JANUARY
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2
Build-A-Burger sits dead center in San Francisco International Airport’s Terminal 3, between Skyline News + Gifts and a questionable ten-minute massage stand. A popular refueling spot for passengers, Build-A-Burger has perfectly crushed ice chips reminiscent of the ones I sucked on at Kaiser hospital for thirty long hours doing my best to push resistant twins into the world. Plus, my friend Zwena is manager-on-duty. I pull my passenger transport cart up to the far corner of the restaurant, hugging the wall tightly. Refilling the ketchup dispenser, Zwena gives me a wave when she sees me out the corner of her eye.
“Hello, there. Small Diet Coke, please,” I order with exaggerated formality, so the customer standing a few feet back reading the menu doesn’t realize Zwena and I know each other like that. After spending New Year’s Day with a raging headache—not from a hangover, but from carbonated caffeine withdrawal—I decided that slowly weaning myself off Diet Coke is a better New Year’s resolution strategy than going cold turkey. My friend leans over the counter between us and pretends to pluck a dollar out of my palm before I can hand her a five—airport dining being expensive and all.
“A small Diet Coke it is,” Zwena says loudly enough for the customer to hear, then hands me a cup twice the size I didn’t pay for.Nodding toward the fountain drink machine, Zwena walks over to make like she’s emptying the liquid drainage tray while I fill my free supersize container.
Under her breath, Zwena reminds me, “I thought you were off Diet Coke.” I wobble my head indicatingmaybe, my resolve already waning in the first forty-eight hours of the new year.
“You want a fried fish sandwich? Onion rings? I cannot get you a burger today. Those patties have been sitting in the fridge far too long for my taste.”
Even though I haven’t eaten since breakfast, I shake my head. I need my carbonated caffeine now, and I can sense Kayla, the new cashier across the concourse at Klein’s Deli, watching us like a hawk. For a recent high school grad, she’s surprisingly a stickler for employee rules.
Zwena clucks her tongue and then eyes me up and down like I just returned from a trek in the Sierras, not two days off to help my mother paint her kitchen. “Fine, have your Diet Coke, but I’m telling you, you look like you’ve missed a meal.” The graying middle-aged customer is now at the counter clearing his throat to attract Zwena’s attention so he can order.
“Excuse you. I’ll be over to help you in a minute, sir. You might think about the Bay Area blue cheese and bacon burger. It is very popular,” Zwena calls back with no intention of hurrying herself along for this man’s order or warning him about the potentially expired meat.
Ding.
Although I am unnerved by Zwena’s offer to further rip off Build-A-Burger on my behalf and her comfort level with a potential food poisoning case on her hands, this perfectly timed interruption does give me an out. I hold up my phone, indicating I need to check my texts. Zwena heaves a sigh at my refusal of free food and languidly sashays over to her customer, more confident than any twenty-eight-year-old has a right to be, but she knows her curves make men’s necks break. When dealing with the opposite sex, life happens on Zwena’s terms.
8:18 p.m. (Sylvia Eisenberg)
Antonia, honey, are you there? Are you getting this? I think I’m doing it right. The nice young man sitting next to me says I’m doing it right. Just landed and the flight attendant informed us we are pulling into Terminal 2 gate D10. See you in a few!
“Gotta go, Z,” I say, shaking my sloshy ice. “Mrs. Eisenberg worries when I’m late, and tonight she decided to give Virgin America a try.”
“Probably fond of Richard Branson.”
I give Zwena awho isn’tshoulder shrug. Titans of industry are some of my biggest crushes as well.
“Tell her I say she’s holding back on details about the fine gentlemen she plays cards with down there in Scottsdale. I’m waiting to hear the truth directly from her. It takes too long to get it from you.” Zwena chuckles, amusing herself at the idea of Mrs. Eisenberg making moves in the clubhouse of her gated community.
“Hold on.” Zwena ducks behind the counter and jogs over to my cart with an old-fashioned glazed doughnut. Mrs. Eisenberg swears a doughnut a day is her key to longevity and that sugar is the fountain of youth. “She can pay for it next time you two ride by.” It’s truly a marvel that Zwena can balance the Build-A-Burger inventory at the end of every shift and hasn’t been investigated for misdemeanor theft.
“You have your Sharpie?” Zwena asks, pulling one out of her apron and holding it up.
“You know I do,” I assure her as I place my drink in the cup holder and the doughnut on the seat next to me. Then I put my cart in reverse and instinctively brace for the beep that, though I’ve heard it a million times, still gets on my nerves.
There is a predictable rhythm of foot traffic at San Francisco International Airport. Monday mornings are made up of stress-junkie tech types flying south to Los Angeles or north to Seattle for back-to-back meetings, then home, hopefully in time to kiss theirchildren good night. Tuesdays, senior vice presidents who used their Mondays to show their faces with colleagues and organize their week fly out heading east, returning late on Thursdays. When flying first class, Tuesday is a terrible day to try to snag a seat. After a full couple of days on the East Coast, a business dinner Thursday night can morph into Friday morning continental breakfast. The most chaotic time at SFO is Friday after four. Terminals fill with a cross-section of exhausted bicoastal executives returning after a long week bumping up against zealous adventurers racing to their gates for a weekend warrior trip kitesurfing in Cabo, a college roommate’s destination wedding, a girls’ weekend in Palm Springs, or a testosterone-fueled poker tournament in Vegas. Friday late afternoon is by far the best time for airport people watching, but weaving my transportation cart in and around the hordes whose critical concern is making their flights proves a challenging game of don’t clip the commuter.
My favorite time inside San Francisco International Airport is midweek. On Wednesdays, SFO fills with the leisurely pace of poised seniors traveling to visit grandchildren, retirees wanting to arrive a day or two early in Anchorage for an Alaskan cruise so they can “get settled,” or folks returning home from a bucket list trip they saved for years to take. From my seat behind the wheel, I wistfully observe devoted, hunched-over husbands and their white-haired wives holding hands, sure to not lose their trusted travel partner. Wednesday travelers are a blend of calm and joyfulness, their faces conveying what I envision are memories of children well raised, satisfying careers behind them, and mutual admiration intact.
I get the sense that when older people travel, they relish the journey as much as the destination, dressed nicely for what their generation considers a luxury. I’ve never witnessed an octogenarian in leggings and UGGs boarding a plane clutching their emotional support pillow. Button-downs and pantsuits are standard. Midweek passengers who have arranged for my transportation services arrive promptly and chat excitedly as I drive them to their gate or out to baggage claim. If thereis a lull in the conversation, which does happen on occasion, I fill it with questions about their itinerary and their own key to longevity. Not having traveled much myself, I view the time I spend with my older passengers as a road map for a future I’d like to have, but so far I am nowhere near that path.
As I pass by multiple United gates, I wave to my friend Krish, the agent on duty for in- and outbound Chicago flights. I keep my distance since he’s got his hands full with a canceled route to O’Hare and hundreds of passengers outraged that he can’t control a midwestern snowstorm.
In an effort to entertain himself as much as soothe the annoyed passengers, Krish announces over the PA system in his baritone voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called flight.” He receives a few gratuitous chuckles from the irritated masses for his Prince reference. Krish knows how to amuse a crowd.
He slips his left foot out from behind the counter just enough for me to see. I take in his newest pristine limited-edition Nike sneakers and mouth,Love them. Me too,Krish silently responds, licking his lips in leather ecstasy while furiously pecking away at his keyboard.
I make it to Mrs. Eisenberg’s gate as the plane from Phoenix is locking in to the Jetway. I open up my bag and rummage around for the Sharpie. Ugh, my hand lotion has exploded all over the bottom. I’ll have to head straight to the restroom in baggage claim to clean it up after I deliver Mrs. Eisenberg to her granddaughter, Livy. I rip a blank page from one of the notebooks I carry with me and write in big black capital letters: MRS. EISENBERG, QUEEN OF THEDESERT. I know she’ll get a kick out of this one.
I’ve been carting Mrs. Eisenberg across San Francisco International Airport for two years now. Through grieving the death of her beloved husband, Eddie, a hip replacement, her daughter’s second divorce, and discussions over more of my pipe dream prototypes than I care to count, we’ve ridden side by side. When I was introduced to Mrs. Eisenberg, shewas returning from a trip to her second home in Scottsdale for the first time without Eddie. Back then, I thought I was returning to work at the airport for a short stint, six months tops. I had a sign with her name on it to make sure I assisted the right woman. By our second ride we had bonded over our shared love of movies, and now personal signage that relates to our favorite films has become our signature greeting. With each trip the creative bar is raised.
Among the throngs of deplaning passengers at gate D10, I spy the head of a professionally styled dark brunette who I suspect hasn’t worn her natural gray in, well, ever. As Mrs. Eisenberg searches for me, I smile and shimmy my paper like I’m standing on a street corner spinning a sign for a Memorial Day mattress sale. Mrs. Eisenberg lights up like a Christmas tree, or in her case a menorah, when she lays eyes on me.
