10-05-15

Memoir

 

Stuck

I could hear the click of our shoes as they collided with the floor of the terminal. Lolo and I just received the news. Information about a flight to Los Angeles was just released. Eager to get home to California, I encouraged him to sprint with me to get to the gate as fast as possible. But because of his old age his run was a combination of a skip and a jog. Once again we were let down. The same speech was told to us once more by another slender woman with a flawless face, ”Unfortunately we do not have enough room for you on this plane.” I knew she was only doing her job but I was getting tired of hearing those words.

 

It had been two weeks of waiting restlessly to get on a flight home. For some reason we weren’t getting on a plane but that was all the information I was able to understand. Each morning began the same, with hope. Hope that when we arrived at the airport, I would munch on a toasted bagel with cream cheese and board a plane on route home to California. But unfortunately my expectations didn’t match my reality. We would wait anxiously for hours only to be let down.

 

The trip began with four of us, my Lola, Lolo and Tita Mina, exploring through London and Paris. Mina left when she was called to a business meeting in Ireland. She was confident that we would board a plane the day after. A week later my Lola left us when there was one seat available on a plane. I watched her board as I selfishly cried and screamed begging her to stay. She wasn’t sure what would happen to us. Lolo and I were left to fend for our selves.

 

He was a small man. His jelled back black hair had deteriorated into the shimmering white we will all have at one point or another. His once smooth face now had valleys and mountains of wrinkles. His eyes remained the same shimmering dark brown that sparkled even without light. Lolo sat wearing a large back coat smelling of English muffins that swallowed his shoulders. He remained silent staring off into the distance, I never asked what he was thinking about, then again I’m not sure if I wanted to know.

 

We practically lived at the airport escaping to various hotels every now and then. The layout of every room was identical. The mustard and maroon colored twin beds lay next to each other across from a standard television with the same TV channels and shows I couldn’t understand. The soccer games would play in the background because it was the only show we could view without sound. We made bets with each other about how long it would take for our food to arrive. Counting every minute till it would be free but man with the white shirt always showed up with the shimmering silver dishes before 45 minutes.

There wasn’t much to do in the plain airport. Everything seemed plain. The walls were plain, my bagel was plain but there was no plane and everyone seemed miserable. All the travelers had the same look to them, the same expression of annoyance and impatience, the same conversations about flight times and gates and the same medium sized bag they tried to pass as a carry-on. Trying to drown out the background with the fourteen songs on my Ipod Nano. I had daily karaoke with myself singing all the words of Black Horse and a Cherry Tree and How to Save a Life.

 

The bright and colorful advertising screens played on repeat throughout the day. The same pretty woman ran her finger tips through her flawless hair and smiled delightfully. She seemed happy but as I now know you can never really tell.

 

There is nothing better to do for a nine year old than to explore. I ran through all the hallways gazing at the blurry lights that laced the walls from each end and connected in the middle. I created a game out of Orangina bottle caps and the floor tiles that I ran on. Even though I was playing alone, I would feel accomplished every time I won, which was every time.

 

Being a nine year old, it was both a blessing and a curse to have nothing to think about. For hours on end we’d sit in the faux leather seats and have the same conversation about if I wanted a bagel now or later, if I wanted to call home or if I needed to use the restroom. But eventually we’d run out of things to talk about.

 

The overused black leather seats were filled by people with broken necks, that dropped staring at the floor. When I sat my feet couldn’t touch the ground. Pretending to be a ballerina I grazed my toes along the carpet and every so often lifted my shoes off the ground. Beneath our feet sat our luggage with large red tags marked “STAND-BY”. Every day when entering the airport another tag was added at the same time we received yet another plane ticket that would be unused hours later.

 

I cannot remember how we got a flight back home to California but when we finally boarded a plane to San Francisco I was relieved. I screeched with excitement and I could see Lolo’s face grinning in the corner of my eye. We stared out of the window as the wheels lifted off the ground and the buildings turned into clouds. It was the last adventure I had with him. It’s all I can really remember about Lolo.