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    Stories for Airports
    Stories for Airports
    Stories for Airports
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    Stories for Airports

    By Judy B.

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    About this ebook

    Going somewhere? Stuck where you are? This book is for you.

    Stories for Airports is not about airports. It is an album of brief encounters with people who intrigue and appall you, people in the midst of discovering that entire worlds exist within the most inconsequential moments.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJudy B.
    Release dateFeb 19, 2009
    ISBN9781452304410
    Stories for Airports
    Author

    Judy B.

    San Francisco literary artist judy b. is the author of the fiction collection Stories for Airports.In her life as a journalist, judy b. has written and edited for various newspapers and websites across the country. She has produced and directed daily news programs for Sirius satellite radio and environmental news shorts for the CBS Radio Network. As culture editor of Wired News judy b. appeared regularly on KVIE-TV's California Capitol Week and hosted Wired News Audio Spin, which she also created and produced. She has spoken at conferences around the world, including South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.Along with S.M. Peters and Josef Aukee, judy b. founded Saucy Algonqs, a writing collective that staged readings throughout the Bay Area. She originated the role of Barbara in Peters' play Piece of You at the Jon Sims Center for the Arts and currently contributes vocal stylings to Aukee's poésie performances.A jazz-trained vocalist, judy b. is known for improvising lyrics and her songful storytelling. She has performed in many Bay Area clubs, among them: Jazz Nouveau, Dogpatch Saloon, Rasselas, Bistro Yoffi, and the Marriott Hotel. Her varied exploits have included tangential stints as a teacher, translator, and tour guide. She identifies as an artist, volunteers for social justice and sustainability causes, and is an avid supporter of small, locally owned businesses — especially in San Francisco, where she lives.

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      Book preview

      Stories for Airports - Judy B.

      Stories for Airports

      judy b.

      ...tightly composed, lyrical prose that resonates with understanding of the new emotional territories that we're all just now exploring.

      —Jackson West, SFist.com

      "judy b. writes with great intelligence, urbane wit and jazzy charm.

      Her stories are unpredictable, often rather sexy, her characters intriguing."

      —S.M. Peters, art critic

      Stories for Airports

      © 2005 by judy b. All Rights Reserved

      Smashwords Edition

      Published by Onze Productions at Smashwords

      © 2009 by judy b. All Rights Reserved

      http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/778

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Cover design by Kai Haley

      Original book design by Katy German

      For fresh, new fictions by judy b. visit http://onzeproductions.com

      ~~~~

      Stories for Airports

      Contents May Have Shifted During Flight

      Clang, Clang, Clang

      Leftovers

      Food of the Gods

      International Arrivals

      Best Laid Plans

      Nothing Ever Happens

      Chakras Read

      Icarus of Market Street

      Take It or Leave It

      Reasons

      Mother Mary Came to Me

      Downtime

      Right as Rain

      Excursion

      ~~~~

      Contents May Have Shifted During Flight

      Dustin woke up 20 minutes before the plane was to land, jarred from a dream by a boy's clammy hand brushing his lips. The lad's target had been Dustin's nostril, but a bit of turbulence bumped him off course. Dustin twitched when he awoke and his sudden shudder startled the boy, who hurried to explain why he was all but sitting in Dustin's lap.

      You know you have a little thing in your nose that wiggles when you exhale?

      The sound of the word exhale used in the same sentence with a little thing in your nose that wiggles and spoken in the voice of a cartoon lion cub threw Dustin more than the question itself. He mused over the paradoxical mixture until the woman sitting on the outside of the row turned her attention away from the aisle and exclaimed, Alexander! Leave that man alone!

      Still bewildered from being awoken with a hand in his face and instantly subjected to such a puzzling interrogation, Dustin shrugged his lips and settled his head back against the window. Alexander spouted ear buds linking him to a little white music box twice as big as his hands and settled back into his seat with his eyes closed. The woman leaned over him and touched Dustin's sleeve.

      I just want to apologize for my son's atrocious behavior. Stuck in the disjointed and sluggish spell of his in-flight dream, all Dustin could manage in reply was to wave his hand and nod. She looked at him, appearing to expect more, but he just rolled his head back to the window, tried to find his bearings in the landscape below, looking for the landmark park in the center of the island. They weren't there yet.

      ~

      How far are you willing to go to meet your true love? the website yelled at him in bold letters. Your chances of making good matches increases the broader the geographical parameters you choose it continued in regular type. Dustin clicked the box that sent his profile all over the country.

      The website also strongly suggested – after Dustin had paid and filled out the questionnaire that generated a profile for him – posting a photo, but the only digital photos Dustin had of himself pictured him with a beard or 60 extra pounds.

      The most recent photo was two years old, taken six months after Terri had left. His face was heavy and sullen; he looked like he was about to fall into a bottle of vodka, burst out crying, or both. And when he signed up for the service he was still sporting a nasty scab on the left side of his face, a souvenir of a tumble from his bike. Still he had his friend Josh snap a photo, under the guise of wanting to document his injury. When Josh needled Dustin into telling him the real reason for the photo, he tried to dissuade him from posting it.

      Dude. These chicks have their pick of, like, hundreds of dudes. They're not going to go for Scarface – put it this way: you don't want to go out with a chick who would go out with someone looking like you look right now. Save your money. Wait a month.

      Josh, who had never dated anyone for any longer than it took her to introduce him to her parents, was still the closest Dustin had to an expert opinion, so he believed him. But Dustin had already signed up, and his profile was already out there in the mix, and when he went back online to cancel his account he had a note from a woman in Manhattan named Nanci whose likes (food, art, outdoor sports) and dislikes (smoking, insecure people, party animals) were so like his he couldn't not reply.

      Nanci had posted four photos. The first was a little trite – she was smiling and leaning against a tree – but she looked attractive enough. And hey, scab or no scab, Dustin had to admit he was not one of anyone's 50 most beautiful. In the next photo Nanci was playing a violin and looking at a music stand. Dustin couldn't tell if she was playing a recital hall or just at home. The background was unclear.

      The last two photos drew Dustin deeper. In them he sensed a sexiness about her that was absent from the other two pictures. One showed her sitting on a set of outdoor bleachers, her elbows resting on her knees, a tennis racquet in her lap. The shine on her face showed she'd just finished playing. The photographer seemed to have caught her between heaving breaths. Her smile said she'd just won the match.

      In the last shot she was walking away from the camera, looking back over a bare shoulder, a beaded bag in one hand. Her bright red mouth was slightly puckered, and her eyes were saying, Put down that camera and follow me.

      Dustin hadn't expected anything to come of his subscription, and certainly not this fast. His trial run in the dating scene had become a real game, and he didn't have the requisite equipment. He was sure he'd be disqualified.

      He and Nanci exchanged notes for a couple days, learning more common interests: She had grown up in the Midwest too, and he was often in New York on business; they both liked unknown films and bands; neither had ever been to South America but wanted to go. Then the question came.

      Say, one friend of mine says maybe you're a famous actor and that's why you haven't posted any photos; you want me to know the real you. Another says you're probably on the lam from a bunch of other women and can't afford to be recognized. Which one is right? There's a dinner riding on this.

      Dustin sent Nanci the picture Josh told him not to share along with the sad sack shot and emptied everything into the email that accompanied them: The woman he proposed to said no and he sank into a cheeseburger- and booze-fueled depression that ended only when he saw that picture, didn't recognize himself, and started running and riding his bike — the bike which, two months ago, he fell off of training for a triathlon.

      And she bought it? Josh's skepticism grew in proportion to Dustin's hope. Dude. I'm telling you, beware. She's not the chick in those photos. Listen. She's crazy — she invited Scarface to stay with her for crissakes.

      Josh, we're staying in a hotel. I don't know exactly where she lives or where she works—she's not giving it all up.

      Of course not! She's untraceable! Man, you are so not seeing this.

      What, you afraid I'm going to pick up and move to New York?

      I'm afraid you're going to die in New York, man, lose all your money, your dignity, get killed in New York before anyone can think about moving anywhere.

      Something Dustin couldn’t tell Josh: Someone already had killed him. You don't die that way twice.

      His sister Carrie answered all of Josh's fears when

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