In a frenzy, having had my typical morning routine disrupted by my wanderlust wasband, I leave the house in an attempt to flee my feelings.
After the girls bolt out of the car at drop-off, I park and call Zwena insisting she come meet me at Saint Anne. Before she can ask why, I read my text exchange with Simon out loud. Without hesitation, Zwenapromises she will throw on some clothes and be by my side within the half hour.
At Saint Anne’s rummage sale setup, I busy my hands folding and refolding with hostility at the winter wear table to keep my head from exploding over this morning’s wake-up communications. Plus, I don’t want to leave my station of a hundred discarded cardigans and be forced to mingle with the other mothers who are negotiating where to have a late lunch between the taxing work of sorting hand-me-down denim, complimenting each other’s hair color, and replaying the adventures of school pickup.
Agitated and waiting on Zwena to show up so we can break down Simon’s words, I’m surprisingly soothed by color sorting at the sweater station with the backdrop of organ practice going on in the church attached to the school. As Coco has become more engrossed in the science curriculum, questioning topics her religion teacher deems unquestionable has intensified. I enjoy hearing Coco challenge religion and compare it to what she’s learning in the concrete subjects of science and history, usually while her sister does makeup tutorials on YouTube. But at this moment I must give it up to the conservative religion teacher, she can knock it out on the pipes.
“Excuse me, aren’t you Antonia?” a somewhat familiar voice asks from behind an armful of barely touched rain jackets. The only voice I want to hear has a Kenyan accent.
I lay down the heather-gray sweater with an imperceptible hole marked by a tiny piece of blue painter’s tape.
“Livy, Sylvia Eisenberg’s granddaughter,” the woman across the mix of wool, alpaca, and cashmere says, pointing at herself. “At first I wasn’t sure if it was you, out of context and all, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
I can’t believe Livy is standing in front of me, her auburn hair freshly styled. So far, there is nothing about this morning I would have imagined.
My first day back at work at San Francisco International Airport, I stood fidgeting at the door of Terminal 3 Gate D6, where the airplane and Jetway connect, hoping no parent from Saint Anne would be disembarking the plane and see me.
Uneasy as I was, I had to be present for my first escorted passenger. I knew who she was without having to guess. Mrs. Eisenberg was a woman who looked frail, not from her advanced years, not from illness, but from the all-too-familiar look of heartbreak. Stooped and moving slowly as if wounded, she wore her fragility much as my mother had after she lost my father. Mrs. Eisenberg’s brittle countenance matched how I felt with my future hanging in the balance while Simon was out searching for something greater than what he had at home. Pain recognizes pain.
Moving as if the weight of her life was too much to carry, she stirred me to reach over the threshold into the entry of the plane to offer my steady hand, an aircraft safety no-no. We’re supposed to wait until the customer has exited the plane to begin our services, but I wasn’t convinced this woman I was charged to deliver to baggage claim could take a step unassisted. Without a word, Mrs. Eisenberg grabbed on to me tightly, her grip surprisingly strong.
On our ride to collect her luggage, Mrs. Eisenberg and I didn’t exchange a word, nor did she let go of my arm, forcing me to navigate a terminal under renovation with one hand. In continued silence, we met Mrs. Eisenberg’s granddaughter, Livy, at carousel nine. Dutifully, Livy helped her grandmother out of the chair, and when Mrs. Eisenberg asked for a tissue, Livy handed her one and assured, “I know, I miss him too.”
Livy thanked me profusely for my services. With a squeeze of our hands, Mrs. Eisenberg and I acknowledged our mutual need for human touch more than words. At that moment I knew that, for as long as I would be working at the airport, Mrs. Eisenberg and I would be connected, and I would be seeing her again soon.
Before I can lie and tell Livy it’s great to see her outside the airport, she breaks the momentary lull between us. “You assist my grandmother at the airport,” she says to jog my memory, as if I don’t know. “If it weren’t for you, she certainly wouldn’t be able to continue traveling as frequently as she does. Thanks again. You’re such a huge help to our family.” I can sense the moms in the home goods section one table over leaning in our direction. Not recognizing me from the yearly black-tie school auction where Saint Anne’s wealthiest bid for a week in each other’s second homes, given Livy’s proclamations, they are surely now intrigued by the likes of me.
“Livy, hi.” I put out my hand to shake hers. I can’t help but be struck once again how remarkable it is that this redheaded mother, a Black professor, and a Jewish octogenarian can be related. Adoption is the only plausible answer.
“So glad I ran into you here.” Livy looks around at our surroundings like it’s one-in-a-million luck that we are both at this school at the same time. “Wait, do you have kids who go to Saint Anne?”
“I do,” I answer, suddenly self-conscious of the oversize thick gold hoops I’m wearing compared to Livy’s delicate diamond studs. And I should never have slicked my hair up into a bun this morning. I look like Jenny from the Block’s younger sister. “A set of twins, they’re in their final year. And you?”
“Oh no, not yet. I have an almost five-year-old.” That’s right. Mrs. Eisenberg has mentioned her ravenous great-granddaughter who is already on her third preschool, excessive biting being grounds for dismissal these days. “I figure volunteering at the different schools we are applying to is as good a way as any to assess the community we want to join.” I wonder if seeing me at Saint Anne is going to strike the school right off Livy’s prestigious list.
“Since I ran into you here, I’m going to save my grandmother a good half hour of trying to remember, yet again, how to text. Thank God my cousin now lives nearby and has taken over my role as personalIT consultant. I love my grandmother, but I cannot explain, one more time, how to forward her travel itinerary to family members.”
I nod in understanding. The ongoing task of helping our older generations with technology is a universal experience. In the Arroyo family, tech support revolves around my mother’s inability to remember how to Dropbox pictures of Lou and Coco to her sisters in Puerto Rico. The steps to success never change, but the imaginary little people that my mom believes live in her electronic devices thwart her efforts. The girls and I have come to call their abuela’s imagined phone demons los pequeños. Gloria refuses to admit it’s user error.
“Anyway, are you working at the airport early Saturday evening? My grandmother is on her way back from Scottsdale for a couple of weeks.” With the mention of a job, I swear I hear a collectiveAhhof understanding from the surrounding moms as they turn back to their tasks, no longer interested in this conversation. That’s how these women don’t know me. Not because I am a billionaire CEO too busy running my next-big-thing company to volunteer so instead I write a fat check to the school, but because I have to work a customer service job I never wanted to make ends meet.
“Yes, I’m working Saturday,” I assure Livy, stunting our conversation with my brief answer. I don’t need the specifics of what I do for a living to come to light for the Saint Anne parent community. Being Puerto Rican, Lou and Coco already feel different among their peers. It’s not that being Latina in the Bay Area is any great rarity, but being Puerto Rican this far from the island makes you Latin of a different breed. Historically, Puerto Ricans aren’t quite American, but we aren’t not American either. People don’t know how to place us.
Given our proximity to the United States and freedom to travel across borders, Puerto Ricans are the champs of Spanglish. We enjoy being fluent in Spanish, in English, and in the language of in-between. But our Spanish is one of a different accent than the predominant Mexican intonation that saturates California. At the end of sixth grade, Lou and Coco both received a B- from their Spanish teacher, a nativeof Oaxaca, because they were apparently not putting in the effort when it came to enunciation. I am not one to make a fuss at school, but it was right around the six-month mark since Simon had left us and my emotions were roiling when I marched right into Ms. Luna’s classroom, speaking Spanish in an exaggerated Puerto Rican accent, and got their grades changed to an A. No one is going to tell my girls how to be something they already are.
“Great, well I’m not sure if it will be my cousin or me there to meet my grandmother, but since she will be leaving most of her stuff in Scottsdale this time, if you could just bring her out curbside that would be so helpful. I’ll Venmo you a tip for the extra effort.” Livy smiles at me, confirming her plan.Great, now all these moms know I work for tips.
FRIDAY, MARCH 8
With a first draft business proposal for my entrepreneur class due next week, I should be building a profit and loss statement for my fledgling lotion company, but instead I’m consumed by thoughts of Simon’s return. Coco and Lou are having a sleepover at their friend Lily’s house tonight, and they’re going to spend Saturday with the Antonellis as well—with the promise that they will get their homework done, closet organized, and room cleaned by Sunday-night inspection. When I unloaded the dishwasher yesterday, I noticed half our spoons and a handful of bowls are missing, and I’m fairly certain they are crusted over under the twins’ beds. How long they have been there growing mold is too gross for me to contemplate. I don’t like the girls overstaying their welcome at other people’s homes, but they assured me Mrs. Antonelli, who always compliments Lou and Coco’s manners, is happy to have them anytime. And I’d rather have Lou and Coco in the company of another adult than home alone when I am scheduled to work weekends.
Liam, my coworker, agreed to cover the first half of my Saturday shift, and I will go in from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. so I can be there to pick up Mrs. Eisenberg. I usually don’t bother with half shifts, but Mrs. Eisenberg refuses to ride with Liam—who she insists must have a deviated septum, he wears so much cologne. I’ve encouraged Mrs. Eisenberg to have some sympathy for Liam—he wants to be marriedyesterday—but she insists there will be no future Mrs. Fitzpatrick unless Liam switches up his odeur de desperation. I can’t argue with her on that one.
Splitting the shift means I’ll be able to work on my proposal and products in the early-morning quiet, wash my hair, and figure out how to spice up my airport-issued uniform in case Ash is the chosen grandchild to pick up his grandmother. I still have Ash’s phone number inside my notebook but haven’t considered calling it. I mean, what would I say? I surprise myself that I even care if I will see Ash at the airport. I guess it’s my innate curiosity wanting to find out if his facial recognition and conversational skills have improved beyond the low bar he set at the Cracked Cup.
With the girls at the Antonellis’, I invite Krish and Zwena over with bribes of a Friday night drinking cold beer, snacking on quesitos, dissecting Simon’s website, and playing spa with the four improved variations of lotion I have been testing. Krish prides himself on being a man with impeccable grooming habits, not one bit afraid of some moisturizing, and offers to pick up a few face masks at Sephora on the way over. Zwena suggests he pick her up first.
Whenever those two go anywhere together, they’re at least forty-five minutes late, but eventually they show up full of wine bottles and apologies, so I forgive whoever takes the blame for holding up the other one.
