Seat 22A. Directly over the wing. I didn't care. We had negotiated 60 miles of freeway from Kenosha, Wisconsin, to O'Hare, heavy snowfall in a rental car with bad wipers, weaved around big trucks with flashing yellow lights, huge plows on the front and spitting salt out the back, and managed to avoid Illinois motorists who were driving like this was a sunny July day.
And then O'Hare was practically deserted. Not many people were flying on the Friday after Christmas. The plane boarded an hour and a half late, but shoot, in Chicago that would never be a picture in the paper. Our plane, an American S-80, had sat at the gate for at least three hours – the length of time that we were there – but we couldn't go until a crew arrived from St. Louis. The window by 22A was three-quarters covered over with snow, and the wing looked to have about a three-inch accumulation with fat flakes still falling. Parked behind the wing, I could see, was a de-icing truck. Coming home was turning into a real adventure.
We got de-iced with foamy pink spray, followed by some kind of green slime shot onto the wings, and we were off, with only 10 departures ahead of us at the end of the runway. No doubt we were living a charmed life this day, to escape a snowy O'Hair so smoothly. We climbed through a very thick cloud tier, then shot into the clear, sunny sky above a lumpy cloud deck a thousand miles around.
Full airplane. In front of us, an exit row. Good. Exit row seatbacks do not recline. This was very good, considering our very cramped seats. American has won customers with increasing leg room on their airplanes, but these were cramped. Maybe it was because we were behind an exit row. Maybe it was because this was an older S-80. Oh well. We would make do.
Suddenly the seatback shot back. If I had been leaning forward for something from the seatback pocket, it might have broken my nose. So these days exit row seatbacks DO recline. I was not informed. Seated straight up, I placed my thumb on the end of my nose and extended my hand in a span toward the seatback. My little finger almost touched. In the seat was a mature woman, smallish, steel-gray coif in a Winnetka bob. On the aisle sat her husband, sixty-something, whitish hair, a bit shaggy on the neck, a large left ear with a certain graceful curve to it that I wanted to describe, but couldn't. It made me think of the word "curette." I am sure, if I had approached his wife this closely in any other circumstance, he would have assaulted me. As it was, he was unfolding The Chicago Tribune. Before we reached San Diego, he and I would read his Trib, The New York Times, The Sun-Times, The Wall Street Journal, and a Chicago business magazine.
His wife liked to do things with her hands. She folded them behind her head, They were small, regular, neatly manicured except for a bit of hangnail on her ring finger, left hand, that I wanted to nod toward and bite off. Other times, as she was reading ("Little Saigon"), she twirled her hair in the fingers of her left hand. I kept track of her hands. She raised them frequently to her head, as if to stretch, and if the trajectory adjusted just a fraction toward the back, she would whack me on the forehead.
I was not giving her very high marks for consideration, or compassion. Yes, I could have reclined my seatback, but I hate to do that. Besides, it was an interesting distraction, appropriate to the day. At some point she sat forward, turned, looked toward the back of the plane. She was bespectacled, wire-rimmed, not as attractive as I might have hoped. Our eyes met squarely. Hers were pale. I did not smile or frown. She didn't, either. She didn’t appear to regard me, or judge me, in any way. She turned, settled back in her seat, sat forward again, pulled on a muted chocolate cardigan, settled back again. I took pleasure in noting my 22A air nozzle, which was quite cool and trained toward my lap, was blowing in her hair.
The flight was long. They all are, going home. Partly this is because the outbound adventure part is over. Partly it is because when home is San Diego, going home is always long, particularly after navigating Illinois snowstorms. I was counting the minutes to when we could be in our house, and open the French doors to the westerly evening breeze off the Pacific. At San Diego, we were absolutely the only plane at either of the two West Terminal concourses. Lindbergh Field was totally deserted. Our luggage reached the baggage carousel almost as soon as we did. How unusual could events become? Karen's suitcase, I swear, was the third piece off the conveyor. Mine was immediately behind it, wide open. It must have been inspected, then they couldn't get it zipped again. It is an old bag, a valise actually, leather and canvas construction, that you might see in an airline magazine ad from 1949.
All I could see was the bag flapping open, my red scarf, my green corduroy shirt, and bundles of white that I knew to be dirty underwear, scrolling out of the valise and onto the carousel. A kind man to my right helped me scoop up all on the first sweep and get it off where we stood instead of my having to chase it. A nice final touch. An adventurous trip home, really. One last Christmas gift.
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