gleefully and walked with my friend to the exit, where my aunt and her dad were waiting for us. I hugged my aunt very tightly, relieved to see her familiar face.

The only thing I had time to do before my aunt dragged me away was hug Beatriz quickly. We were going to rush to the exam site to see if I could still take the test, even if I was already late. As I walked down ramp to the airport, I thought about Beatriz. We’d been friends for approximately twelve hours, and this was the first time we’d been separated for non-bathroom-related reasons. I didn’t look back, but I wondered if she felt weird without me too.

I did not make it to my test, and I slept fourteen hours that night.

I could linger about which schools I would have gotten into if I had taken the exams. I could torture myself forever with the hypotheticals. Today, I know that’s not the point of this story. Here’s what it is: women saved me. Two women kept me safe and sane during the most stressful twenty-four hours of my life. As a feminist, I hear chatter about “women supporting women,” but I experienced that concept in the flesh. I learned I cannot get through life without women. Women who give everything up to help a sister out. I cannot get through life without my mom’s best friend, without the unlikely stranger at the airport, without the caring aunts. I hope I learned to be one of those women too.

So, I’d like to dedicate this story to Beatriz, who now talks shit about other people with me and watches musical with me at the movie theatre. I’d like her to know that if one day, she has a daughter who gets stranded alone in the middle of nowhere, I’ll drop everything for her too. I’ll be the Tia she needs. I’ll be that woman.

Beatriz is pictured smiling, wearing a red short sleeve shirt, necklace, black round framed glasses, curly shoulder length hair, and holding a red rose.

Beatriz Silva de Almeida Barros is a student of International Affairs and Gender Studies at the George Washington University. She was born in São Paulo, Brazil but moved to the USA for college. This is her first piece of published work.