I consoled myself that it would only be a week. I could stand anything for a week.
My father had arranged for Wendy, the manager of his bookstore, to pick me up from the airport. I had met her, but it had been a while. We were roughly the same age, though she always seemed like a much older soul to me. She’d started working part-time at the bookstore just a few months before I left, and had worked her way up to manager. I remembered that she was pretty, in a different sort of way. She had the slight, lanky figure of a Lladró statuette, with bright carrot-colored hair and a matching complexion. The thing I remembered most about her was that she worshipped my father. Even back then I thought of her as obsequious—lapping up every word my father said as though he were Plato. She was Team Robert. I wasn’t. I wondered if there would be tension.
Typical for the holidays and New York, it was an overcrowded flight, and when the plane’s seatbelt bell chimed, most of the passengers jumped from their seats as if they were spring-loaded. I didn’t. I was in no hurry to deplane. I’d checked two pieces of luggage and I’d rather sit alone on the plane than make awkward conversation with someone I barely knew and assumed didn’t like me.
I also wasn’t in a hurry to see my father—not just to see him in his compromised condition but to confront my absence from his life. It was like ignoring someone’s phone call for a week then running into them at the mall. Except a thousand times that. Things that need to be said.
“Good luck, dear,” the old woman said to me as she rose from her seat, her bag of yarn and needles tucked away in the vinyl Trader Joe’s grocery bag hanging from her shoulder.
It was nearly ten minutes later that the plane had fully emptied. I retrieved my carry-on from the overhead bin and left the plane as the flight attendants made their sweep of the aircraft.
It had been quite a while since I’d been in the Salt Lake airport. The last time I was there was especially memorable. Someone had stolen my laptop when I’d set it down in a bookstore to look for one of my authors’ books. I was changing planes on a layover to Los Angeles and never even left the terminal. My ex-husband, Marc, never let me live that down.
I stopped at the Starbucks near the security exit and got myself a Venti latte and finished it before heading down to claim my luggage. As I came down the escalator, Wendy was waiting for me in a stanchioned waiting area holding a piece of paper with my name on it. I was a little surprised that I recognized her so quickly, even though she was hard to miss. She was wearing a bright orange ski parka—which only drew more attention to her ginger complexion—black leggings, and fur-lined boots. A small purse hung over her arm. She was prettier than I remembered. Striking, even.
I stepped off the crowded escalator and walked in her direction. She recognized me as well, lowering her sign and stepping toward me. As I neared, I noticed her eyes were red and swollen.
When we were close, she said, “Hi, Noel, I’m Wendy.”
“I remember you,” I said.
“It’s been a few years,” she said softly. She looked at me with dark eyes. “Your father passed away four hours ago.”
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t even sure what I felt.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She breathed out slowly, took her hand from her coat pocket, and wiped her eyes with a Kleenex. After another long moment she looked down at my carry-on and said, “Do you have more luggage?”
“I have two bags.”
“Your luggage is on carousel eight. It’s this way.” She started off toward the west end of the terminal. I followed her, pulling my carry-on behind me. The carousel was already half-full of baggage, and Wendy and I stood next to each other watching the bags come out.
After a few minutes Wendy said, “Do you know how long you’ll be staying in Utah?”
“Not long,” I said.
I had planned to stay until my father’s death. Now that my plan had been upended, I really had no idea how long I was staying. As short as possible. There were too many hard memories. Too much pain.
It was another ten minutes before my luggage emerged. My bags were large, both of them “big enough to hold a body,” the guy at the Costco cash register had said. Still, I had to sit on them to zip them shut. My mind said it was a quick stop, but I’d packed like I’d be here for weeks. I’m sure my therapist would have fun with that.
I wrestled my first bag off the carousel as my second bag appeared.
“That ugly purple-burgundy one is mine too,” I said to Wendy as the bag passed me. Wendy stepped forward to grab it, though I wasn’t sure how she was going to get it down as it was even larger than the first and was riding near the top of the overcrowded carousel. A tall, bearded man wearing a ski patrol parka stepped up and pulled it off, setting it on the ground next to her.
“Thank you,” Wendy said. “That was kind of you.”
“My pleasure,” he said, his smile visible beneath his facial bush. I’m sure Wendy got a lot of that.
Wendy seemed oblivious to it. Or maybe she was just jaded. “You said two bags?”
“This is it,” I said.
Wendy pulled the handle up on the suitcase. “All right. Let’s go.”
We took the elevator up to the skybridge then exited to the short-term parking garage. The night air was sharp and cold, freezing my breath in front of me in white puffs.
“My car’s over there,” Wendy said, pointing to an older white Subaru wagon. When we reached it, she lifted the hatch and we put my bags in, which filled the entire back of the wagon.
She unlocked the doors and we simultaneously climbed in. There was cat hair on my seat and footwell. Actually, it was everywhere. Wendy had two Siamese cats: Jennifur and Clawdia. My father had referenced them from time to time. He was allergic to cats. So was I. My eyes watered.
As I put on my seat belt I glanced over at Wendy. Her eyes were closed tight but tears still managed to escape her eyelids and roll down her cheeks.
“Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer, but again wiped her eyes. Then she breathed out, leaned forward, and started the car. Christmas music came on. Perry Como, something I was familiar with, as our family listened to it when I was young.
“They’re playing Christmas music early here,” I said. “In New York the stations don’t play Christmas music until after Halloween.”
“It’s a CD. It makes me happy,” she said, then added, “I need a little happy right now.” She reached down and turned off the music then turned up the heat. The warm air blew loudly from the dash vents. “Let me know if it gets too hot.”
“Thank you.”
We drove out of the parking garage then south toward the eastbound I-80 freeway. The Salt Lake airport is only six miles west of the city in what is likely the most desolate part of the valley, the land surrounding the Great Salt Lake.
The only thing that’s great about the lake, other than its name, is its size. Lakes are usually beautiful places that draw people. The Great Salt Lake did the opposite. Think of it as a North American version of Israel’s Dead Sea and you’ll understand its lack of appeal.
My parents first took me to the lake as a child. I remembered thinking how pretty it was, its salt crystals sparkling in the sun. My delight vanished the moment I got in and discovered how uncomfortable the saline-rich water felt on my skin. Parts of the Great Salt Lake are ten times saltier than the ocean, which means little can live in it, outside of nasty microbes and the brine shrimp that feed off them. One of the by-products of the salt is hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs. Not exactly Lake Tahoe.