Six acts in the airport

I.

I tipped back the greater portion of a glass of Sauvignon Blanc at 3:29, a minute before my flight was to board. I closed my book. I smiled. To travel, to be a woman, to be a woman traveling: I am grateful.

II.

3:32, no queue at gate H5. Flight delayed. I wish I’d savored the wine.

III.

I settle in at a charging station to plug in my phone and laptop, preparing to edit some work for the next two hours. The man next to me Skypes with a business friend, without headphones, and I wonder: would a woman claim our aural space like this?

I demur: it will be over soon.

“Not gettin’ into trouble tonight, my friend, I guess I’m stranded at the airport for a while,” the man says to his computer. Dull gold glints on an idle finger.

“Fuckin’ Jet Blue?” the voice replies, garbled and loud.

“Nah, Sun Country. Fuckin’ Jet Blue of Minnesota.”

“Oh yeah? They spell that with an o? Bet they don’t. Bet there’s no o in that Country,” says the voice.

I make eye contact with a woman across from me. I know, we say, taking no space at all.

IV.

“My dude,” he says to the friend while talking about his divorce, “I would give you two thousand dollars in a paper bag. Then you just pass it off, and a ’76 cruiser could hop a curb. Boom. Problem solved. Nawwatimean, duuuuude?”

His eyelashes are translucent-white and beads of sweat glint on the top of his balding head. He stands to stretch. I am many inches taller. I try to look down at him but end up just looking down.

“Show me a picture of that new minx,” he continues. “Summa dat good stuff. Unshaven. You know.”

V.

Ken Lometer, he identifies himself to someone on his phone. It sounds like kilometer, like the distance from shore that I wish he was stranded, treading water in a shirt once starched while sirens tear at his toes with razor teeth and he screams. No, Ken Lometer, don’t even ask: there will be nothing sexy about this.

VI.

22 minutes and I have said nothing. Why have I said nothing? Meanwhile, the tipsy rage has burned into something clearer. Ken Lometer is pathetic. He shows his friend a series of photos of his rented home in the Valley, saying things like “fiddy thou,” to talk about the deposit. They plan a weekend for the friend to come out, after the wife and kids can be whisked away. “Joan’ll be gone for good soon enough, I’ll tell you that,” Ken Lometer says. “My dude, I’m gonna give ‘er ten mil and then ask if we can still be friends.”

May he choke on a vodka-soaked olive and die, leaving Joan to dip her toes in a pool that overlooks the Pacific. May the Pontiac circle the block until it runs out of gas. And please, may I have the courage to tell all the Ken Lometers to fuck off next time.