Page 24 of I Never Said I Love You

“Maybe?”

“So maybe work and maybe pleasure and maybe alone and maybe with others. Got it.”

I liked her spunk. They might whisper amongst themselves, but most flight attendants would be too polite to imply a passenger was slightly nuts. Especially one flying up front.

“Have you ever been there before?” she asked.

“Never. And I don’t have high expectations. I’ll be satisfied with air-conditioned transportation and a divided road. I’m not positive how much of either I’ll get.”

We were back in familiar territory.

“Oh, those tuk-tuks can do you in! If the bumps don’t get you, the fumes will!” she said.

“And yet, better a tuk-tuk than the back of a moped. I have often been grateful that whatever other indignities life has in store for me, commuting to work on the back of a motorbike in the middle of the monsoon rains is not among them.”

“With bald tires,” she noted, appreciatively, then added, “Amen.”

My mind wandered to the first time Nao Kao told me about his beloved motorbike. The entire family arranged behind him, his wife balancing their babies just so as he wove along the pitted road. The roads were the least of it though, as one must always remain alert for errant chickens, herds of cows, wandering children, and cargo that had sprung free from motorbikes up ahead – and such cargo might consist of anything from plate glass to livestock. Repeatedly he had promised me a ride on the fabled bike, a ride I wasn’t sure either of us believed would come to pass even as he offered, even as I agreed.

“Worst city for traffic?” the flight attendant asked, bringing me back to the present.

“Jakarta.”

She nodded sagely. “I almost missed a flight there once. Multiple sources assured me that travel time from the hotel to the airport was an hour. I left five and a half hours before my flight, thinking I should arrive at the airport at least three hours before departure.”

I had visions of the bottlenecked roads I had encountered in Jakarta, the futility of the lines painted on the concrete as cars jammed six or seven across on a road painted with three lanes, scooters shooting between, the shoulders jammed with anything with an engine, and a few conveyances without.

“Four and a half hours later we arrived at the airport,” Janelle said. “My God, I almost had a heart attack.”

“A nightmare,” I laughed. I’d had a similar experience there and wondered who these hotel concierges were who insisted on the one-hour-to-CGK nonsense. I told her about the bribe I’d handed out of the window of a bus in exchange for completing an unimpeded right turn at a major intersection.

“But, hey, at least I didn’t encounter any horses on the highway in Jakarta. That was the cause of a jam I sat through in Manila once,” I added. How I had missed the exchange of travel stories.

She laughed.

“Oh, but I’ve missed it,” Janelle said, echoing my thoughts. “And now the best. Favorite city?”

“Tokyo is the greatest city on earth,” I declared confidently, almost daring her to argue, which she did. I knew I liked her.

“That’d be Singapore for my money. Those botanical gardens? The ones in the domes?” She let out a low whistle.

“Gardens by the Bay is great. And the Jewel at Changi is almost as amazing. But Tokyo still gets my vote. Ueno in the early morning, the buzz of the cicadas filling the air. Or Zojoji in the shadow of the Tokyo Tower. Talk about old meets new. Ginza on a Saturday night or the Shibuya crossing. Asakusa on a festival Saturday! The giant crepes in Harajuku! Yanaka and Sendagi!” I enthused.

How long since I had last experienced any of Tokyo’s pleasures? If I’d once found six months between visits too long, the amount of time since my last trip didn’t bear considering.

“Sounds like I should visit with you! You a travel agent? A tour guide?”

I laughed, thinking she was closer to the mark than many who worked in international education would care to acknowledge.

“Study abroad,” I said, the shorthand for my profession easier at forty thousand feet than the academic explanation. “If a city is worth visiting – if there is a chance in a thousand that a student will want to study there – I’ve probably been. And Japan is my personal favorite.”

Nao Kao and I had many differences. The greatest vacations of my life have involved deep water and colorful corals. Nao Kao tried snorkeling once and swore he would never do it again. His ideal weekend escape would be camping under the spray of the Milky Way, tent optional, communing with nature to the greatest extent possible. A hotel without room service was roughing it for me. But on Japan, clean, polite, orderly, beautiful Japan – Japan, with its dainty blossoms and ancient temples, the trains that ran like clockwork, and the taxi drivers with their white gloves – yes, on Japan we both agreed. It simply took the cake.

“So, Miss Maybe Work Maybe Pleasure, what is it that takes you to a city most people don’t even know exists?” Janelle asked, our rapport firmly established.

Provided you are not in violation of a federal law, a conversation with a flight attendant is like visiting Las Vegas. What happens here, high above the earth, stays here. Certainly, when it comes to divulging the details of stories that are otherwise better left forgotten. Perhaps in an effort to piece together the story for myself, to clarify or justify or convince myself that this was even happening, that I yet clung to some scrap of sanity, I told her how I came to be on this flight.

I started with the professional stuff, a deeper dive into a flight record heavy with forays to the far flung and foreign. If she cared to look, she would see. Years ago, I had joined the club of those who hit all six inhabited continents in a calendar year, and half of them more than once.

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