AN AIRPORT ENCOUNTER

 

By Marianne Carlson

Tony was early. As he sat waiting in the generic holding pen the airlines created for passengers waiting to board, he watched her. Not especially attractive, yet for reasons unclear to him he couldn't stop himself from staring. She had the gift of youth, both a blessing and a curse - blessed to have a face clear of wrinkles or lines, yet her face lacked character, like a mannequin in Macy's window.  She was remarkably thin.

He checked his iPhone for messages. Nothing new. Now she was looking at him, her eyes somehow veiled as if glossed over by a microscopic film, yet he could tell she noticed him.  He couldn’t read her, he didn't know what to do. Approach or avoid? She looked at him with a half smile, almost a smirk,  as she removed her black leather jacket with a jerky impatience, took one more sip from her Starbucks cardboard cup and began leafing through a magazine, abruptly turning pages. Somehow he found her more attractive when she was not smiling. 

Every page seemed to annoy her. Everything seemed to annoy her, the magazine, the airport, the waiting passengers, life. She reminded him of a small stuffed animal, a tiger maybe or a lion that had suddenly been given the gift of life and had no idea what to do with it. From her boots to her thick mantle of hair, she was an enigma, but an enigma with fantastic energy who dominated the space they inhabited.

“Flight 460 to New York City has been cancelled due to inclement weather on the East Coast. Please check with the American Airlines ticket agent for rescheduling.”  Like sheep in a pen, they gathered up their belongings,  lap tops, briefcases, bags of half eaten food. The herd stood in line, approximately 25 disgruntled sheep, baying discontentedly. Tony stood behind the girl with the hair, a time bomb waiting to explode.

“Here we go again.” She spoke to no one in particular, but Tony took this as a good omen, and did not hesitate to answer. If he thought she appeared annoyed before, it was nothing compared to her present anger.

“We can’t blame the airline for the weather.”

“Why not?” 

“Well, it’s not their fault,” he answered weakly. 

By the time they reached the ticket agent, it was clear that they would not be going anywhere for awhile. Flights were cancelled up and down the coast, and both Isabelle and Tony were marooned, at least for the foreseeable future. While in line he learned that her name was Isabelle. It suited her.

“Tony? Is it really? I was engaged to a Tony. I will call you Anthony, Tony brings back very bad memories.”

“You can call me whatever you like.” Actually no one ever called  him Anthony, it felt as if she was talking to a stranger.

“Like a drink? It looks like we have nothing but time.”

“Sure.”

They made their way to a bar with a huge flat screen TV broadcasting a Knicks game. The volume was way too loud. She grabbed the last remaining table while he ordered a couple of beers. Between the Knicks and the disgruntled passengers, the atmosphere was anything but intimate, yet as soon as they sat down she began.

“I just had a marathon session with my boss, begging, pleading with him not to fire me, but he fired me anyway. I thought I  was more persuasive, but not so. It was: don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

“Oh, I am sorry to hear that.” He was surprised, she didn’t look to him like the type that spills all but he was to be in for quite a ride. She held her mug lightly, playing with the frost.  He couldn’t take his eyes off her hands, they were so beautiful.  She could have been a hand model, advertising soap or toilet paper with her long tapered fingers. Anything soft. 

“Where do you work?”

“Where did I work, is more like it.”

“Sorry, where did you work?”

“Rhinehart Labs. It’s a small laboratory in Los Angeles.”

“You’re a scientist?”

“You could call it that. Actually I am a chemist.

“I never would have guessed it.” His work in the art department in a small Hollywood film studio suddenly seemed insignificant, almost demeaning.

I was working on a huge project. Rhinehart perfected salt water chlorination, a replacement for chlorine  used in swimming pools.” 

“Really?”

“Yes, it was going great guns. YMCA pools all over the country were converting to salt water when suddenly people began to get sick. Certain viruses popped up. 

“Oh?” 

“A little boy died, we were sued, the Y’s stopped using our system, and that in a nutshell was that. Twenty of us were laid off, I was the first to go. 

“But it sounds as if you were on to something. Couldn’t the formula have been tweaked, perfected, made stronger?

“Yes, but the law suit wiped us out. And someone died. A little boy died, and I feel responsible.”

The transformation in Isabelle was remarkable. Tony sat in stunned silence as she dropped her mask. What remained was hard to look at: confusion, guilt,  the horror of the death of a child, and he began to feel uncomfortable because he realized that he was the first person she had confided in. Her pain was unbearable, he wasn’t equipped to handle it.

“I feel responsible. I was the one who signed off on the formula. I should have tested it further, but we were all in such a hurry to go forward with this. The money was unbelievable.”

The Knicks game ended. They lost in an overtime. Strangely the two strangers were aware of the score as they discussed the death of a six year old boy who had lived in Dayton, Ohio. It served as a form of comic relief to an otherwise excruciating topic.

“Perhaps you should go to Dayton, visit his parents?” Where that  came from Tony did not know but it was exactly the right thing to say.

“Will you come with me?”

“I will.” 

An exhausted ticket agent asked Isabelle, then Tony where they were going. They both changed their reservation to Dayton and waited in the same holding pen. Neither would ever be the same again. 

It's All Temporary